Runners
Carol
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

The team peruses the dossier from Vogel on the drive in, and sees an impressively militarized city before them. ARES troops, many in what looks to be nearly brand new armor, guard checkpoints through the 8 meter high border wall (lined with bio-fiber), and a state of (soft) martial law has been declared- by entering the city, they are told they are agreeing to be subject to immediate corporate corporal punishment at any security forces discretion. However, once they enter the city itself the mood seems less dire. The populace seems to (mostly) be accepting that this is merely a criminal round-up and sweep and ARES joint forces training exercise.

The team drives around a bit to get a feel for the city- their new SINs seem to work just fine, though they do get thoroughly checked at the Zone crossings near the city core, which seems to be where ARES is preparing to launch and contain Operation: Latvian Gambit. Creature, Tabasco and Creep leverage their memberships on Jackpoint and ShadowSea to get invites to d.matrix and Frozen Shadows, the two more local boards, and get some additional insight into the various neighborhoods and where to find some safehouse options. They head to Vendor’s Row and meet Weathernight at an excessively generic sandwich shop that disconcertingly only sells noodles.

She’s doing a remarkable job at a light disguise to make her look like she could plausibly be working for a different corp, without being so obvious as to attract attention. Once they are in the restaurant, she shoos the cook away (after he delivers some mediocre food to Chew Gum), and gets down to business. Vogel has determined that as well as himself, Otto Hendricks also appears to be vying with Damien Knight for power within ARES. Worse yet, Vogel has detected the working of a secret 4th faction, but has no idea who they are, or what their agenda is. Given this, he needs the team to extract certain promising executives, to make sure they remain safe and intact during the transition and his ascent to power.

Weathernight gives the team the first 3 names, and limited dossiers on each, as well as her take on where each should be extracted for maximum chance of success. She offers a large payday given the difficulty of the task as well as the short timeline. The team agrees, gets some money upfront on Carol’s suggestion, and heads out. They scope out the safehouse that Weathernight suggested be used as a stash spot for the 3, and plan to get their own personal safehouse in the Blight. They decide to do the targets in reverse order of expected difficulty, and go after the one they need to grab on the go first.

They head over to Grosse Pointe to check out his house- a decent shoreside mini-mansion. Spotting a groundskeeper walking the dogs, they decide to kidnap the pets as a way in, while Creep sneaks into the house to retrieve a ritual sample of the target. Creature buys some raw meat, and Dig, in bird form, flies by the dogs to rile them up while CG uses control animals to get them running full tilt. CG also uses a powerful confusion on the groundskeeper, causing them to drop the leashes as they stop understanding gravity. The dogs continue racing after the meat/bird and leap into the waiting van, where Dig transforms back into human form and eats the meat while staring the dogs in the eyes to cow them into submission, which he succeeds at.

Meanwhile, avoiding cameras and alarms, Creep has carefully snuck into the house. He finds evidence of a recent divorce or split of some sort, and also retrieves a solid ritual sample from the main bathroom sink drain. He slips back out and into the van, and the team heads for Hamtramck, having heard there is a good pawn shop there which will sell illicit gear to those in the know. Reaching the Trading Post, Creep uses the appropriate password from d.matrix, and gets the drone attendant to get him a directional jammer, some longhaul, and a few other supplies. They drop Dig off at Kiss Me Quick (the stash spot), and head Downtown to wait for the target to get off work.

Dig makes a ritual circle and uses the ritual sample Creep got to locate the target, which is good since Carol and Creature were fooled by a disguise that ARES was using to try to trick any observers. Carol posts a well-composed “found dogs” message, and quickly gets a call back from the target. With some confusing hinting back and forth, the target signals cooperation with the extraction on the promise of his dogs being returned to him unharmed. With the correct target info, Carol frantically tries to keep up with the target’s convoy amidst heavy Downtown traffic. They lose them for a tense moment, but regain them just after the Zone crossing checkpoint. Pulling up alongside, they trigger their planned ambush near the port, figuring they won’t get a better chance, as it’s the lowest security area along the route.

CG causes the KE officer on the lead bike to have an accident while massively magically accelerating the first car behind him, which crushes both officer and bike, while the engine whines and the car slews out of control. Creature hits car 3 with a lube grenade, which causes it to crash into car 2 (carrying the target) when car 2 slows to avoid car 1. All three end up colliding. Creep pops smoke and thermal smoke grenades, as Carol rushes out of the team van to car 2. He pulls the target out and chucks a flashbang in, closing the door, as the slightly stunned guards struggle to respond. Creature launches a chloroform grenade at the guards as they all exit their vehicles, and CG uses accident on them now that they are visible, effectively preventing them from returning fire.

Carol races them out of there, while Creep flips the plate and false transponder chip to new ID’s. They swing back by Hamtramck, and grab some body bags and slab, finding the target and his dogs all pretty annoying. They drop the target off with Dig, and Tabasco stays at Kiss Me Quick as well to keep an eye on things. They slab the target and put him in the bag, with another jammer pointed at him as well, and keep him inside DIg’s ritual circle to block magic tracking. Dig takes some longhaul to keep this going for a few days while the rest of the team grabs the other targets.

CG calls in a favor with the Seoul’Pa fixer Sung Yi to do some hacking subterfuge, and she pings a few times at various locales in Chicago with a spoofed ID meant to look like the target, hopefully pulling ARES’ attention that direction. Dig and CG both ask around a little about potential contacts in the Red/Necro magic fields and don’t find much initially but get some good leads. Tabasco considers lurking around town as he likes to do to get the local crime scene report. But for now, the team (minus those at KMQ) head to the Blight and get a cheap/anonymous coffin for the night, with Creep staying in the van outside.

They wake up the next day, and plan to do some club recon, in prep for snatching the second target that night, while also looking into the corporate housing that they have to grab the 3rd target from.

Runners
Carol
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

Tabasco gets a call from Emdachat Fahd, who tells him not to come by his condo- an anonymous caller warned tenants to vacate the building and then a dragon flew by and torched Tabasco’s unit. Other tenants who suffered losses are being compensated but Tabasco’s unit is to be left burnt and open to the elements “as a reminder”. Tabasco really wants to get out of town. Creature remains in hiding from KE for the time being, and Chew Gum and Dig dismantle all the ritual circles and lodges at CG’s Puyallup safehouse to get prepped to get out of town.

They decide to make some arrangements, and convince Shan and Shun to ride the team’s sub the long way around and meet them in Detroit. They try to convince a few others to come with as well, but only Iva Linus Hathaway takes them up on it after Vogel promises her funding for a weapons/armor dev lab and a job in his future ARES. Tommy Vermont also gives Tabasco contact info for a pair of paranormal PI’s in Detroit. Carol negotiates with Imaginary Annie for the final payout for calling Free Seattle correctly, and gets a big chunk of money- Annie seems to have leveraged the team’s info into a position of considerable power as a local fixer.

Dig decides to send his concrete construct along in the sub as well- it’ll be a little cramped but not too bad.The team hears from Miranda King, and gets the updates on her investigations into Spinrad’s assassination. Someone cleaned up thoroughly- the Feng Shui “construction team” turns out to be a high-end crew from GeMiTo, who were all found dead in their safehouse in Redmond, and the lawyer died of an unexpected stroke. Suspicious. She also provides a private number for Jonathon Blake to the team as a favor, the team doesn’t tell her what exactly it’s for.

Carol calls Blake, and they engage in a tense negotiation. Once Blake confirms that they already sold the data from the Journal, he says that’s unfortunate but that he has an idea for how they can still ensure their friend Maggie Magnusson’s freedom. He requires the team’s info on Dis (from the moon), and also requires all their data from their observation of the Entropy Circles- Aradia had told Aunt Clara about both of these and she had passed the info on to Blake. Carol reluctantly agrees, and the team preps for an evening of recon. Blake seems to know a lot about the team as well, so not much chance of running from this.

Dig makes a few watchers, and Carol sends over the drone swarm. Tabasco and Creep collab and determine that there are 3 possible locations for the next entropy circle, based on the pattern of the previous ones. The team finds Jaga waiting by the lake as well, causing some strange vines to grow out of the toxic lake. She agrees to help them with the evening’s activities, and the team splits into 3 pairs to also observe the 3 potential sites.

Carol and Jaga spot some furtive figures approaching their spot, and having seen noone at the other 2, the other 2 teams converge. Jaga conceals them while Carol observes and assembles his rifle. 7 toxic druids (who Tabasco recognizes as the fatberg harvesters from Redmond) start walking a ritual circle and burning toxic reagents, once ensuring they are unobserved (they don’t spot the team). Once the circle is mostly complete, a dark SUV pulls up, and a few people get out. 2 goons in suits emerge from the back with a drugged up person dragging between them, and another goon emerges from the front with a device- this looks to be one of the “portal devices” that the APEP Consortium rift jumpers have been using, but looks like it isn’t powered up right now. Creep notices it has a small orichalcum rod in it that they didn’t see in the last (used) one that they found.

As the team watches (and takes aim, and sneaks closer), the druids complete their circle and open a portal to what looks like the toxic plane of Miggon. Life is leached out of the area inside the circle by the poisonous miasma of that realm, and the drugged sacrificial victim dissolves in front of their eyes. The druids channel the power of the sacrifice into the waiting device, with the orichalcum rod seemingly storing the power. As the ritual closes, the team springs their trap. With judicious use of his spirits’ accident and concealment powers, CG is able to prevent the enemy from acting effectively, and the team makes quick work of slaughtering everyone.

They quickly flee the scene, and send Blake a nicely written summary with all the relevant feeds attached. They also hire a courier from ACE to deliver the quicksilver camera plates that CG took of the ritual (after taking photos of them for themselves). Blake reports that he finds their work satisfactory, and will release their friend once he receives the plates. The team decides it’s time to go, and picks up Creature from xyr hiding spot in Puyallup.

Creep insists on buying everyone Taco Temple on the way out of town, forgetting that he can’t eat. The team stops at a spot in Renton, planning to head out of town through a remote border crossing mostly used by hunters and loggers in the Tiger Mountain Wilderness area. Unfortunately, it seems the Puppet Master Killer somehow divined their location, and another Marry Me… fan/suicide bomber detonates after dashing into the van, shredding the team’s armor and coating the inside of the van with tacos and human flesh bits.

In a panic, the team heads for the border, and ends up having to bribe their way through due to the KE warrants out for Creature. However, the SSC border guards seem happy to fuck over KE and take some money for what are otherwise clean-looking SINs. They comment on the state of the van but Carol does his best to cover. They head out on I-90 at high speed, amidst the auto-haulers and long distance rigs. They notice a spirit following them, which swaps with another spirit at sunrise. Dig goes astral and questions it, and it seems like the border guards likely sent a spirit to keep an eye on them, since they pretty obviously seemed like runners.

They pause at a rest stop to let Dig use a water spirit to wash themselves and the van, leaving a horrifying pile of human remains and tacos mixed together in a slurry in a disused field at the edge of the rest stop- a fun investigation for whatever unfortunate someday discovers it. They head back out, wanting to reach the UCAS border before resting. Tabasco buys a second car, and gets ripped off, to see if they can trick the spirit that’s following them, but it just moves to a point between the 2 vehicles. They reach the Sioux Nation border, and the van clears easily with their good fake SINs. Tabasco and Creep get searched after telling the border guards that a spirit has been following them, which makes the guards suspicious. They totally destroy the interior of the car, but as they actually don’t have anything illegal, they just confiscate some of their drugs.

Both cars power on through another day and finally cross back into the UCAS, finding a motel in SW MN to rest up in. They take a full day to sleep and recover, and then head for Chicago, where Tabasco trades his (now shredded) Americar for van interior repair and armor repair to Goober, who seems excited to see Carol and Creature, though surprised at so many other new faces on the team. He shows them the Battle of Chicago Memorial and park, and tries to sell Tabasco a jetpack, but after a disastrous test flight, Tabasco decides not to buy. Goober also reports that the survivor support group he’s been doing with Lothan has been really helpful, and takes the team to Freaktown to replenish their drug supplies.

They see some exhausted party-ers there who seem to only be on their feet through extensive substance use and have a somewhat horrifying ecstatic visage- but, as Goober says, the dance must go on…. They also get some updates on the situation in Chicago. The CZ has been renamed the “Reformation Zone”, and the ASPS has been working to formalize the dance rituals and limit casualties. 3D and Hoodsville managed to drive Null seeding out of their host using some knowledge shared from Howard and Philips INC after their anti-Null work in Seattle, but the Chicago deckers took heavy casualties. Also, Mayor Presbitero has found a new target to use for his fear-mongering agenda now that the bugs are gone: the city’s Infected population, using Fear the Dark and other bogeymen as justification for cracking down on ghouls, vamps, and others as the city gets further rebuilt and corporatized- though the RZ still feels like a party.

With their van newly kitted out with a wide selection of mismatched interior panels, including some asorted carpeting, they load back up and head for Detroit. As they approach, they get sent the new ARES SINs that Vogel promised, and get some info packets from his agent on the ground, Gloria Weathernight, who gets them some updated maps and demographic details, and tells them to meet her at a cafe on Vendor’s Row. Seeing the 8 meter tall wall that encompasses the sprawl, the team prepares to head into ARES’ home town, hoping to wrest control of the corp over to Vogel and put an end to this bug nonsense.

Runners
Carol
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum

The team awakens to some happy news: Free Seattle has passed! So Stuck won’t kill them, and Annie is satisfied with their work. Tabasco sends Stuck some celebratory cupcakes and Stuck sends back a slightly creepy thank you note hinting that he knows that Carol is alive. But otherwise all seems well. In response to this, there’s a bunch of corporate maneuvering: Shiawase is officially approved to take over the ACHE, leaving Renraku scrambling to hold onto various other contracts around town, as they see this as a threat. They delete Takuto Nakagawa’s digital persona backup as punishment, since he failed his assignment. Karen King ends up in charge of the local ARES branch, as ARES enacts a major force pullback to Detroit from all around the UCAS. She attempts to begin pragmatically securing maintenance contracts on all the gear the UCAS military may leave behind if Seattle does indeed break free. Horizon and the PPG both benefit from local contracts, and much is made of the safe and exciting “new Matrix” that DelaMar will be launching soon.

It seem that between ARES causing trouble and Free Seattle, plus with DeeCee, Boston, and Chicago all still under the construction, the UCAS is a bit on the ropes and unsure which crisis to focus on. The team also hears of various other factions moving into/out of/around Seattle to take advantage. Telestrian gets some good contracts, and tightens their ties, a bunch of GreenWar operatives start massing around town, and the Sea Dragon dumps a literal ton of gold on the deck of Chuck Beale’s boat after summoning him to a meeting in the Sound, which almost swamps his small craft, and offers her Matronage to the Free City, seemingly deciding it is a done deal. Various corps and nations also publicly signal their backing, and Gov. Potter quickly dispatches “unofficial” Ambassadors to these and other locales, looking to leverage the momentum, and the UCAS’ distraction.

The team also hears that a lot of vets and mercs, especially old-timers and pro’s, have been leaving town, which makes some sense with the referendum done, but also not a lot of sense with all sorts of new contracts likely available in the chaos. They do some digging and find that a Jackpointer named “Rifleman” has been quietly recruiting trusted mercs to come to his/Bravo Company’s training facility in NW Ohio. Tabasco reaches out, but Rifleman says that due to the team’s corporate ties he can’t use them at the moment. The team assumes this means that these mercs are planning something against ARES or in Detroit, as their staging area is fairly nearby, and just across the Michigan border. They do a little research, and find out that Bravo Company has long been an enemy of the Headhunters (the Tan Robes’ mercs), and have actually worked with some past teammates, so they decide to keep this all to themselves for now.

Tabasco, having had his mother’s remains cremated, heads to the Ft. Lewis Zoo with Creep and tries to scatter her ashes in the tiger cage, as this is the last happy place he remembers going with her. However, zoo staff quickly intercepts him, and convinces him to pay a large amount of money for a memorial plaque on a bench nearby instead. He still has about half the ashes which he holds onto for now, but he spots some zoo staff vacuuming up the ashes he already scattered, as they seem worried about tigers consuming it and developing a taste for burnt human (or maybe just cause of the chemicals). They rejoin the rest of the team, and decide they should probably rescue Maggie. Creature tells them xe will be laying low for the moment at Chew Gum’s safehouse to get some protection from magical tracking, since KE is on xyr trail.

As the team has no leads, and no hackers, Dig offers to stay behind on the next job and do a tracking ritual to locate Maggie (or his last known location). The Coven of the Crypt delivers some ritual samples collected from his safehouse. The team also decides to hire Tauren to do some matrix digging and try to figure out where Maggie was grabbed and by whom. When they tell him they suspect Black Lodge involvement, he raises his fees to cover a mage summoning a spirit to watch his back while he hacks. With that out of their hands for a while until those 2 get results, the team decides to finally tackle Shan and Shun’s job in the Underground, which will also give them a chance to return the library book.

They meet up with Shan and Shun at the Big Rhino, and agree on payment before they’ll provide many details. What they need the team to do is head into the Underground, travel a ways into the Depths, and use the provided mule drone with a thermal lance to cut through a specific section of wall. Inside they will find an item (which they will not provide more info on) that the team will need to grab and carefully place in a large padded case (also provided). They will then transport the case to a warehouse at the Tacoma docks and hand it over and get paid. They agree, and all decide they don’t really want or need to know what the item is anyway.

CG and Creep head into the Ork Undergroud from Puyallup with their gear and weapons, and get to a meeting spot with no trouble, having hired a Sprawl Scouts guide and tipped well. Carol and Tabasco head in from the Big Rhino and retrieve the drone, case, and a hand drawn map from a stallkeeper at the far edge of the Tourist Highway market. They link up with the other 2 at the very edge of where the matrix signal reaches, all disguised as Evo construction workers in case they need an alibi. With some impressive navigation from Carol, they follow the loosely accurate map into the Depths.

After a while of descending shafts and squeezing through narrow tunnels, they encounter some Rutra smugglers, but Carol and Tabasco greet them in Or’zet which seems to satisfy them, and then they recognize CG, though they are disappointed not to meet his weird “dog” (since Dig stayed behind). The Rutra warn the team about a vampire trap that they think might be a Fear the Dark cell, and Carol manages to navigate them around it, reaching their destination. They find a dry stone archway in the wall, which looks quite ancient, and the air from inside it is considerably warmer and more humid than the cold, fetid air they’ve been travelling through, though it remains pitch black.

They head inside, and find themselves in a cavern whose height they are unable to determine, but they see the spot they are supposed to cut through across it. They head over, and find an ancient carving, which they do their best to document for Dig to examine later. It depicts some humanoid figures worshiping some sort of serpent. There are also two statues on either side, although on further examination, they don’t seem to be statues at all- they look to be vampires who have been turned to stone! As soon as Creep makes this realization, they come under attack from above, with many tentacles lashing out to attack CG and his spirits.

One of his spirits is instantly disapparated, and CG feels a disturbing paralytic effect creeping into his core but manages to shake it off. The team returns fire and spreads out, with Tabasco lighting one of the tentacle creatures on fire, helping with the illumination. There seem to be 3 of them, and the get in a pretty gnarly fight, though the creatures don’t seem to understand how guns work at first, to their detriment. The team eventually disposes of all 3, which curl up on themselves and turn to stone, though CG and Creep manage to collect a small core sample of one. They were strange blobs with a a large multi-level rotating maw filled with teeth that look designed to crush rock. None of the team have any idea what they are, so they document the best they can, and start the drone cutting through the wall.

The drone uses up it’s full battery doing so, but succeeds just as it powers down, and a smoking oval of the wall drops out and shatters (the ancient carving destroyed), and even warmer, more humid air rushes out. The team finds themselves stepping into a thoroughly modern vault, seemingly intentionally kept humid, and well lit with what look like grow lights. There are heaps of wealth and treasure stacked and piled along the walls, and a heavy security door on the far side from where they cut their way in. But the object they came for is obviously the large, dark egg sitting atop a pedestal in the center of the chamber, which Tabasco licks and distressingly confirms, is a dragon egg.

The team, now in a bit of a panic, carefully puts the egg in the provided case, and Creep sprays C-Squared all over the vault to eliminate bio-signs as best he can. Tabasco blows up the drone with an explosive arrow, and starts as much else as he can on fire in the cavern with white phosphorous. They flee as fast as they can, with MAMA assisting Carol in retracing their steps. They mange to avoid complications, and check that the case blocks assensing- it seems lined with bio-fiber, so working reasonably well, though the signature inside is powerful. They head back to the surface in Downtown, and rent a boat, taking the Sound down to Tacoma and meeting Shan and Shun on their warehouse dock. The two changelings don’t appear to be in a panic about the nature of the item, and Carol fails to renegotiate.

However, they say that they heard the team was planning to leave town soon, and they will happily help them relocate if they are so concerned. The team thinks this might be a good plan. They head back to Puyallup but then think better of it, and dismantle CG’s magical lodge to leave less of a trace, and leave Creature guarding Dig while he keeps seeking Maggie. They call up Eletheria, and get approval to sleep out on Blake Island tonight under the Sea Dragon’s protection, and find some reasonably comfortable Quonset huts set up for them to use. Menehune are still exploring the sea caves and Merrow and some free spirits are setting up their little areas, so it seems like the island is coming well along.

Carol and CG quickly duck back into the Underground and head to the Watering Hole, following ThinkTank’s instructions, and make connection with Ned Reardon, a Lorekeeper from the Vault of Lore. He takes them to the VoL via some secret tunnels, and shows them TT’s memorial bench (troll-sized). He accepts the book, and says that Mr. Bookbinder has been in touch from the Astral Library at Alexandria to set up a linked depository at the VoL. They seem to have been flourishing under the Sea Dragon’s patronage and Ned says they’ve been helping with the search for a lost city. He offers them both one opportunity to research in the VoL in thanks for completing TT’s task, so they both do some digging into topics of personal interest, and then head back to Blake Island.

The next morning, they get a few important pieces of news.First off, Tauren confirms that a very pro team seems to have grabbed Maggie in transit to his safehouse from the Uni, and that they look like unmarked Centurion Security. Which lines up well with Dig’s info: Maggie’s last astral trace is at the entrance to Jonathan Blake’s driveway in Bellevue. So they have an idea of where he might be at least, but it is a hard target…. Second, Kalanyr and Urubia, the two Redmond dragons, apparently went on a little bit of a rampage last night, and have promised to compensate those injured/those who lost property. Carol, worried, tries to check the safehouse feeds and finds nothing. He scans back to the last thing the Hunter-Killer drone saw, and it looks suspiciously like the shadow of a dragon. So his jet ski likely also got fried.

Kit calls them and asks what happened to the safehouse, and after they hint that they don’t really want to know, take over rent on the Puyallup safehouse at Squick’s Vaults and publicly cuts ties with the team- they say that they’ve gotten too dangerous to what Kit is trying to do with the Shadow Chapters and that Kit can’t afford the distraction amidst some complex negotiations. Kit says it was a good run but it’s time they fully parted ways, and wishes them well. Luckily, Creature and Dig were in Puyallup, and the team all had their mission gear on them and the van with them, so no major losses, other than the safehouse itself- onto Finn’s Safehouse #5 it seems.

Third, and most shocking: Johnny Spinrad was assassinated! The killer took a seemingly impossible blind shot through a solid wall, hitting and killing Spinrad instantly. The team digs in a bit, and finds out that Spinrad was closing on an acquisition of a local high end cyber boutique- on brand for his company. This was why he was in town, and showing them the good times with Aradia.The assassin was killed trying to escape, but shapeshifted and KE/Spinrad security haven’t been able to get an ID yet (according to the available info). However, the team recognizes the shapeshift as one of the Tarot images that ThinkTank had sold to a group of assassins some time ago. The sniper wasn’t magical, so Carol thinks they must have had someone on the inside to align their shot and make sure Spinrad was in the right spot.

They call up Aradia, who says she’s on the run, headed out of town: apparently security kicked her off of Spinrad luxury island almost immediately after his death, and she is still worried about the Black Lodge coming after her, especially with both safehouses gone. She says Spinrad seemed unhappy with his home life and was a known philanderer, but she didn’t see him get up to anything unusual while she was around him. She wishes the team luck and goes dark. They call up Miranda King, and Carole reveals that he is still alive, which she seems pleased by. After sharing some info and feeling each other out, they find that Spinrad “let King go” with a sizeable severance package two days before his death, she thinks he suspected something was up but she doubts he thought it would be lethal- he likely just wanted someone on his side outside the official realm of the corp. She’s putting together a team to look into his death from her new base in Bellevue.

The team does a bit more research, and call in a favor with Remo to get some hacking help. Tauren has gone into hiding also, as he is worried the Black Lodge may be chasing him after his previous investigation for the team. Remo gets them info on all the attendees of the meeting at which Spinrad died, and also some other building info. Conferring with King again, they agree to share info in equally, and King also hints at big paydays for solving the mystery. As best they can tell, a Spinrad “construction” team set up the meeting room, but seems to have also weakened the wall that was shot through, and placed a magical item to weaken the present wards. The corp that Spinrad was trying to acquire is really into Feng Shui and harmonic design, so the meeting room was very specifically laid out, so Spinrad’s position would have been known to anyone who knew the layout. And the lawyer present for Spinrad was a longtime consigliere of his wife, Gabrielle al’Thani’s family, and had apparently brought along a special pen, a gift from al’Thani, for Spinrad to use in the signing. There was also a Telestrian strawberry wine present, which may have some connection to the Tarot/Hansu prophecies.

As she inherited the bulk of the shares (many of the rest going to Spinrad’s daughter from a previous marriage), al’Thani seems like the likeliest perpetrator, but the team has no proof, which King would need to make any kind of move. She says she will keep digging, and asks the team to share any further info they find- this definitely all feels like a setup. Spinrad was lured into a false sense of security by a warded room with no windows, and left all his security outside, so this is feeling like a very elaborate, pro, and long-in-the-making plot. The assassin also seems to have undergone significant brain programming/modification. They also hear that a kidnapping attempt against Spinrad’s daughter was narrowly foiled by undercover security at her Swiss Alps boarding school- someone had foreknowledge of his death and was after the heir!

To add to the chaos a bit more, it seems Spinrad was acting as an informal bank and launderer for the international Mob, and with his death his widow seems to have disavowed any knowledge of the scheme, so a lot of mobsters are suddenly scrambling to withdraw any funds they can from casinos and other fronts in a panic. This, on top of the bug infiltration of the N’Drangheta, ARES’ dwindling support as they turn their focus to Detroit, and the mob’s losses in the recent Syndicate War have left the Seattle mafia significantly weakened, and the other syndicates in town are definitely taking advantage.

Carol checks in with Vogel to see if Spinrad’s death will change their plans at all, and Vogel says that between that and Free Seattle passing, it has likely only accelerated the timeline, so Carol should get his team to Detroit asap. Vogel will put him in touch with an on-the-ground operator who can pass along messages, as it will be dangerous and difficult to communicate directly once inside ARES’ hometown. But Vogel says he has some important work for Carol to tackle, starting with some extractions of some essential personnel he wants to make sure survive what is to come…. Which is perfect since the team needs an exit plan from Seattle, pronto. The plan to check out the entropy circles this evening, try to figure out how to help Maggie, and then bail!

Runners
Carol
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

The team rests up after the stressful last minute last mission, secure in the knowledge that at least Stuck isn’t trying to kill them. They all decide to sleep at CG and Dig’s safehouse in Puyallup, and Carol has to try pretty hard to pretend that it is a cool, normal spot (boiling ash wastes, reagent harvesters, scrappers and rotting plants for neighbors). However, they figure that CG’s magic lodge might offer some protection from any further Black Lodge surveillance, so seems like the safest option. Carol manages to rally Tabasco a little bit from his panic/depression/confusion. Tabasco heads out early in the morning, having called in a favor with Tommy Vermont and Jimmy Kincaid, who use old KE connections to help get his mom’s body released to him. With Emdachat’s help he has a small ceremony and says his goodbye’s. Then, to pay Kincaid back, he informs the team he’ll be busy for a day or so helping him with a job, and will report back later.

The rest of the team checks comms and gets some news: Aradia has taken shelter on Spinrad’s Lux Resort Island in Lake Tapps to hide from the BL, after getting worried about the tail that Nyssa Hallas spotted. Spinrad has also curtailed his public appearances and upped his security after that. Kit is off working on Shadow Chaps business, and is trying to subtly encourage other cities to oust Dawkins Group-corrupted leadership and add at least one Monad to every leadership group, as they seem slightly harder to effect with the reprogramming due to the multiple/blended personalities they carry. Disturbingly, Maggie Magnusson has gone missing- Creep checks in with the Coven of the Crypt and Elijah, and both confirm that he’s missed planned meetings and not shown up at his usual haunts. Does the BL have him? The team plans to investigate further.

On top of that, Creature is contacted by the Alley Cat Express dispatcher, Wizard, and warned that KE has an arrest warrant out for xyr- the mage that assensed xyr recognized xyr as a drake, and xe has a pretty unique appearance, so ACE has to “officially” cut ties, but wanted to pass along the warning. As the team heads out to the van to start looking for Magnusson, CG, familiar with the environs, spots a small surveillance drone watching them. He uses animal control to find a nearby raptor, which dive-bombs the drone. When it makes contact, the drone explodes, blowing off the birds foot and causing it to inelegantly crash into the nearby building. Dig heals it and gets it airborne again, though missing a foot. He debates making a concrete replacement limb, but decides it’s probably best not to. He also rides his new concrete homunculus around a bit, delighting Creature.

Fearing that the drone was also the BL, the team uses a bunch of Creep’s C-Squared to scrub down the safehouse, and Carol and CG purchase Hunter-Killer drones to patrol both this and the Redmond safehouse to watch for (and destroy) future surveillance drones. Worried about what this all means, though, they decide to hold off on looking for Magnusson in case he’s revealed anything to his captors, and instead do one of their Underground jobs. CG also leaves another message inviting Jaga along to the investigation of the Entropy Circles in 2 days time. Carol convinces the team to do the book return job first, since then they can make a single trip to the Underground to return the book and do Shan and Shun’s job down there, whatever that entails.

They do a little research, and find out that the man, Tigran, who checked the overdue book out from the Astral Great Library of Alexandria is a known collector of esoterica on Anderson Island, an almost entirely private enclave of the extremely rich and elderly. They also find some creepy rumors about him, and contact another Anderson Island denizen, Kaden Becksworth, who has beef with him. Becksworth explains that he wishes to hire a team to investigate Tigran due to some connections to some missing persons, and that they can combine efforts. He says he will tell his cook to prepare dinner for 5 guests so that the team has an excuse to visit, but that they shouldn’y bring anything visibly alarming to the island as it will alert his various neighbors’ suspicions.

Wanting to have some options for carrying the magical book back safely, CG buys a bio-fiber bag, abd Dig suggests a detour to the Fort Lewis zoo so that he can learn to shapeshift into a kangaroo. Creature is thrilled, and everyone else agrees a trip to the zoo sounds fun. They strap the Zodiac to the roof of the van and head over, all wearing civvies or light armor, and with weapons concealed or broken down in the van. The enter through the MP-secured checkpoints, and find the zoo most pleasant. Dig learns what he needs about kangaroos, and Carol spots someone watching the team. He sneaks off and observes as the team leaves, but the watcher spots him so he decides to approach for a casual/pro “I see you seeing me” type chat. Unfortunately, it becomes apparent that someone is remote-rigging the watcher as Carol start to talk, and the watcher explodes, sending Carol flying and shredding his armor.

As a number of civilians were also caught in the blast and a rare turtle exhibit was damaged, much chaos ensues. Carol ditches his shredded armor, and tries to steal a zoo sweatshirt from the gift shop, but is spotted by an alert teen at the till who shouts “thief!”. Luckily CG intercedes and has a spirit conceal Carol while he uses his cyber legs to leap over the fence near the exit and sneak back to the van. The only thing of note he got from the watcher before they exploded was that they had on a “Marry Me…” shirt, so they do some MAMA research with the face image, and find that she was one of the more vociferous hardcore fans who were decrying the team for shutting down the servers (at Alice’s lab) and who believed this was sabotage/some kind of false flag by a competing game.

They decide to continue the mission, though Carol feels a little vulnerable with no armor at all. Luckily he brought his diving gear, just in case. They Zodiac out to Becksworth’s dock, setting the van to loop around on GridGuide till they return. Becksworth greets them with drinks, and they eat a nice dinner in his 3 season porch while they discuss the mission. He explains that he has sent the staff home early and that he has sufficient ECM running that they can talk freely, and tells the team how he is rich enough to live here, but moral enough not to like the culture- he tries to enforce some kind of pro-social code on the island, and has found runners to be the best tool to do so, since the local KE branch is regarded as the ultimate chill reward for desk jockeys to ride out their careers at. He doesn’t condone murder, but will edge up to the line in order to achieve his goals.

He provides the team intel on how to gain access to Tigran’s property and get into the mansion itself, though he says that the esoterica wing has been inaccessible to him. He explains that Tigran had a guest from out of town recently, and hosted a small dinner party with some close friends, and that the disappearances started soon after- staff and off-islanders, but still. He says that the debauched locals have been known to hunt runners and other for sport, engage in snuff parties, and other such heinous activity, so he assumes something bad is happening. He wants the team to document what is up and get him proof, while retrieving the book. They agree, and head out. Dig flies over in bird form to surveil, and spots 2 huge dogs patrolling the grounds. He uses animal control to get them away from the team’s planned entry points, and get them distracted digging for something.

CG and Creep approach on foot, sneaking through the island’s tastefully dense woods which separate the properties. They climb a try and hop over the spiked fence, using CG’s spirit concealment to avoid detection. Carol, using scuba gear, and Creature, a natrually good swimmer as a sea drake, take the water route, and sneak up from Tigran’s dock, using the code Becksworth provided to access the ornate gate at the top of the stairs up from the water into the yard. Disturbingly, they spot clawed drag marks heading into the property, and Creature confirms they are metahuman, and seem to have been buffed out/painted over a bit, but not well enough to fully conceal on close examination. They also find some massive dog turds in the yard. Carol starts to shove some in his pocket to analyze later before CG rushes over to suggest they just poke through it with a stick to see what they find.

They find some metahuman bone fragments, as well as what looks like chewed up cyberware screws/mounting plates etc. This explains why the dog’s are still so distracted with their digging and appear to be fighting over some large bones, perhaps. The team enters the mansion through the conservatory window that they were told was loose, and easily avoid the maintenance drone that is watering plants inside. Sneaking across the grand foyer, Creep spots that this whole place seems to be reassembled from disparate components of multiple other fancy structures- the owner’s rep as a collector is apparently accurate. Spotting a warded area, they assume this will be the collection they seek. Dig offers to sneak the team through, but isn’t super good at it, so CG stays outside to stand guard with his spirits.

The rest of the team enters a large, fancy library and collection room, and Dig uses his catalog spell to seek the Book of 9 Gates. He finds where it is supposed to be, but it and 5 other magical tomes are absent. Carol hears some faint chanting from below, and focusing in, identifies 6 chanting voices and also Tigran, seemingly chatting to a sacrificial victim about how it’s a shame they have to die, but immortality has a price! Creep, wanting more intel, looks around for a vent leading down, and finds one cleverly concealed in the fireplace. He sneaks down it and sees a real horror show: 7 cloaked figures consuming a sacrificial victim while a pile of bodies rots in the corner, and it quickly becomes a horrific orgy. He reverses the direction of the vent fan and heads back up.

Dig uses his new concrete spell to cover over the secret door to the basement that his catalog spell also found, and Creep starts a massive fire in the fireplace. With the vent fan reversed, this quickly floods the basement with smoke, and they team hears some panicked voices and coughing from below, as well as some rattling and banging from behind Dig’s concrete barrier. Carol notices 3 voices begging someone(s) else not to leave them, but the team is still surprised when 4 vampires snap out of mist form in the room with them. The vamps also seems surprised to find the team there, and a fight breaks out. Carol panic launches a lube grenade, splattering essentially the whole room, and Creature manages to catch 3 robed vamps in a web as well. The one remaining vamp levitates to get clear of the lube, and launches himself at Carol, pulling two memory blades to attack. Carol frantically dodges as he, Creep, and Creature all return fire.

The other 3 vamps all return to mist form and start to float away out the door to the foyer, where CG awaits them, and uses his Fear and Deathly Aura powers to send them fleeing further into the mansion. Dig begins to chase them with his huge wad of magical concrete, aiming to trap one. The flying vamp is eventually felled by a grenade from Creature, though this also destroys much of the room and injures the team in the confined space. Creep, noticing that the vamp seems to be regenerating, grabs one of his swords, and is badly shocked by a defensive system, before using it to decapitate the vamp, ending the regen. Carol puts on his respirator and rushes into the basement to grab the book. Weirdly, it is much less horrific than what Creep saw- some kind of illusion perhaps? There is only the one sacrificial victim, and they show evidence of 4 vamp bites but no cannibalism. The other 3 robed chanters all seem to have suffocated. Carol debates taking multiple books, but based on their size and weight decides to just grab the one.

Upstairs, CG kills one of the mist form vamps in astral combat, while Creature fries another in drake form with an elemental blast. Dig tries to capture the 3rd in concrete, but the vamp, seemingly misunderstanding his powers, frantically tries to shift back to human form and is bisected by the closing trap. Having killed everyone in the house, the team decides to leave. They control the dogs again, who merrily chase each other around, fighting over a human spine they dug up, and head for the exit. Creature, in drake form, swims back to Becksworth’s incredibly fast and grabs the Zodiac to pick everyone up, as they all hear some sirens approaching in response to the gunfire and explosions. Becksowrth asks what happened and Creature sends a video file, after which Becksworth will no longer make eye contact and seems disgusted.

They pilot the boat back towards Seattle proper, but spot some drones approaching from ahead and behind. Luckily CG’s powerful spirit is still concealing them, but the boat is fully visible. Dig turns into a bird and ditches them, and Creature decide to swim off on xyr on also. Carol frantically tries to get back into his diving gear but tips it all overboard and almost falls off himself. The remaining 3 decide to swim for it in a group with spirit assistance (plus silence and concealment), and they all manage to make their way to Ketron Island, where they eventually sneak aboard the ferry back to the mainland and get back to the van. A success (of sorts)! Now to return the book…

They also link back up with Tabasco, who reports that he provided some overwatch (along with other runners) for a meeting Kincaid brokered to end the syndicate wars. It seems that Urubia and the Triad were kind of behind the whole thing, using the chaos to bolster their own power, and in Urubia’s case build up a whole new multi-gang syndicate in Redmond and begin buying her way into Puyallup. Nobody seems fully happy with the outcome otherwise, but the killing had gotten out of control and was effecting bottom lines, so a tentative peace seems best for all parties, especially as everyone figures out the changing situation re: Free Seattle, with the Referendum outcome announcement coming tomorrow!!

Runners
Carol
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

With Creep’s fresh memory of the Black Lodge mental cryptographic key, they head straight to the UW campus and meet up with Carol, Elijah and Maggie to begin cracking the journal. Tabasco takes up surveillance on the roof while Carol and Creep help decipher. The rest head back to Chew Gum’s safehouse to meet up with Jaga The Walking Witch, and Chew Gum brings her a UW colored bouquet from the botany department. Dig and Jaga verbally spar a bit as per usual, and Jaga and Creature talk some life philosophy. Dig heads to bed, but then wakes back up to get Jaga to teach him a spell. CG shows Jaga his small arboretum, and she gives some tips for more vibrant life, while allowing for the decay that he needs for his practice.

They all sleep, and compare dreams in the morning- even Creature gets some overflow at this point, and they worry what the sunken city, the avalanche, and the eclipse might portend. They warn the team that something bad may be coming, and then Dig begins crafting a concrete homunculus with their assistance. They notice that there seems to be a huge area detection spell passively scanning Seattle, which they fear is the Black Lodge. They also warn the team about this, but not before it may have effected Tabasco up on the roof- the rest likely are safe inside various magical wards. Iva Linus Hathaway comes and visits Tabasco with some coffee and they discuss experimental arrow design for a while.

Meanwhile, the journal team has made some impressive progress with Creep’s implants and stolen knowledge, Carol’s experience on the metaplanes and Seelie Court, and the overall expertise of Elijah and Maggie. They uncover hints of Black Lodge infiltration of the IOND after the “debacle” in DeeCee. They find out the Keymasters relocated from DC to St Louis, and that the BL has a significant footprint in the ARCHology there, and may be importing metaplanar materials for construction. They find hints of some sort of opposing group of human supremacists called the “Theran Society” who want the Horrors to return to cleanse the world of magic and metahumanity. They get some hints at some other projects and recruitments in progress also.

The team warn Maggie and Elijah about the likely danger, and Maggie seems spooked though Elijah is cavalier as usual. They quickly sell the info to Eletheria, having heard that the Sea Dragon is highly involved in the “Free St Louis” movement and the ARCHology there. Hoping that this will get them clear for the moment, they decide to rest up a bit and see what happens. Before long, they get a call from Margaret Telestrian asking them to break into Chuck Beale’s office and get a little preview of the Free Seattle results before she commits her vote (she claims to be the last holdout to not tell Beale her final stance).

She provides a lot of building schematics and info, as well guard and security info, and offers a bonus if the team does the job immediately, otherwise it needs to get done by the next day. They accept, and Creep slams some drugs to stay with it after the all-nighter. They grab a few more B&E tools, and Dig begins a massive lightning bolt ritual with Tabasco as his spotter. Tabasco heads Downtown and finds a good perch with a view of the government building rooftop and Beale’s office.

Creep gets smuggled onto Council Island again and sneaks to John Abernathy’s chopper, clinging to the bottom with gecko gloves and magnet hand. Creature follows up with ACE, and the dispatcher Wizard and one of the runners Gentry, who xe met at OtherCon, hook xyr up with a courier run to deliver snacks and stims to the KE HTR team on duty at the building. Recognizing that the included Psyche is surely for the building security mage, Creature carefully poisons it without a non-lethal seizure-inducing toxin, to add some distraction. CG uses one of his spirit’s animal control powers to get a couple angry hornets into the snack package as well.

Carol and CG circle the area on GrdiGuide in the van in case backup is needed. Creature parkours the package right up the doors, and gets sent back to the guard room, but told to come straight back out. Xe delivers the package, but the excited KE guards get the included hornets extra riled up in the process. They quickly deal with the distraction, but Creature manages to copy one of their access keycards in the chaos. One of the guards has a PTSD flashback to Chicago and accuses Creature of being a bug, and won’t lower her weapon til the mage confirms that Creature is not a bug. Creature sees that the Psyche is delivered to the mage though- good deal.

Creature exfils, and Creep manages to sneak past the warded door upstairs when it is dropped to let Abernathy and his party in. Beale greets them and brings them down to the big meeting room on the 11th floor. Creep uses the keycard that Creature got to get through the security door onto the 12th floor, and heads towards Beale’s office, avoiding cameras. He just manages to crack the lock and hurriedly leaps over a pressure plate inside the door onto the heavy desk, as the mage has a seizure and triggers a medical response, with a few KE guards rushing onto the floor with a crash kit.

Creep pokes around a bit, having avoided detection, as Creature rejoins the van crew. Creep finds a desk safe, and uses the handprint Kit stole from Beale at the intro gala to bypass the first security level, but biffs it on his first attempt at bypassing the lock. He uses the handprint again to verify his ID and manages to crack the lock on the second try, quickly snapping pics of all the docs in the file folder labelled “Free Seattle”- Beale is old school and uses paper records. He just has time to finish, close the safe, and dive under the desk, as Beale comes up, greeting the KE guards on the way (who seem to have stabilized the mage).

As Beale enters the door, a sniper round takes out a chunk of his selection of nice liquors halfway across the room, and he drops to the floor in panic, luckily not seeing Creep also hiding there. Tabasco gets another anonymous text saying “4 o’clock, 13th floor”, and turns to spot a well-concealed sniper under a tarp on a window washing platform. He sees the sniper fire a round but can’t figure out what it hit- Creep reports no more impacts in the office. Dig uses this opportunity to let off his lightning bolt, and completely destroys the sniper and the platform, sending the remains of both plummeting to the ground far below.

The KE guards quickly usher Beale out of there while covering him, and Creep uses this chance to quickly swing out the shot-out office window, and gecko glove around the corner. Unfortunately, he’s slipping a bit in the rain. CG gets one of his spirits to offer some support, and Carol rapidly launches the VTOL from the van, using all it’s stealth mods to scoop up Creep without triggering the building’s rooftop turrets. The team scatters quickly, though Tabasco stops to see if he can get any info from the fallen platform/sniper, but no such luck. They contact Telestrian with the info, and get paid, and and also sell it all to Annie, as per their agreement.

Tabasco calls Tommy Vermont and asks him to look into the whole sniper thing, and Vermont uses some old KE contacts to get some info. Officially, nothing happened- a rogue lightning bolt killed an unfortunate building maintenance employee. Unofficially, there was a high-powered sniper duel over Downtown today- both snipers were killed, one shot, one by lightning. The one killed by lightning was a merc/assassin named Horza, and the other was an ex-ARES employee named Susan Hayes who’d been on the run since killing her husband (also an ARES employee) during an extraction attempt by another corp. Tabasco is devastated, as he clearly recognizes that this was his mom, though he manages to play it cool with Vermont.

He reports into the team about what he’s determined, and says he’s headed back to his safehouse alone to take some time with it, and that they should do the next run without him. The team tries to talk him out of it, but he says he needs to think a bit. In other assassin news, an Egyptian Old God cultist tried to poison Layli Red Feather, but failed in his attempt, and was later hunted down and killed by Sioux Wildcats trying to leave Seattle, causing a minor diplomatic incident as they Wildcats aren’t supposed to operate outside Council Island. However, it mostly serves to make KE and the UCAS JTF look further incompetent as they didn’t catch the assassin themselves.

The team also hears that Tauren got a team to dig further into Romeo and reveal that he had done some sketchy false flag attacks using human supremacists in the leadup to Prop 23, confirming Tauren’s suspicions. He helped to get Prop 23 passed, but his methods were too fucked. Word of this spreads around, further burning Romeo and blunting the shit he’s been talking on the team. The Mythfits also managed to gain some intel on the Sons of Snohomish and their affiliated clinics in Snohomish, and uncovered disturbing experiments on giants to uncover the source of the “reversion trigger” and try to make it deployable.

Runners
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

Carol continues to lay low for a bit, preparing to decamp for Detroit once Vogel is ready. On that front, there’s been some news: ARES has begun some major matrix upgrades in Detroit, which Vogel says are likely a cover to justify “outages” during Operation: Latvian Gambit. There are also a lot of kill contracts being offered for ARES mi-level execs and scientists, which Vogel says is Otto Hendricks covering his tracks from Bottleneck/Pyro/Apex ahead of Latvian Gambit’s kickoff. Don Michaels also tells Tabasco he’s headed to Detroit along with a lot of other Cutters, to start doing some “street cleaning” on ARES’ behalf. Tabasco tries to warn him about bugs without warning him about bugs, and hopes they don’t end up on opposite sides of a future fight. He asks him for any last minute gear that the Cutters need to leave, but it seems like they’re loading up all their equipment for the mission.

Tabasco is happy to report that he got revenge for the Cutters who went missing up in Snohomish. He doesn’t bother to tell Michaels that the revenge was secondhand and accidental, and Michaels seems to appreciate the closure before he leaves town for an uncertain amount of time. The team also hears from Aradia, who has a disturbing report: someone has fully cleared out the Sisterhood of Ariadne clubhouse and scrubbed it. She warns that if the Black Lodge is looking into what happened it could go badly for the team. She also reports that she has made some good advance prep for Jonny Spinrad to party while he’s in town, and that Jonny has apparently been having “some trouble at home with the missus” and is looking to cut loose- which Aradia is all in favor of. The team notices that she seems to have taken a bit of a harder turn again after opening up a bit to community with the Sisterhood.

Aradia also wants to examine the blade fragment, and uses Pyschometry for a few hours to take a look. She learns a lot about the blade’s forging, use, and breaking, and confirms/further fills out the team’s existing info. She also reports that the blade fragment is made of valuable materials if they were to melt it down and separate/refine them, but it might be dangerous to hold onto. The main crew decides that at this point Chew Gum and Dig need to either be in or out, so they offer them the team norms and permanent places on the crew. Both accept, and the crew heads back to Finn’s Safehouse to celebrate. Tabasco, noticing that the team name suggestion box is full, suggests they vote on a name, and they do so, settling on “Hired Power”, which Carol approves remotely.

Chew Gum heads back to his safehouse in Puyallup the next morning and is bummed to see that Jaga stopped by while they were out, and left a note on a leaf. He and Dig call the Watering Hole again to leave her another message to make a specific plan to meet up. The crew decide to try a ritual- they now both want to track local Black Lodge activity, and decipher the code book they retrieved. They head to Blake Island to seek a safe place for the ritual, and decide to cast it on Creep. given his sneakiness and good mental abilities. Creep calls on Shiawase Daigou’s good will and gets connected with the Delta clinic again, where he gets an attention co-processor to help deal with the overwhelming amount of magical info he’s about to receive.

Aradia helps with the ritual, seemingly having developed a grudge against the BL. She also reports on night one of partying with Spinrad (fun and wild), and Tabasco tries to help out a friend, Nyssa Hallas, by recommending that Aradia take Spinrad to Club Penumbra at some point. The team also spots some more Menehune Dwarves seemingly exploring the sea caves on Blake Island, confirming the CG and Dig that the Menehune Underground are also likely working for the Sea Dragon, as rumored. The ritual goes well, and Creep finds himself with a massively expanded mental perception of a very specific thought in the minds of others: the strange language from the BL code book.

They split Seattle into 6 grid sections, and Tabasco and Creature protect Creep in the van while cruising around, seeking hits on the thoughts the ritual aimed to identify. The rest stay on the island to maintain the ritual. They get 3 hits throughout the city, and start with the friendliest one: the alchemist Squeamish. He trades some info with them, and confirms his limited knowledge of the BL script: he explains that it uses magical cryptography, essentially a ritual done on all participants to be able to read each others’ code. He says they should be able to crack it if they can scan it out of anyone else’s mind who was looped in. He also explains a bit about the Rogue Lodge, and the local power broker Jonathan Blake, who seems to be the mysterious “JB” hinted at on Aunt Clara’s comms. Blake apparently had his owns son killed after he leaked some BL into to the runner Axis Mundi, who is also now missing.

He also gives them some news updates: the Aztlan-er fixer Izidor Kurtlanik was gunned down, along with his bodyguard Achilles Serifim, in an attack by the Iron Templars, in which one of them was killed. The survivor then tried to hit Dewei Tao as well, but was foiled as he had apparently gotten spooked and hired 2 very pro bodyguards: Danger Sensei and Shieldmaiden, who easily felled the already wounded assassin. Carl Derrick was poisoned in his hotel room (one of mine, chuckles Squeamish), leading to a minor PR kerfluffle when his wife said that she hoped that “that awful sinful city WOULD leave”, contrary to the official UCAS position that Derrick was meant to represent. Two Chimera assassins also got into a massive firefight downtown with the Red Samurai guards of Takuto Nakagawa, and essentially everyone was killed when one of the Chimeras detonated some kind of backpack bomb rather than be captured. Based on the CBRN cleanup crews, it seems this could have been a mini-nuke or chemical weapon of some sort. Renraku announces that they luckily have a digital persona backup of important high level execes, so Nakagawa will be able to complete his duty to the corp and the Referendum.

The team does some research and decides that Blake is too hard of a target: Mayor of Bellevue, head of Centurion Security, and former spymaster for Dunkelzahn before falling out with Nadja Daviar: too hot. So they decide to go after the third ping, which came from Council Island. Tabasco gets a bunch of stun arrows and captures 11 sea birds with Creature helping keep them calm and sedated til ready, Dig assumes the same bird form, and CG uses animal control through a spirit to make the flock follow Dig on a recon flight over Council Island. Dig uses a smaller version of the same spell again, and sees an Eastern Euro man on a comm call under a tree. He heads back after getting spotted by magical security on the island, and spends the night making an impressively accurate sculpture of the man’s face.

Creep, worried about Takashi getting too powerful (he seems to be benefiting greatly from the direction that Shiawase is taking the Spirit of the City in) pays him a visit and they do some meditation and conversation on the meaning of leadership etc. Takashi explains that mutation is purely consensual now, and a more arduous process than before without Nightmare’s Chemosh artifact around. But he says this is all for the good. He seems as before to be living by his own personal code. Creep leaves still concerned but feeling maybe a little better. Tabasco leaves a message for Jimmy Kincaid, and is surprised when he calls back. Kincaid is a classic drunkard PI, and fills Tabasco in on some of what’s been going on with him/Puyallup. He also accepts Tabasco’s offer of assistance, and asks him to pass along a message to Margaret Telestrian.

Tabasco does so, warning Telestrian to tell High Prince Evan Harris to stay away from Seattle., in exchange for not releasing info that could damage Telestrian/Tir Tairngire’s standing post-Referendum. Tabasco makes clear he doesn’t know what’s happening and is just delivering the message, and Telestrian seems to enjoy his bluntness and lack of guile. She tells him if he hears of a sword fragment with Sperethiel script he should tell her. He calls back almost immediately and reports that he has it and offers it for sale, the team having gotten what they can from it and worried about keeping it longterm. She pays up, and also offers to get the team day passes to Council Island after Tabasco asks. She also ID’s the sculpted bust of their surveillance target as Tibur Dobos, some kind of political operative from DeeCee. The team does some research and it seems like he has been thoroughly scrubbed from the matrix. Based on some old info on Jackpoint, it looks like he is Black Lodge, and has an ongoing interest in the ACHE.

They decide to get smuggled over instead, and hire Sounder for the job. Dig stays behind to provide spell assistance from a distance. They infiltrate south on the island along the same path as the last time they were here, not having gotten spotted or tripped any defenses then, and find the setup is only slightly upgraded since. They reach the edge of the woods, and Tabasco and CG hang back to provide long distance cover and escape assistance, while Creep and Creature follow their guidance over the TacNet to sneak up to the edge of Embassytown and find the man they seek. They find him finishing a meeting with John Abernathy, and Creep manages to do a brush pass and inject him with narcoject. Creep quickly slams one of Clara’s potions and mind probes Dobos while he is out.

He gets some info but is almost instantly forced to retreat when Dobos jerks back to consciousness (likely an auto-injector) and summons aid. Creep sets off some smoke grenades on a different path to cover his and Creature’s retreat, and they reach the treeline and get back to the rendezvous with the subs without issue. He was able to get the cryptographic key they needed but not much else, but that was the most important thing, so mission accomplished! And his attention co=processor should allow him to work on transcribing the code book, so that’s all good news. Next up, back to the University to start translating!

The team also gets the news that the Call of the Void cult killed another astronomer who was worried about the asteroids they’re pulling onto a collision course, which spurred Arleesh and Dyna Mite to action. They hired Kukulkan’s crew, who made the necessary phone calls and arrangements and got Buttercup, Lady Xoc and the other necessary parties involved. They ask the team to get them a meeting with the Sea Dragon to offer their assistance in dealing with the ones that are prophecied to hit the oceans. The team agrees, and the K’s Crew offers to share info on lesser Horrors and other existential threats anytime. So that’s Prophecy 10 resolved and the planet saved! Hopefully…..

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

Dig and Creature do some bonding by riding each other in various shapeshifted forms, non-sexually. Their animalistic natures seem to fit well together. The team gets some updates from previous members: Kit has managed to link up with some local Brokerage X operatives (Gina and 3 Card, the brains and muscle, respectively, though both have a lot of financial knowledge) and set up insurance for the Shadow Chaps locally. Teams will opt in or out as a group, and will trade paydata/early tips etc to BX in exchange for BX covering a certain amount of medical per runner per run. Aradia reports in that she is keeping busy doing party prep for Spinrad’s arrival- rumor say he has a big business deal or acquisition on the table and needs everything to go real well, but also wants to party outlandishly.

More disturbingly, Aradia says that noone at the Sisterhood of Ariadne has been answering her calls today, as she was supposed to go by later for another ritual lesson but is too busy with party planning. She asks the team to check in on them. Chew Gum also chats with Dig about strange dreams, as he has also started to have them, and they seem to overlap with Dig’s odd dreams a bit more than would seem usual. Creep and Creature take the van out to meet up with Dig and CG, not wanting to share their safehouse location just yet, though Dig seemingly unaware of the implications tells them all that he could easily find them if he tried. After some tension he agrees not to, for now, but Creature promises to let him try once they approve him for full membership.

They all load into van and travel (mostly via GridGuide) up to Snohomish. They notice that Kit has left the drones and RCC in the van for team use, but has removed the Carboxing arm and rigger interface, presumably to set up a new rig for themself. Reaching the SOA clubhouse, they do some external investigation, as something seems to be off and some unusual magical signatures are detectable from outside. They find no life signs inside, but a warded area appears to be the intact (likely their ritual chamber). There are a suspicious number of cars present, including a slightly concealed dirt bike out back. Both the front and back doors appear to have been breached while locked. After using his rotten possum’s Deathly Aura to try to spook out any stragglers, they carefully enter, searching for traps. The only one they initially find is an explosive under the dirtbike’s seat.

From the investigation inside, they determine a few things: one lone attacker entered through the back, and seems to have been a very fast and efficient killer, using a mix of quiet weaponry. A separate team entered through the front and appears to have been more methodical and used some kind of harpoon guns (some Witches are still pinned to walls and furniture, and appear to have been executed if not killed by the initial shot). The lone killer and the group seem to have intersected at the ritual chamber, where the surviving Witches made their last stand- unfortunately the Witches were all killed, and the team accounts for them all, except the top half of one which was cut off completely smoothly and seemingly somehow sealed or cauterized without burning. Her top half is also missing, as are all the assailants. There is also a sizzling cut through the otherwise intact ward around the ritual circle- the team is confused as the ward should either have failed or healed.

However, they also find the top half of a sword inscribed with a strange script, some burnt toxic reagents, and a satchel with an expended device that looks sort of like an explosive but doesn’t seem to have blown up. Creep speculates that some sort of portal or magical effect is likely responsible. Looking around a bit more, Dig uncovers a secret door in the floor, and after disabling some traps, the team heads down the revealed chute and enters a small tunnel. Chew Gum finds an ornate key around Aunt Clara’s neck, and Creature uses it to unlock the door at the end of the tunnel, but is badly electrocuted. Creep manages to knock xyr free, and they tumble into a small office. Searching it, they find a lot more tech than anywhere else in the clubhouse, including a high end commlink, an offline terminal with a digital whiteboard, a journal, some hermetic reagents, 6 alchemical potions, and one Tarot Card.

Creep opens the journal, which bursts into flame. He manages to put it out but is badly burned. Dig drinks one of the potions and feels like he gained some kind of heightened sense but can’t figure out what. They check everything else carefully for traps and then haul it all out of the basement and to the van, with CG concealing them as they exit. CG also has a spirit make a silence sphere, and then snipes the bike out back to set off the explosive trap so that noone will unexpectedly trigger it later- a real civic-minded guy. Recognizing that the journal is in some kind of code, that they aren’t hackers, and that none of them know whatever language is on the blade, they decide to seek help. Dig feels his extra sense going away and manages to focus and figure out it was an astral clairvoyance potion.

First off they head down to Lady Zelda’s Lore Galore store in Puyallup, as usual she talks their ears off but does provide some useful info- as Creep had speculated, the code in the journal looks somewhat similar to the text in the Voynich Manuscript, and Zelda concurs, suggesting it is likely an internal cipher used by the Black Lodge. She warns them about the dangers of messing with this group, and also ID’s the rest of the potions- all detection and mind effecting stuff, so Dig holds onto them. Creep and Creature remember there’s a Vault of Ages in the van so they chuck the potions in to preserve them.

Next they head to Severinus de Cloet’s cart, as she has hinted to Elven royalty ties in her past, to better ID the sword fragment, which Zelda said was Sperethial. Severinus seems a little spooked and drops it after examining, and says this was a blade supposedly crafted by experts in magical weaponry on the Seelie Court for a legendary assassin who later went rogue: Teachdaire, aka The Messenger. Supposedly the blade is able to dispel magic and is exceptional as piercing magical armor. This possibly explains the strange unhealing slice they found in the warded ritual circle at the Sisterhood’s clubhouse. Severinus warns them further about The Messenger, but seems relieved that he may have gotten shoved off into some metaplane- she says that he has killed multiple members of elven and Seelie courts, so hopefully someone will take a chance to get revenge….

They next contact Tauren and request some hacking help, but warn him there are probably some traps. He agrees and says he’ll work fast, but will bring in a couple others to help. They all rest for the night, and CG and Dig have another weirdly similar dream. Creep and Creature both get Kit to patch up their armor from the run. The next day it looks like Tauren pulled an all-nighter, and he requests some extra pay for medical expenses- they lost a few files, but recovered most of the data, but it was VERY well-protected. He says that it looks like Clara was the lone user, and appears to have been reporting to a handler ID’ed as “JB” on a number of different areas. One was the use of the Sisterhood to foretell various events, possibilities, etc, and the potential for recruiting various members someday. Another was new connections with some useful shadowrunners. The 3rd was a pressing investigation into a newly acquired photograph of the previously unknown plane of Dis.

There is a lot of back and forth with JB about what this could mean, and it seems like the primary consensus is that this could give them a serious leg up against their opposition in this area. After some digging, the team is able to ID this opposition as the APEP Consortium, newly acquired by MCT, who locally operate out of a magic research facility atop Cougar Mountain in Renton. Clara’s last report is that she is planning to use her Sisterhood to do a large ritual to try to gain more info about Dis, and JB warning her to be careful, as their adversaries are very jealous of their current advantages in this area. JB and Clara never directly confirm that they are Black Lodge, but the sense of superiority and unspoken human supremacy that comes through says enough. The team realizes that they didn’t find the Dis pic anywhere at the clubhouse. Creature also recalls that xe has seen harpoon guns before: the Rift Jumpers who attack the team when they were leaving the OZ hyperplane to go to the Library of Alexandria. So are the Rift Jumpers connected to APEP? Who are they?

They next contact Elijah to get help cracking the code in the journal. They head to his temporary basement office at UW Downtown, and find him with a few full-limb casts on, which he explains away as “Antarctica being interesting this time of year.” They get down to business, and he has a mini-me version of himself (some sort of Homunculus) close the door and fetch coffee. He seems very smart and just mildly condescending if he ever feels like they’re wasting his time. The team trades him a bunch of Dis info in exchange for help with the strange device and the journal. He examines the device and explains that it looks like someone has re-jiggered one of ARES’ “Project: Bottleneck” portal closers to reverse the polarity and use it to open portals instead. He says he thinks they would be imperfect, inaccurate, and very temporary. The tech doesn’t look totally finished, but nonetheless- very interesting! In combo with the burnt toxic reagents they found, he explains that you might be able to control portal size/shape etc a bit.

For the book, he calls in a colleague: Prof. Maggie Magnusson (with the team’s approval). Maggie and Creep chat a bit, having met at the Crypt, and then Creep, Creature, and CG are dismissed as they aren’t really much good at helping with the book and it’s a small office. Dig stays to assist. They don’t make much progress on the book, and Elijah suggests reaching out to some AI contacts of Maggie’s to speed it up, but the team rejects that idea for now. Dig asks for help learning some mind reading spells, which Elijah agrees to, in order to try to find the magical cryptographic key that might crack the journal quicker. The rest of the team decides to look into the Tarot card. Following some clues, they end up at the Numismatic Museum of Seattle, Downtown, and buy tickets.

They find the coin hinted at on the card, and “near” it find a huge glass jar with some trace magic, filled with tens of thousands of rare-ish dimes. The curator claims that is a world record collection of dimes, and seems to be a coin pervert. The team tries to figure out how to heist it, while Creep sneaks into the basement to try to find out who the unlisted donor of this item is. With some miraculous searching, Creep finds out that it was Dunkelzahn himself. They head out for now, planning to possibly return later to steal the thing but not quite sure how to proceed, as they guess it would weigh close to a ton. For now, they link back up with Dig and discuss next steps- it seems they’re waiting on the translation of the book, so CG and Dig reach out to Jaga, the Walking Witch, to suggest a sleepover, to bring the 3 Tzuri Group traditions together and see if their various dreams continue to align, and what that might mean….

The team also gets some new from around town: Romeo has been talking shit about them since they burned him with ARES, probably permanently, and he will not be working with them again. Annie has been doing some quiet damage control though, and she hopes this doesn’t harm the team’s rep too badly. Rahel Juric of Omnistar released the bunraku parlor info about Carl Derrick (UCAS rep), and also the info about Reed/ARES trying to cover it up to blackmail Derrick. This gets the public pissed at both ARES and the UCAS government (for being so in the pockets of the corps), playing into Omnistar’s hands nicely. Reed tries to do a damage control press conference, but is killed by a sniper. ARES tries to blame the whole thing on her and sweep it under the rug, announcing that their longtime political head for Seattle, Karen King, will be taking over their place on the Referendum.

The missing CAS rep has been located- the Blank Verses team managed to find a ship with his corpse aboard a ship docked at the local Proteus aquacology. It looks like the Null assassin Hitsec Burn corrupted or unleashed an AI aboard the vessel, which killed and experimented upon the passengers. The BV didn’t head further into the Proteus facility, as it was outside their job parameters, especially as they already had multiple casualties from the run. The BV spread the word about a mad AI on the loose on the ship, nd possibly in the facility, and a minor panic starts- likely what Hitsec was after primarily- bad press for AI’s.

Gregory Bear-Killer also went after his target: the Horizon rep Thomas Muir. Muir’s bodyguard, Sutun the Pillar of Ankara, managed to hold back a toxic wolf but was killed by acid while wrestling it. Muir himself had a surprise adept awakening and manged to fight off and subdue Bear-Killer, who was arrested and is now detained on McNeil Prison island. Horizon plays up Muir’s “good guy with magic” heroism, which is very popular with the masses, especially given his “awe shucks” vibe at the press conference he insists on concluding after the attack.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Creature
Tabasco
Creep

Goodbye to:
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
and Aradia

and Introducing:
Chew Gum
and Dig

While the team is busy hiring out tons of runners, a couple new ritualists roll into town. Chew Gum, a Necro Mage affiliated with the Tzuri Group’s Black Magic school, and Dig, a Beast Mage affiliated with Tzuri Group’s Red Magic school, have both found themselves in Seattle after ending or finishing their formal instruction. Dig has been having some prophetic dreams (a blood eclipse, an avalanche, and some underground cities) that have brought him here, while Chew Gum is seeking money, connections, artifacts and power, and heard Seattle was a good spot for all of it.

They link up, and get to know each other a bit. Both are very strange. Dig seems to be a homeless shapeshifter with some rock-skin SURGE qualities, while Chew Gum is a pot-bellied Ogre accompanied by some Necro spirits housed in a mass of rotten plant matter worn as a bandolier and a rotting possum. They get along just fine. Following up on some Tzuri Group leads, they decide to investigate some happenings in the Underground.

They bribe some Skraacha to watch CG’s bike (with sidecar for Possum and DIg, who is in dog form), and head down into the Umbra district from a Night of Rage memorial in a public park, which contains a secret entrance. They send some of their spirits off to search for signs of Green Magic, as they heard a fellow former student went rogue and may be down here. They eventually come across some Rooters members, who CG makes a good impression on, after convincing them that “his dog” isn’t laughing at them. Dig uses a mindlink spell to stay in communication with CG while in animal form.

The Rooters give them a bit of the lay of the land of politics and power struggles in the underground, and tell them the Green Mage they seek is a weirdo healer named Jaga, The Walking Witch. They follow the Rooters directions to bypass the main tourist/developed area, and cut around to the Ork Underground to the north. They pass through some construction zones that look to be SK and EVO sub-arcologies in the process of being built. Reaching the Ork Underground, they encounter Big V’s Monument, and eventually find their way to the Watering Hole, where CG once again overcomes his and Dig’s bizarre appearance by virtue of speaking Or’Zet (and being able to down Hurlg and Big D Hot Sauce with no trouble).

The barkeep uses an alchemical token to summon Jaga, and she walks in a few hours later. They converse, and she reports that she has been having her own versions of Dig’s dreams, seemingly filtered through her Green Magic perspective. They squabble a bit, as their fields usually do, but CG helps keep the peace. They agree to work together on some investigations, but Jaga makes clear that she won’t help them if they’re working against the “true” Underground at any point- take from above, not below and all. She also tells them about some other interesting locations to find (and avoid) down here. This includes the Ghoulberg area (good body disposal, but make sure you don’t get snagged too- helps to make some infected friends) and the toxie Druid cult harvesting the fatberg out in Redmond.

They also notice the barkeep gives her a human sized Hurlg mug, a rare sign of respect to a non-Trog in this establishment. She also seems to have replaced a former cyberarm with an animate plant matter arm, and has a small humanoid plant familiar of some sort that follows her. She seems to be kind of evenly somewhere between CG and Dig’s relative power levels. CG also makes contact via a bar terminal with Sung Yi, and info broker with the Choson Ring, one of the local Seoul’Pa’s, and proves his nationalist credentials sufficiently to get a test job: fuck with the Yak in a meaningful way and they will help him out and give him more work. He agrees.

They leave the bar and continue their investigations. They head to the Dwarf Underground, the ritziest area, to look into rumors of Menehune Dwarfs working some kind of excavation project. Sung Yi already tipped them that the Menehune are likely working on behalf of the Sea Dragon, so they tread carefully, plus they inevitably attract plenty of attention from the guards (Hard Corps mercs) who police the zone’s borders, and who insist on confirming magically that CG isn’t a shedim. They get in, but are under constant surveillance while there. They use their spirits to find the nearest large collection of excavating tools, and confirm that it is somewhere down under the bottom of the central elevator shaft of a new 10-story deep hotel.

The concierge confirms that the Penthouse suite (the lowest level, with a private elevator) has been indefinitely rented, and will not allow them access to any areas without renting a room, which they obviously can’t afford (the concierge has correctly assessed this). Dig checks it out astrally with his Watcher spirit, and finds a massive magical barrier blocking access to the bottom of the shaft, which also is laced with some impressive illusion spells to block sound and visual without being obvious about it. So it seems that whatever the Sea Dragon has the Menehune digging up/out/etc is down there, but will remain secret for now.

They head back to the surface and get a call from someone telling them that since they’ve been poking around, they might as well come have a chat. She invites them to her yacht, and suggests they head there immediately. Not having any better leads, they do, with CG riding atop Dig (in horse form) at an impressive pace through Downtown. This gets them noticed by any magically aware individuals watching, and they don’t do much better with subtlety at the docks, where they startle a man when Dig transforms back to man form, and then use a spirit to trip him into the water, where they watch while he drowns. Luckily for the man, some other boaters rescue him just in time, but CG and Dig are filmed and shamed on social media for standing by and doing nothing (though noone seems to realize they were also the cause).

They head aboard the yacht, and meet Eletheira Windtaker, correctly assessing that she is a Sea Dragon rep herself. She tells them (essentially) to stop poking their noses in, but suggests that the SD will reward them well and maybe share some info if they start working for her. They agree in principle, which seems sufficient for the time, and Eletheria gives them some contact info for some local runners she’s been using for a variety of jobs, who she suggests linking up with. For now, they head north to meet up with the Sisterhood of Ariadne and talk ritual magic, having a few forecastings they wish to attempt.

Meanwhile, the team has cleared up their jobs list quite a bit with subcontractors, and Kit has decided to retire from day to day running in order to focus on fixing and managing the Shadow Chapters. Aradia also takes her leave, in order to focus on her personal magical development as well as her investigations into Entropy circles and the Shades night club. Both promise to stay in touch with developments from those areas, but won’t be available on the regular for day to day runs. Aradia’s first stop is the Sisterhood of Ariadne, to do a ritual to learn about some of the assassins in town, where she encounters Chew Gum and Dig. They agree to help with the ritual, recognizing Aradia as one of the team they were supposed to seek out, and Aradia offers to connect them with the rest of the team for payment.

For payment to the Sisterhood, Aradia offers the mana plate photo of the door to Dis on the Moon, which Clara and the others eagerly accept. For all their grandmotherly vibes, their ritual chamber is quite nice and put together, and they decide first to focus on the legendary assassin Teachdaire, as the team decides to try to cooperate with the Moonlight Thorns to take him out. The ritual works, and tracks TD to a farm safehouse in Snohomish, but he has some kind of magical protection that cause about half the participants to forget ever having seen him (including the 3 runners). Luckily, Clara and the other team members, who were observing via TacNet, do remember, so not a total bust. But scary! He looked right at them as if aware of the ritual!

They also do some digging into some other assassins, and offer to help John Abernathy (as unpleasant as always) survive against the Wrecking Crew, a thrillkill explosives trio. They recommend a few bodyguards, and he chooses to hire Dynamic Solutions (“for the optics”), which proves useful, as the Executive Protection team does their job, engaging in a massive fire(/explosives) fight with the in disguise Wrecking Crew as they “sealed cracks” on the bridge to Council Island. The JTF and NAN military on either side of the bridge also got pulled in, but luckily due to some good planning from OrkCEO, civilian casualties were minimal and fatalities were limited to combatants. Unfortunately, the bridge was badly damaged and is closed for the time being, but Abernathy survived, ensuring his “leave” vote.

The team checks in with Romeo, who hassles them some more about doing Free Seattle jobs, as the referendum is flying by. They decide to do a twofer, and take Major Brenda Reed’s job with the goal of sabotaging her by feeding the info to Rahel Juric. Tabasco does his best negotiating since they don’t want to risk putting Carol on the call, and gets an OK promise of pay from Reed, to manufacture some blackmail on Carl Derrick, the weak-willed UCAS congressman, by taking advantage of his predilection for Bunraku parlors. Reed gives them his favorite in-town place, his schedule of visits, and his preferred type, and tells them to take it from there, so long as whatever they do is bad enough to give her permanent leverage for getting him “out of it.”

They do some recon, and get a good security head count and idea for the building exterior. Creep pays for a membership (after verifying his age) and does the same inside. Small building, lots of guards. They contact Las Muñecas to tip them to what’s going down and offer an opportunity to rescue the 6 “dolls” kept onsite. LM agrees. Dig uses magic to program the AIMAD, freaking everyone out, and leaving it so that Creep will just have to run the program. Creep buys some gamma-scopolamine, and heads back into the parlor, renting the room directly under the one Derrick always uses for the same amount of time as him.

Once the team observes Derrick arrive, Creep waits 15 minutes, then crawls down the dumbwaiter from his room and up the one into Derrick’s room, making good use of his linked camo skin and suit, and KO’s Derrick without any trouble. He runs the AIMAD on him a few times to make sure it sticks, and then heads back the same way he came, leaving before things get chaotic.

The rest of the plan springs into motion: without Kit present, the gloves are off! So Tabasco KO’s a Yak guard with an injection arrow, and Carol retrieves the arrows and breaks their neck, and then steps back out of the way as Derrick’s driver races towards the back door. Chew Gum causes him to have an accident, slamming into another Yak guard who rushes out back and going flying through the windshield. Tabasco and Creature KO these two as well, and Carol retrieves the arrow again.

Derrick comes running out back, screaming, with Yak on his heels, who start firing as he peels off in his car, abandoning his driver. The Yak try to grab the driver and head back in, but find the back door locked somehow. They send runners to other Yak bars in the same strip, but Chew Gum and Tabasco kill them both, and Carol splashes lube grenades in the alley to add to the chaos. Feeling that they’ve done enough, they exfiltrate, but Tabasco spots 7 stealthed VTOLs taking off from the brothel roof as they leave.

They report into Reed and send her the footage, and she seems satisfied and pays up, though she asks if it wasn’t a bit of overkill, though she doesn’t seem to mind. Not sure what she’s referring to, they check the news and find reports that an organized crime brothel went up in flames, with multiples bodies already recovered inside. Checking in with Las M, they hear that the rescue went well (all 6 dolls recovered and into hiding/recovery in their network), but that a local contractor was a it enthusiastic. They put together that Yoko Aruki was on the job, and is continuing her anti-Yakuza firebug style.

However, this also nicely fulfills Sung Yi’s request, so Chew Gum advances with the Seoul-Pa. They sell the info about Derrick, as well as the fact that Reed was behind it, to Rahel Juric, who also pays up, and then tell Annie that they did this, but don’t tell Romeo. They figure this is a good test of how he responds, in terms of getting a feel for him, and Annie overall approves the strategy. They also get her to negotiate a deal between the Yak and the Skraacha for ACHE smuggling once Shiawase takes over, on behalf of Shiawase Daigou, as the team is so unpopular with the Yak right now that they can’t possibly do it themselves.

They also hear the a Songbirds assassin named Oscen, a poisoner and thrown weapons expert, made a move on Margaret Telestrian (likely for not being a pure enough elf). Luckily, the Moonlight Thorns werewolf Saroosh was onsite, and saved Telestrian, but was killed in the process, though not before he also killed Oscen. Without Saroosh around to help though, what will happen with Teachdaire?!?!

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
Creep

After the confusing paydata selling day, with a lot of new feelings about what to do next, their relations with others, etc, the team decides to try to fortify the local Shadow Chapters by hiring a bunch of runners (for a small fee, of course) to do a bunch of the various jobs the team has amassed during their time in town. They also hear some worrying rumors about some very angry Marry Me… megafans who are are displeased about the team’s revelations. 6 out of 16 (in total) of the reprogrammed Shadow Chaps members are successfully deprogrammed, the rest die via the allergic shock trigger that was also implanted to prevent tampering. Shiawase is holding one of the 6 survivors for study by their MFID branch, but promises it’s “catch and release” and won’t be a regular habit.

The team does some research on local runners, figuring out who are the crews to know, who’s got good rep, etc.This includes all the teams they met while distributing VDH’s hoard, a useful reference, as well as some others they’ve encountered in their time here and in Chicago. With this list in hand, they compare it (the teams on it’s capabilities) with their list of available jobs, and assign out one to each team, with the explanation that this is a test run for the team to join the Shadow Chaps, which will bring more work. The team decides to keep certain Free Seattle/high secrecy jobs for themselves, especially as Kit wants the Shadow Chaps to remain officially neutral on Free Seattle and able to work either side, with Wei and Snow agree with.

Takashi and his Rusted Stiletto mutant recruits storm the Aqua Arcana lab facility and free the captive Merrow, as well as various other critter subjects kept there. The mutants remain reasonably restrained and only eat some of the staff, though at the request of the Sea Dragon, they make a horrifying video of them eating alive the project head in front of all his cowering coworkers, with the announcement that Merrow are under the Sea Dragon’s protection, and experimentation upon them will not be tolerated. Remo helps Creature with some research, and Takashi is able to shuttle the Merrow to one of 3 spots of their choosing: Enatai Beach Park on Council Island (already a free Merrow gathering point), Blake Island (the Sea Dragon’s recent acquisition), or the water-entry level of the Beaux Arts arcology in Bellevue, after Eletheria purchases a significant portion of it for their private use.

Next up, Kukulkan’s Crew is sent to investigate the Halloweeners, at Shiawase Daigou’s suggestion, and figure out what they’re up to trying to corrupt the Spirit of the City. They confirm some info that the team had provided from the early, early days of the team file, when Eion Smash had snuck into Glow City to observe a ritual done by Nightmare, the gang leader, and found himself mutated for his trouble. Asking if they should continue, the team decides to throw in some extra assistance and hires the New Assets to back up K’s Crew, though Picaro, the young ork adept on the crew seems gung-ho to go either way. With some injuries on K’s Crew and casualties amongst the new recruits to New Assets (Tommy Talon explains it was a test run anyway), the runners prevail and manage to destroy the statue of Chemosh that was being used to power the mutation rituals, corrupt the local Spiders, and attack the Spirit of the City. After a hard battle, they also manage to disrupt Nightmare, who seems to be some of Cancer spirit, likely from Miggon.

Imre Dahl’s crew is hired to look into all the assassins in town, and their on-call hitman, By the Numbers, gets a solid report back, backed up by their deckers and mage doing some research. They get names and likely targets of all the top tier assassins working, and manage to strike a few from their “concerns” list based on them being hyper-focussed or specialized on things the team doesn’t care about. They also spot some good possibilities for turning certain assassins against each other. Tabasco pays out of pocket for a side job, and hires the same crew to take out a Shedim merc/assassin named SIN who is in town. Unfortunately, By the Numbers is killed in the process, and this crew refuses to join the Shadow Chaps, and Dahl says not to contact them again.

Beltfed’s team takes on Rooster’s job, and successfully steal the secret rites of the all-Dwarf Stonecutter’s Guild and pass them along. They also report to the team that this is likely Rooster up to something on the Seelie Court, as the Stonecutter’s Guild and the Court’s Zhigul Makers faction are deeply connected. The team doesn’t know what this will entail, but files it away as potentially useful.

They hire the Coven of the Crypt for a few different jobs- looking into who owns Shades, who owns Fenris Nacht, and the Sons of Snohomish. They bungle the Shades job a bit, but confirm that it has unusually good, though not overly threatening security, and that Imre Dahl’s crew is involved somehow (too bad the team already burned that bridge…). They have better luck at Fenris Nacht, discovering that an ancient dragon-hunting order is behind it through a series of LLC’s and shell corps. The Sea Dragon violently takes over ownership, which most of the patrons accept, as she is obviously a strong hunter. Yoko Aruki and a bunch of sea drakes lead the assault, and they mount the heads of the local ownership (and any onsite who resisted) in the secluded alley leading to the entrance. Nyssa Hallas is satisfied with this info. The SoS turn out to predictably be a human metaracist org, with ties to some of the metaracist doctors from the destroyed Paladin clinic network in Denver. The team finds some old notes in the file about that. They’ve opened a new clinic in town, which will need dealing with. They also seem to be doing false flag attacks on humans under the “Sauron’s Legion” banner, in order to drive recruitment.

Grappler’s crew (who Carol knew from Chicago) gets tasked with sabotaging, false-flagging and overall making the UCAS JTF look bad, to popularize their pulling out. The team at Kit’s insistence request a “low lethality” plan, which costs more and is harder, but the team pulls it off with style. This greatly pleases both Rahel Juric and Shiawase Daigou, who gives them yet another job: Renraku will almost surely get various “x-guide” contracts for De La Mar’s new matrix relaunch, and he wants a sleeper agent inserted to make sure that Shiawase has some backdoors and kill codes in place, just in case. The team recruits a cocky and eager young hacker with some social/con skills named Kid Code, who agrees to the longterm assignment, and they successfully get him inserted and set up in his new position. Shiawase Daigou is most impressed with the team and their rapid results.

Howard and Phillips INC is given the job of looking more into the K-Code and the Null Sect, as well as this digital Horror entity that De La Mar has codenamed “Blackout.” They mostly just confirm the info the DDLM gave to the team, especially re: K-Code, but do discover some local Null connections that the team didn’t know about, including an infested host in Redmond that might be a worthwhile target. They also confirm the presence in town of the Null assassin Hitsec Burn, and report that they had a lot of gear fried in their investigations. They report that it seems that Null attacks are down in areas where DDLM’s new matrix is live (Boston, Chicago) but escalating in other places, suggesting they are attempting a pressure campaign to speed the transition. The team give H&P the Null Doc to help them keep safe in future.

Tommy Vermont and Las Muñecas set their trap as discussed: they put out word in some places they know Kellan Hunter will hear it that Natalia is a Monad, and sit back and observe. Hunter manages to kill Natalia after stalking her for a few days, and takes her eyes, and Vermont and the LM’s take him out (perhaps a little excessively, but best to be sure), ending that serial killer threat to the city, as well as shutting down the Death Ships pipeline. A matrix-based member of the Nadja Fixer Network named Sofia also contacts the team and thanks them for their efforts, having received proof of Natalia’s corruption and activities from the LM’s. She’ll be taking over the Seattle beat for now in Natalia’s absence.

The Mythfits are given the job of looking into the First Union smuggling org, and discover that it is a forced conversion recruitment Monad operation, which deeply upsets Kit. It also proves useful as a way to recruit other smugglers and go-gangers to take revenge, and the local FU chapter is basically wiped out, though with pretty high casualties on the ganger side. The Mythfits luckily only require some hospital stays to get back on their feet after a gnarly brawl.

With all these new crews signed up for the Shadow Chaps, and only one real failed job amongst the lot, Kit plans to start recruiting more fixers, street docs, etc to begin building the full network. The team also has to figure out what to do with all the assassin info. Miranda King from Spinrad contacts them on an old number of Carol’s asking if she was correct in recognizing them from Chicago. Aradia gets in touch to maintain Carol’s fake dead status, and agrees to work with her. First off, she does an interview on Kit’s Shadowcast “The Bolthole” in order to start building relationships between Spinrad and Monad communities, since they don’t like that EVO has the market cornered at the moment. She then hires Aradia/the team to begin prepping an epic night (or more) out for a certain VIP, who she will not confirm or deny is Spinrad himself.

They also hear that the referendum is officially starting, and will last for exactly one week. Creepily, Horizon is deeply involved, conducting opinion polls and surveys the whole time to gauge the populace. The team better get a move on to make sure things swing their way, and not let any of their preferred delegates gets clipped! Happily, they also got a list of high end bodyguard in town, and can recommend their services.

The team also hears from Su Cheng, and learns that due to his secret manipulation, Jimmy Kincaid has brokered a peace deal between the Ancients and the Triad to secure an arms smuggling deal, basically granting them the power that Cheng was worried about the Laesa/Yakuza having. Unfortunately, someone seems to take exception to this (or something else Kincaid did) and severs his arm, destroying his last bit of magic and cutting him off from his ally spirit. Hearing that she’s been appearing randomly around town, Aradia and Tabasco astrally track her to an apartment/office registered to a pair of people finder/bounty hunter/bailbondswomen named Skip and Trace. They try to offer assistance consoling the spirit, but S&T seem to have a pre-existing relationship with her and say they have it under control. Aradia tries to snoop a bit more astrally and gets KO’ed by the very emotional spirit. Tabasco leaves a number in case they can be of future help, and then carries unconscious Aradia out of there, successfully taking the hint. But who went after Kincaid and why?

Runners
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Aradia
Tabasco
Creep

With Creature at OtherCon, and Carol embracing the lessons he learned from ThinkTank (RIP) to take some vacation sometimes, the rest of the crew settles down to divy up all the paydata from Alice’s lab. After some debate, they decide to split it into some separate tranches rather than try to sell it all as one chunk, figuring it’ll be better overall payout and connections that way. They report in to Annie first, giving her some info on the Death Ships and missing persons cases, closing out a few investigations Tabasco had started back when.

Calling in some favors from Remo, and doing some research of their own, they find out some about Alice’s Death Ship contact, a local fixer named Natalia. Strangely, she’s a member of the Nadja fixer network, who are usually anti-trafficking, but rumors have been circulating that not everyone she helps to smuggle themselves somewhere reaches their destination. They find out that she survived an assassination attempt some years ago, and was kept alive partially with an experimental nanite treatment. They speculate she likely later fell victim to CFD but has kept it under wraps.

They report this in to Tommy Vermont, who has been working with Las Muñecas to crack down on trafficking locally. They decide to set a trap: they will tip off the serial killer Kellan Hunter that Vermont has been investigating about Natalia’s “Monad” nature, and then observe, and plan to take out whoever survives that encounter.The team’s a little iffy on the morals of this whole plan, but since noone even asked them to get involved decide to just wash their hands of it and move on, though Tabasco and Vermont get a little side action going on who they think will win.

As part of their pay from Annie, they get a couple contacts, to pursue other paydays. First, they call up a mid-level Shiawase exec in Tacoma, who Annie had some connections to from a ways back, and offer some valuable info to the corp about the ACHE. She passes it up and the chain (and seems to benefit from bringing it in), and the team gets a meeting with a retired C-Suite exec, Shiawase Daigou, one of the 7 adopted children who ran the corp for quite some time, but who know advises informally from his 5 story penthouse on top of the ACHE.

The team hires an air cab to get up there, and gets a very thorough search from very polite corpsec. Daigou’s grandson ushers them in to the large suite, and they find a huge greenhouse garden, explaining Daigou’s nickname on the streets, “The Gardener.” The grandson brings those who can drink tea, and Tabasco tries to see his condo- the view is incredible from 320 stories above downtown. Daigou eventually wanders over, taking off his work gloves, and begins negotiations. Aradia tries to spot magic, and there is definitely something there, though well-concealed, although he also has a lot of implants. He also has a set of color-coded hardlines to… somewhere on his sparse desk.

The team has a quick debate, and decide to sell this guy Spirit of the City info as well, as he’s a much bigger fish than they expected to be dealing with. Plus, Tabasco knows that Shiawase wants the contract to run the whole ACHE and the reactors below, and would be happy if Free Seattle passes as it will make that whole process easier. So, could be a useful ally! They turn over the info about the Spiders and Weeners infiltrating the ACHE and trying to corrupt the SOTC, and also tell about the Weeners smuggling old secret Deus tech out. They connect Daigou with Jaliyah Angél, their local ASPS connection, to stabilize the SOTC and prevent corruption.

Daigou says he will dispose of the undesirables, and Tabasco gets a little concerned and inquires, and Daigou reveals that they have also been making use of the Death Ships to get rid of problem elements. Tabasco convinces him to stop (after this last shipment, as the team decides Spiders and Weeners are best off getting eaten). He also agrees to provide access to one of Shiawase’s delta clinics to the team to put their payday to best use, and with a donation from Aradia of her chunk of the pay the ASPS helps her craft and bind some foci. Kit gets Daigou to potentially agree to bring Shiawase onto the Shadow Chapters, but he hints that they have been infiltrated or at least influenced by a corp, and he wont agree until that has been resolved, but he won’t say more for now.

The team gets paid, heads out, and agrees to do a job for Daigou as well- he suggests that his security would have spotted an artifact powerful enough to corrupt the SOTC if it had come into the ACHE, even if JTF security had missed it. So there must be someone on the outidie who’s the mastermind of the conspiracy who has yet to be revealed. He suggests starting by looking into the Weeners. He also offers bounty payouts to the team or anyone else who makes the JTF look bad- he will use the info about ganger/cultist infiltration to just such a purpose. But the worst of a public look the JTF has, the easier it will be to get them booted out of the ACHE- which will be especially easy if Free Seattle passes and the UCAS military pulls out in full.

Kit posts a warning about “Marry Me…” on Jackpoint and elsewhere, and reports start coming in from some other teams who have encountered similar labs in different Barrens-esque places around the world. It seems like spirit, drone, and Dissonant sprite security is the norm, but the other labs seemed long abandoned by regular visitors, so the team likely disrupted Alice getting a full new one up and running before she skipped town. Comparing dates of these other lab raids to various Marry Me outages and glitches, matrix sleuths confirm that most of the game beyond the base is likely being run by these technomancer meat-brain networks, which is deeply upsetting. The team gets some hate from some diehard Marry Me stans who suggest they are plants from an opposing game company, but most posters seem to believe the evidence, and thank the team for sharing it free of charge.

The team then calls in more Remo favors to dig into the Shadow Chapters further. They compile some info and compare it, trying to get as big of a sample size as possible from the dozen-ish cities where the Shadow Chaps have set up. What they find is a bit disturbing: Horizon and SK most often benefit from runs through the SC, and Horizon gets hits least often- both by a significant enough margin to not be random. This implies that the corp that Daigou hinted might be behind the Shadow Chaps (or have infiltrated them) is likely Horizon, which means probably the Dawkins Group. It seems like the reprogramming of uncooperative types is not a situation unique to Seattle- the team likely didn’t encounter it in Chicago since everyone had a common enemy and they were deeply involved in setting it up there.

Worried about what this might mean locally, Kit sets up a meeting with Ms Snow and Eddie Wei to use this as blackmail leverage to make themselves a third equal partner in the leadership. The rest of the team comes along as backup, but unfortunately are not paranoid enough, as Ms Snow quick draws and shoots Kit in the chest as soon as they present the info about Horizons/Dawkins infiltration.The team manages to KO Snow and corner Wei, but not before Wei puts out and APB to all Shadow Chaps members that the team has attacked the leadership.

They manage to convince Wei to a brief ceasefire by sending him the intel they found, and get him to tell the SC members who showed up to reinforce to stay outside (for now). Wei suggests they all back off a bit while he reviews the info. Kit stabilizes Snow before they leave. Aradia calls in a favor from Arthur Vogel to get an ARES AIMAD of their own, having seen that Alice had a modded one she was using to reprogram people for the SC (and others). Wei eventually agrees to the team’s proposal- Wei, Kit and Snow (if she can be deprogrammed) will all 3 run the local SC for now, and they’ll try deporgramming with the AIMAD first off on Snow before trying to round up all the other reprogrammed members at once and trying to clear them.

The team heads back in, and Aradia uses mind probe in concert with some drugs to soften the still unconscious Snow up for the AIMAD. Kit does a spectacular job, aided by their nanites, and manages to break the core reprogramming down on Snow (which seems much higher level than what Alice was doing- uh-oh!), as well as shove all the evidence of Horizon/Dawkins infiltration into her brain. They luckily also manage to magically and medically keep her alive as they fight the reprogramming which tries to kill her as a last ditch effort. She wakes up with an awful hangover but agrees to their terms of the deal and plan, and says that she guesses she’s thankful?

With this info in hand, Kit returns to all the skeptics around town (Tauren, Takashi, Daigou) and gets them to help all the uncorrupted local SC members round up the list that Wei and Snow have of reprogrammed locals. They plan to attempt the same protocol that Kit and Aradia established, and save as many as they can. Daigou keeps one for Shiawase to study, saying that this will not be how he usually operates in relation to the SC, but that they need to see how their adversaries work. He says Shiawase’s inhouse spies (the MFID) will be able to deprogram just fine once they’re done studying, and return the captured runner back to the streets. Kit and team reluctantly agree, not really having a choice.

Finally, they make contact with a one-use number Annie got them for the powerful socialite and matrix safety campaigner, Danielle de la Mar. She agrees to meet them for lunch at the Embassytown cafe on Council Island. The team review their SINs and ditches all their illegal gear and heads over. Tabasco gets some additional scans, but all his visible ‘ware is legal, and Aradia seductively distracts the guard from looking closer. They get to the meeting and find that DDLM has impressive magical, tech and physical security, all onhand but low profile. She explains that she will be jamming their meeting and that her mage will be using illusions to keep anyone from lip-reading or listening in. The team explains Alice’s diabolical plan, mentions the K-Code and Jormungandr, and brings up the Null Sect.

DDLM seems familiar with all of these, other than Alice’s “crash the global currency and take over” plot. She thanks the team for their info on that, and says she will update the robustness of the Matrix 3.1 launch she is preparing, as well an the new SIN and Nuyen registries, to counter that threat. She doesn’t seem as worried about the K-Code, suggesting it is more of a matrix bogeyman/vaporware, but is interested in knowing more regardless. The Null Sect however, she has a lot to say about. After conferring obliquely about safety protocols and level of knowledge, and establishing that her and the team are on the same page, she launches in.

She explains that the Null Sect’s ultimate goal, as far as she can tell, is to sever Resonance energy from tech energy, and be able to fully control what they consider the “real world”: the digital side of meatspace. The NS view Resonance (and e-life forms and digital sapients/AI’s) as threats to this, which is why they especially want to eliminate them. DDLM explains that based on some recent Seelie Court discoveries about the connected nature of magic and Resonance, and her dealings with the NS, she believes that Resonance has other similarities to magic as well: it grows in power with more use and belief in it, and if it gets too powerful, some kind of “digital Horror” will arrive to smack everything back down, much as happened to magic at the end of the 4th World. She believes the NS are seeking to hasten the arrival of this entity or entities, which she has codenamed “Blackout.” She isn;t sure what this Blackout will do, or even what form(s) it might take upon it’s arrival, but she thinks the NS might be something like the Invae or Shedim: early signals of the coming of something worse.

She also believes the NS have recruited some human allies to manipulate, pay, etc into doing their bidding in meatspace: the Freedom Network, and the Turing Army. Their various political proclivities make them easy to use, and they both are arrogant enough as orgs to likely assume that they are in control of the partnership (they are not). They are also working with global networks of Dissonant TM’s, who also hate Resonance. More worrying, according to DDLM, is that she believes the NS have struck some sort of deal with the Euro Vampiric cabal known as the Ordo Maximus, which could prove very troublesome indeed. Regardless, she explains that the real reason she is launching matrix 3.1 (as well as enhanced safety protocols) is because the Foundation has become to dangerous and she wants to get the vast majority of metahumanity further from the NS, to buy some time. She explains that she made a devil’s bargain of sorts with the NS: in exchange for abandoning the Foundation to their control, they won’t expand beyond it, and will limit their attacks to those e-life forms they find especially abhorrent.

She doesn’t trust them at all of course, but thinks this will at least give metahumanity some maneuvering room. She also explains that the CFD/Monad explosion out into the world was of course because of the experiments being done on AI/e-life, but also because something worse was chasing them, so the NS are also partially to blame for that. The team, all sitting back in their seats with their minds blown wide open, agree to potentially look into some of this stuff more, and not spread any of this info wide outside their networks. DDLM offers them significant additional pay for more details about any of this stuff, and suggest they come to her first in the future, as they now have a working relationship, and who knows who else you can really trust?

Shiawase Daigou calls back to share some info: Horizon is likely triggering their sleeper agents and sending subliminal commands through otherwise innocuous concealed programming in popular music they release. So they don’t have to specifically target any one agent or even know where they are, so long as they’re somewhat connected to pop cultural norms. This matches with Alice/Null Sect’s fucked up use of stolen Dawkins Group tech at the Iron Jungle, that Tabasco had previously ID’ed. They also call in their final Remo favor, and get some more K-Code info: it does seem like more of a rumor than a fact at this point, BUT there are multiple instances of air-gapped offline private code labs getting massacred, and every time the data drives are missing afterwards.

Looking further into the coders killed in these incidents, from what they team can piece together (it seems like lots of payouts and NDA’s have prevented much outcry publicly), they are all specialists in AI, economics, market forecasting, and the like, so it seems like Alice might be onto something with this K-Code biz after all…. yet another problem for another day! The team celebrates their big paydays with some implants and chillin’, closes out a lot of the investigations on their lists, and figures out what to do next.