Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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