Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and introducing: Tabasco (for his backstory see: Meanwhile in Seattle)

The team sets up at Finn Safehouse #4, and Carol buys a jet ski to zip around on the small lake they’re adjacent to. They’re up in some wooded mountains, near the border, on a pretty isolated road, but they have a lot of space and the custom gear they requested. Aradia announces her plan to hang there for a while, get acclimated, and set up her magical lodge onsite for ritual use and cursing. The rest of the team decides to cruise around a bit the next day and get a feel for the town before committing to anything too hard.

They rest well, and some have dreams: TT gets a task from the Sea Dragon to find and contact the Vault of Lore, in exchange for unspecified reward, Creature gets a few tasks to reach out to local changelings and weirdo’s on the SD’s behalf, and Kit gets a task to look into some group called the First Union. They are all also told to contact a woman named Eletheria at the Downtown docks as the local agent for the SD, but to keep Eletheria’s affiliation to themselves. Carol has a dreamless sleep. Takashi reports in, without a location as requested, and says he is appreciating the local terroir and learning about himself. Ken Ichiro also calls and warns Kit subtly that his team’s involvement in bringing Takashi is known, and might be forgiven by the local Yak if they turn Takashi over. They debate what to do but don’t decide yet, wanting more info.

They call around a bit the next day to feel out what jobs are around in addition to the ones they have already been offered, and decide to meet up with a local guy that Imaginary Annie wants them to work with, an archer named Tabasco. They link up at the Reverse Mullet in Redmond, and feel each other out. Tabasco realizes that this is the team that he saw take out a Yak cybersoldier on that vid from the SSC, and is suitably impressed. He’s accidentally a little snobby about Carol’s mixed grade cyberware, but then is very disturbed/impressed when Carol turns out to know secret ARES info about his missing parents.

Tabasco gives the team the local rundown, and says he can introduce them to useful contacts etc as needed. To start, they head Downtown to drop off Carol’s rifle with Iva to give it a powered breakdown function for easier smuggling, and Iva seems turned on by danger as per usual, and is fully gothed out. They next head South to Puyallup, and go to Riot and Butch’s clinic to get TT some cosmetic surgery to make him less recognizable, hoping to limit future CIA attempts on his life. While TT is under, Kit makes friends with Hans Yolo who seems interested in helping start a car-boxing league, and Carol buys a new more portable SMG from Don Michaels, quickly delivered by a Cutters moto-courier.

Kit hangs back to chat with Yolo and keep an eye on the clinic, while Tabasco, Creature, and Carol go roof-jumping. They spots some Reality Hackers throwing up anti-Yak tags, but seemingly trying to make it look like the Vory did it, and also spot some tensions inside the Ancients, both between 3 internal factions (which seems competitive but mostly friendly) and between them and the Laesa, which seems less friendly- something may be up there. They also make some calls and start looking into the missing magical people angle, and Tabasco finally gets ahold of Mongoose.

She gives them some good Yak/Blue Dragons intel, and they make a plan to grab Han Liu, the BD leader, and get Aradia to pull the info they need out of his head. Feeling good about the whole situation, they get Tabasco to read and sign the group norms, and Carol breaks the bad news about Tabasco’s parents to him: his dad is for sure dead, and his mom is “missing” (Carol has put together that Tabasco’s mom was the embedded bodyguard who killed his dad to prevent his capture by another corp, but doesn’t tell Tabasco that part). They all head home to rest up, agreeing to start their investigation tomorrow. Tabasco sticks with his condo for now, not joining them at the safe house. The runners are delighted to find a spirit of water present in their lake, who the Sea Dragon has tasked with providing security assistance, but who also seems happy to make waves for Carol’s jet ski. TT looks slightly more traditionally handsome post-surgery and a bit younger, but nothing too drastic.