Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team puts together their counter-offer to Fringe, and he accepts. Aylin and 6Cyl arrange to ally with his spirit and some members of the Vigilia Evangelica to secure the 3rd Book of 9 Gates and hopefully free themsevles from Tohu Wa Bohu. Hotkey and Carol gets more money, Test gets contacts with the Egyptian Coptic Church which apparently shelters a lot of TM’s who are working with the great dragon Masaru on a new library of Alexandria. Avocado gets a quickened strength-boosting spell on him, provided by Fringe. They need a few days to heal and then it’s off to the metaplanes to end this particular threat once and for all. They find out that Patty C, Otoko and Big Meat have been doing movie and popcorn nights at Ahabitat.

In the meantime, Avo promotes 6C’s upcoming fight at the Vault, and notices that “Popular Will” militias and propaganda are starting to crop up around the CZ. Doing some research, they find that this is the street arm of the Freedom Network, a militant anti-magic/anti-TM group, like a more extreme Purists from Boston (without the hate for implants). They seem to be cross-race and meta-, but have strong paramilitary vibes. Test also gets and invite from GC to help connect Garmonbozia with different mesh net building subversive groups globally, to ensure they have some safe harbors when the new Matrix launches, and in exchange they will help Test with his Null problem. Hotkey hangs with his fam, who arrive and get settled in their Sierra Crop provided apartment. He hears that the mesh net in NYC that he helped start in Queens is a big hit, and seems to be safe from the Null. Also apparently the Rat Pack has gone partially toxic and the Underground has gotten a lot less safe.

6C and Aylin head down to Midway airport to meet with Old Crow, newly arrived in town from the metaplanes. They also meet up with Lycus, Vonny, Angoka, and some other neo-A’s, and get some offers of work and assistance for some of the team’s various interests, as well as introduction to a runners union called The Shadow Chapters from a Muslim ork woman named Jazz. There is also a pro training facility on site, which Avo is excited about for learning new maneuvers. They also notice Midway has an impressive drone security array. Chessick wanders over and he and Aylin have a good chat about Boston and fringe reporting, and agree to collab in future. OC finally lands, and schemes a bit with Aylin and 6C about going up against the BL. They find out about the BL’s infiltration of the “Free City STL” movement, which HK’s wife is also interested in, and also find out that the BL has infiltrated the highest levels of Chicago/Illinois government, and has an unknown level of control over Gov. Presbitero, the mean in charge of Operation: Takeback. They plan to try to use all this as a way to get the Book they need to a less secure location than the seeming BL North America HQ that St. Louis has become.

With everyone rested and ready to roll, they head back to the church, and find that Fringe has fully cleaned it and arranged an elaborate maze on the floor. His angel spirit still guards the door, and says she will present interference from both sides. Fringe pays up and grants their various boons, and then walks the maze and cuts himself into the Jade Cup at the center. He tells the team to follow, and they do, seemingly crossing the astral boundary as they do so. They walk for what feels like hours, and then say the angel again and are told they have completed their task. Luckily they quickly spot this as a trick, and recognize a Nightmare spirit posing as the angel. It seems amused to be spotted and says it will get them next time.

They head through a glowing portal, and emerge into what looks to be a truly haunted realm. A narrow mile-long causeway with long falls into a perhaps never-ending chasm on either side approaches a dark and moldering castle in the distance. A rotting dragon flies overhead. Seeing no way to sneak, they attack the dragon, and are surprised and delighted to find that it has a matrix presence. Luckily they manage to take it down between those 2 modes of attack before it can reach them and it plummets into the abyss. They head up the causeway.

Carol spots a narrow path down the side of the castle to what looks like a dungeon entrance, and they take that route. The door has a maglock (surprising, again, and also once again MCT brand). They enter and find 6 chained Catholics from various points in the last few decades, who all seem very tortured and confused. They free them and tell them to make their way to the exit and announce themselves to the spirit there. They head upstairs with drones scouting ahead, and find a creepy courtyard with a massive bone garden and gargoyles. The skulls and gargoyles seems to follow them, and seem to be cameras with watcher spirits bound to them. Seeing no way to sneak once again, they head further and find 2 rotting knights guarding a massive burned black set of doors. They blast apart the knights who seem bound to their post, and approach,

The doors blow open as they near, and they see Auslander on a tendrilled throne, he mocks them and tells 12 more knights to attack. They get in a brutal brawl with the possessed corpse knights, and find their life energy being slowly drained by the throne. Luckily the throne seems to be the host device for all the castles tech, and HK and Test manage to brick it, shutting down it’s powers. Auslander seems weakened in it’s absence, and they managed to finally take him out after defeating his guards, without permanently losing anyone on the team, despite some close calls.

Fearing that they may be approaching the deadline of the ritual after a lengthy exploration of this plane, they race back towards the exit!

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine
and goodbye to: Dr. Kinnie Zest

The team drops their newly purloined Ancients street bikes off with Goober to get them repainted and fixed up, so they don’t get into trouble riding them. They then crash at the Bolthole after a hard night, while a few team members head back to Ahabitat to rest up there. They awake the next morning to find Kinnie Zest gone, the Tower Tarot card missing, and a note saying “Gone to Seattle, Don’t Follow”. Kinnie has also replaced the drones they lost on the last mission, and finished the second round of repairs on the sub. They reconfigure the TacNet and other team structures for good infosec, and discuss why Kinnie left: presumably to pursue his revenge on Richard Villiers. They hope the Tower card isn’t destroyed in the process and hope to hear from Kinnie again.

The team spends a few days finishing acclimating to the Zone’s overall mana sphere, and Avocado finds himself attuned to their safehouse a bit better as well. Patty C presents the team with some protective potions she has made to keep them safe, and seems excited to discuss some other theoretical advancements in the field with 6C when he has some free time. Otoko and Big Meat are having a fish feast with her, though they seem a lot more comfortable with the raw seafood diet than she does. They make some calls and call in some favors, with 6C getting the ball rolling with Old Crow to seize the Black Lodge’s copy of the Book of 9 Gates for his cleansing ritual.

6C also contacts Fr. Darren Dolf in NYC and reports on the Altar Boy issue. Dolf seems disturbed and tells the team that 2 Catholic operatives (likely Sylvestrines) have gone missing in the Zone in the last few weeks while looking into some mysterious new Bishop who has been operating out of some Church properties near the Cermak Crater.Dolf puts them in touch with Fringe, a strange disgraced changeling priest with angelic qualities. They agree to team up, and Fringe confirms that they are hunting a powerful master shedim (or 2), as well as an artifact that Fringe thinks might allow the shedim to open another stable rift to their homeplane.

Test and Hotkey, in the Bolthole, get a tip from some Desolation Angels about some Ancients embroiled in a firefight nearby and decide to go scope it out, hoping to get some useful intel about where the remaining Anients are holed up. They sneak up, but hang back, seeing the corp team from the Skeleton Key mission engaged in a brutal gun battle with a larger group of Ancients who seem to have tried to lure them into a trap. Both sides had a spellcaster but both are down, and the Ancients seem to have been trying to leave with the body of what looks like the leader of the corp team. HK tells the DA’s to hang back and trail any Ancients trying to leave.

At the last minute, HK lays down some suppressing fire to save the lone corp goon remaining on their feet and introduces himself. THe corp type recognizes him from the SK job and says they’re glad for the assist but that HK and Test should clear out before their backup gets their since the team killed a few members of the corp team the last time they met. However, she thanks HK for the assist, and tells hi, he’s welcome to the body the Ancients were trying to take: the Johnson for this job. She explains that the corp team are ex-NeoNet operators working freelance locally. HK and Test grab the Johnson, who’s been beheaded, and find that the beheading perfectly severed his biomonitor, preventing his cortical bomb from blowing.

They dip out of sight as the corp squad rescue vehicles arrive (it looks like a few other members survived due to HK’s intervention), and do some quick hacking. The Johnson is a bagman and Technomancer hunter who has worked locally for Shiawase: he’s the guy who originally kidnapped Sam for their clone experiments back in the day, and has been seeking her (and another escaped clone) ever since runners breached their facility and handed the remains over to Saeder Krupp. He recently got some leads that Sam and clone where both up for sale from some flesh peddlers, the Ancients, and made a deal. He hired the corp team as backup but it was a trap. HK and Test manage to also get the remaining funds on his expense account for the job.

The team reunites and tracks the Ancients back to the are outside the Cermak crater- they determine a likely Church to check out based on some good assensing and tracking, but lose the trail through the irradiated Crater and can’t confirm for sure. They also hear from Fringe that based on his research he has ID’ed the person most likely possessed by the Master who is calling himself “the Bishop”. They get a home address (more Church property- he is a groundskeeper hired recently to start rehabbing the properties during Operation:Takeback). The team decides to check out the house first, then the Church. They call in the DA’s to make a perimeter again to keep anyone from fleeing, and call in backup from Ryder.

After checking out the home amidst a heavy rainstorm, and both spotting and being spotted by some shedi guards in Ancients bods, the team decides to storm it. They hit up Becky 99 and tell the DA’s to close in around the church address while they call in Ryder to back them up. Remo (the sprite) is urging Test to hurry, as he can’t contact S@m. They defeat a few shedim guards, who seem to have stayed behind just to slow the team down, and make a chaotic entry into the house through series of poorly targeted grenades. They find evidence that the possessed church employee had gone toxic pre-possession, and was possessed during a summoning ritual, implying there is a free toxic spirit hanging around somewhere…. fun.

They also find evidence of the 2 missing Sylvestrines, as well as semi-concealed basement door. They head down and find the secure case for the Jade Cup, empty, bearing strange signs of both toxic and green magic, so it seems the shedim only gained it recently as their death aura hasn’t taken over. They also find a locked room containing 1 Sylvestrine, who seems to have been driven mad, and the remains of the other, who was apparently reanimated repeatedly by a low force shedim to force the survivor to butcher and consume him. They call in Ryder to get the survivor out, and he does, and they call in Fringe to arrange for him to get back to the Catholic Church’s care. Fringe also agrees to meet them at the church here to bring an end to this.

They find a tunnel in the floor which looks to lead to the church, and luckily Carol had prepared because he manages to FAB another waiting shedim as they open the hatch. The effects of the FAB III are terrible to witness, even on an enemy, and they decide to travel overland to their destination, assuming that the FAB will keep anyone from trying to escape through the tunnel. The DA’s call and say they have the church surrounded but that there’s some kind of gnarly ritual going on inside. The team races over, having to do some on the fly drug adjustments to stay conscious and functional for some, and breach the church.

6Cyl once again manages to blast the sacrificial knife out of Altar Boy’s hand, and almost trick shots the knife out of Auslander’s hand as well, but Auslander still manages to stab his victim- it looks like both S@m and SM-501 have been drugged and tied to the altar, and 6C isn’t sure which one he saved. 2 dozen mind-controlled Ancients and locals turn to charge the team, alongside AB, the toxic free spirit, and the possessed cyber-solider from Tate’s clinic. The team calls in the DA’s who go toe to toe with the enemy gangers as the team takes on the big bads. Fringe is outside cleansing the local space to allow the team to not suffer horrible background counts, and also interfering with Auslander’s ritual. Fringe’s angelic spirit is watching the exits to burn with holy fire any foes who try to flee.

Alyin manages to take out AB before he can deal any damage with his sword, and his teen face shows a look of great surprise as he slides in half from the monofil whip slice. Auslander keeps going after 6C with spells but Aylin keeps taking his damage and regenerating it, so the toxie comes after Aylin. Test starts hacking the cybersolider while Hotkey returns fire, and Carol makes a hail mary run with the FAB thrower to get to Auslander. Before long, HK, 6C, and Carol are all KO-ed, though Carol manages to shoot off the FAB cloud near Auslander just as he goes down.

Avocado steps up to the plate as Aylin and the hacked cybersoldier duel- the soldier is faster but doesn’t have regen, and with Test and Remo’s hacking support Aylin finally brings him down, just as Avocado uses a miraculous commanding voice to trick Auslander into staying put while the FAB III surrounds and envelopes him- they hear more twisted, horrible screaming as he is driven from this plane. A CrashCart team shows up and whisks 6C away to a hospital in the O’Hare sprawl while the rest of the team settles up. The DA’s on site were mostly wiped out with the exception of Becky, and Fringe looks drained from his efforts. Remo and Ryder and thrilled to find that S@m was saved, though the shedim seem to have stripped her of her TM abilities as part of the ritual. SM-501 bled out from the off target stab wound during the fight, unfortunately.

The team gets some local rep boosts, make some new and improved contacts, and gets paid from the Catholics as well as some local fundraising done to support their good deeds. They head back to the safehouses to rest up, and hear from Fringe that there is one more job available: a perilous mission to use the Jade Cup to travel to Auslander’s castle to defeat him once and for all and end his incursion attempts. This will destroy the Cup, and kill Fringe in the process, so they’ll get one shot at it. The team says they need a few days to rest up, and Fringe agrees. Avo also sets up a fight at the Vault for 6C, finally, and starts making some teaser ads to build hype.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

Otoko emerges briefly to say hello and rub her bleary eyes before heading back to her den to continue bingeing trids. Patty C helps 6Cyl with some alchemical projects, and he finally learns the art of the alchemical bullet, a long goal of his. Test hears from Mrs. Clean that his new ID got burned again, and decides to start looking into what’s going on. He has a lead – a Foundation-obsessed decker at a bar called “The Hangman” in the Noose, but he can’t find him on the matrix- IRL visit it is. They also get word from Ryder that no useful ID’s have been made from the photos from the body pit but that they were printed in an old-school darkroom, so the chemicals needed might be way to track down who printed them, though Zone records are not exactly great.

Most of the team head to the bar to back up Test, and end up meeting with Quantum Princess, an old-school decker who helped set up NooseNet. She checks their reps, getting a bad vibe off Test, but after he explains himself and everyone else looks solid, she brings them into a backroom and shows them 4 comatose deckers, including the man Test sought. She tells them they were all early Foundation divers, and are now all that remains of the Midwest Pirate’s Guild. They all got obsessed with skimming the Null node, giving them access to lost info only usually accessible to TM’s, but said that they all eventually noticed something following them around the matrix (and after that, IRL) afterwards. Test, having skimmed the Null node in the Seelie Court, confirms the few steps he’s been through of this, and is worried about what’s next for him.

QP tells him that the MPG had figured out that they needed to perform some sort of ritual of obeisance to allow the Null node to “pwn” them in some way, but were unable to find their back to the necessary areas to perform it in time. They also debrief a bit about the Null Sect in general, and speculate about their involvement here. Test agrees to share any info he gets with QP, and the team takes a box of mesh repeaters to put up around town to expand NooseNet further, especially as DelaMar’s New Matrix expands into the Zone with the rebuilding. Test also confers with GC, who verifies that the New Matrix is much, much harder for AI’s and Garmonbozia specifically to stay concealed in, and agrees to see if GB wants to coop with Test vs the Null Sect longterm.

The team then gets a call from Becky 99, who says that she has a building with some creepy rumors around it she wants the team to check out. The Desolation Angels have a meeting with one of the few gangs they’re friendly with nearby, so they can meet up after and debrief on next steps tracking down their missing people. She can’t pay much, so they negotiate for future favors instead and agree to terms. They also hear that Ares was successful in rescuing Moonberry from and MCT Zero Zone, but it seems like someone warned MCT they were coming and the Ares team took heavy casulaties. Weirdly, the Ares team is wearing full armor, seems t be able survive what should be lethal wounds, and took all their casualties with them, according the footage leaked online. Based on the resilience of some of the MCT guards, it is speculated that they also have something up their sleeve, possibly confirming rumors that they are providing a safe home for some shedim in exchange for protection duties.

The team head to the building for B99, a former Fuchi dev center, and find it abandoned and looking kinda haunted. They sweep it with drones and, seeing no threats, head in. It looks like someone used breaching charges to enter the building a long while back and then boarded over it, but some of the boards have been pried or weathered down since. They check out the first floor, and find it totally trashed, but find some Universal Brotherhood recruitment material moldering in a break room. They spot a pack of devil and demon rats upstairs, but decide to steer clear for now. They head down to the basement, where the background count gets even worse. Weirdly, there is also a strong dissonance pool in the building. The building was built with some wireless blockers that are badly interfering with their comms as well.

They check out the basement and find 3 large chambers, the first a server room that is totally trashed. They find a journal from some employees who considered themselves loyalists but seem to have been overrun after barricading themselves here. In the next room they find the source of the awful odor and background count: a massive pile of twisted skeletons, some cocoon/pods that are husked and dried out, and a massive cloud of FAB III. The awakened team members flee while the rest continue to investigate. The pile of bodies looks to be the right amount for the entire staff of the facility, confirming rumors that this was the only Fuchi location in town that noone made it out of. The FAB canisters and other expended ordinance are all Ares brand from the appropriate era, suggesting this was one of the sites they hit where a hive was located. The pods look to be filled with the mutated remains of the “loyal” employees or perhaps other neighborhood strays, midway through their infestation.

The third room contains a destroyed decontamination chamber with a collapsed tunnel filled with more twisted skeletons, as well as more UB propaganda, suggesting that this office was infiltrated by bugs before the walls went up, and heavily enough that they took over and prevented anyone leaving. It seems to have been a roach nest. However, noone has been done here since, it seems, so the team figures it’s good paydata but not relevant to the current job. Carol grapples up the 2nd floor to investigate the sole semi-intact room the drones found, and avoid the rats, and finds what looks like a “brains-in-jars” experiment that feels related to The 100 experiment from Boston. Notes about “electrokinetics” on a whiteboard suggest that the brains likely belonged to Technomancers, explaining the dissonance well also. They find a scrap with the name “Halberstram” on it, but it looks to have been abandoned since the early 2070’s, so they figure again, good data but not currently relevant. The demon rat sneaks up on Carol and melts some of his armor but he escapes out the window, and see B99 and some other DA’s getting chased by a large mob of Ramblers.

The team sets up an ambush to help out, and gets some good hits in. Luckily they managed to avoid killing anyone, and end up convincing Griller, the Rambler head, to take a payout and an apology after they sort out what is going on. B99 apparently went on a rampage after the last mission, thinking the Ramblers were responsible for her missing people, based on what seems like a mediocre quality frame job. Griller affirms that they weren’t and threatens her further if she moves on them even the tiniest bit again, but takes off. B99 and the team debrief a bit and the DA’s head for a nearby safehouse to patch up and rest- it seems like she hasn’t slept for days. She gets them to go to the gang meeting at the nearby cemetery on her behalf. When they arrive, they find that the Crypt Keepers, the gang there, have all been massacred. They were a pacifist ghoul gang that offered burial services in exchange for food, and kept the bodies from being useful to shedim. With some clever hacking, they retrieve some data, and find that once again, someone did a frame-up attack on these guys, dressed in DA colors but obviously not the DA. However, they are skilled riders with both physical attacks and magic available.

The team does some digging on local gangs, and can’t figure out who it is, unless one of the syndicates sent in some muscle to fuck with the DA’s, since the DA’s interfere with human trafficking often, but this seems like a weird way to go about it. They call up Goober to see if anyone has been buying a ton of weird bikes and stuff recently, and find out (after convincing him this is a major community issue) that a creepy kid named Altar Boy has been. The team assumes he is likely a shedim, based on his appearing and all of this kicking off shortly after the major shedim presence in DeeCee got shut down. Reviewing footage, they also find a circle of dead flowers and weeds at the cemetery, further confirming. They get 2 leads fro B99 on where to look into Tasha more, and see if the team can figure out where she got spotted and photographed initially, to try to find more leads.

Tracking down the 2 leads to Brother’s Scrap Yard and the Maker’s Collective, they make some interesting contacts at both spots. They also link up with STV’s local liaison through Madeline Schmidt and agree to some future cooperation. Using some complex mixes of perceptions they manage to locate where the surveillance shots of Tasha and Misa Sanchez (the young dwarf TM from the DA safehouse) were taken, and confirm that Altar Boy was at one site with a fancy street bike, and an elf in slightly concealed Ancients colors was at the other. 6C is thrilled to finally get to go after his nemeses. They ask around a bit and find out about an Ancients clubhouse in an old S-Mart near the Cermak crater. They do some drone recon and gear up to go in heavy.

They confirm Ancients are onsite, due to the 12 fancy bikes parked out front. The drones don’t see any guards and proceed inside. They hear chanting from deeper in, and the team sends the drones deeper but loses comms and they don’t return, so the team rushes over to get in there, worried about a ritual. They call in backup from Becky and Nick Ryder (who’s drunk but gets a ride), but they will take some time to arrive so the team launches some grenades in ahead of their entry and rolls in. They spot some Watcher spirits observing them while others zip off, presumably to warn someone. They find the dead drones inside, near an expelled charged ward, which seems to have zapped them. They notice there is a large area in the center of the warehouse where astral space has been cleaned, and some sort of ritual is occurring,

They head in, with Avocado hanging back to lead from the rear, and Ryder and the DA’s finally arriving. The DA’s start trashing bikes outside, while Ryder dashes up to join the team, wearing some cobbled together and ill-fitting bulletproofs. They enter the center area and see Altar Boy about to plunge a knife into Misa Sanchez’ chest on top of an improvised altar, with a ring of 12 dead-eyed Ancients circled around, chanting. AB delivers a villain line, and Carol shoots him in the chest, but the rounds just bounce off, only slightly staggering AB. 6Cyl jumps in and pulls an amazing trick shot, shooting the knife out of his hands. AB declares the team the great heroes and says they can have the girl, and then flees, slipping into the shadows and moving unnaturally quickly, implying the use of some spirit powers.

Strangely, the Ancients don’t seem to be shedim-possessed, just mind-controlled, but 6Cyl revels in cutting them down, especially once the team notices they’ve all been implanted with cortical bombs, and a few of them detonate, almost taking out Aylin (who luckily regenerates). They kill all the Ancients, and looking down 6C notices that they are all very young, and realizes he saw a look of terror behind their eyes as they charged, and finally lets go off his childhood fear/hatred of them- he’s (almost) their height now, and obviously more powerful. 6C frees Misa and she asks if the others are safe, so the team races for the back of the store. They spot the area where AB warped through the wall to escape, and also find a busted walk-in full of bodies- each with a stab wound through the heart.

They find Tasha and the other TM’s they were seeking from the flower shop abattoir photos, except for SM-501, who is absent. It looks like they’ve been killed one at a time, once per day. Based on what AB said as he was fleeing, they know he has a Master and that they are apparently seeking some way to inhabit TM’s, based on the new revelations about the connections between Resonance and magic that the team has been involved in discovering/releasing. Becky takes Misa in quickly, wrapping her in an oversized gang cut and promising to keep her safe. She, Ryder and the team all vow to continue this investigation and get revenge/end this threat, and Ryder promises them get out of jail free favors from him (for something “reasonable”), and they head their separate ways to regroup.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

They head over to the bar to meet Ryder, grabbing HK on the way, and get the rundown. Another Johnson is also present, Martin Tate, a doctor with clinics throughout the Zone. Him and Ryder both are invested in the missing persons case, and give the team a few specific ones from the last few days to follow up on. They arrange payment, including some ’ware and surgery from Tate, and both hint they will be good people to know in future. Ryder also tells them to expect a call from a contact of his named S@m, who sends her sprite Remo to tell them to look for a missing TM named SM-501 as well, who 3D has also reported as missing to HK: the investigations overlap!

The team heads out to the first locale, 2 families that missed a neighborhood watch meeting the previous night. The area seems well defended and very clean for the Zone, centered around the split level house that the 2 families share on a fenced and defended triple yard. The team teaches some local patrolling teens some better tactics to ensure they are welcome here and explain their presence as investigators. This seems to work and they receive a warning about the house being trapped, and spot some trip wires, sensors, and pressure pads. Aylin also spots a lot of dead fowl in the detached shed, and from the maggots they think they could potentially determine time of death, which might hint to time of disappearance, but Avocado narrows it down to “sometime yesterday”. The house also has a suspiciously well-defended matrix host, styled to look like a high-end but not suspicious home security system, which raises the team’s hackers’ eyebrows.

Seeing that the converted garage door drawbridge is lowered over the lot’s moat, they think that’s probably the best way in, and prepare to enter. After they stress for a while, Carol walks across and with no problems, the car follows. Carol spots some dirtbike tracks behind the chicken shed that noone else had noticed that seem to be from around the time of disappearance, and in a place not visible by the house’s cameras. He also pukes, hard, after opening the shack. The team carefully heads in, wary of traps, and manages to avoid triggering any. They use a maglock to backdoor into the well-defended system, and Test uses TM powers to obscure them while HK recovers cam footage and some log data. Reviewing it, they see one of the dad’s of the families go out to check out the shed after a sensor activation around when the bike was there, and then return into view about 1/2 an hour later, seeming both stronger and lighter on his feet somehow. The team assumes some sort of spirit possession.

About another 1/2 hour later, both families pile into their 2 cars, lower the drawbridge, and drive off. HK, being a family man familiar with having a go-bag and a quick exit plan, takes a look around and confirms that the families left in an orderly hurry. There also seems to be a surprising lack of electronics in the kids’ rooms, implying they were possibly TM’s themselves. Carol finds a hidden room in the basement, with evidence which implies that the parents have been in the Zone since around when it went up, searching for “Melissa”, who they assume is Melissa Truman, the famous missing heiress to the corporate fortune. They gather all the evidence and head out to the next site. As they leave, they spot some Desolation Angels watching them from a distance, but lose them quickly.

Rolling up to Tate’s recovery house, they find 4 unmarked but corpsec-looking guards on 2 entrances. They don’t give the team any trouble once they confirm they are from Tate, and take off. The team gets the power back on inside, seeing that something seems to have punched a hold in the panel and bypassing it, decides not to loot the medical supplies onsite since Tate didn’t give them those passcodes, and get more security camera footage. With some impressive analysis, Test is able to spot another dirtbike’s shadow just out of frame. Shortly after, 2 children (who they recognize as the missing kids from the previous house) run up to the door screaming, and the guard and nurse let them in. Ushering them into the back, them and the kids are all KO’ed by 4 smoking canisters the kids pop open. A blurry figure then enters through the front door and everything is lost in a cloud of smoke for a short moment before the power cuts. They assume this figure was either camo’ed or moving super fast but can’t get a good image.

They also get a list from Tate of what implants the recovering patient had, and find out he was getting super kitted out with deltaware. They also do some digging on his name, and find out that he is an employee of Truman Technologies (now a Horizon subsid), in their “special projects” wing. They wonder if the previous house’s occupants gave up the location to this clinic, given the Truman ties, or what is going on. Carol also spots a disconnected and dusty LoneStar emergency button, and sends a pic and some anonymized details to Candice, for her campaign against them. The team heads to the 3rd site, and runs into more Desolation Angels. The address they were given as a last known for SM-501 looks to be a bombed-out ruin, and the DA’s are digging for bodies.

Aylin approaches Becky 99 in astral, and they agree to chat in meatspace. The team heads in, and a few get details from Becky while HK uses his computer skills to help located bodies by seeking active devices. Apparently this was a DA safehouse for people who needed a safe and secret location to get away from dangerous men or organizations of whatever sort, so noone else should have known it was here. Test recovers some info from a smashed comm that HK digs up, and it seems like someone set off a gas leak to blow the building and also had set up a jammer to keep those inside from communicating out. Disturbingly, there are only half as many bodies as there should be, and although a lot are badly dismembered, noone finds any pieces of the missing 4. Carol once again spots some dirtbike tracks.

Becky gives them images and names: a human and dwarf woman, SM-501, and Tasha, the DA’s young TM mascot. Becky seems distraught and offers the team a bonus for sharing their findings, making clear she wants revenge as well as wanting them found. Test has a bright idea, and coordinates with HK, a skilled profiler, using the 3 sites they’ve interacted with to triangulate a potential locus to focus on. Sending out drones to do recon, they find an abandoned flower shop pretty much dead center, with 3 dirtbikes and one of the family station wagons parked out back under an awning, all unlocked and with keys in them, seemingly either ready to go or waiting to get stolen. Avo calls Holmes and gets confirmation that none of their missing people overlap with the folks recruited into Fey bargains, with HK adding a ton of random names to their list to try not to give Holmes too much info.

The DA’s agree to help the team secure the area around the flower shop, and prevent attempts at escape by the kidnappers. 6Cyl sends in a spirit that warns of a terrible background count, and doesn’t want to go further. It also warns them of multiple magical signatures but no auras on the first floor, but Avo gets impatient and flips the lightswitch just inside the front door. This sets off a fireball spell, which torches the shop, but is quickly put out by some sprinklers. Carol steps in and is instantly almost killed by some DMSO/Slab solution in the sprinkler spray. They haul him out with a grapple and 6C cleans him with a water spirit, before they heal him up a bit. They head in more carefully after the sprinklers die off, and find the shop looking long-term abandoned, but the freezer room in back still operational. Locating a hatch in the floor, Carol opens it and pukes, hard, again at the terrible odor from within, and falls in the hatch getting stuck.

They haul him out, and see that the larger team members are going to have to strip their armor off to fit down the narrow, old-looking tunnel. This is also where the background count gets especially bad and Death-aspected, so they assume this must be shedim and not bugs. A few of them head down, with Carol stripping off his armor to fit, and Test slips in the gore and gets some in his mouth. They seem like old bootleggers tunnels, and given the collapses visible, not very stable. Carol enters an abattoir chamber ahead where it dead ends (ha) and finds bits of a few of the missing people, but none of the TM’s, and finds creepy surveillance photos crossed out of all the TM’s they had ID’ed plus a few others. Unfortunately, he doesn’t see the mistform vamps who slip in through a crack in the wall and they get the drop on him, nearly killing him and beginning to feed.

The team frantically shuffles around in the tunnel to try to get in to help, and 6Cyl manages to take one vamp down, with Aylin chasing the other in mist form back the way it came. She emerges into a city utility tunnel filled with Fear the Dark graff and manages to catch and kill the 2nd vamp. She starts to find her way back, following the death aura, and based on the lack of vamp bites on any of the body pieces, assumes that the vamps had likely done the same and were not the original killers. The bodies in the chamber are fully torn apart, and look chewed on. The team quickly grabs the photos off the wall and the few non-disgusting bits of evidence they can find as the chamber begins to collapse from the gunfight damage.

Aylin mists through the debris and rejoins them as they reascend, and Kinnie confirms that 2 of the side tunnel collapses look recent and planned, so someone likely came down here, escaped via one or both smuggler’s tunnels, and closed them behind themselves. They debrief Becky 99 up top, and confirm that a few more of the depicted individuals are missing TM’s. B99 says she wants her people rescued and/or wants revenge, and that she’ll be in touch. The team keeps one of the kidnappers dirt bikes (after checking for traps) and the Desolation Angels take the rest of the vehicles.

The team heads to the bolthole in Hoodville to patch up and do some research, and confirm between talking to 3D and checking missing persons boards that the rest of the photos also depict missing people, all of whom are known or suspected TM’s. They also some do some more digging into the “Melissa” angle and find some more hints but everything seems out of date. This doesn’t explain why Truman Tech was sending in a fresh operative though… They arrange to meet up with Tate and Ryder, and head to Tate’s newest clinic, being built out and guarded by a tribe of Neil the Ork Barbarian cosplayers. They give Ryder the intel first, and he pays up, saying that he hopes the team will keep looking into this as well. He seems confused that one of the pics they found was of S@m, and suggests that one of her clones must have survived after all, and gotten free (and then snatched up again). Tate dismisses him, but he takes the pics to run some tests.

They then debrief Tate, who agrees to get them some discout ’ware as promised, and seems very interested in the Melissa Truman intel, and says he will likely have more work for them soon. They head back to Ahabitat to rest up for a few days and figure out next steps.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team’s been up for over 24 hours at this point, and decide to head home to rest. Goober gives them a discount for making sure people know he’s the mechanic who helped save the ghoul kids, and they get their car back. Test decides to set up a bolt hole in the CZ to have a land (and matrix-connected) option. Using Opti’s rep they secure team invites to NooseNet, the local shadowboard, and Test makes contact withe 3D, the admin of the Hoodville community in the Noose. 3D verifies that the team aren’t affiliated with the Horde (although he doesn’t elaborate as to why) and agrees to set up the spot Test has envisioned. The team drops Test off there, so he can reconnect with GC via Marry Me. He also invites the hostess Molly from the bar, and gets her to agree to an IRL date in a few weeks as well. GC verifies that Garmonbozia will be in touch with Skeleton Key to see if it wants assistance or shelter. Ominously, 3D also wants some help clearing digital vines from some old hosts in the area, so it seems like Null problems are here as well.

The rest of the team heads back to Ahabitat via sub, and rests up. They fix up their fuel system using some more of the repair supplies they bought from Ares (to appease the Sea Dragon) and Mako pays a visit, confirming that the SD has extended her protection to the Zone community known as “Freaktown”, as she apparently has an affinity for changelings. The awakened team members finally feel somewhat adjusted to the local manasphere, also. They get a message from Allan Clay, the nervous TM johnson from the bar, and 6C plans to follow up. Aylin’s mom also says she has something for Aylin and 6C. 6C gets dropped off at ATF to buy a camo cloak, and the team grabs Test from his gaming fest at the bolthole and picks 6C back up.

They do some matrix sleuthing on Festival Foods, and find that they are providing product to a soup kitchen in the northern Noose, so they head there. They spot some Volk on headed that way as well, but Carol sees some other figures laying an ambush, so they lay back and use the gunfire as a distraction to sneak into the Feeding UCAS building. It seems like a totally legit soup kitchen (no bug magic), but they get spotted by a Neo-Anarchist decker named Gamze Seidel. After they assure her they’re just looking into Festival Foods, she backs off but keeps an eye on them. The team that ambushed the Volk come in shortly after, and seem to be more Neo-A’s.

A combat decker named Angoka is giving them the stink eye, but they make friends with the seeming “leader”, Lycus, and get some info about the SIN drive they are running out of this and some other spots (what the Volk were targeting seemingly). They are using old pre-Crash records to get Zone denizens started on their paperwork to get official ID’s. Gamze and Angoka have managed to retrofit some old city govt terminals that they are apparently able to pull data off of. Hotkey thinks this will be good info to pass on to Mrs. Clean/Sierra Corp, but Lycus and the others seem very suspicious of corp involvement. The team heads out and 6C is delighted to see a dwarf woman in home-welded knight armor ride up on a bike armored up to look like horse.

They converse a bit, and she reveals herself to be one Lassie Landsknecht, and offers her services as a chevalier if 6C or other weaklings find themselves in need of saving. 6C leaves a note after she bikes off to try to get in touch with her again, somewhat besotted. They also spot the Neo-A tagger Vonny seemingly commemorating the site of the nearby Volk massacre, using drones to quickly throw a huge piece up, but they leave him be. They head to their next lead, the Vault, where a fixer made the deal to get the soup kitchen Festival Foods for cheap. Arriving, they find a well-defended building surrounded with bollards and guarded by Desolation Angels, housing the fighting bar as well as a medical clinic.

Aylin makes friends with the DA’s, especially a young TM named Tasha who seems fascinated by Aylin’s monowhip, and gets approval from Becky 99, the leader, to get one. After a while Matt Wrath comes out to get Matt Rat some fresh air, and Kinnie and Test converse with him a bit, getting recognition as fellow Jackpointers. MR agrees to introduce them to Sid as a favor to some newcomers, and offers his skills as a guide and fighter if needed. They head in and meet Sid, who’s a bit greasy but seems cannier than he looks. Avocado feeds him a whole line, but he just seems excited about making a connection with a new team and is happy to help. He sets up a meet with Danny Dankwallow, his connection at Festival Foods, and Carol hopes to also use the meet to get intel useful to Ares. They plan to link up a public location near O’Hare, minimizing both parties risk.

At Carol’s suggestion, they do a deep dive into the related Tarot, in order to maximize their negotiating position, and find some info on where Moonberry likely is being held captive, as well as determining some of the answers to Hansu Prophecies 6, 7 and 8. They head to the meet, and carefully negotiate in Courtly rhyme with Dankwallow, to subvert his guards’ surveillance. They discover that he’s working for Hanged Man, and the guards seem to be from AZT. Which is weird, since Festival Foods is a Renraku subsid. Dankwallow offers to put them in touch with his boss in HM, and seems amenable to switching sides as needed if it helps free his wife, which is the only reason he got involved. He confirms that the strange additive to the food was his idea, inspired by the team’s discoveries about Taco Temple at Court, and doen in order to magically track and approach people who are in dire economic or social straits for potential voluntary Pa bargains and servitude at Court.

The team decides to do further research and calling around, and goes for a drive, trying to resolve Prophecy 8. 6C calls up Fargus Sol and he helps them determine that there is likely some kind of 4th World treasure near the Iran/Turkmenistan border, near Aden’s turf. They also sell Prophecy 6 info to Ares, where Candice Phillips seems excited to be dealing with Avocado who she obviously respects more than Carol. They arrange for Ares to rescue Moonberry as well, in exchange for a positive intro at Court, where they currently lack standing. They also sell Prophecy 7 info and Moonberry into (related) to SpinRad via Miranda King, who seems excited to get the info, as she seems like she’s still finding her footing in the corp after jumping off the sinking ship of NeoNET recently.

Sol also gets the Catholics to finally return 6C’s calls, and he arranges with Darren Dolf (who seems likely to be a cutout for the Vigilia Evangelica) to bring their Book of 9 Gates and help with the ritual to free Aylin and 6C. However, there’s a cost: the VE requires that the team retrieve the 3rd Book from the Black Lodge (or whoever stole/bought it from them after they stole it from the Catholics), both for the ritual to work and as pay for them at the end. Dolf agrees that Arleesh will keep her Book, as they trust her to keep it safe, or so they say. 6C starts scheming on how to make this happen.

The team contacts Dankwallow using the burner comm they slipped him at the meet, and set up the deal with Ares. He says he will have his boss pop over to Earth and contact them, and a short while later they get a call from Rooster, who explains that the whole thing is an elaborate smear campaign on behalf of AZT, in revenge for the team’s actions to help Renraku at Court. Rooster agrees to share the smear info with the team’s employers if they wait a week to hype them. They plan to play up the “disappearances” of poor people who ate Festival Foods and hint at the bug cult/Chicago history to put people off of it. Holmes agrees, and Rooster and Holmes both seem delighted that Ares has decided to rescue Moonberry from MCT’s well-defended TRU-13 unit, which will likely be a deadly mission, which they now don’t need to undertake while still receiving the benefits.

The team gets paid out, and agrees to potentially do more jobs for Hanged Man in the future to disrupt Court stagnation. They head to the hotel where Aylin’s mom is staying in order to get the present she has for 6C and Aylin, and she requests they all call her “Patty C” for now. 6C does some real awkward stuff trying to participate in her and Aylin’s fam dynamic and she tries to welcome it. She gives them both potions, and explains that she is a skilled alchemist, though her magical ability has been depleted by her possession. They decide to invite her to the safehouse, where she can work on potions to make a living and also collab with 6C.

They drop HK off at the Bolthole, where he has a lengthy hang with his fam, gets updates on the situation in NYC, and talks about their plans to maybe come to Chicago, Aanka has been getting involved in some “Free CIty” campaigns on the matrix, in St Louis and Seattle specifically, and the community mesh network HK helped set up in their corner of Queens seems to be working well to keep both the Null Sect and the DelaMar sec upgrades at bay, useful for refugees and freedom fighters. HK also hangs with 3D for a bit and gets some deets on a few things: the missing technomancers (suspicious, and seemingly different than previous cases of corp kidnap or hate crimes), and the local phenomena of metaracist combat tourism. HK agrees to help with both, but decides to talk the team into looking into missing persons first, and gets a lead.

The rest of the team rests up at Ahabitat, and at Test’s demand, Patty C starts involving herself in providing some “real world” lessons to Otoko. Kinnie finishes the first major sub repair, and they try to contact Allan Clay, the nervous TM Johnson, but get a dead line. Worried that this may be connected, they head back to town and finally call Red back about his missing persons job as well, figuring they can roll two jobs into one again. Red puts them in touch with an alcoholic Omnistar detective, Nick Ryder, who sets up a meet shortly thereafter at a Zone dive bar.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team spends the next day hungover from the bday party and working on fixing up the Hab, now named AHABitat. They name the sub the “Shadowrudder.” Otoko has only been emerging for food occasionally while bingeing all the new sims Test bought her. Kinnie and Hotkey, in charge of repairs, make a list of needed supplies, and the team also makes a list of necessary upgrades and purchases to pick up. Carol, Avocado, and Aylin head to town in the sub to get all that stuff while Test, HK and Kinnie finetune the air recycler and fix the chemical toilets. 6Cyl does alchemy all day to begin stocking up their new Vault of Ages.

In town, the team splits up their purchases to not give any one supplier too much info about what they’re up to. Goober gets them sub upgrades and a water safe comms drone (also stealthed). They get enviro tech and filters from Sierra Corp to stay on the Sea Dragon’s good side by not polluting, and get all the other fittings and equipment needed from Ares. They then head into town further to meet with Red, and get some local vamp tips. Aylin makes fast friends with the ethical vamp, and gets good local info. He seems down to trade more info and favors for hooder runs.

They then head to Camp Lincoln, to try to rendezvous with the Fleshmongers, who purchase trapped bodies there to sell to local infected or part out. They successfully find them and make an ammo trade deal to get Aylin fed, and Aylin gets a dead drop to call for future needs. She feels bad about the scenario though and hopes to seek out more ethical feeding. The team then heads back to the sub and the hab, with their delivered purchases in tow.

The next day, the team gets the comms drone working and receives some messages. GC is trying to get ahold of Test, and Aylin’s mom has come to town, a surprisingly fast return from intense trauma therapy. The team contacts Mrs. Clean to get a rough idea of the payout on all her jobs, and chooses one to follow through on first. Avocado buys a car with a cowcatcher from Goober, and they head to the O’Hare Sprawl and meet a Johnson, who turns out to be ex-NN, in a poser/Zone tourist bar. Test makes a friend of one of the hostesses by mocking it all.

They agree to a price, but are a little uncomfortable that it involves handing over a shadowcaster named Opti, along with some data he apparently stole. With some background research, they figure out that their Johnson has lost some sort of “special project” that he salvaged from collapsing NN and was planning to use as a means to another job. He seems a bit down on his luck and desperate, but the pay is good. Test pays the hostess for any tips on odd happenings she spots.

They then get into a brief scuffle with 2 poser gangs in the parking lot, but easily scare them off. They then head towards the airport, and Aylin and 6Cyl meet with her mom while the rest meet with a young drake and a hugely charismatic woman named Mako. Aylin’s mom tells them she met these entities on Celephais, and helped Mako raise the drake along with 7 others from infancy- weirdly, again, for the relative time passed. This confirms that Celephais has some weird time shit, similar to the Seelie Court. Also strangely, Aylin’s mom only appears slightly older than Aylin remembers her from when she disappeared- only her eyes show all that she’s been through since then.

Aylin reveals that she is a vampire, and her mom tells her it was a vamp who gave her the Blood Box all those years ago. They bond and reconnect a bit, touchingly, and make plans to continue. Aylin tries to give her way too much money, and 6C very awkwardly declares himself part of the family too. They then head down and Aylin’s mom meet the team and they all chat a bit. Meanwhile, the team has met with the drake and Mako, who are here on behalf of the Sea Dragon to cement the agreement made with the merrow.

The team sends them to Carol, who lacks a good SIN other than his real one, and stayed with the sub. They get there surprisingly quickly, and he frantically gets some tips on piloting from Goober. They head down and he makes the intro to Otoko, who takes them down to meet Big Meat and Ryujin. Carol heads back to the surface and plans to meet with the team at Club Clusterfunk, their first lead on where to look for Opti. They all link up, and Carol borrows some money from his brother to get Seirra Corp to upgrade his SIN. Spending a while surveilling the bar they can’t find any obvious leads, so Avocado tries to casually ask one of the servers, who pleads ignorance. Kinnie heads back to the docks to work on the sub some more.

However, the mention of Opti attracts some attention from a bar patron, the shadowcaster Static, who seems to be a rival. She gets some money from them for an address for Opti, and they head out. Strangely, the square block around Opti’s hideout is one of the nicest parts of the CZ that they’ve seen, especially impressive given that it’s in the Noose. The team is starting to feel a little more iffy about handing this runner over to a corp Johnson given that he seems to be doing some good hooding work. For now, they continue, with Carol’s suggestion to contact him voted down. Half the team stays in the car to keep it running and do matrix support with Aylin floating up to the 3rd floor in mist form. The rest of the team uses spirit concealment to sneak through a thai restaurant to a shared courtyard with a door leading up to Opti’s.

HK luckily spots a secondary security measure, and him and Test bypass with some sprite assistance, opening the door. 6C notices astral markings in the narrow stairwell, but verifies it is a powerful astral ward, so he doesn’t think he can bypass it without alerting the caster anyway so they just walk in. They find a collection of shadowcasting gear, various bits of tech, and a lot of collectible ephermera, including a lot of Crow/Raven themed gear and a signed Jonny Silver guitar. Test gets an urgent message from GC and is told to make sure he grabs the beeping device inside and make sure it broadcasts. He tells them team but does so- it contains a fragment of the code string the Johnson gave them to recognize his program. It also pings 3 other map locations when activated- it looks like Opti disabled the antennae on the comm but Test bypasses that with his touchlink ability,

They are starting to poke around a bit more when 6C spots a spirit watching them in astral and the room starts slowly filling with acid fog, doing some armor damage to everyone. A 3-minute countdown also begins. Test stays til the last second, getting some info off the terminal before diving out the window, ko-ing in the impact. The room explodes behind him, but seems intended only to destroy the insides and barely damages the rest of the building. This plus the countdown implies this was more a security measure than a trap, as Opti seems to have not wanted to kill anyone. GC messages again when Test wakes up to tell him to track down the other 3 locations, and tells Test doing so won’t violate their team norms.

Test and HK then receive a call from an unknown number, offering info on Opti- they agree to meet and head to Jindrich’s, a small fancy bar near O’Hare. They meet a woman named Vox, who is on a list of allies/peers they pulled from Opti’s terminal. She asks them to go a quick task in exchange for the info and they agree. They head for a literal hole in the Wall bar called the Civil Libation Tea Room and Avocado distracts the chatty proprietor while Carol and 6C steal a datachip out of the safe, with Aylin and HK providing remote support. They return to Jindrich’s and hand it over. Strangely, one of the 3 map pins shows as being there as well. Vox accepts the info, seems to receive a message, and then looking slightly confused, hands the team her burner comm and tells them “this is what they need.” Having scanned the datachip, they know it’s a list of Seattle high society B and C-listers, and she offers to reconnect if they find themselves in that city.

Taking the burner comm to the car, Test connects both at GC’s instruction, and the code seems to copy it’s opposite instance to both. They now seem to have half of the code string. Following another map pin, they head to the Chicago Market area as the pin finally stops moving around. They find a huge music festival occurring and all buy tickets, it is a benefit for a “Save our Ghoul Youth” foundation, and seems to have some corp support from Evo and Horizon. There are some classic rockers playing, as well as a local opener and mid-tier shadowband member, Vendetta Violent, doing a solo set. She seems to be the target. Aylin and Avo buy VIP passes to get backstage, and Avo poses as a pusher while Aylin mists to bypass security to get into the musicians’ green room.

VV and another man inside, Monday Trip, ID him as a runner right away, though they don’t initially spot misty Aylin. They have a slightly tense negotiation of figuring out what he wants but seem basically chill, and agree to sell him the partitioned data package off Trip’s comm that has been giving them trouble. However, before the transfer can go through, the racist/metaracist Volk gang kidnaps a bus full of ghoul children, and VV and Trip tell Avo to get his team and save the bus, and they’ll give him the data for free plus a bonus. Aylin manifests and they seem a bit surprised, but all agree to the deal, and the team starts after the bus, which is speeding off trying to run over anyone it can as the children scream and try to escape from inside. Aylin hangs back to keep an eye on the payday.

They chase down the bus, with Kinnie joining just in time to pull the car around. Avocado uses commanding voice to get the rest of the team into the backstage area and 6C summons a spirit to boost his speed on foot. Hotkey and Test manage to tagteam a hack and dump the Volk hacker out of the bus system, while Kinnie pulls the car up next to the bus and Carol uses a grapple to jump up on top. 6C catches up to the Volk car on foot and blasts one of them who was trying to get a rocket launcher set up, and then mana balls the car, finishing off the dumpshocked decker and 2 others.

The remaining passenger shoots 6C but he dodges, Then, the driver clips him with the car, sending him flying into a building, killing him. His CrashCart bracelet activates, and the team sees an ambulance racing in from the concert (where Evo had a major presence). They finish off one more of the Volk and then focus on slowing the bus down as the Volk car speeds off. Unfortunately, Kinnie crashes the car, not being a great driver, and almost totals it. The limp back to the concert area, with Carol heroically riding atop the bus after poking his head in to calm the children, and deciding not to climb down in and risk a bite.

Test gets a hashtag started to boost the team’s local rep, and they get the data for free from VV. Aylin is also told she can get food for life (at a reasonable rate) from Long Pig Farm in thanks. The team sees the data combine with the previous packets once again when Test links them, and head to Goober’s to swap cars while theirs is repaired. They then head for the final geotag, also in the Zone. They find a fortified warehouse with a mishmash of senors and drones protecting it. Using some excellent surveillance, spirit support, recon, and hacking they manage to infiltrate the facility with no alerts and find the onsite decker Numitor (from Opti’s enemy list) engaged in a matrix fight with some sort of digital entity.

They make their way through a few floors of traps fighting over a dozen drones who are creepily all dressed up like local runners, fixers, and Johnsons, some of whom the team recognizes. It looks like Numitors uses them for target practice, and they do some research and find he in a former Otaku who faded instead of emerging, and has become spiteful and hateful. They find his hardened safe room, and manage to blow their way in, with Carol and 6C teaming up to just barely prevent him from detonating a suicide vest before they can grab the cyberdeck they seek.

It has the antenna disabled, once again, and they jam it while Test links it up with the other fragments. They all copy to the deck, and the team finally seems to have the full file Mr. Johnson wanted. Now they just need to find Opti…. They leave the area and receive a message from Opti telling them to meet them where they first got the job so he can talk to them and their Johnson and sort things out. They don’t have a way to respond so they call the Johnson and head that way. Montgomery is nervous when they arrive and frustrated that they won’t give him the data right away. They eventually assure themselves there isn’t an obvious trap, and also no sign of Opti, so they pass him the data.

He jacks into the deck and seems relieved to find it all there, just before the bar’s auto turrets deploy and blow him to pieces. A voice over the PA announces that it is the now recompiled AI known as “Skeleton Key”, a sort of protosapient matrix B&E expert program. Opti comes out from the back and seems just as surprised as the team that his “tech guy” was in fact an AI, who just murdered the Johnson (with cause, but still). Just as Opti is negotiating to pay out the team and go about their separate ways, a heavy duty corp strike team rolls in and fans out into the bar. The turrets retarget and there’s a brief pause while the corp team tries to convince the team to come over to their side for pay.

In the parking lot, 6Cyl sees another runner team sneak up on the corp troops and get them in a crossfire. They tell the corp troops to stand down and everyone can walk away, but then the turrets kick in. A brief gunfight ensues but the corp troops quickly retreat, outflanked and overpowered. The second team explains they came to back up Opti, and the team finishes negotiating, gets paid, and gets a local rep boost and a promise of a shoutout on Opti’s next ’cast. They try to track the corp teams to figure out who they were working for but lose signal on the tracer 6C placed while heading out of town to the North.

Meanwhile, Carol has passed out in the trunk from too much stim, and the Tan Robes pay him another visit in his dream state. This time they read his mind, find out what happened in Fauth-Doshgoi, and tell him that when the team goes to space, they will kill a man named Fentin Walls, and agent of GOD, in order to square themselves with the TR. Otherwise, trouble and pain. Carol is annoyed, but so injured he is unable to effectively resist.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team stocks up at ATF, and Test and Carol call their local contacts, getting a brief on what the broad situation in Chicago is currently. Feeling a little more grounded, they locate a secure coffin motel on the Westside with a good rep and a price to match. They head there, clean up, stash some gear, and then head to Horde territory to find a smuggler to drive them into the CZ to their meet. They end up hiring a Skraacha member after Kinnie helps him tune up his van and he gives Carol some shit about not knowing Or’zet. They reach the Purple Pig without trouble, and find 3 other teams also interviewing. They play it cool and 6 Cyl makes friends with 2 laconic street sams.

They meet with Sarah Silverleaf, who flirts aggressively with the more charismatic team members, which only Test rejects. They banter for quite a while, with 6C offering an extensive breakdown on his pseudo-relationship with Zeha Cadgris. They head back outside while the 4th team interviews, and then get the job- some of the other teams seems annoyed but only the Silver Vixens are at all aggro. The team shakes it off and heads into the back to get the job deets. They then head down to Goober’s dock near the Calumet port to stock up on water gear and meet their sub pilot.

He sells them some last minute gear, and they head out. They reach the former Yamatetsu facility without incident, though the sub creaks and groans a lot. One of the 3 modules is completely wrecked, and the connecting shaft between the other 2 is damaged. Luckily, the moon pool in the top module is intact, so they head up through there without getting wet. They check out the module, which seems long abanonded, though repairable, aside from a scattering of small, well-tended plants. They get some air flowing again to clear out the rotted fish smell, and investigate, finding nothing of note until they stumble across a teenage girl sleeping amidst a pile of tech devices in a storage closet.

They grab her to keep her from fleeing, and question her, not getting a ton of info. However, once they agree to repair her “busted” tech, which turns out to just be a case of drained batteries, and repair the saltwater osmosis generator for her to keep recharging stuff, she becomes much friendlier, and goes to fetch a massive man who seems to run security for whatever community is here. He agrees to bring them down to meet 2 others who he say know more about what they seek. A few team members stay back with Goober and the sub, but most head down, squeezing through the busted elevator shaft and then swimming a short distance to the other module, where they find a small crowd of humans of various ages waiting.

Conversing with an elderly man named Ryujin, Avocado and Alyin make their purpose semi-clear, and are ushered back to meet Dr. Urashima. He gives them the data core they seek in return for 3 things: a ride to the surface, help finding him an appropriate new place, and help finding an appropriate non-corporate sponsor for the uplifted merrow community living here. He explains a bit of his work, but they are interrupted by news of another sub approaching. They encourage Ryujin to use illusion spells to make the habs look more damaged and uninhabitable, while Big Meat preps for a fight. BM and Otoko help get the data core and Urashima up to the sub, and the team leaves a broadcasting RFID saying that they have the data core and sabotaged the structure behind them. They race back towards the docks.

Using his newly improved Fresnel coat, Test is able to spot and quick hack an incoming torpedo just before it impacts them, allowing them to reach Goober’s dock safely. Silverleaf greets them there and takes possession of the data core. She pries for more info, but the team plays it cool and she seems satisfied. They then bring Urashima to their motel, and make next plans. Evo seems like the best fit for him still, so they contact Holmes, the local Evo fixer, who seems to have been the one pursuing them in the other sub as well. They hope this will help them remain neutral between the corps in Chicago for now. Mrs. Clean also tips the team off to some other work opportunities in town, and Carol gets some more Tarot and investigative work from Ares.

They accept a job from Holmes and pass off Urashima succcessfully, and also purchase the sub from Goober. They make a deal with Ryujin, Big Meat, and Otoko to use the upper module as their safehouse, with a promise to bring no trouble, in exchange for contacting the Sea Dragon on their behalf to ensure the protection of their communities independence. 6Cyl meets with a local toxic shaman/anti-corp activist named Catharsis who seems affiliated, and shortly thereafter the Sea Dragon publicly announces her protection for the “free merrow” and other water-life in Lake Michigan, much to the consternation of some. Fargus Sol and Arleesh seem well-pleased by the team’s moved though, and happy to report that with help from the Unseelie they have begun devising a ritual to free Aylin and 6 Cyl from Tohu-Wa-Bohu’s patronage. However, this will require the presence of all 3 Books of 9 Gates, of which they only have 1. 1 more was at least once held by the Catholics, and the other is long lost.

The team grabs all their gear and some repair supplies from town and heads down to the new safehose, spending a couple days cleaning and repairing it, first getting the air exchanger working again. Kinnie plans to continue Goober’s tinkering with the sub, getting it back to spec (or above), and he and Hotkey begin scheming how to get away from using fuel oil for the generator in order to stay on the Sea Dragon’s good side. Avocado also picks an arbitrary date for 6C’s birthday and they celebrate wildly until everyone crashes.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

Hotkey visits his family, gets some Chicago updates and contacts, and makes plans to visit while they remain in Queens for the time, though they may move to Chicago if it ends up being a long term base of ops. HK also helps Test research the strange events occurring to him, and finds out that he is being targeted by something called “The Dox” and that he needs to return to a Null Node and skim it again and admit to “being pwned” in order to clear it up, which Test refuses to do. He changes his ID again with the help of Sierra Corp, and they get some more leads to dig into this further in Chicago. They aren’t sure if this is the Null Sect or not so it seems worrying. Test figures he can talk to GC from anywhere, so he’s ready to go.

Avocado considers calling some contacts and decides against it, not having very good loyalty. Aylin also doesn’t really have anyone to get in touch with here, and instead makes plans to get ahold of Red once they get to Chicago. Kinnie restocks some gear, and Test, Carol and 6Cyl get some surgical upgrades from Gogni Warznyeck in Terminal, seeing that it once again mostly looks nano-fabbed. 6 Cyl recognizes some rEVOlution Arms gear lying around too, similar to what the Zhigul Makers had imported. They start debating how to parcel out the pay data and make some money and contacts.

Test writes up the history of the coimediai and posts it to Jackpoint under Kinnie’s sponsorship, gaining admission for himself. The rest of the team decides to sell/trade the group info elsewhere instead of aiming for JP membership. They sell the info about Horrors and big magical threats to Arleesh, and decide to ask for Tarot cards plus some money. They get the last 5 they hadn’t seen, revealing a baseball/Chicago-related puzzle that Kinnie fixates on, so now they need to track down the 2 missing 5’s again. They sell a bunch of info about Corps at Court and how to behave there/threats/etc to Ares, who hasn’t made much progress in gaining a foothold there.

Instead of taking cash for this they decide via a close vote to get credit for a future AreSpace flight to the moon, to continue their investigations for Al’Farabi and Eclipse. They also get some decent armored spacesuits included as rentals. Carol also reports in to his dad/brother at Ares Arms and gives them a ton of Taco Temple, Carcean, Horrors, and Tarot info, none of which is Ares’ area of specialty. The team then decides to sell them a little more Tarot info as well. Ares is interested in this stuff and pays Carol out a little bit to help him get established in Chicago, and says they’ll likely have some work for him.

With all their NYC biz settled they call the commcode that Kami Aneki provided and get ahold of an ostentatiously “sexy” elf, Sarah Silverleaf, who tells them to come interview for a job in Chicago. She secures them space on a Renraku cargo flight so they can bring their gear without dealing with smugglers. They rent a van and round everybody up and head out to the airport, where they meet the plane and load up. The pilots provide them some exterior views from sensors on their screens while they fly over the interior. They see a lot of depopulated rural space and towns, with massive drone fleets and combine harvesters managing fenced and guarded farm complexes, policed by private security. Carol tells the team this is because of New Revolution attacks, supposedly based out of St Louis, and backed by Ghostwalker, or the CAS, or someone else depending which conspiracy you believe (he knows Ares sells to all sides but keeps that quiet).

They are nearing Chicago when they are targeted and hit by a missile, and lose 1 wing. The plane starts spinning wildly and going down, but Kinnie manages to stabilize it (upside down) by grabbing his grav gun and doing some engineering mental math. Carol spots the truck, which seems to be a New Rev technical. He scrambles over and grabs his sniper rifle while Hotkey starts manipulating some plane systems to get the cargo door down. Test sends a sprite after the launcher and interferes for long enough for Carol to core the engine block on the truck. The pilots report that they’re still going down and tell everyone to brace.

They spot more technicals racing in via their dust plumes, and starting to lick off shots with their bed mounted machine guns, so most of the team decides to parachute out of the open cargo door and take their chances, while Aylin escapes in mist form, channeling any damage 6C takes to herself, and 6C and Avo brace and ride it out in the plane. Kinnie and Carol land well with the chutes, but HK has a lot of trouble, opening too late and then getting his chute holed by gunfire- Test barely manages to crash into him and prevent a catastrophic plummet, but they both take some damage. The plane crashes pretty dramatically, with 6C’s bike flying out and being destroyed in the process, but avo and 6C are mostly fine (the pilots not so much, what with it being upside down and nose in…)

The team prepares to fend off the attack amidst the extended crash site! Carol takes up a sniper position and makes some amazing shots, taking out one gunner and wounding another. 6 Cyl manages to conjure a spirit and make himself able to run as fast as the trucks and takes out another gunner while Test and HK manage to get untangled and fuck up the New Rev comms/IFF system. Kinnie is ko’ed by machine gun fire, and Avo and Carol are injured, but the team survives as the NR retreats. However, the plane explodes, taking some of their gear with it, and they don’t have a ride. Aylin finally reaches ground in mist form. Carol calls in an Ares favor, and gets a ride on an an auto-hauler on the nearby I-80. They get dropped off on the southside of the sprawl, and make their way to ATF to restock on gear and ammo.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team returns to Gwyn with their list of demands/requests for payment for the jail break. Gwyn bascially agrees and they receive various payments: Avocado gets a Blood Charm to store edge, Aylin gets help for her mom + protection + some Tarot, Hotkey gets money to clear his debts, Test gets the final secrets of the Coimediai and the ritual ties to the Jewel of Memory, 6 Cyl gets cash, Kinnie gets info on Richard Villiers’ safehouse to seek revenge for Boston, Carol gets some tips of continuing the Taco Temple investigation. They also buy a bunch of gear for the Fauth-Doshgoi raid. Gwyn tells them to make sure to have a distraction which will keep Alachia from visiting FD that day, so they head to the dungeons to ask Harlequin for ideas. 6 Cyl stays behind to rest from some massive drain damage.

Cadgris is very disappointed that 6C is absent, but provided with a letter and promised a future visit agrees to let the team visit Harly. They head in and he coaxes the Ashen Mirror deets out of them, but seems to have his own plan for the Ebon Queen which doesn’t mesh with Gwyn’s. But he agrees to create an appropriate distraction and jumps into the toilet void, seemingly having planned his escape ahead of time. Cadgris is PISSED at the team’s involvement/presence during his disappearance, and says she will give them the night but will have to present their involvement at the next Morning’s Hearing.

The team gets quickly dressed for the Eclipse Ball, and heads to Hakari Marama, where they socialize and try not to drop any hints that they will be leaving. Hotkey arranges to continue working with Eclipse whenever he is back on Earth, specifically Al’Farabi’s exploration of strange mana sightings on Earth’s moon. They rest up in their suites and leave a goodbye note for Eclipse, and head out early the next morning, before the day’s Hearing, meeting Gwyn in disguise outside the Castle. Also along are Aylin’s mom and Chloe Glowworm, who Gwyn seems to have blackmailed into assisting. They head out through Broceliande through some linked Passage Graves that Gwyn seems to know well.

Emerging back into the Astral Sea, they find their equipment and appearances returning to their usual paradigm. They swing by Celephais without issue and drop off Chloe and Aylin’s mom with Gwyn’s contacts. Gwyn says she will be delivered back to Aylin once it is safe to do so. They head further along, and all drink a vial of Aylin’s mom’s blood that Gwyn mixes with some reagents. He says this will help them penetrate FD’s border defenses. They approach a misty crystal mountain, and are all briefly overwhelmed by sadness and despair. Most of the them shake it off, but Test is badly effected.

They begin scaling the narrow crystal stairs to the plateau top, and come across a bunch of moaning severed heads on spikes and hanging from gnarled trees. As they beg for the freedom of death, Avocado begins punching all of them to bits, setting off an alarm. They get into a battle with two powerful shadow spirits, and defeat them, but get bogged down into a debate about whether to smash all the heads for a bit. After reaching the top of the stairs, they come under fire from a large group of mages inside a sphere of shadow. They manage to take them all out, but almost lose 2 of the team in the process. They quickly patch up and slam some potions before continuing.

They fight some Unbreakable shedim guards (using bodies minus the heads they previously encountered), and have to destroy the bodies completely to keep them from regenerating. They then find the cells themsevles, and free Aina Dupree, the Ebon Queen, who insists they also rescue the other prisoners, a point of debate within the team. They free the lesser dragon/Horrorstalker Kulkulkan, in human form, as well as Anne Lyne, the former DF head in Boston who Kinnie and Aylin helped trap using a false Tarot set on behalf of Valeria, the Nadja Fixer, and also Dr. Dyna Mite, the missing head of the Gateway Project from Boston. Meanwhile, Gwyn fights the Shadow Got, which has finally arrived (and appears to be winning), and 6 Cyl and some others on the team duel with some higher powered Tan Robes who have arrived.

6C is almost killed twice, but Aylin uses her magical and vampiric abilities to absorb his damage and then regen it. They defeat the Tan Robes, and Kinnie figures out how to use the Awakened World card using Niall’s instructions to open a portal. Gwyn, losing the fight vs the Got, communes mentally with Aina and throws his Tarot card to Aylin, as per the deal, before opening a Void Door, which consumes him, the Got, and Fauth-Doshgoi itself as the team frantically flees through the portal. They emerge in the idyllic TNN countryside and find Dan the Fomorain waiting for them with snacks and a roaring fire in his cottage.

They put up warning signs around the portal, which now opens directly onto the Void that FD has become, and will last for a year and a day, according to Aina. Lyne recognizes the team that trapped her, finally, and storms off in a huff after they refuse to ID their hirer. Kulkulkan also leaves, but gives them his contact if they wish to collab in future against dark forces, or need help in Aztlan. Dyna Mite trades them a bunch of info and offers future astral travel help in exchange for a ride back to the UCAS, and they debrief extensively with Aina, who has a uniquely similar past to the situation that Aylin and 6C are in.

They learn a lot about the 4th World, Tarot, and Horrors, and Aina offers future assistance, but says she must return quickly to the Fey Realms in order to take charge of the Guide role for the Unseelie. The team also hears what happened at Court from “Frosty” Jane Foster, who shows up to confer with Aina, and recognizes Kinnie from Jackpoint. Apparently Harlequin escaped through the Country of Kaol, where he fought a monster in a bizarre pyramid and also defeated a slaver crew from the plane of Id, who are perhaps the buyers for the prisoners Zeha Cadgris sells. Jane met him there and accompanied him back to Broceliande, where they also tracked down his dark shadow, Gwynplaine, who has been murdering and selling slumbering fey (to/for someone?), and used Gwyn and Harly’s rivalry as a massive distraction to the Morning Hearing. Alachia intervened, violently, and both have been banished, perhaps permanently, from the Court.

Aina seems saddened to have to further postpone her reunion with Harly, and gives Jane a message to pass to him, encouraging him to seek help reintegrating GP into him to stop his rampaging. Jane leaves, and the team finally rests and heals. The next day, Aina is gone, and Dan takes them via cart to the coast, where an Irish expat smuggler is waiting with a zodiac to take them out of the magical borders of Tir na nOg to the shipping lanes and get them on a cargo hauler to NYC. He uses some alchemical devices to obscure them as they boat through dense fog, but Hotkey is almost lured off the boat by what he thinks are his families shouts and cries. They restrain him and reach the cargo ship. Some Albanians smuggle them aboard, exchanging some mysterious cargo to the smuggler. They are locked into an isotainer with survival supplies, and spend 3 days in there before arriving at port.

They get let out, and sneak out of the port facility, catching up on about a week’s worth of lost time and messages etc. They find out the Towers was job was done without them, by a different team, with multiple arrests and casualties. They prepare to collect their few belongings in town, make contact with anyone they need to, and head to Chicago, where they have some job offers. Test also finds out he is even more fucked, reputationally, than he thought…. better figure that out!

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team heads to the Morning Hearing and is contacted by Kendra dos Santos, Arleesh’s voice, about potential collabs. She proffers a Tarot card in good faith, and implies that Arleesh has teamed up with Schwartzkopf to work together against risks to metahumanity, and could use the team’s assistance. Ashokasundarai Rai asks for info to help her close her investigation into the Nightwatch Phantom. There was also another mysterious death involving an item called the Circle Sword. The Children of the Dragon show up looking for info on Ghostwalker’s origins, and get a few days approval to do research and seek assistance, but dragons seem to be ill thought of in general here. And Jonny Silver is announced to be the target of the Wild Hunt for a year and a day for his disruptive Faithe Faillan performance.

The team begins prepping for the Geocache raid, and spots some Hermit members keeping an eye on them. Test compiles a massive sprite, and shunts the damage to Aylin, who regenerates it quickly. Test remains in Geocache with 6 Cyl and Carol guarding to keep the sprite registered, and the rest of the team gets some cyber and gear upgrades from the Zhigul makers to use the next day. They rest up again and Test gets his mind read by Nuada the Dreamer, the slumbering ancient head of Hermit faction. He seems to get, essentially, everything while giving Test a weird dream. Carol decides to try to make peace, and reaches out- Nuada contacts him and they make a deal that the team will leave Hermit alone, damage another Earth faction on their mission, and then leave the Court soon.

The rest of the team heads to the Morning Hearing again, and Xoc announces another faction, revealing another Tarot card: Karma. The team has a feeling this reveal was rushed by something, possibly their having been mind-probed, but Avocado is unsure how. They also see a presentation of further Tarot cards, which strangely vanish out of his hands. The Executioner petitions for more capital crimes and is denied. Eclipse faction petitions for some special dispensations given the Dawnseeker’s Arch showing a rare eclipse today. They plan to host a ball that evening at Hakari Marama, and the team will be expected to attend as affiliates. There are also rumors of strange green vines appearing near Void Doors and elsewhere in rarely traveled areas of the astral sea. The team is worried about a Null connection…

Aylin checks on her mom, all good so far, and they all meet up in Geocache. The raid goes amazingly well, with Test, Hotkey and the sprite changing off taking lead while Kinnie supports using his newly installed skillwires. Avocado gives leadership where possible, and Aylin soaks Tests’ damage. They place an anchor in the easier to access Fuchi/NN structure, and then hack into the AZT temple, and make another anchor. They figure out the paradigm, and manage to retrieve the Ashen Mirror just as the system notices them. They get out, sacrificing the sprite to hold off the pursuers, and exit through the connected anchors, barely escaping the NN node before that also turns on them. Kinnie’s first time in the Foundation! Wild. The team also finds the 3 Tarot cards from the Morning Hearing in their pockets when they exit the Foundation. They return to their suite and look into the Mirror. They spot the Ebon Queen, imprisoned on the blood/shadow crossing plane of Fauth-Doshgoi by none other than Alachia.

They debate who to contact about the Mirror and decide to go with Old Crow. They meet again in the Labyrinth, and also find Niall O’Connor and “Lord” Gwyn in attendance. Niall makes a deal to trade help for Aylin’s mom, a settling of the team’s debts, and a Tarot card to use for transit back to the material plane for the Mirror, and then leaves, after giving them some tips for using the card. Old Crow intro’s Gwyn, and he explains that he is the Eiolai or Guide of the Unseelie Court, and is dying. Having read the Tarot he knows that the Ebon Queen, who he ID’s as Aina Dupree (explaining a lot re: Harlequin), is to be his successor, but he needs the team’s help in rescuing her. He will be going along, and he and OC suggest talking to Harly about potential distractions for Alachia for when they plan their prison break, and aim to go soon to prevent Alachia getting tipped (given the Hermit mind-reading, etc). They also suggest using vials of Aylin’s mom’s blood to try to bypass or confuse some of the security systems of the prison, since her mom was residing on the plane before coming to the Seelie Court.

The team pushes for a big payday, and Gwyn agrees- he offers knowledge, contacts, power, artifacts, money, whatever. They retreat to their suite to discuss terms, but are told time is of the essence and also have to attend the Eclipse Ball that evening.