Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia, the Street Witch

The team, having set up the meeting and gotten (almost) everyone committed to attending, takes a chill day to restock on gear and upgrade some ‘ware. They cash in their payment bonuses from Tate’s clinic, with Carol getting some major cyberleg upgrades. They do a little checking around for any hints of ambushes or trouble for the meeting but don’t find any.

Simon Andrews asks them to do external security for the meeting but Avocado talks his way inside, not wanting to miss out on the moving and shaking. Old Crow and Quantum Princess are there already setting up the Faraday cage/matrix sec, and Red and Lothan the Wise are working on magical sec. Lothan keeps muttering about dark clouds and ill portents.

The attendees start arriving, the only notable friction is some tension between Wingman and Ken Ichiro/the Yak, and between Shiro Seto and many of the others, he seems quite haughty. Simon is bantering and keeping things light while they wait for the last few arrivals, when the team gets a call from Long Pig Farms: the BBQ came under attack by gangers and bug merges! They request assistance, and Kit, ThinkTank and Creature race up that way. Just as the reach the North Zone, the team receives another call: Becky 99, Praxis, and the other Desolation Angels who were planning to attend got caught in an ambush by some Ramblers wearing bug masks, and they also request aid. Carol, Avocado, and Aradia head that way, taking Candice’s car. Some of the bodyguards split off to do more exterior sec.

Both the teams reach their targets right around the same time, in time to intervene and help out, just as they receive a third call: Juan Xiuhuitl was also ambushed by bug gangers on the way in, and is pinned down and requesting aid. The gangers that hit him and B99 were using jammers, They also get a call from Tate that his facility is under attack and was hit with an EMP, so he won’t be able to make the meeting, but he says his defenses will hold and to help the others. The North team helps chase the bug gangers off- they fall back pretty quickly. The South team has the same experience: suspicious?

All of their armor battered, the team is horrified to receive yet another call from Maggie Goldberg’s assistant, Carol Staples: the meeting was attacked by bugs! It’s a whole disaster! They race back, abandoning Juan to his fate (luckily he survives, but loses his guards and rides, as well as his limited respect for the team). They find the warehouse the meeting was at on fire and collapsing. Avocado runs in, lighting on fire, and gets a quick scan of the area. Aradia also summons a fire spirit to look for survivors and manages to pull Carol Staples out from under a Blue Samurai corpse which was sheltering her. She shares video footage and seems somewhat shell-shocked, and they review the drone footage as well.

What they piece together: wasp spirits first assaulted the magical wards, bombarding them from the top. The bodyguards split off from the central area to cover entrances. Then, a massive crater opened under the central table, pouring out ant and roach spirits. This level of spirit cooperation is unheard of and strange. Many of the VIP’s at the meeting are dragged down into the crater by ants and roaches, while trapped in wasp spit. Seto seems to have killed himself with his guard’s assistance in order to avoid capture, and SId Gambetti was killed while fighting bugs. Candice and Simon look to have made it out together, with Candice using some kind of FABIII field effect suit mod.

Holmes manages to transfer his consciousness away, Mako is revealed as a free spirit and flees in the astral after nearly getting overwhelmed by bugs, Ryu Quan and Flurris also flee in the astral, and Wingman manages to blast free on a portable jetpack and get back to his VTOL. Ken Ichiro is killed, but one of his Monad copy bodyguards gets away, so at least one instance of him survives. Mrs. Clean barely makes it out, and loses most of the baby runner team she brought as bodyguards, which she seems to feel awful about- she’s one of the only ones the team is able to get ahold of and says she is (and likely the others are) going to ground til they figure out who the traitor is.

Carol calls this all in to Dr. Ellis, unable to get ahold of Candice (maybe another EMP?), and passes along some data about bug cooperation. Ellis is fascinated and asks for more. She also agrees to send a sanitation crew and tells the team to clear the immediate area. Shortly after, the building is flattened by explosives and flooded by FABIII from some cloaked supersonics doing a flyby from O’Hare. Carol posts a warning to the Shadow Chapters and NooseNet about the FAB risk in the area.

Simon calls and pays the team to show up for a meeting.They debate going to Tate’s first, but he says they are rebuilding at his spot and he’s fine, so they’d only be in the way. The team is a little worried about that but decides to prioritize what they know is wrong. They meet with Simon at what seems like one of his safehouse/meeting spots, and gets the rundown. After assuring each other that none of them are the traitor to the best of their abilities, Simon offers them additional pay plus a bonus per VIP rescued to get working ASAP on trying to get people back- Chicago’s defenses will be pretty wrecked without these folks present.

The team heads out, deciding to swing by Goober’s first to repair armor from the earlier fight. Goober is in a PTSD flashback, but Avocado manages to snap him out of it a bit. They go back to the warehouse to do some tracking. With drones and Carol’s amazing skills and TT’s strength, they manage to get on the bug’s trails, and follow them through some tunnels bored into and through the sewers. They eventually get clear of any FAB traces and the rest of the team joins Carol and TT in the sewers. They find where the bugs emerged- they seem to have gotten into an unexpected battle with a large Union patrol near the Shattergraves.

The team examines the scene, and notices that some dour dwarf ladies are helping the wounded into a local night shelter, but all seem to be acting suspiciously similarly. There are some evanescing bug corpses present, as well as various metahumans. Kit brings the van around and they and Aradia try to help heal those they can. Creature spots a preteen nervously filming everything from a hiding place, and they bribe the kid for the footage, with too much money and a really nice gun that Carol doesn’t use much. Apparently the Union patrol stumbled into the bugs and they got into it, it sounds like Old Crow, Quantum Princess, and Sarah Silverleaf all got brought into the shelter by the dwarves, but the kid overheard one of the dwarves tell one of the bugs to take the other captives to the “Tower” and they would get these ones there soon.

The team, worried that this shelter is another Universal Brotherhood deal, get ready to raid the shelter and try to rescue whoever they can!

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia, the Street Witch

The team spends some time processing the scene after they interrupt the ritual and finds, as well as the disturbing artifact, evidence of another one as well, which is absent. It seems the threat isn’t over, though at least there isn’t a dragon Queen roaming the streets. They sell the insect shaman’s body to the Draco Foundation for a decent chunk of change, and decide to sell the info about their whole investigation and discovery to Ares and then Aztechnology with a few hours exclusivity each, and then pass it on to the Shadow Chapters, which stresses everyone out. Avocado is really opposed to the corps getting the data early, but gets out-voted, and they begin convincing Juan Xiuthuitl to sign up with the Shadow Chapters by using the info as a carrot, so not all bad.

The team then helps Long Pigs Farm write and post a public apology for the use of one of their trucks, which includes offering up some info about how the recent increase in hunger has effected the infected. LPF announces they’re hosting a public barbecue at their front gate and any are welcome. Kit and Hotkey and some other techies also help them set up a new system called GreyNet to help with authentication and whatnot to make sure people feel safe receiving deliveries from them, and also to help keep their people safe.

The crew then makes a plan to do some drugs at Freaktown to celebrate and go to another Bugstomp rave at Midway that evening, but get distracted when Avocado gets worried about the corps pulling something during their window of exclusivity. He and Carol engage in a semi-tense, semi-friendly bet about what will happen. They hear about a strange short-duration loss of connection a localized area on NooseNet, and head over to investigate, first checking to make sure that Tate didn’t get grabbed with the dragon. He didn’t, and has quickly converted one of his clinics to an isolation ward to treat the large, dangerous patient. It seems well guarded, so the team heads to the spot of the outage to investigate. With some careful CSI work they determine that someone arrived and left rapidly, using hover/aircraft with stealth tech and heavy-duty jammers, and used the Cleansing meta-magic and a cleanup crew to leave very few traces.

However, just a hint of constrained buginess hints at Ares’ involvement, though the team can’t figure out what exactly they did or who they took or whatever. They head back to the bolthole to chill til evening, and finally hear back from Beuregard Shan about the Avatar card- apparently a trio of assassins have been using the disguise of young party girls to get close to Monad or other CFD-infected targets and eliminate them, seemingly on behalf of the Corporate Court’s unofficial assassin org, the Coalition. It seems like the corps are cleaning house ahead of the Monad’s launching their spacecraft.

The team determines based on this that Joseph Mnguni, the head of Izolo Inc., may be a target since he is depicted on one of the cards linked to the Avatars, and decide to use this tip to try to get in good with Spinrad, and get Miranda King to sign up with the Shadow Chapters locally. Avocado does a decent job selling this all to MK, who seems skeptical but agrees to look into it. The team also finds with some research that Mnguni has some ties to the Heavenherds as well as to Thomas Roxborough and Universal Omnitech, from their time in Azania back in the day.

Finally ready to party, they head to Freaktown to pre-game with a contact of Aradia’s, and Kit grosses everyone out by demonstrating their CFD digestion by eating a pizza slice folded around a live rat, after asking for a Manhattan at decidedly the wrong kind of spot. They also find out that some of the changelings who live here who SURGEd during the Year of the Comet developed a FABIII immunity as part of it, and work as cleanup crews for areas where it may be present. Most of the team smokes some Chicago Grey, and Avocado learns a dangerous new trick: if he drinks blood from someone while they’re high he get trace effects, which activates all of his addictions.

The team then heads to Midway for the rave, and notices security is a bit on edge. Spotting an ex-corp combat hacker he knows, TT chats Angoka up, and finds out that the Freewatch crew that had been offering training and bug-fighting tips never showed up today and has been in a comms blackout- no call, no show, so folks are concerned. Carol and Avocado share a worried look and decide to cancel their bet, though Carol tries to justify it as a thing that was gonna happen sometime, and only happened now because of the team’s info, so it isn’t really their fault. Regardless, seems like Ares is making moves to be the only real bug fighters in town.

Avocado gets pulled aside while the rest of the team parties and dances, with TT impressing everyone with his good list of local contacts, especially some gritty old-timers like Wingman. Red, Old Crew and Quantum Princess tell Avo that they want his team to trade on the good name the team has built to contact every corp Johnson, freelance fixer, and other person who puts up money for runs, and get them all to meet up irl and talk through how they’re going to work together to fight the bug threat. Red, OC, and QP will start spreading the word through runners and the Shadow Chapters, but the team has a unique positions in town as not having made a lot of high level enemies, so they seem well suited to the task of getting the middle managers to meet. Simon Andrews is already on board and has a spot lined up.

The team begins calling around the list, and making a few additions of other mover and shakers they think should be present. Most people quickly agree due to the team’s good rep, a few are hard sells, and the only “no” they get is from Miranda King, who asks for a briefing upon her return- apparently the team’s Tarot tip paid off and she’s out of town for a bit helping deal with the aftermath. So they seem to have made good progress on getting in tighter with her but Spinrad won’t be repped at the meeting. Everyone else is planning to be there. Now the team just has to provide security and make sure it stays safe.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia, the Street Witch

The team continues hanging with Aradia, and discussing Tarot after the successful run for Maggie Goldberg. Avocado joins them and they dig deep into the Avatars. They get a somewhat frantic call from Goober, who wants to hire them on spec for a job investigating some friends of his who seem to have just gone missing. Quantum Princess is providing some hacking support already, and Goober has gotten Tate to agree to have mobile trauma unit ready to treat any rescues from the vanished community. They agree, and head to the spot, on the Northside.

After doing some quality CSI-ing, they find that the local community was knocked out with gas and kidnapped by ghouls posing as Long Pig Farms delivery driver, the real versions of which seem also to have been attacked and kidnapped. The team calls it into LPF, and Slim gives them a tracker for the truck, though he says they’ll need to get close if it already crossed into the Zone, which some Horde contacts confirm that it did.

Luckily Carol is able to track the truck via some leaking oil, and QP and Kit manage to home in on a creepy abandoned school using the tracker. There’s a large group of feral ghouls outside, who Kit makes short work of with the team van and ram plate, after Carol catches them all in a lube grenade. Carol, Aradia, TT and Creature drop down into the school from the roof, finishing off a batch of seemingly sentient ghouls who are feasting on one of the missing community members, and free 2 other captives also in the cafeteria. Avocado enters from outside and takes care of the 2 fake LPF drivers, while Carol and TT take out 2 more ghouls trying to sneak up on them by triangulating with the TacNET and Aradia’s assensing.

Kit gets the captives plus the 2 inured, real, LPF drivers stabilized and safely in the van, and also jury rigs the damaged LPF truck to work if needed before heading in as well. The team breaks down a hefty ward in the library, and finds a wide tunnel leading underground. They find some mutated ant-ghouls, but luckily just workers, who ignore them and continue tunneling. They send the drones down the other tunnel, which spot a massive ritual seemingly trying to infest a captured dragon with a bug spirit, and are then quickly destroyed. Having seen only a few guards the team decides to bum rush it.

They race in and get in a brutal fight, but manage to take out the soldier spirit merges, as well as the vampiric shaman performing the ritual. Some of the team starts freeing captives from the cocoons that worker spirits are placing them in, and TT rushes outside to call Tate to get some help. Creature and Kit and Aradia try to help the dragon, but her wounds seem serious and beyond their capacity to heal. Kit doses her with nanites are she consents (and then passes out) to try to keep her stable until Tate gets there.

They find that they only lost the one community member who was eaten, and also locate many other missing people (Leyline Walkers and others) who they hadn’t previously found, though those who have been here more than a few days are too far gone and have to be put down. Goober calls in Becky 99 to assense the survivors and make sure they’re clean before they are returned home, and Goober, Tate, and Long Pig Farms all give the team various rewards. LPF also asks for help drafting a public statement to do some damage control, since these ghouls seem to have been grabbing folks for a while and LPF doesn’t want to be associated with them, but understand that they likely will be if they don’t get on top of it.

The team also finds another upsetting artifact similar to the one at the Foul One’s lair- this one seemingly a rotting piece of food covered in writhing ants, carved in stone.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
goodbye to: Hotkey
and introducing: Aradia, the Street Witch

After his lightning strikes, almost getting caught by GOD, and pulling off some epic hacks and getting paid, HK has decided it’s time to retire from the group and spend more time with his family. He agrees to take one of the memory alteration potions from Patty C to remove some specific memories of the safehouse location, and gets removed from the team TacNET. Creature makes a small spiderweb present for him, which his daughter enjoys, and he offers to still do remote hack for hire jobs sometimes when the team needs him.

With Avocado occupied attuning himself to their safehouse environment, finally fulfilling his dryad nature, the remaining team head out to meet up with Maggie Goldberg about a job. They also hear that a new Johnson in town is hiring to find out who did the boat heist, and Carol coordinates with Candice Philips to frame a rival at ARES, which will have the dual effect of getting everyone off of the team’s tail, as well as making LoneStar look bad for arresting the ARES guy based on bad evidence when it turns out it wasn’t actually him.

They meet Maggie at the Open Enclave, and are introduced to Aradia, a street witch from Metropole who recently arrived in town, and who Maggie says has useful skills for the job. Which is, to quickly ruin a man’s life in order to get him in an unstable mental position to further some goal Maggie has. She gives them different target areas, limitations, and timelines and they agree on a fee. With the room rented for the day, the team stays there to start planning, and get to know Aradia a bit.

They come up with some solid schemes and start putting them in motion. That night, Kit drives Aradia by the man’s residence, and she casts a Foreboding spell on the master bedroom, just for a little bit, to throw him and his wife off before they sleep. The next day, Kit rents a dump truck from Goober and Carol buys a bunch of sand/dirt mix to load it up with, and TT and Kit dump in all over the driveway and lawn, making a big show of being ostentatiously sloppy, while the couple is at work. Aradia helps Carol complete the ARES con also.

That night, Aradia casts foreboding again, and then with TT and Carol works up a disguise for the next day’s plan. Creature is mostly gathering supplies for these various schemes inside the Zone, due to xyr unique appearance. The next day, Aradia, in disguise as a possible undercover restaurant critic, heads to the wife’s restaurant, while Kit does some light hacking and poses as a nearby restauranteur and calls in to warn that a critic is coming through. Aradia does some subtle social hacking to get the mood right, and then manages to entice and heavily flirt with the wife, who opens up about some trouble at home since the kids went off to college. She leaves but hints that she will return “soon.”

She then changes her disguise for the next day, in a way that should at least still be subconsciously recognizable by the wife without being overtly identifiable, and gets some fake medical records from Dr. Tate. Since it’s a weekend, they need to get the wife out of the house, so TT goes to the restaurant and blows up one of the toilets with a small charge, while pretending it was troll bulk, and fleeing quickly. With the wife rushing off to deal with the crisis, Aradia shows up, pretending to be the target’s previously unknown love child. She totally cons him, and Carol, watching the live footage, spots another angle to exploit: the couple’s son is still trapped in Boston.

Aradia gets the target to open up a bit, and also to introduce him to his wife, which as planned makes the wife very uncomfortable as she seems to partially recognize Aradia but can’t quite figure out what the fuck is going on. The target notices the discomfort, and Aradia arranges to meet him privately the next day. Carol, TT and Aradia compose a message saying they have info about the missing son, and Kit calls in a favor from a Yakuza contact. They then hire a hacker named Kobold, who seems to be running another job against the target’s workplace, to send the message to the target’s terminal, and make sure it gets opened, which Kobold will use as a spear-fishing attack to gain others access, and which will get the target in trouble at work when the security breach is traced.

The next day, Aradia meets the target a cheapish hotel near O’Hare, and fakes her own death using slab. Kit’s Yak contact calls on a burner set up for this purpose, until the target picks up, and explains that his fake daughter owed them money, and that now that she’s dead the debt transfers to him. The Yak, Ken Ichiro, offers to help deal with the body, with the understanding that this is a further favor he’ll owe them for. Ken also help him concoct a cover story for his wife. Kit and Carol, in disguise, show up at the hotel as the Yak disposal team, and further spook the target, who scampers off home, thoroughly destabilized.

The next day they hear from Kobold that he took the spear fishing bait, and she got what she needed and made sure security would notice where the breach came from. Figuring this is job complete, they report in to Maggie, who seems well-satisfied, and pays up. They are about to head back to the safehouse and part ways with Aradia for now, when she enquires if they have any Tarot knowledge (as they’ve dropped some Seelie Court hints), and reveals that she also possesses a card, and one the team hasn’t seen: The Avatars, one of the greater arcana. This seems to ensure her place on the team, at least for another run, as they agree to share knowledge and keep collab-ing for the time being.

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
and introducing: ThinkTank

The team takes a look at work offers: a job from Maggie, a job from Sid, and this pile of Tarot cards, including the 4 6’s that they completed with Keg’s contribution and the card they recovered from the Foul One’s swamp tent. They decide to focus on the Tarot first, and spend some time analyzing the 6’s, finding clues that hint to a lost treasure. Doing some research on old terminals that Lycus has collected, and some matrix research on JackPoint and DealerNet, and calling in some favors from Ryder and others, they put together the rough outline. A bee shaman kidnapped a woman in St Louis and came to Chicago just before the lockdown. The woman managed to break free and apparently his car was towed, which seems to contain his treasure, likely a large quantity of royal jelly that the shaman would have used to make the woman a new host for Bee Queen.

There are no further records, but piecing together everything they found out from the cards and the research, they think they know where it wound up, info that noone else likely has had access to. Apparently a bug cult known as Harrow’s Hive is also after the treasure, having put out some feelers about it over the years. The team has a lengthy debate and series of votes about what to do with this info, as well as what to do with the cards themselves, which will likely be useful in some sort of ritual, which may or may not be connected.

They end up deciding to recruit ARES to help retrieve the jelly, and sell it to them, in exchange for ARES agreeing to wipe out Harrow’s Hive. Carol calls Dr. Ellis, who is creepily excited about this prospect. The team worries they may have made a mistake not getting this to Arleesh, but Carol argues that at least ARES will use it to fight bugs, even if their methods are creepy, and anyway it’s too late to change the plan now. Avocado also reaches out to the Ebon Queen, through Dan the Formorian safehouse master, to try to find out about the ritual. She contacts Hotkey in a dream and tells him that it will allow for magical shapeshifting for a limited duration for up to 12 participants, but only to a limited set of appearances.

Another debate ensues, partially because one of the potential appearances is that of Hansu Mitoritsu, the famed prophecist, which Avocado worries could be used to sow dangerous chaos. So, at TT’s suggestion, they sell the set to a group of assassin’s with moral codes who he knows. He compiles a group of 12 to offer the buy in to, without being overly specific, and gets 7 takers. So the team gets 2 decent paydays! They then head out to get the jelly and hope not to get swarmed by bugs til they can make the handoff to ARES.

They find it right where it should be- it seems a quickened, masked illusion spell has kept it concealed all these years as the other cars around it in the impound were stolen, broken up for parts, or wrecked. TT pops the trunk open and they find a massive jar of opalescent jelly. Carol, with his enhanced smell ability, almost succumbs to temptation and eats some, but the rest of the team stop him. They race out of the lot as they hear fluttering wings incoming, and rendezvous with ARES choppers who blast the bugs (and the neighborhood) with FAB III and conventional weaponry.

Ellis emerges in some ill-fitting combat armor, and trades payment for the jelly, once again seemingly disturbingly excited to have it. Carol calls Candice to warn her that Ellis may be trending bug-ward, and Candice tells him not to worry about, as Ellis is “well in hand.” She also hints about something called “Operation Latvian Gambit” but clams up when she realizes that Carol hasn’t been read in yet. The team also decides to do a little good, and gives the Matrix card, with an explanation of it’s use, to Sam, so she can have at least a temporary return of her lost TM powers, and close up any unfinished business in the Resonance. She is very touched and thrilled to be properly reunited with Remo, overcoming her initial suspicions that this is some kind of cruel joke. Ryder and Remo are both also grateful.

The team then decides to accept Sid’s job, for some industrial sabotage, and heads to the Navy Pier, in Union turf, to meet with him and the Johnson. The Johnson turns out to be none other than Wingman, the head of Spire Enterprises, and TT bonds with him over some shared war stories. They accept his job to sabotage a shipping/smuggling competitor who is trying to move in on his turf, by stealing or destroying a shipment of medical supplies from a company that usually uses Spire, but instead went with the competitor this time. The team explains they won’t pollute the lake, not wanting to anger the Sea Dragon, and Wingman says their methods are up to them so long as the shipment doesn’t reach it’s destination.

They head out to start researching. They also formally invite TT into the team, intro him to the safehouses, and also the group norms, which Creature quietly reads in the background, since noone ever actually told xyr that they were a thing before. They drive down to Calumet Harbor to do some initial digging, but after surveilling the place it seems a little tricky to gain access to the Simurgh Freight offices, and with Hotkey having his new Agent loaded up, he’s feeling cocky and just does the whole investigation himself with a slick hack. He gets the boat name, route, and crew manifest (including security), just before a demiGOD shows up and he bails. Kit races away from the area as some sec drones start circling.

Reviewing what they found, they make a plan, and decide to recruit some allies and gear up. Becky 99 reaches out and tells them she heard about the gig (Avo confirms this was her putting 2 and 2 together after getting minimal details from an over-excited Sid, but still…). She wants them to save the four containers and bring them to her, as they contain medical supplies which can be put to good use in Zone communities. Avo checks with the Sea Dragon’s local rep, Mako, about this being ok to do on the water, which Mako seems to view as an approval they definitely needed to get, but does give the go ahead, telling them to send at least one container from the ship to the lake floor as an offering. They also recruit Big Meat and spirit assistance from Ryujin in exchange for one of the containers of medical supplies.

Feeling like they have the beginnings of a plan, they add some tow capability to the sub, and also buy a powered sled with a tow hook and a bunch of diving gear. They arrange for the Desolation Angels to meet them at Goober’s docks to accept their goods, and get some rest before heading out to intercept the ship. Creature is in the VTOL, aiming to alpha strike the enemy sniper, hoping noone else will be on deck due to the gnarly storm that has blown in. Xe gets dropped stealthily basically right on the sniper, and manages to poison them with a paralytic and also uses xyr spider silk gland to pin their hands until it kicks in. Unfortunately, xe comes under attack from a spirit of air, and can’t get the rest of the team aboard, so onto plan B for that.

Kit surfaces the sled and ThinkTank chucks the winch hook up to the deck, allowing Avo to quickly slither up it and hide, as TT follows with Kit on his back. HK, meanwhile, is busily bricking devices left and right in an all-out matrix assault with Kit’s assistance. They manage to cut the sniper’s comms early, and then also take out the rigger just before HK is hit by lightning (twice!) and nearly killed. Kit manages to finish off the decker with their new Monad Cloud abilities, and then sneaks over the crane and starts throwing cargo around. Avo and TT manage to take out the 2 close combat specialists who come to repel boarders without killing either, before Avo is chased off by the spirit, who has also dumped Creature over the side. Avo takes some bad astral damage, and then TT tangles with the spirit to keep it distracted from Kit. TT also gets chucked off the side, but Kit finishes up with the crane and dives into the water, rigging the sub remotely to grab their sinking body, as they can’t swim.

Everyone else manages to link back up and get aboard the various vessels, and with the help of Big Meat, the water spirit, and Creature, TT and Avo all being quite strong, and Kit quite good at rigging, manage to send one spare container to the bottom for the Sea Dragon and capture the other 4. Big Meat takes one back for the merrow as promised, and the water spirit helps them get the other 3 to the Deso Angels, keeping the storm from causing much trouble. Mission accomplished, they get paid by Becky and Sid (after his cut), and boost their rep with them as well as with Wingman. They head back to the safehouses to rest up and get ready for Maggie’s job next.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
goodbye to: Keg
introducing: Leonid
guest appearances from: Aylin, Toast, April Halfwoman, Chessick Allens-Whitehill

The team takes some downtime as Aylin gets back to town with Patty C from linking up Arleesh with Mama and the Sea Dragon for some sort of “secret project.” They hire Carol and Keg as local guides and assistants, alongside Kit’s old Evo contact Leonid, a rigger who Kit thought had died in a test pilot crash. Leonid seems to have slipped into the shadows and is in Chicago looking for work for a bit. Fargus Sol has also hired the assassins Toast and April, and the face/hacker Chessick, who was already in Chicago, to round out the team. They decide to run a con on the Black Lodge to get them to bring the 3rd Book of 9 Gates to town, and then ambush them, but also expect a counter-ambush.

They use the artifact they found at the Foul One’s base as a lure, and carefully leak the intel that they possess it and are looking to trade for one of the books, hinting at cult connections. Chessick plays up how they really don’t know what they have and aren’t a real threat to try to minimize response. They get a call back shortly, and Chessick negotiates the trade and sets up a meet spot based on the team’s scouting. He and Leonid then retreat to a nearby bar to provide remote matrix and drone support for the mission. They team has chosen the former GI lab that Ares just raided to minimize any collateral damage or LoneStar interactions during this encounter, and Leonid helps April get in place with a sniper rifle above Spire Enterprises in their building’s unused floors.

Carol, Aylin and Keg are the ground team making the handoff, while Toast provides overwatch from a nearby roof. The Vigilia Evangelica is waiting nearby with the 3rd Book in a chopper with a mobile exorcism ritual set up insde, and Fargus Sol and other Arleesh operatives are also close-ish with the third book to trade back for the toxic artifact. The BL team arrives via invisible levitation, but Toast and April spot them setting up a trap as well and spring their ambush first. Unfortunately, 6Cylinder is present in his new vengeful spirit form, and quickly kills Toast before he is felled by April and Keg. However, he doesn’t disapparate, and Aylin notices he seems to be bound to his gun- she severs the connection with her whip, and he vanishes into the gun. She grabs it.

Meanwhile, in a chaotic gun and spell fight, the team manages to fell the Black Lodgers, with big assistance from an alchemically invisible April and quality drone support from Leonid, who also manages to snatch the Book the BL brought out from the middle of the fight. They finish them off, and strangely find that Toast’s body has vanished, leaving a hint of dragon mana vibe behind… They hightail it over to the Catholics, while Keg and April hop on a bike to swap artifacts with Fargus Sol, who is accompanied by a woman who is quite possibly Arleesh in human form. Avocado joins up to negotiate on behalf of Aylin, and convinces the Catholics to also include 6Cyl’s revolver in the ritual to try to free his spirit also.

The chopper takes off, hearing from Carol (on overwatch) that BL reinforcements, or some other hostile, are en route. April and Keg take out one of the reinforcements on their way back with the Book, and chuck it into the chopper, which starts heading out over the lake to ditch pursuers. Carol and Leonid manage to take out the second pursuer, though Tate’s clinic roof and top floor is badly damaged by a missile aimed at Carol that he has to jump off the building to avoid. In the chopper, the Catholic exorcist leads the ritual while the alchemist tries to stabilize the whole thing, with Patty C’s assistance.

Aylin reaches out and feels a brief moment of connection with 6C before a massive pressure wave blows out all the windows in the chopper and sends them into a spin. The pilot manages to right it and land them, and Aylin notices the revolver has exploded, but finds an intact grip to keep as a memento. Patty C explains that both Aylin and 6C are finally free from Tohu-Wa-Bohu but that, and 6C is fully gone. Aylin will not be able to bond with a regular mentor spirit again, but Mama has offered her patronage, it seems she is the Spirit of the City of Boston, and possible one of (if not the) only surviving Passions from the 4th World. Mama had explained to Patty C that Spirits of the City will likely be an early target for Horror corruption in the 6th World, much as Passions were in the 4th. This explains some of what the Foul One was potentially up to, helping shedim and using her strange artifact. More disturbing things to investigate…

Keg, having been badly wounded yet again on this mission, decides to take off with April, who finds him somewhat useful and very easy to manipulate, by promising him regular sex with a mostly robotic “hot” person and regular doses of Jazz. It seems sort of sad and weird but noone really tries to talk Keg out of it, as he is very gung-ho. The rest of the team rests up and spends some their payday. April also gets Carol a recommendation to join Brokerage X, finally, and he gets assigned an ex-runner using the street named 3Card as his handler there, and finds out about some of the strange investment opportunities they offer. Carol also convinces the team to give the intel they found about Toast to ARES, likely limiting Toast’s future usefulness to Saeder-Krupp significantly.

April, Aylin, and Patty C have also all been recruited into a new magical threat fighting, semi-formal organization called Grey Cell, which is the project that Arleesh has been putting together and recruiting backers for: they are getting various specialists on retainer to be able to respond to magical threats and oddities with more agility and speed as they arise, and these three all seem to have passed their test with this mission’s success and gained an invite, which they accept. Aylin and Patty C agree with the team to keep using Ahabitat when they are in town but to maintain secrecy norms and whatnot about it, and they will likely not be there much, but Patty C offers to try to help keep the Vault of Ages a little stocked up.

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
and introducing: ThinkTank

Hotkey and Enkaa have been helping expand Opti’s area of positive influence, partially out of HK feeling guilty over literally blowing up his spot shortly after arriving in town, and Enkaa has now founded a Sprawl Scouts chapter in the neighborhood as well to encourage positive action amongst the various youth, and an alternative to gang life for some. HK also hears from Mrs. Clean that she has a pro contact in town if the team needs another member to fill in the recent loss of Keg. HK gets the contact number and says he’ll be in touch. Clean warns him that although the new guy knows his stuff, he’s also a little old school and used to mostly working solo, or at least not with a regular crew.

The rest of the team bids a temporary farewell to Aylin and Patty C as they head for Boston, and plan out next steps. They decide to look into the missing runners for the Shadow Chapters, and do some matrix and IRL digging, after picking up HK and his new contact ThinkTank, a massive, elderly troll, who seems to be surprisingly nondescript for his size and who has worked primarily as an assassin, and seems to know a weird mix of people around town from that life. They manage to narrow down the likely places where the missing team (runners they competed for a job with their first night in town!) might have vanished from, and locate their former safehouse: now a nano-facturing site under construction by ARES.

Making contact with some local activists trying to organize a protest, Avocado finds a survivor of the raid that cleared the building for ARES to move in, a local squatter named Gravy. Gravy relates how a team of runners looked out for the squatter community that lived there and used it as a safehouse between jobs. A team of well-armed mercs broke in after the runners’ last mission (a total milk run) concluded, and killed them while they slept. They also killed any squatters who didn’t instantly flee, and then posted up til the official ARES presence arrived. Gravy thinks the mercs then changed into ARES Sec uniforms and are still onsite.

Reviewing descriptions and whatnot, the team determines this is likely the freelance mercs they’ve run into a few times in town, working on ARES’ behalf. Gravy also tells them the location of a secret tunnel he used to escape, that he doesn’t think the mercs found since he closed it behind himself, in exchange for Avo promising revenge. The team investigates the tunnel, and makes a deal with a feral dog shaman and his pack of cram-addicted dogs to pass to and fro in exchange for obeisance and small payment, which Creature manages well with xyr animal knowledge.

They find the tunnel entrance into the building sealed and intact, and HK gets some old records of floor plans from Lycus, while Kit gets Remo to find building info- it seems ARES acquired this spot recently in the NeoNET fire sale, it was formerly one of their holdings through a series of corp collapses and acquisitions since the Zone went up. The neighborhood is rapidly getting corporatized though, with a new “edgy” sports bar moving in down the block and the Maker’s Collective getting sponsored by Horizon. The team reports into Jazz, their main Shadow Chapters contact, who tells them she’ll work on a proper job to get revenge, as they can’t let this stand. She offers the team first option for this job, since they already know the in’s and out’s and they seem interested.

She gets back a little while later with the news that Tate is interested in sponsoring, as he’s been quite skeptical on the dangers of nanofacture, and Avo and the rest of the team starts planning how to boost the protest outside (as well as the brutal eviction, ARES is also busing in all the workers, so no local jobs) and how to use it as a distraction, though Kit insists they can’t put protestors at extra risk. They go meet with Tate, who seems invested in using this an opportunity to get protestors away from his clinic by distracting them with nano-fears. Avocado agrees to help stir up a bigger protest and also con the Freedom Network into redeploying their Popular Will protestors to this site. The rest of the team agrees to take a job from Tate to destroy the 2 nano-forges ARES will have onsite. He wants it done overnight, before employees are bused in to start running tests and begin production the next day, but otherwise leaves collateral damage up to the team.

They gear up with some assorted stealth tech, and pick up 2 thermite burning bars that Tate provided. HK calls Opti to get him to get some drones onsite, and he reports that 2 competing vloggers are also there, one more pro-corp, one more pro-“the people”, both a bit obnoxious. The team also sends a bunch of fireworks to the protest for added distraction, with instructions to Avo to use as needed. They string drones along to make a comms relay as they head back into the sewers. They bribe Mange and his pack with drugs and med supplies, and get safe passage. They safely enter the facility undetected, and Kit finds a spare coverall that fits, and slips out of the supply closet with some more drones to do some recon.

Kit manages to bluff some techs that they belong (as they are a nanotech expert), and gets a look around- only one forge is present! They find a shipping manifest suggesting the other is enroute, but will arrive too late for the team to risk waiting. HK manages to hack in to the host after Kit finds a vulnerable data port, and gets the transit info for the truck the other forge is on. Kit decides to do a more complex sabotage on the present one to make it look like maybe an accident, and they and HK collab on a script to get the nanites to start self-cannibalizing and eating the machine. ThinkTank provides some burning bar tips, and Kit uploads the script and burns a hole in the safe nanite containment vessel, causing some rapidly escalating chaos.

The few techs onsite start trying to put out the fire and then quickly call for deploying and EMP to limit nanite spread, and the team escapes via the chaos, with ThinkTank leaving a nasty little (nonlethal) chemical bomb rigged up for anyone who follows, which he made while stuck in the supply closet. They rip down the guide lights in the sewer as they exit to slow any followers further, and head topside. Avocado stays at the protest to keep things from escalating far enough that the ARES guards will start shooting live ammo, and the rest of the team quickly gets Goober to camo spray the van before picking an ambush site.

Carol also calls up and hires the Frenemies, the smash and grab crew that they met a few weeks back on another job, to get them to do their thing and cause another traffic jam on the route, getting the forge truck stuck for the team to hit. They race over and find the Frenemies worked well on a tight schedule, and staged a multi-vehicle crash just outside the West Zone entrance, trapping the forge truck on a frontage road. Kit parks just outside the jam, and the team heads in on foot, TT and HK racing forward as Creature blows open the back of the truck and takes out drones from afar, with fire support from Carol. A spirit slows them down a bit, but Kit manages to ram it back to the metaplanes with the van, and HK provides cover for TT to get into the back of the truck and hurl the thermite bar into the forge there, and then convince the ARES guards to let them back slowly away before someone gets killed- everything has been nonlethal so far, and the only damage was to spirits and drones.

The ARES guards agree, feeling literally trapped, and the team flees. Carol makes some elaborate plans to use his new Brokerage X access to help ARES out though- he’s going to tip Candice Phillips to what happened before it goes public, so she can figure out a way to make some money off of the insider trading. He also plans to use this as a way to get Candice on board with the Shadow Chapters, explaining that this kind of thing doesn’t need to happen how it did, and only went this way because ARES geeked a bunch of well-respected runners in their sleep. Tate seems pleased with their work, as usual, and pays up, as well as signing on for the Shadow Chapters himself.

While everyone heals up and some get implants/upgrades, Carol calls Candice, who says she’s never liked him or understood why his dad vouched for him, until now, and that she finally respects him at least. She hints that ARES global has some ambitions that won’t be bothered about losing a major investment in the Chicago branch, and agrees to participate in the Shadow Chapters to ensure smoother operations in the future. Carol feels this was a grand success, all in all.

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Keg

Meeting with Lothan, the team finds out what he needs done: an old enemy needs to be permanently dealt with, as he worries about what she is doing to the local manasphere in this time of flux, and also is trying to kill him more actively than usual. He explains that this a toxic mosquito shaman named the Foul One, who is also a wendigo. He gives them some pro tips on fighting wendigos, and also says that as she is a skilled mimic and has him under surveillance, they won’t be able to discuss the job again til it’s done for fear of interference He teaches Avo some basic assensing in order to be able to positively ID him in person (hopefully). He also gives them a quicksilver camera to help them prove they fought toxies, in order to get bounty payouts from various groups, and also a variety of potions in order to empower them in the battle to come.

Kit buys and starts tricking out a classic runner van to replace Avo’s dead car, adding on the useful bits the Frenemies salvaged at Goober’s yard. The rest of the team gathers equipment and intel. They make a plan, which is to use Ares to assault the northern branch of Swamp Thangs turf, in Shattergaves, to pull off some defenders, use Desolation Angels to fight mosquito spirits in the Calumet Swamp, and have the team do an alpha strike on the Foul One and her core cadre that remains. Carol gets some FAB III grenades, which Ares seems creepily eager to see used, and also meets a Dr. Ellis, who he recalls from the team file as one of the Project Apex heads from DeeCee. She offers their services again, saying they are excited to test out the updated version. After some careful social investigation, and some favors to Tate and Ryder and drone surveillance, they ID the likely base of ops in Shattergraves, an abandoned Gilgamesh Initiative lab that had once hosted an insect shaman, and which seems to be connected via new tunneling directly to the heart of Shattergraves. They tip Ares to this, and hope they can limit collateral damage, not wanting any chance of the ST’s getting tipped off.

Avo also recalls that the Desolation Angels magical order had a weird “friendly bug” vibe when he initiated, and carefully investigates this via their member Praxis. She doesn’t fully confirm, but they seem likely to be mantid spirits, which hunt and eat other bugs. They tell the DA’s that they have FAB and plan to have them hang back and fight spirits so they don’t get exposed. The team also finds out that Foul One has long been importing strange relics and items into the CZ, including the Jade Cup that the team recently used to close the shedim threat from Auslander. She apparently started following mosquito while on an expedition deep in the Amazonain jungle, where she found a valley full of strange temples to various insects, and she is also an acolyte of something called the “Vast Green”, seemingly an eco-fascist movement, or possibly a Horror, with some connection the Logos death cult and Sirrurg, the Destroyer. All worrying stuff…

The team spends a bit of time gearing up and upgrading arms and armor. They get in place with the Deso Angels, near to the Calumet Swamp lair. Carol calls in the Ares strike force to the Shattergraves site, and the team gives it 45 minutes based on estimated travel times and whatnot to lure away as many defenders as possible. They enter the edge of the swamp, come under assault by spirits, and retreat, luring the spirits into the Deso Angels trap. The team splits off and heads in. The woods are disturbing and seem to be moving about and trying to trick them. They end up fighting some flesh forms and a radiation spirit, expending one of the FAB III charges. They continue on and find that twisted trees are moving around behind and around them, guiding them towards the center.

Creature tries to get a better look, and scales a tree, but is almost consumed by it’s toxic core. Avo confirms they’re headed towards the worst place in the astral, at least. They continue, and use 2 more FAB grenades to try to pierce confusing illusions they find themselves within before realizing that they are already inside of the tent, made of human skins, that the Foul One uses as her mobile magical lodge. They get into a brutal fight with a mosquito spirit, 4 toxic shamans, and the Foul One herself, managing to quickly take out 2 of the shamans and the spirit (via Creature’s monofil garrote plus an impressive jump, and another FAB grenade). They also set off another FAB grenade and the Sunbeam potion from Lothan, trying to tag the Foul One, but mostly miss on both. Luckily, all the damage and excitement has allowed most of the team to see through the illusions at least, giving them a fighting chance.

The fight continues, with the team felling the 2 remaining shamans, and a second wave of flesh forms as well as a toxic gator arriving. The gator nearly kills Carol before leaving him for dead and chasing down Creature, as both Keg and HK are felled by various attacks, only to be revived by Kit, frantically charging around the battlefield with their medical shield deployed. Creature manages to avoid getting killed by the gator and lobs a couple grenades into it’s mouth as it snaps, but is nearly killed xyrself by the nearby explosions. HK manages to finish the gator off with some APDS, though it’s much less effective at piercing it’s thick hide, so the team is quite glad Creature managed to attack it from inside.

The standing survivors finally get to focus their attention on the Foul One, and a few notice that she has left an illusory self behind while attempting to retreat. Keg manages to tag her with a machine pistol burst, staggering her and giving Avocado enough time to charge up and bite her. As her final act she overcasts a massive toxic wave, killing Avo by burning a huge hole through his center. Luckily, he’s a banshee now, so Kit manages to just barely stabilize him enough to swallow some of the healing potions from Lothan, and Kit uses the rest of the potions to get the rest of the team on their feet.

They notice that the gator and the rest of the tent (and swamp) seem to be rapidly going through cycles of rot and regrowth, in a chaotic somewhat cancerous way, and decide they better beat feet as the water is also rising. Keg, needing a trophy, manages to tear off a section of the Foul One’s rotted armor jacket, and finds a strange journal in the pocket. HK, unable to stifle his curiosity, salvages a data core and finds a strange hidden artifact, a writhing ouroboros of vines, inside 2 rusting old school terminals. They flee.

Luckily, Avo rallies and manages to give some solid tips to Kit, who handily navigates them out. They are all crashing badly from combat drugs, but the swamp seems so chaotic in it’s magical fits as to be effectively ignoring them. They find the surviving Deso Angels outside, who seem to have lost 1 of their members and 1 of the newbs, but say the other newb proved herself and will replace their lost sister. Avo senses a fresh mantid vibe to her, and decides to investigate more later. They get in the van and head out for medical and money. They decide to pass the artifact to Fargus Sol, trusting him to be able to transport and keep it safe. He tells them to stay mobile and he will have some local operatives grab it on the road, and tells them he’ll have some work for them soon.

A cybered-up elf (Toast) and a dead-eyed cybered-up woman (April Halfwoman) roll up on bikes, and Toast does some fancy gymnastics to hop over to the van, grab the arifact, and swing back onto his bike before they speed off. Sol calls them a while later and informs them that this artifact would have a corrupting influence on spirits and the mana sphere, and to tell noone else of its existence. Meanwhile, Carol calls in a favor to get an expedited bounty license on his legal SIN, and they drop off the proof at Archangel Bounty Redemption, getting a significant payout the next day after it’s all reviewed. They head over to Lothan, verify it’s really him, and give him the brief also. Keg has discovered another 6 Tarot card in the journal, which they tell Lothan, and give him the rest of the info except about the artifact. Lothan suggests he would like to be involved, suspecting that something larger is at work, and gives the team some hints as to what he thinks the Foul One was up to (basically, corrupting spirits and the manasphere to ensure that whatever spirit follows Calumet, who was slain by FAB III as the Spirit of the City, it will be a toxic one). The team tips Fargus Sol, who says that Lothan has been on a list of theirs to contact anyway, so he’ll reach out.

He also reports that Aylin and Patty C are headed back to town, and suggests that this new artifact will be the perfect lure for the Black Lodge- they couldn’t resist such power, and would likely be willing to trade the Book that Aylin needs for it. Of course, the trade will never happen, as Sol and Aylin are putting together a team to ambush the BL, but also expecting unexpected treachery, this being the Lodge and all. The team then heads to Tate’s and heals up, with some members getting some upgrades with their hard-earned cash, and Avo needing to stay a few days to get the few organs he actually needs replaced. They also all have a decent amount of exposure to toxicity so get some antibiotics and screenings, and have some gear that needs repair.

Kit reaches out to Jackpoint and other places, and HK does some research, to find out more about mantids. They are from the plane of Vhortas, as are all bug spirits, but they can only reproduce by killing other bug spirits, and it seems like most mantid cults only make good merges (or destroy any others), which maintain both the original personality and the inhabiting bug. Strangely, as a shared personality themself, Kit is the most bothered by this, but overall the team decides the Deso Angels are good allies to continue working with, just also being aware of this new context. Kit posts all the job info to JP (minus the artifact again) in thanks, which secures the rest of the team provisional access. HK also makes sure this same info makes it way to Mrs Clean for Sierra Corp.

Kit also reaches out locally to find out more about the Ash Union and the Shadow Chapters, and getting good vibes from both, and some talk of collabs, pitches the team on a job: find some local runners who missed their last meet and noone has heard from in a few days.

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Keg

Creature heads in to get some new animalistic upgrades and Keg upgrades his ears while the rest of the team rests up after the investigation. They get a frantic call for a last minute job from Maggie Goldberg, and head to Miller’s Pub to meet up with her, Keg and HK meet them there. She seems stressed and explains a prototype deck was stolen in transit, and she needs it back within 2 days. She emphasizes this is a hard deadline. They agree to pay, and she sends them out the site of the theft to investigate. They find a traffic jam at the NW Zone entrance, and discover it was caused by local gangers who loosed some hogs from a hauler and caused some crashed via hacking. They track the gangers to a nearby bar they’re based out of, and pressure them into giving up who hired them, Avo takes a smooth route while Keg and Carol act tough, and the gangers eventually agree to a bribe to fill the team in. Since they seems useful, if not overly loyal, the team figures they also might come in useful someday.

The gang, the Frenemies, was hired by some runners with badly concealed NN logos on their armor. They recognized the main runner, a dwarf, as a guy named Aaron who grew up nearby. The team does some research, and spots what looks like some invisible figures using magic to access the truck that the prototype was in while the Frenemies caused the distraction. They also call in a favor with Ryder and find Aaron is probably a runner who goes by Grappler, and get a safehouse location nearby from a snitch. HK confirms with Jagoda Rajni that this wasn’t them, and she sells him the info that a former NN stash spot was raided about a week ago- armor and such was taken. So the team assumes Grappler’s runners were false flagging. They head over to the safehouse to check it out and find it is mostly a burned out building with a few security and surveillance upgrades. They leave Avo at a nearby coffin motel as he’s too astrally obvious.

They circle back to the motel to plan, but the drones they leave behind spot yet another team prepping to move on Grappler’s runners. They race back over, and call in Jagoda Rajni plus a few others and mage as backup, for a decent payout. Carol gets the VTOL to drop him on the roof of the building that this other team is in, and spots a sniper team. He lube grenades and tackles them off the roof, taking them out and badly injuring himself. A mage almost finished him off from the Renraku team and major firefight ensues. Keg is nearly killed, and HK spots Grappler’s runners using the chaos to make a run for it. Avo makes a deal with them after avoiding some traps they left, to help save their friend (why they say they needed the prototype, which HK confirms is a serious deck) in exchange for cooping against the Renraku team and not fighting each other. Kit manages to just barely save Keg, and Jagoda Rajni and the backup team finally arrive to provide medical and extraction, since the Renraku team destroyed Avo’s car.

The team hires the Frenemies to strip the useful parts off the car and keep the rest as payment, and gets Keg, Carol, Kit and HK extracted safely via VTOL, with Rajni’s mage providing some stabilizing healing for the journey. Avocado leaves with the other runners to try to make a deal. When the team arrives at Tate’s clinic, they are amused to find Creature there, mid-surgery, adding some monkey feet to their animal ‘ware repertoire. They get there in time and save Keg’s life, though he needs a replacement jaw and opts for the most cyber option possible: the junkyard jaw. Meanwhile, Avocado does some social digging, and due to his good rep and skills, manages to make a deal. It seems the other runners and Maggie have a missing friend in common, so she agrees to let them use the deck to make a fake handoff, which will actually be a trap, get their friend back, and then give her the deck. They head off to Seattle to make it all happen in time. The team still gets paid most of their pay for the job too, as Maggie seems satisfied with how things worked out, even with the complications.

The team all heal up a bit and then bond at the safehouse, though HK is once again off doing his own thing, helping out Opti in expanding his “safe” zone. Keg opens quite a bit about his life, recent tragic past, and whatnot. They check messages a few times, and eventually decide to pay off their debt to Lothan by helping him resolve a problem that has been plaguing him. Carol also orders an experimental armor mod from Ares to limit his falling damage in future, a modification of some test pilot emergency deceleration foam.

Runners
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Keg

The team spends a bit of time in Ahabitat, but get bored quickly. Aylin and Patty have left on a mission for Arleesh and Fargus Sol, to make introductions to Mama in Boston and to the Sea Dragon wherever they can find her. Without any work on their immediate horizon, Hotkey decides to spend some time with his fam, repairing his deck, and helping Opti rebuild and expand his safe zone, so heads up to O’Hare for a bit. The rest of the crew just heals up and waits for their few times a day message buoy to bring them something. This eventually bears fruit, as they receive a few work opportunities. Red wants them to foil a Fear The Dark plot, Tate wants them to redirect the hate and paranoia that the Freedom Network has been directing his way towards someone/thing else, and Ryder wants help with a cold case. They decide to follow up on this as Carol also hopes it will present an opportunity to embarrass LoneStar and get him back into Ares’ good graces after the last mission.

They meet up with Ryder and (surprise) Tate, at a bar “cleverly” named The Coffee Shop. Ryder gives them some case files and says he can’t be much more direct help, but that he’ll make sure the team gets a decent payday from the reward money if they can solve the mystery and catch the killer. Tate offers a little upfront money to entice them, saying when questioned that the dead man had helped him with some property dealings. The team agrees and digs in. First off, Kit takes a thorough look at the autopsy, and discovers that it was fairly short and minimally investigative, and that they missed some details and failed to explain others. Unsure what the strange wound patterns could have been caused by, he also posts it to Jackpoint hoping for some tips, and finds out from some AztAm war vets that it looks like a bullet wound to a prone individual.

Next they head to the scene (though 6 months after the crime), and talk to some hotel staff and check out the room, undercover as “Ghost Boyz” a paranormal investigations crew. Comparing notes to the fairly lackluster case file, they decide noone at the hotel was involved, and finding some furniture moved slightly and a bad wall patch, they figure out that someone sitting on the bed in the next room over fired a heavy pistol through the wall once, striking the victim and killing him. Due to his position and weight, the entry wound was discounted as a secondary injury or side effect of the unexplained internal injuries, rather than the start of the bullet’s path as it ricocheted around his body.

They get some records from the hotel and confirm the case file’s info that 3 electricians had been partying in the next room but had all “not seen or heard anything.” Kit calls Remo to check out their place of employment, and finds they all still work there but they have decent matrix security. Both the electrical contractor and the hotel are Ares subsids (way down the corporate ladder) and the dead man was freelance, so they can’t figure a connection yet. Avo calls up and manages to get some info from the combative receptionist, who agrees to send 2 of the men from the room over to meet with them (the team is posing as property developers sourcing bids) after their jobs for the day are wrapped.

The team manages to get the rest of the 2 men’s crews to leave in one work van and split off the 2 suspects. Creature, Keg and Avocado all team up to do an impressive analysis and combined god cap/bad cop scenario and get them to spill the beans: the 3rd man was the shooter, it was an accident, and they all figured noone needed to know since the cops on site the next day said it looked liked natural causes. They get the 3rd guy’s number and call him up, getting an annoying “joke” answering machine message, but Remo manages to trace it to Ramblers turf in the Zone.

They hatch a plan, having also heard that the 3rd man had reached out to a lawyer who had defended him before. Kit drives Avo and Keg to Milwaukee to the lawyer’s office after failing to dupe him on the phone, and Creature and Carol infiltrate on foot with the fly spys and the VTOL overhead into Ramblers turf. Kit takes over drone control once he’s parked, and Avo and Keg break into the lawyer’s office and do a combo of threatening and bribing him to cooperate. He caves quickly, and not only calls the 3rd man to get him outside of the well-guarded house he’s in, but also gives the team the murder weapon and some data files showing that the original detective was on the take to both the lawyer and to Knight Errant (who didn’t want this case solved as it would look bad for Ares contractors to kill a civvie in an Ares hotel).

Carol and Creature send in the fly spys, who does the 3rd man with a KO agent, and then load him into the VTOL, which Kit pilots over to one of Tate’s clinics, where he will keep the man on ice til him and Ryder figure out what they want to do with him. The team also figures out that the man was Ryder’s brother, and Tate’s brother in law, which helps explain why the 2 surviving men have such a well-established unlikely friendship. Kit drives the rest of the team back, they get paid as promised, and they all call it a night after a strange but satisfying job.