Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Ivan the Jackle
Tobias Cheney
Rolf Soren Ramis
UltraBoy!
Harmony Craig Bottow
Others
Ut-Napishtim
Long Pig
Halfman
April O’Mally
Daedelus
Scrounge
Tamany Clark
One Shot Wade
Jaro

After clearing the yard, disabling the towers, and busting into the lower area of the mansion, the team has barricaded up while Rolph plants a thermite charge to blast through to the floor above. Team members investigate a few of the towers at the corner of the building, discovering that the handles are electrified, and that they only seem to have access to the tower tops anyway (which are of course mostly exploded). Ivan plays dead with his meat body while rigging the cat, car, and i-ball. Tobias paints some blood on him to make it more convincing. K is being severely inhibited by a strong background count, which seems to be limiting his usefulness at spellcasting and astral scouting. Once all back in position, the team has Rolph light the fuse. He gets out of the way.

The hatch burns through and drops to the floor with a loud clang. Rolph climbs over again to attempt to enter, but the magnetic spiral stairs slam down around him, sending him crashing to the floor (“the old magnetic rimjob”). He is fortunately able to get out of the way and avoid getting caught between them- but this place sure is filled with traps! HCB chucks the i-ball up, but once again the jammer/ecm running upstairs overpowers Ivan’s signal, and he loses the drone. HCB climbs up via a grapple gun, followed by Ut. Once emerged, HCB is felled by a lightning bolt, but sees that they are entering some sort of lounge with a trid screen and bar. There are three doors leading off of it, and he doesn’t notice anyone in the room. Ut gets up there just in time to see an armored dwarf woman about to shank HCB in the side, and yells for K, who flies up and fries the dwarf. Then Ut is also hit with a lightning bolt. While the team below debates fleeing, they hear an “oh shit!” over the comms from April, as thick security doors slam down over the two entrances to the fortress. They then also hear the distinctive whir of a minigun opening up somewhere outside.

They decide that upstairs is the only way to go, and head that way-UB! leads the way, after a few failed attempts at using the grapple gun. K, still hovering about, heals HCB quickly and ducks back down. HCB and Ut dive into cover, and fire on the area they think the bolts are coming from: a wood panel behind the bar. It splinters, and reveals a room behind it, into which UB! and Ut launch/chuck grenades. HCB also shoots out the lock on the door that heads the same way. Meanwhile, downstairs, Ivan is watching Halfman shoot down the chopper from a second floor balcony (via the car sensors). The chopper crashes outside the front door, and Halfman jumps down, vanishing from view in the cloud of flame and smoke. Tobias’ cybereyes suddenly shut down-he’s been hacked! Ivan enters his head to try and fight off the intruder while Tobias tries to boot him. His smartgun link seems to be getting fuzzy. However, once inside, Ivan is able to distract the hacker (an elf wearing armor similar to the dwarf that he previously fought) with combat.

Upstairs, someone (presumably Longpig) is screaming at the team about trashing his house, again. Rolph enters the room, only to be shot in the face by a shotgun mounted to the ceiling. There is a large monitor bank with vidscreens, readouts, etc, and there is an elf sitting immobile in a chair with a bunch of trodes connected. Rolph shoots the elf with a narcoject, but uses a bit to much force, as the arrow exits out the far side of the elf’s neck before delivering its charge. The avatar that Ivan is fighting in the matrix briefly registers an expression of panicked shock before dissipating. Tobias’ gear comes back online. Rolph is then hit and ko’d by a massive lightning bolt by a figure who becomes visible as he slumps over-Longpig himself! HCB checks him out-he seems dead. Massive final overcast apparently. However, all is not well-the security door downstairs slides open as Halfman rushes up the stairs. Ivan, quick thinker that he is, blasts him in the back with an autocannon shell, sending him flying inside. However, Halfman quickly recovers his footing, and opens up on Tobias. Upstairs, K flies Rolph out of the building, away from the magic interference, to heal him up.

Tobias somehow manages to survive the barrage (due to that new milspec armor, no doubt), and returns fire with the gauss rifle, as HCB, Ut, and UB! open up from upstairs, and Ivan fires with the cat from closer by. HCB shouts some abuse at him, and Halfman responds by sending him a detailed file about himself-HCB is a little creeped out. UB! makes good use of his one sticky grenade, landing it squarely on Halfman’s torso, and dealing some serious damage, although Halfman stays upright and focused, keeping his attention on Tobias, who he clobbers and head-butts. Tobias, fearing for his life, leaps straight over Halfman, avoiding his grasp, and flees out the front door. Halfman then turns his attention on the cat, which has been machine gunning him repeatedly. He quickly scraps it, but continues to get pummeled for UB! high-ex grenades. HCB drops his gun, but borrows another one from UB!, and him and Ut continue to provide covering fire. Ivan turns off his comm to play dead even more convincingly, hoping that Halfman won’t see him on the other side of the barricade.

Halfman, now visibly injured, opens up on the three team members upstairs who are surrounding the hatch-HCB and Ut are ko’d, and near death, while UB! barely survives. Tobias, mastering his fear, reenters the front door, and blasts Halfman in the back with a gauss rifle shot. As he half turn s around, Tobias blasts another shot straight through his head, sending brains and wiring splattering onto the ceiling. Rolph and K finish healing and head back over in time to witness Halfman somehow continue turning, and open up on Tobias, who frantically dodges out of the way of most of the shots, but takes some serious damage. Halfman then topples over, while screaming at an otherworldly volume and increasing pitch-K examines his aura, and it going insane-tendrils whipping about and sparks shooting off and such. There is a huge, blinding blast, which shakes the building, and leaves no noticeable pieces of Halfman behind. K and Rolph begin healing up all the various injured and KO’d team members, and can’t believe their luck-they all survived! and Halfman is dead! Also, the magic interference seems to have begun dissipating.

They examine the wreckage of the chopper, and find an overweight elf’s corpse. However April is missing, and presumed escaped, although not responding to comms. Ivan calls Daedelus and requests two vehicles: a truck to haul their loot and the car away, and a a car to get everyone on stims to the hospital before they crash and possibly die. Everyone helps haul loot (weapons, the cat, the large painting of Longpig from his mansion) out front, and also search the grounds. K finds two boytoy clones in the guest house, and ties them up with the loot, Rolph comes out to help and narco’s them. Ut and HCB discover a wall safe in the master bedroom, and Ut sets to work. Ivan and Tobias patch Daedelus into the mainframe, to begin breaking through the firewalls and grabbing whatever they can get. Ivan recovers his micro drones after shutting off the ecm/jammer.

The truck arrives a short while later, and Rolph and Ivan begin loading it up, with the help of Tamany Clark, who was driving. Ivan hauls out Longpig’s body, and throws it in the refrigerated trunk, as per instructions. The fortress begins shaking and smoking at this point, and some sprinklers emerge from the lawn and begin spraying a clear liquid around. They decide its time to go-Ut finally cracks the safe and they grab all the stuff inside-a large hidebound book, which seems to be Longpig’s kill book-the pages are made of skin, and each has a figure painted on it. THere are hundreds. K takes it. They also find assorted credsticks. The car arrives and takes K, Tobias, HCB, and UB! to the hospital, where they all enter intensive care immediately to avoid imminent death. They get a steep discount, and are all out in a few days. UB! calls Jaro and brags about their exploits, scoring some serious points. Meanwhile, as the truck makes a quick exit, the whole building goes up in flames and begins collapsing-an epic end to such a place.

While driving back, Ivan gets a ping alerting him to the presence of a new geotag on a map he is examining: a pighead logo with an X through it, in an abandoned warehouse not too out of their way. They head there, and Ivan enters. There are three figures wearing odd metal masks. One is seated at an ornate desk, which seems incongruous in the otherwise barren warehouse. The other two are standing behind and to either side of the seated figure, with their arms folded in front of them. They ask Ivan if he has the goods, and he says he will get them. He hauls in LP and the narco’ed boytoys, explaining their significance as he does so. Ivan refuses help from the rest of the team on this, even through he is so physically weak-he wishes to appear capable for whoever this is.

The man at the desk seems interested in the clones, and pleased with Ivan’s initiative on the matter, as well as satisfied with LP’s condition (dead, but not destroyed), and he signals to the two men on either side of him, who bag up the three bodies and exit through the farside of the warehouse. The man at the desk tells Ivan they have one last piece of business, and pulls out a sheet of parchment, which he unrolls, and asks Ivan to sign. It is in a language Ivan doesn’t know, but based on the seemingly European accents of the men, he runs through some matrix translation services real quick and finds one that works. He quickly scans the document, and sees it is a service contract pledging him to this unnamed organization’s service in perpetuity. The man insists he sign in blood, and he does so. The man then rolls the paper up, seals it with wax, and ties it shut, before slipping it into his coat pocket. He thanks Ivan for his services rendered and says that they will once again be in touch. Ivan takes the hint and exits, and get s a ping that a big chunk of nuyen just got put into his account. They drive back to the junkyard to begin repairs.

Meanwhile, Tobias finds a buyer for the large painting he grabbed, and makes another big chunk of change. In tandem with the credsticks, and their share of the accounts Daedelus found, as well as Daedelus’ money, the team is swimming in cash. Ut refuses a share, saying he came with solely for revenge, so they split it six ways, and begin planning how to spend it. Ivan gets a bit more, in order to repair the car and cat. He also gets in touch with Wade and lets him know the updates. Wade warns Ivan that they are going to have to watch the Mad Martians carefully now that they no longer have a common enemy. Ivan is non-plussed, as he feels he is sort of beyond petty gang warfare at this point. He is feeling more and more disconnected from his previous life, and plans to spend more time focusing on securing his links to some of these promising new connections. However, he talks up UB! a lot, and Wade agrees to jump him in.

Jaro invited UB! to a party, where the PC get him trashed (although he refuses the street drugs), and then beat him into unconsciousness. He stabs a few in self defense, but nothing serious. He wakes up covered in PC graffiti, and is now a member of the gang. He is thrilled. Daedelus contacts the team, and tells them that they are working on a plan for intercepting the TA reinforcements, who are arriving in mere days. They buckle down, and start planning…..