Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Ratched

The team, while healing up at STV’s offices, sells all the varied data they’ve accumulated from the ECSE, as well as some stuff they’ve compiled from the larger Boston area over their stay. They sell Smedley deets on ECSE facility defense and layout, Erika Knowles gets Null Sect info (and an offer to smuggle her out which she accepts, returning the team a bit to her good graces), Prot0 also arranges to meet a Nexus courier in DeeCee in 2 weeks to pass along the info as well (as it wouldn’t be safe online), Jackpoint and Nexus TM’s and hackers pony up to buy the foundation creation/100 data and keep it out of corp hands (for now), they sell Mayor Meghan the MCT torture and experiments info for her to use as a bargaining chip, they pass along the result of the MCT torture to Nexus with the understanding that noone should profit off of that, but that if the info is erased someone will likely do it again, EVO gets the p-soft training CFD “cure” data, SK gets the Project Abyss and PAX info (and quickly Thor strikes an AZT black lab on the 128 corridor), and the team decides to hold onto their info about Lilith for now while they do more digging. Prot0 puts out some tentative feelers on that.

For all of this, they each take home over half a mil and leave a sizable chunk in their team fund and drone repair/replacement fund. They stock up on gear, ammo, etc, and both Kinnie and Jonny fake their own deaths, with a lot more people noticing Jonny doing so (tributes begin pouring in, though the corps consider it another terrorist down). STV gets them all a few new ID’s (plenty of opportunity in Boston), and they don’t tell many people where they’re going. They arrange to smuggle all their forbidden/restricted and obvious gear in a shipping container via the Yakuza to the massive Potomac Yards facility in DC, which is Yakuza controlled. They also pack Liam’s motorcycle and Erika Knowles in there, and arrange to bring Lys with them on the flight out. They introduce Genowefa Gale to Mama, Gale handles the surprise well and begins negotiating to represent the interests of Mama’s Boys during reconstruction, as well as linking up STV’s basement levels to the Catacombs.

With all that business attended to, they finish healing up, put on their “civilian” clothes/armor, and catch a corp chopper out of the QZ from the STV office. They transfer to a regional commuter jet at a merc airfield, and find a bunch of off-duty mercs, engineers, political aides etc aboard for the short hop to DC. They land at Baltimore-Washington Int’l (the least secure airport given KE/Ares making steps towards relocating to Atlanta and in a contract squabble with the Feds), and spend the better part of a day rejoicing in their return to civilization- they get sloppy drunk at the airport bar, spend way too much money on steaks, peruse some cheesy Boston mourning merch, and do a little local research. Kinnie finds out that his husband did make it out, but after 2 years of waiting for any word has moved on, and is now with another Boston survivor he met in a grief group. Kinnie decides this is for the best, as he’s not sure what he’s become or if he would want his husband to see/know him as he is now.

They eventually rally to take the train into town and get into their STV safehouse and pick up their STV van. Aylin gets her first exposure to sunlight since becoming infected and it is awful. They’re glad to have a UV protected full body suit but it still hurts and feels like heavy pressure bearing down on her. They get in to the safehouse and crash. The next day, OE and Guy make runs out to the port to get their gear back to the safehouse, while Kinnie guards the safehouse and gear once delivered. It takes 3 trips but goes smoothly, with OE covering for Guy’s social ineptitude- they’re really not in Boston anymore, noone knows Guy! The rest of the team goes to the meet, Aylin and Prot0 makes minor fools of themselves over a coffee machine but Jonny uses this as a feature- his team is so good at their specialties that they don’t need to all be good at the social side.

They get the rundown: some kind of explosion or other major event occurred 2 days ago at Ford’s Theater, and STV wants details. The team starts digging and finds out that the Theater has been under construction for a long time, seemingly as a front for some sort of odd magic or cult, that it came under attack from some milspec forces wearing Ares Bug Stomper armor, that the FedPol investigation into what happened appears to have stopped almost before it started, that FedPol is still guarding the site, that a massive mana void surrounds it (as if a tunnel in the astral had collapsed), that someone cut local camera feeds before the attack, that a vanm dumpster, 2 suits of armor (+ maybe occupants), and various weapons were burned with thermite out back, that over a dozen people died inside, and that their looks to have been a gate or portal of some kind in the basement, based on the hermetic/Masonic symbols that remain after whatever was detonated here went off. They also detect that a delivery drone flew through the no camera zone during the attack, and decide to track it down. And they notice they are being watched- Madeline Schmidt warned there would be other interested parties…

They send a drone recording of an unidentifiable odor to STV to run through their data vault, and get a report back that it is a compound found most often on the metaplane of ID- so that’s likely where they portal lead. Schmidt tells them to keep digging. They track down the drone courier, and Prot0 geeks out over his custom tech. They end up social manipulating him for the data, convincing him it’s too dangerous for him to even watch, let alone keep, and that they will try to warn others off him. Outside, OE sees that there is now another group following them; as opposed to the first pair who were decked out in camo cloaks, these 2 seem like ratty street teens, but have a slightly skittering astral vibe. Analyzing the drone data they see 2 figures in Bug Stompers leave the theater, one kills the other, and burns the body as well as his own gear in the van and dumpster. The drone gets bad image of him in the bright flare of light- muscled male ork. It also spots a Ford Americar parked nearby and gets the plate.

Prot0 hacks some traffic cams nearby to get into a license registry and finds the name and a photo of the car’s owner- a muscled ork with a military haircut. Time to track him down!

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Ratched

The team spends a couple days prepping for the ECSE raid, while Pancake and Adelbern keep an eye on T1’s, who is setting up to go in as well, as the merc forces have reached their former safehouse at Boston Manatech. Guy and Kinnie prepare an escape tunnel, with Guy shaping concrete up to the underside of the secure ECSE facility from Mama’s turf, while Kinnie guides him with radar. They cut into the metal shell around the facility with a thermite bar, but not all the way through, to avoid setting off any sensor alerts, and then Guy seals up the tunnel end to prevent any random discoveries,

The team smuggles stuff into downtown and stages in an open conference room at Stark, Thiessen, and Van der Mar, with an agreement not to bring any heat on them. They sell the CFD gun specs to Aaron Creech at EVO in exchange for some Monad CFD doses, which Adelbern uses to poison 2 members of T1’s team, hopefully comromising them, Erika Knowles is pissed when she finds out and cuts contact with most of the team, though Aylin wants to make it up.

Aylin trains with Ghostwalker’s drake advisors to learn the early stages of becoming a Horrorstalker, though Mama seems to think that this is a riskier path than the Lightbearer/Bringer’s that the Horrorstalker’s look down on. Jonny makes some last calls and he and Prot0 both set up some dead man’s triggers for various sensitive info. They get the word that it’s go time, and head over. Pancake warns them about a sniper but says he’s distracting him in the matrix and the CFD infection seems to be taking over. The team heads into the facility a few minutes after the cybermercs, and Ratched and Adelbern stay up top to keep an exit open as long as possible and distract any reinforcements.

The team finds a dead cybermerc inside, but all the drone and trap security on the ground floor has been disabled. The mercs seem to be using a ton of breaching shields as well as overwhelming force to hit the Zero Zone fast and hard. The team follows, sealing shafts and entries behind them and laying traps for any who follow. They clear the security levels, only having to do minimal trap bypass and finding all defenders either dead or fled. They get into a fight with one cyber-merc on the first lab level and lose their scout drone, but get a bunch of paydata about MCT’s experiments on TM’s/cranial shields, cyberadepts, etc.

They get down to the next lab level and find the cybermercs brawling full on with MCT forces. The team takes this chance to attack the mercs from the rear. This allowed two MCT mages to escape and seal the shaft down behind them, but the team defeats the mercs, though they suffer heavy injuries and almost lose the big drone, Guy is barely able to save it magically. OverEasy also defeats a shedim that followed T1’s team in. They find more info about MCT research programs into the CyTech program and other cyber/Resonance experimentation, as well as security critters.

They break their way down into the next level and find the defenders making their last stand. After a brutal fight, 1/2 the team is dying and all the drones besides the medic drone are down, but the team emerges victorious. They find a bunch of data on the Null, their beliefs, and MCT’s attempted cooperation with them, as well as some thoughts to the Null’s role in spreading CFD (through scaring e-life offline). They gain access to the lowest level using the defenders’ leaders biometrics (he believed himself to be Kaze Adeki’s son but was actually a clone), and also find that MCT had locked down the facility and final level due to paranoia about Project Orion infiltration (Dawkins CFD ghostriders), as well as the return of PAX, who appears to have infiltrated this lab pre-Lockdown as well as Project Vulcan, putting her front and center for the outbreak once again.

In the final lab, they bypass a ton of traps using all the corpses from the fights above, as they hear explosions of some sort of reinforcements coming closer. They discover the 100- Danielle de la Mar’s dirty little secret, the technomancer gestalt dream/nightmare that formed the Foundation, as well as possibly creating or connecting to the Null. They also find out that De la Mar was inspired by the strange semi-matrix of the Seelie Court, and that there are hints to 4th World “technomancers” who worshipped a Passion called “The Seed”, and that more clues and hidden mysteries could perhaps be found in the Fey Realms, which De la Mar plans to visit. This and the Null data seem to fully vindicate Prot0’s belief that magic and Resonance are inherently connected, and he can’t wait to escape and write his paper. He also gets a strong feeling of approval from the archivist.

The team also finds a facility-wide EMP device that PAX seems to have disabled that otherwise could have wiped all the date. They use Kinnie’s near-dead body with Prot0’s comm access to radar scan and look for their prepped exit, and Guy shapes their way out, as everyone except Overeasy passes out from drugs and injuries. Most of the team only survives through some sort of miraculous luck.

Meanwhile, Ratched and Adelbern talk the spirit into transferring over to Adelbern’s fancy bike, and Ratched rigs up a car bomb, and blows a corpsec APC that shows up. They chuck grenades at another one as they race off, but Adelbern gets hit by some return fire, and knowing he’s done for, jumps off the bike to make sure Ratched escapes, after giving Ratched his watch. Pancake helps Ratched get clear and bids him well. Ratched reaches the rendesvouz in the Catacombs and sends OE to fetch some Mama’s Boys while he stabilizes everyone else.

They successfully keep anyone from bleeding out and get smuggled back to the law firm to process and sell the data while they get their new ID’s and flights out figured out. They spend a few days healing up and making ready to leave Boston.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Ratched

Ratched rejoins the team, finally out of the hospital from the safehouse getting burned. The team bribes their way into the MCZ past Trip-D border guards, with Prot0 debuting his new drone fleet- a steel lynx with a Valkyrie module, plus a replacement Prot0-drone medic and a well-armored bumblebee. Trip D suggests that unless they come back with some real good salvage they will be unlikely to get back out, however. They decide to establish a safehouse at Kinnie’s old MIT&T lab space, and head that way. They manage to secure it and get some power working to keep their crazy-repeller running while they go out questing.

They decide to tackle OE’s job first, and find out what happened to all the Fomorians who got “recruited” into that Manadyne study. They find the Manadyne office with no trouble, but notice they’re being stalked by a pack of Fenrir wolves. They spot to corpses on the roof, 1 Formorian and 1 possible human or elf. They seem to have double suicided after being trapped by wolves, based on a scrawled note. Jonny and Prot0 + drones stay in the first floor/lobby while the rest of the team rappels down a secret shaft into the lab.

They investigate and determine that the Fomorians were likely being kept here at least semi-involuntarily, and they staged a breakout attempt sometime about a year into the lockdown. However, they tried to escape through the steam tunnels, and some infected critters got in, leading to a massive gunfight between Fomorians, wolves, lab dogs, scientists, and security, ending in everyone dying and some kind of “cleasing” of the lab data. Luckily they recover some headware from one of the techs and some paper records to review.

Jonny and Prot0 come under attack by wolves up top, and the rest of the team decides to take the tunnels back to safehouse, but gets turned around and surrounded. Both groups manage to fight their ways back to the safehouse, but both Prot0 and Guy have to use their doses of Reversers after being bit. However, they make it back and analyze the data- apparently the lab was studying the mana resistance innate to Fomorians and trying to figure out how to implant that trait in others. They had some minor success with some security dogs they sold to Trans-Latvian/Ordo Maximus members, but most of the results seem to have been acquired by the Grey siblings for their Gray Mana-tech.

Kinnie and Ratched decide to hang at the safehouse to work on building up a prototype gatling laser that Kinnie found hidden specs for, in order to have good salvage to trade for their escape from the MCZ. The rest of the team rests and heads North towards the next heist target- the Harvard lab where a chunk of the Cornerstone resides. Luckily the mobile crazy-repeller seems to work well to keep ragers at bay and the huge shambler mobs are relatively easy to avoid.

Less easy to avoid is a series of explosive traps and a sniper left on guard by Blackheart Security, who seem to have gotten to the lab first. The team almost eats it in the ensuing firefight, and one of the fancy new drones is trashed (but alchemically repaired enough to get it to limp home). Luckily Aylin is able to focus enough to bring her monofil whip along with her in mistform and turns the tide. However, the team was only fighting 2 guards and almost died, and can hear boots racing down from above, so they decide to flee. However, Liam seems to have used this attack as a distraction to complete the heist, and tells Jonny to get his team out.

They flee back to the safehouse, trying to lure in infected behind them to delay pursuit, and rest up before heading for the exit. Liam leaves before them with the Cornerstone, but gives them something called the “Pendulum Room manuscript” that he found along with it- apparently something else to do with the Seelie Court. The team puzzles over it but can’t make any headway so they hold onto it.

They bribe Trip-D with the repeating laser prototype, bluffing that they didn’t find specs, and also money, and gets into quarantine. Luckily they end up just ahead of the Blackheart squad, who stare daggers at them the whole time, but the team gets out first, partially due to OE being an ex-merc himself and having some rapport with Trip-D. They hightail it South to ditch Blackheart, and all head to their safehouses to rest up and re-equip before the raid on the ECSE, after which they hope to leave Boston for good.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest

The team hear that Mayor Meghan is receiving external support, seemingly part of Ghostwalker’s anti-corp agenda, and has 2 drake agents assisting her. The team checks on their bounty (which has gone up for Prot0 and Jonny only) confirming some GW interest. They decide to really lay low, after checking in with Smedley, who seems a little cagey. They figure out how to activate the Dragon card, and are connected to Lofwyr through a mirror, surprisingly. Jonny asks him not to Thor strike the infected collection zones since the team has a cure, and Lofwyr tells him to bring cure samples to the SK office downtown. The team agrees.

Kinnie, having the only legit SIN in the group at the moment, heads in with the sample. Sensing their opportunity, SK, negotiates with him (not his strong suit), which ends up with SK in possession of the cure, the scientists, and the knowledge of Salem, and the team with some significant offers of payday and very little control. They feel outmaneuvered but it occurs to them that if they stay on SK’s good side it might be some useful protection.

They get prepped to do the next heist for now, while thinking more of the existential issues. Adelbern and Wynn have done some recon again, and discovered some conflict amongst DIMR higher-ups: Valeria (a Nadja fixer) has come down from NYC to bring the Boston office back into the fold, which Anne Lyne (the local head during the Lockdown) has taken umbrage with. She has put out feelers about acquiring the set of Tarot queens, and has a rep as a bit of a tyrant, locally. The team decides to approach the Nadja, feeling that having more powerful connections outside of Boston will help them more, since they don’t have a dog in this fight.

Valeria gets them a set of fake Queens (meaning she or an associate has seemingly seen the real ones?), and Jonny contact Lyne to tell her they’re on their way in with the requested cards. Wynn tells them that he did some hacking ahead of time and got the item they seek transferred to Lynne’s office for a “review”, so they just need to snag it in the office or en route. Aylin mists into a briefcase which Kinnie carries in (good SIN and all), while Prot0 with sprite assist spoofs the scanners and joins them. Everyone else waits nearby. Wynn tells them he’s averted cameras and sensors out front and in the foyer, but they’ll be on their own after that.

They head into the meeting and find that Lynne is an astral expert and has an astrolabe map of the metaplanes somewhat similar to Guy’s. She sends the item back when it turns up, seemingly annoyed that it showed up, and Aylin mists after it to make sure the team can snag it. Kinnie and Prot0 hand over the cards, and Lynne tries to activate them, but instead of doing what she expected, they open a small rift and suck her through, screaming. They hightail it out of there (having promised Valeria not to mess with anything else), and grab the item and Aylin in mist form. They escape, pass the statue off to Wynn, and begin planning their entrance into the MCZ.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

The team analyzes T1’s data on the ECSE and starts making a plan. They also collate data on the Tan Robes in order to try gain admission to Salem, and sell a bunch of valuable info via JackPoint. They do further tarot analysis as well, and Kinnie activates the Shadow card (semi-accidentally). It seems to grant them admission to an exclusive club in London known for granting favors. They also visit Mama to ask about Tarot and other things, while some of the team goes to meet up with Erika Knowles, and they find out she’s in danger due to going hard against ARES. They check in with Tyreseus and confirm there’s a growing bounty. They also hear rumors that a blood spirit has been assassinating Trans-Latvian execs.

They research Druidic factions to get an idea on how to be in Salem. They get distracted in their planning by a distressed Kostas, who appears in their safehouse and tells them that the “ASPS” facility is under attack. He enlists their help in response to promises of future rewards, and they race to the facility. They manage to save a few employees, including the woman who leads the blood crystal implant surgeries, but can tell that the blood shade is loose in the facility. The woman, Nell, convinces them that she is non-magical, and they agree to take everyone to the IOND for safekeeping. OE projects ahead and converses with Olivier, who fills them in on ties between Trans-Lat/Ordo Maximus/Black Lodge and tells them he will prepare for the potential that some of the “ASPS” members are BL in disguise.

They reach the IOND tower, and Olivier ushers everyone in before springing a trap on Nell, who proves to be a powerful mage. Unfortunately, she mind controls some of the team to attack each other/Olivier, and Kinnie, trying to calm things down, launches a gas grenade, ko-ing both mages. Nell has a cortical bomb as it turns out, and Olivier is killed in the ensuing explosion. The Summoning Master, Bora Elihu, is elevated to chapter master as the school mourns their loss. The team gets some implants and bonds new foci using school resources, and prepares to head North.

The team secures Erika Knowles safety first, ushering her to Messerzahn protection, and Kinnie trades some designs and knowledge with ex-BM/Murai scientists, hiding amongst the Wicked in the Rox. The Wicked seem like one of the only gangs that hasn’t lost out in the syndicate war. They also finally contact the lawyer Genowefa Gale at Stark, Theissen and Van der Mar, and agree to do some work in DeeCee once the Lockdown lifts, in exchange for help with tranist and ID’s. They get some offers of assistance and info from her, and also find out that many metaracists from Boston (as well as Denver and elsehwere globally) are making their way to PWV, Azania, seemingly a new congregation point for those org’s, with some funding that looks to be coming from Brackhaven and others. The team also receives a Tarot card, and Guy gets some astral info and crude map of the metaplanes from a Jackpoint payout.

They head North, and safely reach Salem. They see that Swampscott is fully gone and absorbed by the woods, while Peabody seems to have been conquered by mercs, though signs of recent fighting and explosions suggest that the Neo-A’s and NAN separatists aren’t letting it slide by. They pass along their info on the Tan Robes, and get approved to enter, though everyone keeps hinting that they shouldn’t trust anyone and may or may not be able to leave freely, depending on their actions.

They find the town split between 4 factions, with a central lake. Pro-Damon wiccans have a large slice, and seem to have made a cautious but not complete alliance with the Church of the Dragon, which has the largest population and territory. Anti-Damon wiccans have entered an uneasy alliance with metaracist/anti-dragon militias, and are slightly smaller than the pro-Damon wiccans. The smallest by far is also the hardest-looking- ex-NeoNet employees including Zoh Rothberg (Celedyr’s voice) and some Knights of Rage. They’ve removed all NN insignia and seem only loyal to Celedyr, from what the team can tell. Both the anti-Damon-ists and the KOR offer the team work, but it seems potentially dirty.

Prot0 does some matrix scouting, and almost gets killed by a hugely powerful resonant/dissonant entity (too fast to tell), and realized why noone is running wireless on within the protection of the Mist (which the COTD seems to control). This entity seems to emerge from a school building central to COTD turf, which the team is not allowed in, though Guy makes some progress talking his way towards access. Damon and a number of COTD members also are engaged in a multi-day ritual to cleanse the lake, which the team gets a sample of, and Prot0 thinks seems similar to the powerful entity- perhaps a clue that the lake was the terminal point of “Eliohann’s” flightpath, though it appears “he” has been moved to the school since then.

Jonny starts making in-roads with Aseela, seemingly a Johnson/Fixer for the pro-Damon wiccans, who seems to know the biz but be more cautious in her approach to the team. She wants them to investigate what jobs the other factions want them to do, and report back. Kinnie and OverEasy push really hard to leave and get paid for the info that they’ve gotten, taking a smaller payday to not get further involved, but everyone else is heavily invested in seeking more info. Damon puts the members who stay in town up at his place but says he can’t get involved (in an effort to keep the peace locally), and Guy goes on a divination quest to try to foretell how to succeed on his metaplanar quest.

Overeasy and Kinnie are approached by some Omega Zero Zero Evo mercs, who seem to be the ones occupying Peabody, and offered work- if they can get info on: is the dragon alive, what state is the dragon in, and who will ally with Evo most easily (and how), Evo will pay the team well. OE heads back in while Kinnie waits with the car. He gives the team the info, and they debate which way to go, going back and forth a bunch.

The team allies hard with the COTD, gains all the secret knowledge about what happened with Eliohann/Cerberus/Cereus/Deus during the experiment and early days of the shutdown, as well as what the COTD has done to stabilize the nanite-infested dragon since. Cerberus seems to be in control today and approves the team’s plan to spread word of a potential cure in order to prevent the Thor Strike prophecy from coming true. He also instructs the COTD to help the team harvest some of his nanites to test if they can really undo some of the damage he did in his maddened state, which he seems deeply regretful of. The COTD also gives the team the Dragon tarot card, and the team quickly determines that it represents Lofwyr/SK (in it’s current incarnation).

They also broker an alliance with Evo, in exchange for allowing the COTD continued control of the dragon and his care, Evo will be an early corp presence in the area. Satisfied that they’ve done all they need to do for the time, the team leaves, and get paid by Evo. They also receive a parting gift; a Blackheart Security spy who was watching the team and Salem. The Evo mercs say his partner didn’t survive questioning, but that they knew a good bit about the team and their activities. This is worrying but not surprising. Aylin feasts, and they ditch the body in the woods with a note, warning the NAN separatists and Neo-A’s that Blackheart has some intel and interest.

They return to town, drop Kinnie off at the lab with the dragon nanites (which seem promising for a cure-all but are limited in quantity). They head back to the Nub and hear some bad news: Yaksha was blamed for the Neo-A missile attacks and killed by Omega Dawn. Also, their safehouse was burned, seemingly by a combo of Hater/Rager attack, Shifting Pyre, and Omega Dawn. Mama’s Boyz had to close off the tunnel to keep the danger from spreading. The team meets with Mama, who warns Aylin that she is now “horror-touched” as well as delivering some other info. She arranges for them to all have individual safehouses for the time being, and warns them not to bring in more trouble. They also see merc corps herding shamblers into cleared zones in Southie as well as the MCZ.

They decide to lay low between jobs, and arrange with Genowefa Gale to have their new ID’s ready for travel ASAP. They do one quick job for the Nexus, and track SEARCH/Jack down to the airbase east of the harbor. They manage to communicate with him and find out that he’s CFD infected (along with the rest of the officer corp it seems), but is working on a CFD-cure to sequester the infection in an otherwise functional mind. He passes them his data after they tell him that they are envoys from Perri, and passes along a short message which make them think he might be her dad. They also post an update about this to JackPoint and find out that they just met the legendary Fastjack. They debate trying to get him one of the dragon cures, but Kinnie and the scientists are still perfecting the Reverser level/mix, so they decide to hold off til they’re sure.

Heists for Adelbern next!

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

Liam Adelbern gets the team to make some deals in preparation for their big run against the ECSE/MCT, Prot0 has done a little research and realized it’s gonna be a whole thing. They make a deal to help Liam get his two items in exchange for him helping them get a tarot card and into the ECSE. Prot0 also plans to talk to SSU211 and Messerzahn about making similar deals for assistance.

Worried about PPJ, and receivng a hint from a mortally wounded Bubbie, they try to surveil the crystal island and come into direct contact with the Tan Robes, who handily read their minds and close the tunnel they came up through. Mama’s Boyz aren’t thrilled, and the team is very worried that the TR’s now know their goals and where their safehouse is, so Jonny goes to Mama to ask for help. She tells them a lot about the TR’s (hopefully helping the team gain access to Salem) and tells them they will be under her protection while underground, but that the powerful shadow spirits who are patrons of the TR’s have unknown motives and that the team will likely be in danger outside the Catacombs. Mama also tasks them with contacting Aleiron in the metaplanes and dealing with a darkness rising in the east in Chicago.

The team also finally deals with the Horizon/Dawkins Group situation, and manages to ID 4 DG members working in the Squares. However, this goes a little sideways for them when AZT uses this info to somehow lead to the fall of the Squares, a populated enclave. Many survivors, but many casualties, and rumors about the team’s involvement are circulating. They try to do a little rep management but get into some major disagreements about how and who to share info with. Jonny also gets word that Micval was killed by a strike team trying to retrieve him from a DG safehouse, but they recovered his drive with all his unreleased tracks, so kind of a win for Jonny and his label?

They pull off a heist against an Atlantean Foundation research lab by causing a series of distractions with the help of an unpleasant squatter/hacker named Pendleton Wynn. They get a tarot card, the first payment from Liam for the next two heists they need to do with him. It is the Major Arcana Shadows, they also get a ton of ATL tarot research from the servers that Prot0 hacks alongside the run.

Guy continues planning his astral trip to the homeplane of his car spirit to gain it as an ally. They also plan to contact Stark, Thiessen, and Van der Mar at some point and see what they want. Jonny takes some time off to deal with team PR and potential fallout from some recent situations, as they also hear of some disturbing developments locally: some large ships have appeared in the harbor, the first in in over 2 years since the Lockdown began. Merc operations are also increasing, so it seems like the cleanup is speeding up, putting some of their jobs on a timeline.

They decide to raid and clear the ARES/KE VR/AR training facility and secret lab where Project Hammer (CFD projectiles) was based, on behalf of Erika Knowles, and to make closer alliance with Messerzahn. Messerzahn, good to their word, has cleared a path to the bottom end of a drain culvert/duct from the lab into the sewers. It has a UV filter and magical barrier so the vamps have been stymied in their efforts to gain access. The team grapples up, destroys the barrier, and gains access, getting into a brutal fight with some headcase fenrir wolves. They emerge victorious but with some serious injuries, some of which require pulsing to try to prevent infection. They leave the UV filter in place just in case the vamps are planning to backstab them while they check the rest of the facility.

They find evidence that T1’s team was here, and gain some Project Hammer prototypes, as well as some cyberware from 2 destroyed cyberzombies. They also piece together what happened early in the Lockdown, when the Black Lodge (according to Olivier) killed the former IOND head as well as a french Gendarme who had assembled a dossier on the BL and was trying to pass it along. It looks like the Gendarmes, some mages, and facility staff fought a holding action but were overwhelmed by a powerful blood spirit, along with other magical attackers.

The cyberzombies seems to be more recent, and were looting the facility for supplies, as well as scouting as a potential base, but were ambushed by the same spirit (now looking even more powerful). 1 of the 3 seems to have escaped, 2 others were separated and killed. It looks like they used the prototypes on the fenrir wolves, who seem to have been part of the original facility defenses or perhaps the BL attack force, leading to their infection (which luckily for the team also muted their usual magical abilities).

The team decides to finish clearing the facility, as the staff seems to have trashed all their sensors and records while defending it. They find a sealed/intact vault, and find the Gendarme inside, thought it quickly turns out that it is the Blood Shade inhabiting her corpse (and with her memories). She nearly TPK’s them, but they manage to rally a defense and defeat her, Aylin’s monofil whip proving especially useful against her spirit form. They find a huge amount of paper records of the project, which Prot0 scans quickly before they destroy them, not wanting this project data to fall into the wrong hands. They go back, let the vamps in, and scout the upstairs a bit.

They find a little data on the ECSE’s defenses as T1’s crew seems to have begun fiddling with the AR/VR trainer before checking the basement, which Prot0 notes down. They then head out and Kinnie analyzes the tech they recovered, and they figure out where to post data and whatnot before selling it all to Erika Knowles. She promises to keep it safe and make sure word gets out, and the team gets her approval to spread word that ARES was developing this weapon without sharing specs. They rest and heal, and look into all the tarot data that Prot0’s sprite got from the ATL-F. There’s a ton of info involving some cards they have seen (or have) and they start deciphering some of Hansu’s prophecies.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
Aylin Carewell
and introducing: Kinnie Zest
also introducing: OverEasy

Jonny convinces Micval to sing with Weekday Eclipse and they put out a single together with a Micval remix of one of Jonny’s tracks. Erika Knowles reminds them to check out Project Hammer at the ARES training facility and they get some leads. Smedley tells them to go to an art opening to meet an “old school” thief who needs a team to help steal some artifacts around town. They find out a bit more about the Null, and Prot0 convinces the team to do a bunch of jobs fast to improve their gear and skills so they can raid the ECSE and get the enormous payday it seems to promise. Jonny is summoned to a meeting with an AZT fixer named Metoataske Cynosige who hints that the blood mages in Swampscott were a bit far afield and out of touch, so no big loss for AZT, so long as the team will deal with a problem for them: Horizon Dawkins Group operatives have been working around town and AZT needs them ID’d, compormised, or eliminated. They will pay a bounty. Jonny agrees, lacking options.

Guy initiates with some of the Urban Tribalists who are cleansing astral space, and hooks them up with the “ASPS” and Kostas. Kostas reminds him to do a few jobs to pay for the crystal eyes he wants, and tells Guy that the ASPS has a runner coming in to assist. He gains the ability to astral travel, and can now communicated with his car spirit. He begins planning an astral quest to retrieve it’s True Name and bond with it. The team decides to give Ax. S. Grant the body of their cyberpsychotic dwarf safehouse guard, worried that someone else might hack him the way Prot0 did. Ratched puts him out quickly with drugs, circumventing the rest of the team’s plan to make an elaborate digital scenario for him. Ax promises the team drone and vehicle use/support during the upcoming Peabody raid, and also tells them team to go to the upcoming art opening Smedley had mentioned to meet up with a contact with some specialty gear for the raid (to deal with Nocebo, to the corrupted AI). 2 jobs, 1 location: great!

Jonny befriends Lil’ D with his and PPJ’s Boston Unity plan. The team meet up with a new runner named Kinnie Zest, who Smedley says is a skilled weapons tech (as well as an MIT&T doctor) who needs to make some cash. He seems useful, so the team brings him along on the next job: rescuing Grimes, who is under house arrest after a new Bishop arrived and took his church at the head of a Blackheart Security merc detachment. Silke tells them that Archangel has an object to trade that they can maybe use to get Grimes free, and they head back to the ghoul base to see about that. They encounter some vampire merc’s, and are told that non-infected aren’t welcome there anymore, but do manage to meet with Dark Angel and get the object: an old bible signed by JFK to the people of Boston. One of the vamps follows the team home in astral and talks to Aylin. He intro’s himself as Alastair, and says the the ghouls are now protected by Messerzahn, who should be a name to be feared. Aylin, being a weirdo, befriends him instead of feeling threatened. So now the team has that info for BBE.

They head up to Stoneham next on a lead from Smedley, and meet up with scholar named Trinity Ellario, who called CFD before it happened, and is holed up with some other civvies being protected by SSU 211, the other merc corp BBE needed info on. SSU is all Monads, stable headcases who don’t want to spread their infection. BBE makes a deal through the team to have SSU raid Malden (rampant nanoapocalypse) in exchange for materiel support and a ride out later, and also makes a similar deal with Messerzahn to clear the Labyrinth. The team gets paid and upgrades their gear quite a bit. They meet up with Kostas’ contact, a mirrorshades runner named BlackJack, and do a quick job with him, paying off a Wuxing employee to retire early and write a letter recommending a certain replacement. They then get a list of three other names to do similar with, and BJ convinces them to help him track another target: a personal mission.

They follow astral traces and rumors of a serial killer and missing people to an abandoned orphanage in Dorcester, where they fight a shadow spirit and a knife-wielding free spirit maniac. BJ dies in the fight, but disapparates, so he was apparently also a spirit. They win, barely, and flee and enraged Purist/Pariah militia, asking that the militia help the various poor souls in the orphanage as they do. Prot0 also accidentally shoots a baby when they shadow spirit uses it as a human shield. Ratched punches him for it (and then heals him). They rest up a bit, then get fancier armored suits etc to go to the art opening. They leave Kinnie watching the gear nearby-ish, and walk into Downtown. They stop by the Taco Temple opening to eat on the way, and PPJ almost signs up before the team convinces him to run against the Temple of Terror instead of participating.

The art opening is happening but Prot0 thinks it’s a little derivative. A drone taps him and a man who calls himself Hamshallow tells Prot0 to take a box the drone is offering up- Prot0 does, just as some kind of no-label corp deathsquad bursts in. They shoot Hamshallow but it turns out he was a hologram, so it just wavers and then vanishes. They seem to want to acquire the package so Prot0 hoofs it, and accepts a grappel assist from the other person they were supposed to meet here: the thief Liam Adelbern. They escape unnoticed while the rest of the team tries to deal with the shooters and get people safely out. They all succeed except PPJ, who stays behind invisibly and fries the drone, in case it had info on it, but unfortunately has some bad luck and gets knocked out and captured. The team tries to figure out how to go back in, but have no gear or real armor with them, and decide to flee and rescue PPJ later.

After looking into it, they find out the group that has him is a pan-corporate (but non-official/maybe fully illegal) rightwing deathsquad called Omega Dawn that targets political agitators, SINless, runners, and “terrorists.” Ax S. Grant, when filled in, accepts the package, and says that he asked a spirit friend to do them a solid- he tells the team it wiped PPJ’s memory back 6 months, so he lost everything since his graduation in Denver, but literally knows nothing (and has a reasonably clean SIN), so maybe he’ll get cut loose? Other contacts are more skeptical and tell the team to watch out for OD but not to expect their friend back. Meanwhile, PPJ wakes up in a room he recognizes from the show: the Initiation Chamber in Temple of Terror Season 3. He is very confused….

Prepping for the Peabody raid, the team needs a few more gunners, and Smedley recommends a local ARA activist/ex-merc named OVerEasy, who seems pretty competent. They also get 3 roto-drones from Ax as as an armored van, and are told there will be an infiltration specialist going along who will use the device they got to deal with Nocebo. The team just needs to make sure the infiltrator can reach the dissonant servers. They also get 2 SSU 211 mercs named Jazz and Cosmos, a sniper team who agreed to help out against some natural enemies. They head north, and get Fennel to watch their spirit van. They rig the armored van with a cowcatcher and a bunch of explosives charges to blow out three sides, and cruise up. The infiltrator, SemPar, and the 2 mercs hop out to do their parts.

The team rams through one of the rager barricades and plows through some shamblers, before dragging to a stop a Y intersection just inside town. They leap out the back after turning on a jammer to attract headcases, and then blow the charges when there’s a big mob of them around. The team makes their way through town, a harsh and destructive slog under constant grenade and sniper fire. Jazz and Cosmos keep their rear clear, though, so they don’t lose anyone. They reach the Dissonant’s base, an old government center, and subject it to a serious assault, beaching through the front doors and the roof. They kill all the TM’s, and fight a bunch more ragers, shamblers, and CFD-infected animals (probably intended for the fighting pits once rigger interfaces are installed), including a massive bear. They emerge victorious, and SemPar completes whatever their task was.

The team walks back to the wilds, taking out a last few shamblers on the way, and meets up with Fennel, who offers them a stay in a Warpath safehouse deep in the woods for the night. They accept, and get paid a bounty for the Dissonants they killed, including a major leader, White Rabbit. They also hang with Grimes, Silke, Wolfgang, and Gibson, who are all holed up up here, and warn them about Omega Dawn. Wolfgang has a long talk with them about the risks to Boston of the current situation: syndicated and corps moving in hard, if not met with resistance, will change everything. But he says there’s still a chance. The team heartily agrees, and then sells the info about clearing Peabody to BBE, who will likely move in and seize it. However, to help the Neo-A cause they buy them a ton of rocket launchers to harry corp supply flights with. They sell some of the other paydata to other contacts, and post a high price file about PAX/Whit Rabbit making deals with both AZT (to research cyberadepts as soldiers) and the Null (to hunt AI’s, TM’s, etc) to Jackpoint. Noone bites (yet) but after sharing a bunch of other info for free, the team gains full membership.

Back in town, they heal up and plan next steps: they have a few more small jobs to complete, and maybe 1 big one, before the ECSE. They scout out the ARES Project Hammer facility and make another deal with Messerzahn to clear a path of any headcases so the team can get in through the Catacombs and deal with whatever’s there (with Messerzahn getting access to whatever’s left in the facility after, and having one less potential threat on their flanks). A lawyer named Genowefa Gale also contacts them on behalf of a firm called Stark, Thiessen an Van der Mar, which is setting up a Boston office, and seems to be the lawyers PPJ was hearing through his crystal spine before he got grabbed. She says she thought the team looked competent and tells them to get in touch if they’re available for more work.

The team gets worried that Dawkins Group might be manipulating Omega Dawn, but has no solid leads, so they decide to deal with Dawkins and wait til they have anything to go on for PPJ. Bubby is distraught and says he won’t rest til he finds PPJ, which worries the team but what can they do… he heads off into the astral to search. Liam Adelbern tells them that he has done some solid recon on the 3 sites he wants to hit (where possible): DIMR and Atlantean Foundation offices, as well as a Harvard lab in the MCZ. OE wants to get into the MCZ to check out a Manadyne lab there as well, but Kinnie warns the team how bad it is, so they decide to do that one last perhaps. The team decides to put together a baseball game to bond and also continue the Boston unity dream that PPJ and Jonny shared, and put out the word about it on shadow channels after securing use of the Centurion’s arena for an afternoon. Guy gets his crystal eyes put in- weird but effective.

A pretty good roster turns out, and gives it a good go- Damon on one team, some skilled Hellriders on the other, plus the lawyer, the mayor, the team, Kostas, a guy with some Null info for Prot0, and various others split between both. The team’s local rep improves significantly, but Jonny gets some bad news from a Horizon reporter who covers it: Micval has backed out and signed with Horizon (maybe under duress). They post the footage to JP and get a very enthusiastic response (especially from one of the mods). They go to do karaoke at the Tipsy Dragon with Liam in tow, and do some good team bonding. Liam tries drunkenly to get Guy an invite into the Hotel Continental (where Liam is staying) but gets turned back, told that they will review Guy’s application. The team rests up, feeling well-accomplished and closer than ever.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
Aylin Carewell

The team does a bunch of little job cleanup while practicing and waiting for Jonny’s show. Meanwhile, PPJ gets levitated by the weird lil spirit, and flown way west to near the wall, where he enters a nondescript facility. A nerdy middle-aged woman explains that she had word he was interested in blood crystals, and the his and the team’s actions against AZT impressed her group enough that they are willing to provide him with one for free, and possibly more in the future if the team does more work for them. PPJ tries to suss out who they are, and make sure they aren’t Black Lodge, but it seems like they’re ASPS (or affiliated). They seem not to like AZT, the Tan Robes, or the Atlanteans, and seem neutral on the IOND, so it’s chill. He agrees, and gets a replacement spine, which pulses and protrudes slightly, but makes him faster.

He returns to the team, and the spirit introduces himself as Kostas after wiping PPJ’s memory of the location of the lab. The team agrees in principle to do more work, and Guy plans to get the next reward. They do one job linking up some urban tribes with the ASPS, but Kostas says additional work is needed for the level of crystal Guy wants. They do get one magic bullet each from the master alchemist Maestro in exchange for helping her tribe in their goal of cleansing astral space for the Spirit of the City. Ratched also orders better armor from BBE, and the team plans to work on their batch of open jobs soon. The team also takes delivery of a package from the Murai/BM scientists, who give them each a single dose of reversers, saying that if combined with a pulse spell, this should prevent infection from a single exposure to CFD. They team invests in faraday pockets to keep these nanite syringes secret.

PPJ and Guy head up the IOND to check on some stuff and report in, PPJ seems to be having some success getting them to engage more with Charlease’s help, and Olivier agrees to support plant spirit Wilds and NAN enclave sovereginity in exchange for a rare reagent supply chain, and agrees to lend the illusions instructor, Prof. Thornblossom, out for Jonny’s show in exchange for PPJ making sure IOND sponsorship is clear and putting in a good word with the Mayor. He also pays the team less insultingly this time around.

Prot0 fixes up his drone, and does some digging on some matrix jobs, inquiring with the TM’s at the safehouse about a few things, and finds out that Guy’s contact Ax S. Grant might know something about “Garmonbozia.” They go to his shop and ask, and he locks it down, pumps gas into the room, shoots them with gel rounds, and says he really wishes they hadn’t asked that. He tells them if they just let him erase that name from their memories he can let them go, but they refuse. They kill what they think is him, but it turns out to be a rigged body, as he is an AI. They eventually make a deal to work for him on behalf of GB, promising to keep any info about GB offline (including the Conservatory).

He tells them it is an AI nation on the matrix, looking only to exist peacefully and do their own thing. They know that the corps would never allow this, which is why the extreme secrecy. In exchange, he gives them a bunch of info on the Null (including solving the Jackpoint/Nexus beef), and agrees to assist them against the Dissonants in Peabody, who may have made common cause with the Null as well. Using this info, Prot0 finally makes peace between JP and the Nexus, and the team gets provisional access to the local JP hub, gaining access as well to the old team’s dossiers on Boston biz.

The night of the concert arrives, the three opening acts (Grim, Kombat Karla, and Micval) are a success, and with a stage show combining AR from Prot0 and some TM’s and spellcraft from PPJ and Thornblossom, and a tarot assist from Aylin, Jonny gives one of his best performances, and insures that he’s taken seriously by the local music scene. He also makes progress on recruiting Micval to his label, though Micval says Damon is also interested. PPJ briefly talks to the Mayor and plans to rep the IOND to her during office hours, and Guy gets to ride Wyatt’s bike, with the car spirit inside. Exhausted and happy, the team gets ready to gear up for some difficult and deadly work.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
Aylin Carewell

The team goes over the info from the NeoNET and Murai labs, after Prot0 cracks it all open. Not only do the learn a lot about the truth of what’s going on in Boston, they get a ton of valuable paydata. They decide to look further into some of the other jobs on their list, and head to the Roxx. They witness a duel at the Coliseum foretold on one of their Tarot cards, and wager a small amount. They should have bet more as they double their money and the card goes blank afterwards. PPJ meets a spellcaster with implanted Blood Crystals who agrees to pass his contact info along if he himself is contacted again by the mysterious group who provided them to him.

They make nice with the Centurions, who seem to be ex-spec ops and are protecting a large civilian populace near their arena, although the whole Roman thing is a bit much. They then head further south, and set up some transmitters for the Wicked, in exchange for that gang getting a message to the Murai survivors, who have joined up with ex-Boston Manatech employees to start an anti-corp “free” lab somewhere in southern Boston, hoping to eventually make contact with the Ex-Corporate Scientists.

The Wicked are setting up an ad-hoc comms network in southern Boston and requests the team find high/hard to access points to mount the relays to make it less likely head cases will get to them. They mount 3 at various points, encountering a toxic wolf adept sniper at an otherwise abandoned university but making a deal with him to avoid combat. The Wicked reward the team with a meeting with a Murai scientists, who seems only too happy to fill the team in on Reversers as well as their overall plan, after Jonny butters him up. They make plans to coordinate further, and Prot0 convinces Victor Markwart to join them after they learn the Coriolis stream together under Grimes’ protection.

While in the Roxx, they also visit some Urban Tribes and find many of them claiming to work on behalf of the spirit of the city (which makes the Denver survivors a mite nervous). They recruit Charlease Newman to the IOND at Olivier’s request, after PPJ makes a deal that she can keep brewing potions to help the enclaves down south. PPJ also views her as a potential ally to change the IOND from the inside.

The team then meet with the new Vatican reps they’ve heard are looking for them, and apparently seem like such a low threat that the reps basically pledge to stay out of the team’s biz so long as the team stays out of theirs. They won’t say that they’re “cool” with the team no matter how many times Jonny and Guy ask. They then link up with Tyrese, who has changed his name to Tyreseus, explaining that he voluntarily innoculated himself with a “friendly and stable” CFD strain to protect himself from other potential infections. The team decides that seems ok for now?

They gear up at Uptown Arms and Ax. S. Grant’s mechanic shop, fitting out an SUV with extra seats, armor, and an LMG mount, before heading towards Salem to assassinate 2 AZT hitmen and any guards they have (for money and an in with the Neo-A’s). They bypass some sketchy enclaves on the way, figuring they’ll start in the far north and work their way back to the city, doing jobs as they go. They make a deal with some powerful plant spirits protecting one of the NAN separatist enclaves (due to Aylin’s good spirit rep) to get safe passage in exchange for taking out the AZT team and leaving the NAN and plants alone. Aylin splits off at Nahant to look for Erika Knowles, her missing contact.

The rest of the team, with a gung-ho young plant spirit named Fennel along, recon and assault the AZT position. Jonny goes in undercover as a Hellrider (as they see the gang delivering supplies in exchange for processed BADs), and eventually manages to detonate a huge bomb Ratched made, collapsing the school building they were using as a base. The rest of the team slugs it out with some blood adepts, drones, and other guards, barely surviving and losing the car in the process. Ratched and Guy get it to run one last time, racing to the school and saving Jonny from certain death, while Prot0 pulls out all the stops to slay the final AZT cybersolider (one of the main targets). Unfortunately, Tyreseus is killed. Prot0 doesn’t want to approach too close due to CFD fears, so they leave him where he lies, and find an empty building not filled with drained corpses to rest up for the night.

The next day, PPJ projects down to link up with Aylin at the proposed spot, and discovers that Aylin has found Erika Knowles holed up in a ruined lighthouse, injured and hiding out from the mob of shamblers that she unleashed on the former ARES facility to deal with the bug problem there. They make a plan to rescue both of them and heal up before hoofing it down there on foot. The Hellriders also show up looking for another BAD delivery from their AZT contacts, and Jonny has to do some fancy talking to convince them not to turn on the team. Luckily the Hellriders don’t seem to care who gets them BADs as long as someone does, so they put the in touch with Fennel and the plant spirits and facilitate a deal. The plants are also absorbing Swampscott at a rate of about a block per day.

The team heads south to Nahant and sneaks through town, finding an old wireless-free minivan that Ratched and Guy get running. They rig a zipline to get Erika and Aylin out, and escape the mob of headcases with no injury. Erika gives them a bunch of jobs and asks to be dropped off in the Leather District or Nub. They decide to check out Salem, Marblehead, and Peabody first to get the lay of the land. Peabody seems to have a stange matrix signal and lots of headcases so they steer clear for now. Marblehead has a bunch of signs warning non-ARES personnel not to approach, a large earth spirit in astral space, and they lose their flyspy scouting, so they leave that along for now as well. They try to enter Salem but get trapped in some magical fog an find a druid and his ally spirit guarding the border.

They make a deal to hunt down any Tan Robe/Group X operatives in Boston in exchange for future entrance, and notice another huge matrix signal somehwere north of them, presumably either in Salem or at the wall. They head back south, drop Erika off, and heal up. They also check in with Grimes and find that the church’s replacements have told him he is being summoned back to Rome and replaced as soon as the quarantine lifts. They also hear that the Corp Court has engaged some pro assassins to take out highly placed headcases ahead of the end of quarantine.

Prot0 gets some work from Viktor Markwart helping other TM’s, since Grimes may be losing his sport, and the team upgrades their safehouse to accomodate more survivors and give them some stuff to do. The team also gets paid for the AZT mission, with Neo-A’s providing a bounty for the grunts while a rebuilt Tyreseus (though seemingly nearly all Cereus now) gets them their cut of the main bounty. They are disturbed by his changes but he offers them more wetwork as desired. They also go to Mama to get approval for the TM/safehouse plan, and make a deal. Aylin drops Mama a tarot card and is gifted a Tarot card in response.

PPJ leaves with a strange spirit, thinking it may be related to blood crystals, and misses out on all the expansions. The team does some digging on Peabody, and finds that the arena in the Shipyards is getting deliveries from up there of the riggable CFD-infected people and animals they use in their pit fights. The arena is one of the few safe network zones in Boston as they use jammers and crazy repellers to prevent signals leaving and headcases entering, so there is also a local mesh, which Prot0 loves, and it seems like a hot spot for anonymous info brokers. They buy some intel on a few open jobs, and head North again. They sneak into Peabody, past a bunch of rigged shamblers, but are spotted by some leashed ragers. They do a quick recon, spotting what look like some dissonant TM’s, and Prot0 tries a quick matrix scout before being attacked by a powerful AI (Nocebo) and fleeing. They hightail and escape with some clever distractions.

They head back South and report in to BBE, ordering some more armor and another crazy repeller after getting them the plans. Jonny sets up a concert at Avalon, which the Hellriders will do security for and keep the proceeds from (as well as dealing at) to recoup their losses from the missed BAD shipment. Jonny starts booking acts and training his friends to participate, after Prot0 does a mediocre AR show during an open mic.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
and introducing:
Aylin Carewell

The team enacts a massive con against Frank Incense, smearing his name as an outsider looking to make trouble for the local church, which under Grimes has been quite helpful during the lockdown. They double down on PPJ having done the right thing in warning Grimes (even though he betrayed the Johnson in this case), and Guy trades on his good rep locally to help sell it. Prot0 and Jonny both expend some of their rep trading on big names/connections from their pasts. Silke gets ahold of the team after a few days and tells them she has a plan- she has made contact with a dangerous spirit who hates disorder, and thinks that they can use PPJ to lure Frank into a trap, now that he is seen as a disorderly presence.

The team agrees, and Guy pilots a boat out towards a crystallized island, the team having spread the rumor that PPJ is trying to flee town by running the barricade. PPJ and Silke are both aboard the boat, and the rest of the team posts up nearby to provide cover. Some Knights of the Red Branch members engage the side time, as they were trying to set up a sniper position of their own. Some more KOTRB with Frank are closing in on speedboats, and Frank, Silke, PPJ, and Guy all exchange spells.

The team’s boat is partially disabled and drifts near the island, as the team shoots the KOTRB boats full of holes. Frank walks on water towards them, blasting PPJ and Guy with a dart gun that cuts off their access to magic. As he nears to secure them, a crystal spar shoots out from the island and impales, lifting him up and encasing him. Problem solved? Silke says a thank you to the crystalline entity and suggests the team get far away quickly. They do so.

They decide to handle Mama’s request next, and dig into Franklin Nockai- he seems to be linked to commuter and transient disappearances going back a ways, and their intel says he should be in or near the sub basement labs of the old NN HQ. They find the spot, and find increasing amounts of larger and larger roaches watching them, which seem to have some kind of gestalt consciousness. PPJ also reports astral space feels roachy. They find a massive vault door sealed up but on approach it swings open and 2 humans in dingy white robes (seemingly altered lab coats) greet them and welcome them.

They bring them to a back room where a cyber-samurai named Norbert is plugged into an old NeoNet server, from what Prot0 can tell he is running a constant memory loop program that seems to be serving the function of keeping him sane(ish). He insists they leave all their weapons and armor, and they do. They begin to be initiated into the cult, eating a strange nutrient paste, and noticing occasional disappearances amongst other members. They are told they will meet Nockai soon for a blessing of his protection, but don’t really make a plan of any sort.

Most of them are summoned to Nockai, Jonny tries to follow but is KO’ed by a guard. Meanwhile, Ratched is worried about the team not turning back up after she’s worked on the safehouse for a few days, and convinces Prot0’s drone to take her back there. The rest of the team finds Nockai seemingly trying to summon a roach queen, but something is messing up the ritual, creating a huge flesh monster composed of the missing cultists. There are also some incomplete merges assisting him. Prot0 sneaks off to Norbert’s chamber and edits his memory feed to trut Prot0 and hate bugs, and then blasts open the observation window into the main ritual chamber (a repurposed lab that the team worries might be the original site of the CFD/dragon experiment).

Norbert starts firing on the bugs and fleshmonster, as Nockai and the bugs attack the team below. Ratched and the drone enter from the front and slay some cultists before joining the fray, and then getting boxed in by more merges. It’s a total bloodbath, and Guy and Aleiron are both badly inured and nearly killed. They do emerge victorious, and Prot0 convinces the team to bring Norbert and the NN server back to their safehouse with them, and also save three cult survivors.

They return to the Nub and drop the cult survivors off, 2 join Aleiron’s cult, and 1 is executed by a Mama’s Boy who assenses him and apparently notices something sketchy. Aleiron buys the others a hotel for a bit. They then go tell Mama what happened, and she seems happy- she says she has been interfering in his rituals as best as she can but it is good to have it done with. She offers a boon for their service. Prot0 and Guy had already headed back to the safehouse with Norbert and the server, so they ask for free rent on their behalf. Mama agrees so long as they stay on her good side. Ratched and PPJ unlock some increased abilities, Jonny gets a large local rep boost, and Aleiron asks to travel to the metaplanes. Mama opens a portal to the Fey Realm and Aleiron dives through, barely saying goodbye, just passing her cult off to a child reporter in Seattle and asking Prot0 to make sure to get a badge to Taysacs.

The rest of the team, surprised at Aleiron’s sudden exit, heads back to the safehouse and recovers. Prot0 preps to do a deep dive on the NN server, and PPJ offers to watch his body while the rest of the team starts looking further into Murai/Reversers. They get some initial info from less secure server partitions- it seems Norbert used to be on a team with a cybersoldier named T1, who has been raiding black labs around town to keep himself and his team functional after their secretive employer was shut down by runners. Norbert was abandoned due to cyberpschosis reducing his functionality. But they get a few other leads of spots to look for more info.

Bubby also shows up with a curious magical-oddity investigator in tow. He introduces her as Aylin Carewell and says that she seems useful, curious, and trustworthy. The team grills her a bit and she seems solid and useful, so they agree to bring her along on the first recon as a test. They head to the only official Murai address they have, on the 128 corridor out at the edge of the QZ. They find evidence of a massive gunfight, seemingly between T1’s team and facility security. T1 won, and took over the facility with some scientist hostages. It’s unclear what they were up to there exactly but they seem to have used it as a base for a time, and the team finds a jump drive that escaped destruction to get Prot0 to look at.

Murai itself seems to have been running some kind of intense nanotech experiments with significant security, while on the outside looking like a run of the mill subsidiary or small medtech lab. Interior infection protocol and prevention looks intense though, and T1 and crew seem to have executed and burned most of the non-scientific facility staff, later executing the scientists as well. There is also evidence of torture. The team finds a mysterious button, and Aylin decides to press it. Everyone else leaves after making sure they haven’t missed anything else, and Aylin presses it, triggering the destruction of the facility through a series of humorous circumstances. The team escapes, and heads back to the safehouse to go over their info…