Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Tabasco aka Cholula

The team convinces the Mage on the Hill to assist them, though he seems somewhat disgusted by their unique style of banter. However, he swore a pact and must aid when asked, so he will. They also discuss whether to use any other Tarot, and CG pulls out the Queen he was given to summon aid later, if the situation seems desperate enough to pay the currently unknown cost. They take the freshly golem-charged van with 2 Mule drones and the crew all loaded up down to Belle Isle for the ritual/ambush. Unable to reach The Detective, who’s off checking up on contacts, they leave without them.

Upon arriving, they coordinate with the ritualists, who are actively working, and pick spots to set themselves and their allies up for the ambush. They put Myrryr on surveillance on the far eastern point, to watch for what they consider an unlikely approach over the water. The post the Mage on the Hill atop the SE building, CG on the central north building, Creep on the edge of the ritual to the west in hiding, Otters in the smuggling compartment in the van, harwired in, with the Mules within short distance antenna range, and Dig and Cholula atop the central ritual building, the highest point.

They assign the Windsor crew to the north edge of the bridge from mainland Detroit, but tell them to come up behind anyone who comes over it for a pincer. They have Rains and the Skins wait inside the ritual effect area as a reserve to mask their auras, but tell them to keep an eye towards the southern bridge towards Windsor. Then, they wait, with some bird control and flashlight signals planned with comms all fucky as they are.

Shortly thereafter, the Windsor crew reports two buses seemingly running on magic stuffed with Shadow zombies coming from the north bridge, while the Mage on the Hill reports a mass of ghouls with a strange astral signature coming from the south bridge. Creep jumps on the lead Shadow bus and shoots the driver through the windshield, while CG instructs his spirits to use their accident powers on those inside. The Windsor crew engages the second bus in a firefight, pulling it off the attack.

Rains and crew rush out to fight the ghoul swarm, pulling about half of them off, while Otters begins firing between van and Mules into their midst, dropping many but not slowing them at all- they seem to be moving unnaturally, both in terms of their speed and the way they move- it almost looks like the murmurations of a flock of birds. Otters, as an animal enthusiast, makes note to pay attention to this as the fight continues, and incorporates into her targeting solutions as best she can.

Cholula blasts off a fire arrow at the first zombie bus as Creep finishes off the driver and dives off. The bus careens into one of the buildings and a bunch of zombies tumble out, some lighting themselves on fire on the way, though not seeming to particularly care. Otters manages to cut a chunk of them down with auto-fire before the ghoul mob swarms the van, doing a surprising amount of damage. CG activates the Queen card, and flaming sword manifest, with a voice saying that it will protect him.

Creep gets up behind the zombies and flamethrows a few more, before the remaining 5 surround and nearly kill him. Thinking him dead, they carve some strange marks into his skin before rejoining the fight. Meanwhile, the Mage on the Hill has reported that he cannot sense their scout to the east (Myrryr) and fears an attack, and CG heads out to check on her, coming under nearly fatal attack from the FTD vampire leader amidst his customary bat swarm. Dig blasts the bats with a huge spell as a spirit appears and takes control of the flaming swords and starts clearing out the wounded bats.

With the vampire now exposed, Dig and CG’s spirits start targeting it as CG reloads to wood rounds in his shotgun. Unfortunately the Shadow Succubus has used all this chaos to sneak up to the ritual building and gets Cholula to shoot at Dig, narrowly missing due to Dig’s defensive spells. The Mage on the Hill starts levitating over to help and then goes astral to fight the spirit, doing some massive damage before getting one-hit killed and falling to the ground, where his corpse bursts apart. The Succubus then races over and seems to destroy the Tarot spirit, which has badly wounded the vampire.

Dig’s spirit goes astral to defend him and is also quickly torn apart by the returning Succubus. The vampire makes a diving attack directly at CG but misses, clumsily, just as Cholula nails him with an arrow, causing him to crash to the ground, where CG finishes him off with wood rounds, halting his regeneration. As he desicates before him, 3 Tarot cards fall from his pocket- some of the ones the team was missing from the recovery at the Shadow farm! CG pockets them for now and rushes back to defend Otters and the van from the swarming ghouls and zombies, who have almost destroyed while Otters continues chewing through their numbers.

Clinically, Otters is interested to see that the ghouls seem to act more and more feral the less of them that there are, and wonders how this all interacts with the hive mind rumors. But also she is a little concerned about getting peeled out of the smuggling compartment and eaten. With CG distracted, both of his spirits are killed by the Shadow Succubus, who then turns to the ritual building. Luckily their allies seem to be holding to the west, as no further ghouls or zombies have joined the main fight.

The Succubus sinks one it’s shadowy hands into the center of the ritual circle and sends forth a terrible pulse of entropic energy, killing nearly half the ritualists and wounding the rest. Cholula races downstairs and tries to bite it in the astral, just missing, as Dig pummels it with an overcast spell. The Succubus does another negative energy pulse, and seems to be trying to corrupt the ritual itself. This also kills the remaining ritualists besides Jaga and Walker in the Ways, who along with Dig barely survive.

Cholula pulls out all the stops, and calling on his newly enhanced spirit connection manages to land a powerful blow on the spirit, disapparating it back from whence it came. Outside, CG and Otters mop up the last of the ghouls and zombies shortly afterwards, with the van barely surviving. The cloaked Mules proved invaluable though, and Otters is excited about making good use of 3 intersecting fields of fire. They head out to check on allies, and find nearly dead Creep, luckily stabilized by his trauma patch. Cholula manages to save Dig’s life with another trauma patch, though as Jaga and WitW check the other ritualists none of the rest are as lucky- all appear drained of life and unrecoverable.

The Windsor crew, though badly battered, seem to have all survived from good use of tactics and massive expenditure of ammo and spell-power. Luckily none of the ghouls or zombies brought ranged weapons. Rains and the Skins did not fair as well, losing 3/4 of their number, especially since Rains explains that the hive mind has some sort of hypnotic or seductive quality by which they managed to entrance a portion of his crew, who turned on the others. It was a real bloodbath and he had to resort to indiscriminate explosives, but managed to hold back the additional ghoul tide.

They find Myrryr drowned to death in a few inches of water, presumably the work of the Succubus planning to leave a useful host body for another zombie. Those who are survived are grateful to the team for ending this threat and preventing the corruption of the ritual, but the price was high. Patricia Loveland gets back in touch afterwards, recognizing the team’s skill, utility, and sincerity, though still not trusting or communicating with Cholula.

Hearing the night’s report on Radio Free Detroit after they limp back to the safehouse in the damaged van and patch Creep up back to consciousness, they find out that TM’s are waking back up and complaining of headaches, mood swings, and forced Subermersion into the Resonance Realms. This reminds them of the terrifying thing Rains mentioned- those of his crew who were turned by the feral ghoul hivemind started muttering about something “deep… underneath… rising”.

They report Myrryr’s death into Smoach, who seems to retreat into his Bug City survivor PTSD-protective space, and vows never to let anyone get close to him again, while he plans to dedicate himself to hunting FTD and other nefarious forces in her memory. The next morning, the Tarot sword, whose ephemeral flame had gone out when the Succubus slew the spirit wiedling it, starts flaming again, and CG hears the voice say that he is once again under it’s protection, still unsure of what the cost will be….

Creep tries again to convince everyone to stop doing jobs to help people and try to get paid, so they start looking over their jobs list for good opportunities of what to do next.

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Tabasco aka Cholula

After ensuring there are no more attackers at the Platinum Zone, Otters figures out how to hook up one of the mule’s partially charged batteries to the dead van and get it running long enough to get back to the safehouse, where Dig immediately goes to sleep to heal up from damage from the fight. The rest of the crew frantically tries to contact people via radio, succeeding in eventually getting ahold of most of the people they had previously built HAM sets for.

They then check on Zennia at the bar, and find that it’s shot to shit and there some bloodstains around. Creep finds that all the messenger birds on the roof have been burned by an area spell also. They track some drag marks through Hamtramck and find a wounded Sikh Burn guarding the People of the Book burial society- he reports that Zennia didn’t make it but that he and some Children of Loxley managed to fell the attackers.

The team heads inside and examines the body- the ritualists there have stabilized them to prevent further possession, and the team sees that three more shadow zombie assailants have been cut apart by Sikh Burn’s flaming sword. As well as Zennia, the bartender and some patrons were also killed, though it seems like she was the target, as ChewGum uses a creepy spell to review the last thing she saw- muzzle flash in a dark room.

After the team gets ahold of the WIndsor crew, they also hear that some shadow zombies made an attempt on Howell, but his biodrones and the timely arrival of some assistance from said crew held the attackers off. The team puts together that there was a coordinated hit on a bunch of different fixers. After hearing Julia “Deadline” Pesina return to broadcasting on radio with the matrix down, they also hear that some other fixers, community organizers, and street docs who they didn’t know were also attacked or killed, including the entire civilian government of the city (with potentially one missing survivor). Technomancers seem to mostly be comatose or non-communicative, and lots of e-life forms are missing.

So it seems like the shadows either knew what was coming, or took quick advantage of the opportunity. The team spends the next day hiring out some remote research on alternate power generation schemes, and Otters manages to rig up CG’s scooter as a pedal-power generator, with instruction passed along from Run and Sollars archive via the Windsor crew. She calls into Pesina to share this info also. Dig spends the day crafting a golem to pedal the bike, and start charging the van, though first they power up all the drones and the team’s tech. Creep, and the the others, are very disturbed when he looks outside and see that not only is it still dark when it should be daytime, but that the stars are wrong. The Detective heads out to check in on the Keepers and other contacts.

Dig turns into a horse and Otters crafts a quick saddle + bag, and Cholula hops on. They head out to Grosse Pointe to see if Leanna Octave survived. Creep uses his magnet hand to cling to the top of the VTOL, while Otters hot rigs it from inside to run aerial surveillance and backup. Creep has done some quick and dirty antenna repairs so they have LOS comms and about 100m signal otherwise. They reach the Metal Maniacs clinic and find the usual bunch of cybered-up weirdos out front, though there are less than usual.

Heading in, Cholula finds Octave examining and disassembling some corpses for parts- she explains that whatever the pulse was was super damaging to Monads and anyone else running a lot of nanites, so their numbers are bit depleted. It doesn’t seem like they were hit otherwise though. She bemoans the loss of their SIN business income, and says they’ll need supplies for upkeep before long. Cholula tries to pry for more info on the SIN stuff but doesn’t get much, and decides to continue not telling her that he is part bug.

As the gangers outside are starting to eye Dig a little hungrily, Cholula makes his exit and hops back on, and rides Dig over to Vendor’s Row to check on Grandmother Biyu. Creep and Otters split off to check on Ellis. Biyu and the Triad seem pretty dug in, and are bolstering their defenses further. She explains that they were attacked but that the attackers were “dealt with” and doesn’t provide further info, though she confirms they were more shadow zombies when asked.

She tells the team to start looking into food security as her people are doing, as that will likely be an issue soon. She also tips them off to a few mysterious rumors- someone has one or more working vans in town, and they’re using them to snatch up technomancers. Biyu also wants the team to extend an offer of safety and employment to any TM’s they come across on her behalf, saying she wants to start a local “sector”, whatever that means.

They head back to the safehouse, though Dig insists on stopping to steal some food on the way- Cholula guides him past a guard with a shotgun and Dig uses magic fingers to fill his saddle bag up. They raid the Tin Can food supplies when they get back too, and find other regulars there doing a sort of wake for the recent dead, and drinking all the booze. Meanwhile, Creep spots a bunch of scattered individuals standing slackly throughout the Scar zone, with no discernible pattern, as they fly by. They land in the skyway level of ARES former HQ tower, the lower levels being fortified, and find a slightly tense Praxis waiting for them with some other Deso Angels.

Praxis asks if they’ve seen any bugs around, and they report they haven’t, realizing that the Deso Angels here, being Mantids, need to eat bugs at least occasionally- uh-oh! One of the other members mutters something about how they should’ve left when they could, but the DA’s guide them further into the building where they find Ellis and some other Betas. They discuss the attacks, and Ellis reports that they came under attack from a bunch of seemingly feral ghouls here, except that they also seemed to have some kind of hivemind- she suggests checking in with Pretty out of the farm to see if she knows more.

Ellis also speculates that the shadow spirits, or some other entity, may have made use of the lasting effect of the Scar to somehow twist astral space, explaining the permanent twilight and strange stars. She is also not sure where the stars are from, but confirms with Creep that they appear fixed in place- there having been no visible relative movement. She also tips them off that they found the corpses of a huge amount of the new Alphas, drained and desiccated underground, and wonders if Vogel used them in some kind of massive sacrifice- but also wants to know where the original Alphas that she had put Vogel in touch with wound up.

They speculate a bit that possibly they secured transit to Vhortas/Colony, which could explain why Otters was able to see empty insect plane corridors when she briefly got a drone into the rift. Regardless, without further evidence they’ll have to leave it a mystery for now. They decide to push the battery range on the VTOL and zip over to the farm, finding Rains and Pretty holding it down with other ghouls and some Bee cult Betas, but with a massive burning corpse pile on the lawn.

They were also attacked by shadow zombies, and wonder if the shadow spirits left something behind- the team immediately gets stressed about the Coin of Woe in their possession. They suffered some casualties but managed to fend them off. They were also attacked by some Infected-phobic rednecks using old bio-diesel farm trucks, but managed to fight them off too. They also seem worried about food security, and are trying to organize with their friendlier neighbors- they say the militia types seem to have come from further out near Ann Arbor.

They fly back to the safehouse and the team debriefs on all the info. They also hear on Deadline’s nightly broadcast that more militia tried to demand tribute from the Platinum Zone but that Marv blew up one of their trucks with a rocket launcher and they fled. She shares Otters’ pedal-power generator plan as best she can over the radio, and also reports that a lot of sprites, AI’s and other e-life forms are likely trapped in offline hosts and devices, so that if anyone is out there hard-wiring and encounters any, to please free them or deliver a device with them on it to the Plat Zone for protection.

They make a few more radio calls, having also left parts and schematics where needed on all their visits throughout the day, and confirm with their assorted allies that they’re on for the big trap tomorrow, and ChewGum visits Penelope Bean, who is really excited about embracing the Hawala system with the nuyen exchange not running. She also agrees to pass along a request for aid to the Mage on the Hill, if she can find him. She otherwise seems her usual chipper (/appropriative) self.

They rest, and on awakening the next day decide to use a couple Tarot cards in hopes of some additional aid before they head to Belle Isle for the ambush. Creep activates the “Higher Power” card, and gets a non-transferable one-person ticket to Zurich Orbital, which will bypass SIN scans (though not weapon scans). Initially a bit annoyed, he realizes eventually this could lead to a big payday for him, so ends up a little happier. Everyone takes turns messing around with the Threshold card, until Otters accidentally activates while walking though the door to try it outside.

The door becomes black void, and Otters steps through. She finds herself confronting a sort of mirror version of herself who says “REMEMBER” and Otters begins to remember what happened in Florida, and then just “nopes” back out the door. Seeing that the void remains, Dig jumps through, and confronts a mangy, toxic dog- a real lone wolf, who tries to force him into a paradigm shift. He resists, proving his loyalty to Dog and the pack, and initiates. He also realizes this was likely a confrontation with the Dweller on the Threshold, and the he should know be able to project to other metaplanes.

As the door remains, Cholula jumps though, with Creep attempting to follow, though Creep bounces off the suddenly solid surface. Cholula sees all his parent there: a Beetle Queen and 2 humans- they seem about to tear each other apart but he manages to do an incredible leadership maneuver and get between them and talk them down. He emerges feeling better integrated with his bug self, and finding that he is no longer Blighted. Creep tries again to go through but the void dissipates and he stumbles out into the street.

They become suddenly aware that they just activated multiple Tarot cards in their safehouse and partially outside and get a little stressed about who might have noticed. But they are interrupted before they can spiral too much by the arrival of a bald grizzled man, dressed in rags, carrying a single duffel bag, who says “I heard you requested my aid” – this seems to be the Mage on the Hill- but can they convince him to assist them?

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
Tabasco aka Cholula

The team freaks out after acquiring all the data as both Creep and Cholula start to enter anaphylactic shock from the spore exposure. Luckily the rest of the group’s full seals hold, and they manage to get them out via some quick-thinking and a near grenade disaster from Otters. They navigate back out via the train tunnels but have the feeling that something might be following them. Once back aboveground, they contact Dig, who recommends quarantine until they can make sure the spores aren’t contagious.

Jaga helps set up a sealed treatment area at the safehouse, and monitors them with Dig for a day while drones work on patching them up, but luckily they seem to be improving and non-contagious. They heal up for another day while Dig fills them in on happenings aboveground, and they all decide where to sell their score from the last mission. They end up selling all the experimental tech to Zennia, who pays well and seems eager to sell it on, and all the data to Ellis, who is eager to receive it and requests first look at anything additional they find.

The team then decides to start looking into how to take down the local Fear The Dark chapter for good. Dig researches the Higher Power Tarot card, and with some help from Fargus Sol determines that it doesn’t do what they likely need it to for these purposes- i.e. beam sunlight directly in a focused point. They think about planning some kind of ambush at the upcoming “Bye, ARES!” block party that the Plat Zone is hosting, but that’s coming up too soon.

After consulting with Walker in Ways, they settle on a different plan- WIW and their shamanic group will plan out a massive cleansing ritual to expand the magical cleanup they’ve been doing on the river outwards into the rest of the city, slowly expanding over time as they cleanse new areas. Dig, CG, and Jaga will assist with this. The rest of the team, and a bunch of other hired assistants, will provide recon and security around the site, and watch for FTD/fight them when they arrive.

The team uses favors owed by Julia Pesina to report on a piece about this upcoming ritual and spread it around, to make sure that FTD hears about it. With a few days to wait until that happens, they stock up on gear (wood pulp bullets and the like) and finish healing and patching armor. They all head over to the Plat Zone party in their street gear, with Otters bringing her new array of drones, freshly out of their boxes, in the van. CG, The Detective and Creep take up surveillance positions just in case anything kicks off after grabbing food from CastIron.

Cholula dances while assensing, vibing on the energy of the room. Otters monitors comms to watch from suspicious traffic while Dig keeps an eye on the matrix, and both of them notice a lot of posts pouring in, seemingly notifications of the death of various East Coast deckers and TM’s. Ringmaster calls them back to the situation room, where they monitor a disturbing thread on Jackpoint right up until there is a disturbing inaudible rumble, and bright flash, and all the lights go out.

Checking things further, it seems like the power is fully down, and a lot of batteries are fully or partially drained. Before they can determine anything else, gunfire breaks out outside. The team outside engages with a group of 6 gunmen, which they quickly realize are shadow spirits inhabiting disguised corpses, who are firing indiscriminately into the crowd. They manage to take them out though Creep and CG are both near killed, with Cholula also joining the fray.

Inside, Dig just barely manages to get in front of the swing of a monofil whip that an invisible assassin had intended for Ringmaster, getting badly injured in the process and splashing Ringmaster with his blood. The assassin chops Otters’ gun in half after she ineffectually fires before Dig manages to fell them with a massive lightning bolt- Dig approves of this show of pack loyalty. Unfortunately, Dig is a carrier for HMHVV so warns Ringmaster of his new lycanthropy risk- certainly much better than dead.

Otters, frantic about the lack of matrix connection and drone feeds, races outside to the van, weaving through the frantic crowd and finds the locks engaged and powered off, so has to hardware her way in. The drones are all powered off but seem to have some varying level of charge left, though no way to recharge if drained at the moment, and the van seem drained but otherwise fine, aside from antennas which seem universally fried. Otters is having to find all the clunky manual controls since usually all of this done via ARO.

Dig and Ringmaster, using magic and charisma, manage to start organizing and calming the crowd, and the weary Latvian Gambit vets present get back to work trying to figure out what happened and what it means. The team all eventually joins up and speculates a bit too, as they hear gunfire, screams, and breaking glass all around the city, and are able to see the stars for the first time in a while (or for some, probably the first time ever). Otherwise the night is only light by muzzle flashes and bonfires…..

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
Tabasco aka Cholula

The team heads into the DDB to begin their multi-phase series of jobs down there. They spend most a day navigating a long series of deadly traps after reaching the site of their showdown with Otto Hendricks, and attempting to explore deeper into his area. Luckily with careful drone recon, good sensor use, and some quick-thinking, they take minimal damage and clear/mark a mostly safe passage to a back entrance to the lab, which they manage to access.

Unfortunately, they then to blind a gun turret by throwing a sleeping bag over it and it fires, detonating some C4 strapped to an adjacent wall and triggering a cave-in. They spend another good portion of a day excavating their way back into the lab to find it in a state of disarray, but they do manage to salvage some useful info, while also potentially exposing themselves to deadly toxins.

It seems that Hendricks (whether initially on ARES’ behalf or on his own initiative) had been manufacturing some experimental weaponry based on spores, toxins, and modified acids, and providing it to GreenWAR cells, possibly for false flag operations, possibly to make Vogel look bad, given his past ties to eco-activist groups. The bio-containment on the experimental weapons lab failed due to the explosion/partial collapse the team triggered, luckily all of them except Cholula and Creep have full seals on their armor, and Creep is running an internal air tank…..

They continue digging around and find a few former SCIF chambers, now rendered non-secure by the structural damage, where people were doing old-school offline paper-based research, data collation, and investigation, into two primary areas of interest: what’s up at the new ARES HQ site in Atlanta (they seem to have semi-secretly bored a huge shaft underneath it) and what is up with ARES’ metaplanar activities. It seems likely based on all this that ARES has/will have a new portal to Vhortas and their fortified base “Colony” there, in the shaft underneath their new HQ, as the construction of that began shortly after their space station portal was shut down.

ARES also is using a lot of materials to build the HQ that have no clear sourcing- could be standard corp shell games, or could be a metaplanar origin there too. The team also finds a disassembled portal closer, with some notes about it. The magical part of the payload is missing (either removed or expended) but the notes suggest that even Hendricks and crew didn’t fully understand how/why these worked. There is also a suggestion that ARES was attempting to find a way to use bugs as magical batteries, and an explanation of how Firewatch members were chosen for service at Colony (awakened members) or for turning into ALPHAs (mundanes).

This is all good paydata for some various Johnsons, so the team decides to return to the surface, collect Dig from whatever animalistic magic quest he went off of, get paid, and patch up themselves and their armor before heading back underground for the next stages of their missions.

Runners
Creep
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Tabasco aka Cholula
ChewGum
and guest appearance from: Erika “Scully Beyonce” Knowles

The team briefly rests at the missing runner’s basecamp, and then makes a plan to head back in to try to hack the military base using Dig’s planted data tap. Using the radar sensor, biodrone surveillance, and electronic warfare scanning they manage to avoid getting spotted while Dig gets a hack going. Miraculously, Dig manages to grab some data before getting spotted by the active security, and they pull his plug just in time as some alarms go off. Otters speeds away from pursuing vehicles with sensor guidance, and then sneaks through the fog.

They successfully evade their followers, and Dig uses an illusion to distract most of the surveillance and comms blimps outside the fog while Otters sneaks them through farm fields back onto the highway. They return to Detroit, and review the data on the way. It seems like the attack they witnessed was carried out by a cadre of vampires with no insignia, many of whom died in the attack. But the target seems to have been a structure housing an “anomaly” a bit below ground level that was adjacent to the comms HQ. They don’t find any more data on that, but do discover that 2 of the runner crew were captured by the military and are being interrogated to see if they had any advance knowledge of the attack.

They package everything up and send it on to Ringmaster, who pays them well. Cholula also finds the Hermit 6WT card stuck in his armor, presumably from the body pile he was pulled into, and after briefly examining it, Dig activates it. It pulls the team to a cabin that seems to exist on some other plane, with a bed for each of them, some crystal lights on the walls, a single door, and some ominous blood stains. They find an hourglass carved into the floor under one of the beds, and looking outside get the feeling that large predators are fighting other large predators in the dense woods and other environs surrounding the cabin.

Dig almost runs off into the wilderness before Dog reminds him that it is dangerous to go alone, and they close up the cabin after getting worried the light might attract attention. The beds are all quite comfortable, though Otters is worried since neither her drones nor the van transitioned with them. They go to sleep and as soon as Dig loses consciousness, they all find themselves back in their van, feeling well-rested. They get back to Detroit and head to their safehouse after dropping off Erika Knowles to report into Ringmaster.

They check in with some contacts and pick up some potential work, and catch up on the news from around town. ChewGum has been busy in their absence, tracking down leads on work and being gifted a tarot card of his own, from the People of the Book, who tell him it will summon a powerful defensive spirit, but that there will be a cost to the summoner. They add it to Creep’s stash, and decide that next up they will head underground to pursue a few jobs at once- the Betas are looking for lost ARES research, Zennia wants experimental tech, they need to break up Fear the Dark’s local chapter, and they need to chase down those Shadow bats.

They get an updated map from Rains and Pretty, who are busy setting up and fortifying Long Pig Farms’ new operation in town, with the help of the Bee cult, some of who are also transitioning to Betas currently. They also check in with Fargus Sol about Arleesh’s feeling towards Betas (cautiously optimistic) and their new Tarot info. He also sends them some money and suggests that they may have found themselves in the Hunter’s Realm, a super-predator breeding and hunting ground that is also used as a metaplanar survivalist prison- the meaning of the hourglass they found being a magical tattoo depicting the time a prisoner there has left to serve.

They gear up, and prepare to head underground!

Runners
Creep
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
Tabasco aka Cholula
and guest appearance from: Erika “Scully Beyonce” Knowles

The team continues their investigation at the missing runners’ basecamp. The limited autopsy capacities reveal horrifying and unknown genetic fusion techniques that leave no surgical scars. Knowles takes some samples for later, as the rest of the crew reviews the runner’s logs she was able to retrieve using a provided crypto-key from their erstwhile employer. They decide to continue further in, using the runners’ data on military security ops as a baseline.

They find a huge corpse pile ahead while scouting with the biodrone, and Cholula investigates on foot, and is almost pulled in by another chimera with huge gorilla arms and empty voids where it looks like some cyber-eyes might once have been. They get in a disturbing fight with two of the “gorilla” chimeras, two more “flying squirrel” chimeras, and a hidden sniper, who Otters manages to take out with the van-mounted HMG. Luckily the team mostly avoids damage, though one of the squirrels escapes.

When checking the corpses after, they seem to mesh with what they’d previously see on the autopsies performed at the base camp. The mods are all extreme and seamless, in an unexplainable way. Then they find the sniper’s body, who has been given some large lens eyes, and is wearing what seems to be a WWII-era Russian winter camo uniform, and using era appropriate gear as well. Knowles confirms that the Nazi’s certainly had an interest in the arcane, and there was a major Kaer beneath modern Chernobyl, so it’s possible someone could have stumbled in and been preserved to the modern day, but that doesn’t explain the changes.

They examine the body pile, and find that it is a mix of runner corpses and National Guardsmen, mostly PA with some OH mixed in. There are also a lot of unassigned limbs and other body parts, most of which have some amount of cyberware, badly damaged in the crude and violent removal. Some of these parts could be III Corps but there isn’t enough to be sure. They take more samples for later analysis. The bodies also show signs of predation, as if the various chimeras have been feasting on them, and seem to be rotting at a much decelerated rate- about 1/10 what would be expected, which lines up with the reduced rate of aging Knowles had noticed on the shark-lion corpse, as well as how an elderly Russian sniper could still be alive.

They head further in and the signal degradation is getting bad enough that Otters has to pull the biodrone back in. They spot some mil patrols with the onboard radar and via electronic warfare, using stealth tags the runner team planted to supplement their perception. They manage to sneak within 1/2 km of the fortified base walls and get some looks, and Creep and Dig (in mole form) sneak closer. Creep gets up to the walls, and reports that the security construction the runners had reported on seems to be basically finished- razorwire perimeter, sensor strewn killing ground, then fortified high wall with guard towers and klieg lights.

Dig digs his way down, and finds that the further down he goes the better the mana feels. He rests a bit low down before tunneling back up inside the base, and spots a construction drone. Unfortunately a mole with a data tap in it’s mouth is a strange sight and a guard spots him and starts to give chase. The van is having to constantly maneuver to avoid patrols and is occasionally losing comms with Creep, who is acting as a relay to Dig on the inside, though Dig can’t respond due to his device being too weak to punch through the jammers the base is using.

The van and Creep detect 7 hypersonic, baffled aircraft zip by overhead towards the base, and Creep warns Dig. Dig manages to use the distraction of some ensuing gunfire to escape the guard pursuing him and slip the data tap onto one of the construction drones before fleeing back underground. The van picks up Creep since they lost comms to Dig, and does a circuit around the base, dodging patrols, as they try to figure out what is happening. Otters sends out all the fly-spys on autopilot, hoping some will return with some info. Only one makes it back, but it does gather some useful intel.

The team (except Cholula and The Detective, who remained at the body pile due to Cholula being badly effected as a dual-natured being) all feel a massive explosion that seemingly occurred somewhere underground. The lone surviving drone confirms that a non-descript building next to what looks like the main HQ/comms center has collapsed on itself, so it seems like the explosion took place under there. Creep hears about half as many hypersonic aircraft leave as arrived as gunfire continues. The whole thing took about 11 minutes in total- real pro, whoever it was.

Dig emerges aboveground after waiting a while, somewhere outside the perimeter but not sure where he is. Scared and feeling a bit hopeless he waits a little more until Creep luckily picks him up on sensors again, and Otters scoops him up in the van. They head back to the body pile and manage to track down The Detective and Cholula, who have retreated after Cholula lost it a bit from the spookiness and his reduced abilities, though TD managed to keep him from totally running off. They all return to the runners’ base camp to think about next moves, with Dig pushing for further investigation via data tap and most of the team leaning towards exfiltrating.

Runners
Creep
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
Tabasco aka Cholula

The team preps to head out to Site 000 to start their investigation for Ringmaster, and spends some time massively upgrading the stealth, sensor and mobility capabilities of the van to try to be ready for whatever they find there. Chew Gum, having heard in Ringmaster’s briefing that the area seems bad for spirits, decides to sit this one out and spends some time harvesting plants, tracking toxic magic (finding some power areas), seeking Li Wei (finding some blood magic traces but no hard evidence), seeking out bat swarm sightings (they seem to be flying in and out of the Detroit Down Below), and taking care of some personal business.

The rest of Ringmaster’s briefing consists of recovered logs from a PA National Guard unit that was first on the scene and seems to have also gone missing. He also has some reports from Asgard Data Haven of a runner crew hired to go in a bit after that, who reported in a few times before vanishing. And last, he has an agent on the ground he wants the team to make contact with if they can- codename: Scully. She was following up on the runner team’s reports but has also been out of contact for around a week. The other big news is that Ellis took the team’s advice and posted on Jackpoint, introducing the concept of Betas to the runner world, at least. Also Long Pig Farms is relocating to Detroit, fleeing persecution, and The Betas are working with some ghouls to make better clonal stock, as they need the same quality of body to inhabit that the Infected due to eat.

The team pays Grandmother Biyu for some SIN upgrades to make sure they can travel, and she hires them to look into who else is making high quality SINs in town, when they’re back from their trip. Otters smuggles Cholula out past MET2000 hovercraft in the sub, and drops him at the rendezvous point, and the van gets out past more MET2000 border guards doing magic scans (seemingly checking for bugs) with the rest of the team aboard. They pick up Cholula and head to the Bravo Company training complex in central Ohio to brush up on some squad tactics before the mission.

They all learn a new tactic to help with moving under fire. They decide to sleep there as Otters and others are worried about highjackers on the highway amidst the auto-haulers, though Dig mocks them all for giving in to fear. They eat some bland nutritious mush in the morning (explaining why all the mercs were so excited about Castiron’s cooking perhaps), and head out. Driving past the exits towards Dutchville (a relatively newly incorporated town built around a Wuxing shipping subsidiary), they find all the exits closed and guarded by UCAS MP’s- small groups but still.

They also notice that Dutchville has been scrubbed from digital maps and GridGuide- as if it never existed. So they navigate using geotags, and Otters slickly takes the van off-road in a blind turn between two auto-haulers. They activate their active camo, signature masking, and vehicle radar, and cut across farm fields, bypassing fences and army surveillance/comms blimps as they travel. Cholula and Dig start to notice a bad magical feeling once they hit about 12km out from their destination, and start to really feel the effects at 10k.

Creep, keeping a close eye on the radar while Dig monitors army comms traffic, manages to help Otters steer them around the limited patrols on the way in. Right at the 12km mark, all the fences and everything suddenly cuts, along what seems to be a lengthy curve. The level of the ground drops about a foot, cleanly, and Otters eases the van down onto it’s tracks onto the seemingly freshly exposed dirt- there are some other vehicle tracks and a few footprints, and a dense fog ahead starting at the 10k mark. The fog seems to dome upwards, and it looks like the army is using aerials/blimps to keep a comms line open- as the team watches, they see some light flashing in the upper area of the fog dome near the center, which The Detective things is some kind of IF/F sequence, presumably to verify that comms coming from within the obscuring fog haven’t been compromised.

The team prepares to head in, and begins. Otters keep her new biodrone aloft as a spotter, while everyone else carefully peers around with various modes of perception. Spotting some kind of shape in the dense fog, they head towards it, and find a lone desiccated stump. Searching it, they find a hardened data chip, which after Dig breaks the encryption, contains more comms logs from the missing National Guard unit. They report on bad astral feelings, and something following them. The team, spooked, continues. They find another irregularity another few km in, as well as spotting sensor shadows of their own, and getting worried something may be following them as well. The fog is giving back a lot of weird readings, and something is playing havoc with their navigational systems, so Cholula is mostly dead reckoning.

They are also losing comms access to the outside, which also should obscure them further from army blimps, so good and bad. They send an initial report to Ringmaster to report they are going dark, and he wishes them luck. Approaching the next object, they find a small clearing in the fog, where a strange grid of pairs of combat boots it set up, 13 columns by 7 rows, standing in perfect parade formation as Cholula spots. Creep and the mule start knocking them over, which achieves no effect, but they do notice that all the boots appear like unique pairs- similar make/brand, but a variety of year of manufacture, level of wear, etc. The Detective tries one on and finds it damp from the fog but nothing else of note.

While knocking over boots, Creep eventually finds another comms chip from the Natl Guard, which Dig cracks. They get more reports of feeling hunted and haunted, and manaspace growing worse- which Cholula and The Detective confirm. Signal is getting worse too as they get closer to the epicenter, both seemingly at a steady rate, so Otters pulls the biodrone in much closer. They are all getting pretty worried at this point, as the sensor shadows are also showing up in the astral, and the Natl Guard reports having some of their people MIA.

They press on, and Cholula steers them towards a feeling of water ahead, where Creep detects a slight dip in the landscape. They find what looks like the bottom portion of a dried up stream bed, but as with everything else it seems like about the top 12 inches is gone. Creep spots a hardened milspec case carefully place in the center, and opens it, finding a 3rd chip. Dig cracks it, and they get what seems likely to be the final log from the Natl Guard- they report firing on shadows as more and more of them vanish into the fog. They also found what seemed like a local landmark but turned out to be some sort of astral effect or illusion as the stream was gone in realspace. They also report having travelled much further than they should have to reach it.

While the team is stressing about this, a horrifying sound comes from out of the fog, and Otters is paralyzed, while the others are variously effected. Luckily, Otters was already jumped in hot to the van and drone, so still has some capacity. Creep peers around and then jumps back just in time as what looks like some sort of terrible hybird seemingly swims through the air at him, biting with the head of the shark, while it’s lion’s paws pull it along at alarming speed. All of this attached to the torso of a troll, wearing a shredded military uniform. Cholula misses with a fire arrow, Dig misses with a machine pistol, and Otters opens up with the van machine gun.

A hit! Unfortunately, this thing seems to have some kind of hardened exterior- the gun does a lot of damage but it seems to soak quite a bit of it, though not like a spirit would…. Also unfortunately it seems to recognize the danger from the van and pummels it badly, nearly wrecking it in one hit. Dig pulls out all the stops and blasts it with a lightning bolt as it start to shove itself into the van through the open side door- the mana here is weird and sludgy and irregular, but Dig manages to control it well enough to do some more major damage.

Otters, desperate, turns the machine gun on the van itself, shooting through the roof to hit the beast inside, and manages to fell it before it can kill anyone in the van, though the van takes more damage and is on it’s last legs. Everyone’s paralysis gradually wears off as Dig shoots the thing over and over with his machine pistol, to make sure it stays dead. While collecting themselves, they hear a voice call out, and after exchanging some confirmational chatter, find out that this is “Scully”, aka Erika Knowles, who Creep explains they know of through a convoluted link of runners in the team file, from her Boston days.

She seems happy to see them, and suggests they get back to her base camp with the body to talk further and do some analysis. They manage to navigate there, though doing so in the fog is quite confusing, and Otters is glad she’s been leaving a breadcrumb trail on an offline map to try to follow back out later. They find that Knowles has set up in the somewhat shredded basecamp of the missing runner team, and has another partially dissected hybrid on one of the cots. They haul out the one in the van (massively heavy), and she cuts it open, showing the team how the strange head and limbs seems perfectly grafted the host body, seemingly a troll torso, with some kind of advanced tech- this is beyond 6th World bio-surgeons, as far as she knows, as there is no surgical scarring, or sign of exposure to known mutagens.

She also fishes out some dog tags from the creature’s stomach, and everyone else things he must have eaten a soldier, but she explains that swallowing one’s own dog tags is often a soldier’s last desperate act in the face of certain death, hoping that their body can later be ID’ed and perhaps returned to their family. Disturbingly, the tags are neither from the National Guard nor III Corps, but from the Aztlan national army from about 8-10 years ago. Knowles says all of this lines up with her analysis of the other hybrid, though she didn’t retrieve ID from that one. She plays the team a helmet-cam video that the runner team recovered on one of their recon missions, which seems to show III Corp finding themselves enveloped in fog as comms go down, and they come under attack from unknown forces.

She says she also recovered more logs from the runner crew, which she offers to share with the team, but first they brief her on the updates from Detroit- the Scar, the Betas, etc. She is a bit overwhelmed but luckily they confirm that she herself isn’t magical, so she won’t spot Cholula out, while she takes in the info. She seems very serious and driven, but thrown off by her time in the fog- neither of her hardened chronometers are in agreement, and neither align with the team’s estimate of what day/time it is. They decide to rest and patch up the van before heading further in, or bugging out to report what they’ve found so far…..

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
Tabasco aka Cholula

Creep catches up with the team after one of his occasional “wander around and get the lay of the land” multi-day solo adventures. There seem to be no ALPHAs left anywhere that Creep has seen- which is disturbing to say the least, as the bug-killing manatech device didn’t have infinite range, as proven by the Bee cult’s survival by the Blight. That said- less ALPHAs and no bugs seen, so that’s good in it’s own ways. The team speculates a bit as to what this all might mean. Cholula gets a call back from Jaliyah Angel in Seattle that the ASPS is sending a Shedim specialist, Patricia Loveland, from DeeCee, to look into the Shadow spirit corpe possession issue, at the team’s request.

Chew Gum also follows up with Cass Wandering Horse, the contact he was given by The Walker In Ways, who are both also looking into local magical weirdness post-bug. Cass has a lot of tips and rumors, but not alot of hard info, as he explains he is also fresh in from DC. He seems to be a NAN political operative who left when things started heating up along the borders, though he may be interested in some political realignments in Detroit now. However, he gives some good tips for a promise of future info or services rendered, and the team starts digging.

They look up 3 of the spirits/ancient gods Cass had mentioned, and do some info trading around town to find out more where they can. They get some good leads but no hard evidence, and check in with Ringmaster, who confirms that he will pay for further investigations into any/all magical threats in the city. He also confirms that the job to investigate the missing III Corps at Site 000 is still a go, so the team plans to leave for that once they get the sub back (as they will need to smuggle Cholula safely out of town, as he is detectable as a bug, which surely someone will be looking out for).

They call Loveland, and share a lot of info re: Shadow spirits, possession vs inhabitation, gateways vs portals vs rifts, belief powering magical potency, and the like. This all seems promising until Cholula outs himself as a Beta, without much of an explanatory lead-in, and Loveland cuts the call, texting the rest of the team that they’ve been compromised. They hope she’ll come around after further digging on her own, as she is also connected with Old Crow, Jackpoint etc amongst other runners resources.

Otters manages to get a Fly Spy into The Scar above downtown, and before the drone fails from acid and other elemental damage, she manages to get faint footage transmitted of what looks like barren insect tunnels, which both Ellis and Cholula verify look like Vhortas, minus the biomatter. Ellis hints at strange overgrown ruins in Vhortas that are the only locations the teeming masses of bugs won’t occupy, but neither Ellis no Cholula are able to comprehend why from their limited memories.

Ellis also shares info about the other end of the Daedelus space station portal that ARES was maintaining until the team shut it down. ARES was able to establish a stable fortress, called Colony (Damien Knight was never one for clever names it seems) using some very advanced magic, this is where the original Beta’s live- though these are all Firewatch members sent to the insect plane on the principle that if bugs can inhabit humans here, maybe humans can inhabit bugs there? Which seems to have had some limited success.

However, given the endless nature of the plane, Ellis doesn’t think they’d ever be able to “defeat” the bugs- so she isn’t sure what these empty tunnels signify, though it could be an area of Colony- perhaps the magitech device from Vogel linked up with something on the other side. Apparently, according to notes Ellis was able to recover, ARES had managed to stabilize Colony enough that non-merges could safely live there for some time, though she is not sure if they have survived since the space portal was closed (or if another has been opened….). Based on the Manus Ruinae containment lab that recent former team members raided in Seattle, this all certainly seems possible.

Ellis is also worried about what happened to the ALPHAs, and reveals that what Vogel asked her to do was broker contact- she isn’t sure that it occurred, or what was discussed, but she had enabled Vogel to access the ALPHAs secure comms network. She had been hoping to discover some means of saving or stabilizing them, but no luck so far. She still hopes to find a way to allow the original Betas from Colony to return, which they currently can’t do due to evanescence issues. Regardless, she wants more data and suggests to the team that a lot of ARES offices, black sites, and also the HQ could make good targets for raids if they want that kind of work, there’re plenty of other at it currently.

They also discuss the situation undergound, and get worried about what threats still lurk in the Detroit Down Below now that the bugs are gone, since Ellis reports that some ghoul allies have recently gone missing. They discuss a variety of different hypotheses and theories about it all, before finally getting the sub, fully repaired, back from Goober, and getting ready to get underway out to Dutchville.

Runners
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
Tabasco aka Cholula

The team recuperates from the Shadow spirit raid, and gets some investigation updates from Smoach and Myrryr, who also accept a Tarot card as payment. They’ve ID’ed the Wendigo, and got some more info about what occurred- it looks like the strange orb was a portal to the Shadow plane (or at least one of it’s moons), and the one of the two spirits likely escaped through or was on the other side when the team attacked and closed it. It’s unclear if this spirit took some of the Tarot cards with or if they were expended in opening the portal. Castiron brings in a bat that he managed to bring down from the swarm, while he was fleeing in fear of the Wraith. He also returns half of his pay, since he feels like he didn’t help much.

S&M pass along a strange artifact, known as a “Coin of Woe”, which can be created by Shadow spirits by draining the essence of a living being- this coin is gold, showing that it was drained from a metahuman, and has Iva Linus Hathaway’s face on one side. Cholula holds onto it, and dedicates himself to finding a way to free her or return her to some form of life, though his initial research doesn’t seem promising. S&M also warn that although those coins can sometimes be used as metaplanar currency, their possession is also a serious crime in many planes.

CG examines the bat, and finds that it seems to have been possessed by a shadow spirit at some point, similar to the “zombie” corpses they encountered at the farm- disturbing! However, he prepares it and he, Dig, and Jaga cleanse their safehouse of magical taint, and rebuild their magical lodges. CG also resummons two of his Necro spirits, one into the bat. The team decides they need Jackpoint access to further their research abilities, so they put together an info file on the truth of Latvian Gambit with a lot of combined knowledge from themselves and the team file, and get Old Crow to agree to upload it as a membership application once he is clear of the city.

ARES and the UCAS are engaged in escalating back and forth over the disaster, and Vogel gives a major and provocative speech, ending with the revelation that ARES will relocate their corp HQ to Atlanta in response to the UCAS provoking them, and tries to place the blame for the “terrorists” behind Latvian Gambit at the feet of the UCAS for not reporting their activities and breaking up their cells. The team plans to possibly further refute much of this info when they themselves aren’t in ARES’ backyard, though the boards are already going wild.

Otters finally finishes building her first biodrone with Moreau, and The Detective does some bliss in their tub while catching up with the Keepers. The mafia bug infiltration con seems to have had some major effects- lots of infighting at the port, and a lot of dead bodies turning up nearby/in the river. Also- someone seems to be surveilling The Detective’s apartment- wearing a high end camo suit, so the Keepers haven’t gotten a good look. The Detective forgets to report this for a while, as they are high.

The next day, when they think to mention it, Cholula is finally back to full health, which required eating a lot more meat than usual (and having some interesting new thoughts and memories), he and CG head up to The Detectives zone with biodrone support, while Dig as a dolphin and Otters in the VTOL head down to try to retrieve the sub. Otters is able to spot the camo suit man with the biodrone and provide a targeting solution to Cholula, who KO’s him with a Gamma-Scopolamine arrow.

They zip tie him, and haul him into The Detective’s apartment, after taking his external comm and a bunch of kidnap supplies he has on him. They wait an hour and then question him once the truth serum kicks in. He caves pretty quickly and reveals that he is the recent ex-husband of Lindsay Turpentine, and that the family knows that The Detective is responsible for Michael and Carol’s deaths. The Detective tries to dodge blame for this, not fully inaccurately, but the man doesn’t believe them. He thought he could get back in Lindsay’s good graces by kidnapping The Detective and delivering them.

They debate about what to do, before questioning him some more and finding out that he’s been live-streaming the whole encounter. Dig, from afar, panics and tells them to get out of there, which they ignore while Cholula debates the ethics of killing him, since via his code he doesn’t really deserve to die. He fills up the tub they have him in, jic. They keep talking for a bit while an increasingly stressed Dig tries to convince them to leave every time his dolphin form surfaces and gets comms back.

Eventually Cholula agrees, and flips the still paralyzed man over, face down, in the full tub, and leaps out the window. CG and The Detective leave the normal way, with The Detective trying to gather up essentials on the way. They just get clear as a missile flies down and obliterates the building. Yikes! They all regroup at the Hamtramck safehouse while The Detective mourns the loss of their disguise collection. Meanwhile, Dig and Otters have a relatively easy time retrieving the sub, and buy some supplies to do a quick patch up job on it. They load Old Crow aboard to smuggle him outta town, and send it to Chicago to get more fully repaired by Goober, with Otters piloting the first leg of the trip past the ARES cordon which is still nominally being enforced.

The team all get a call from Kong up in the Blight, who wants them to look into a kind of culty group of farmers whose area has recently been added to his turf (he seems to be expanding). The team does some research and doesn’t find much, so does some recon and finds that it seems to be a group of Bee spirits, mostly good merges, that are distributing non-magical food to the surrounding area. Still- creepy and worth checking out. They call Ellis, who confirms that Bees often try to live in harmony with the surrounding area but are suicidally defensive. She says they could be good candidates to join the Betas since they already prioritize some of the same principles and communal attitudes.

The team calls up Kong to see if a peaceful solution is good with him too, and he says he’d prefer bugs get killed but that so long as the team gets them off his turn he doesn’t care much. They approach the church/farm lot, and The Detective has a lengthy convo with the Pastor, who turns out to be a Bee Shaman. They eventually bring in Cholula as proof of what the Beta option could look like, and the hive discusses, eventually agreeing to go along with the plan.

The team gets a bus from Kong to transport them all out to the now-empty shadow farm, and arrange for some of Ellis’ people to meet them there. They then also call up Pretty and try to set up a ghoul/bug farm coop, or at least get that started, since it sounds like Long Pig Farms may be looking to vacate Chicago in the increasingly hostile to the Infected environment there. They also report in on the info they learned about Fear the Dark, and Pretty pushes them to go after the vamp that escaped and hopefully finish off the local chapter’s leadership.

The big news when the team wakes the next day is that ARES didn’t just move their HQ- they fully left. They abandoned tens of thousands of local low-level employees and bailed basically overnight on the whole city. Horizon PR is desperately trying to spin the move in a positive way, but it seems ARES’ internal turmoil isn’t fully resolved- this does not seem like the plan Vogel presented, although it could also be a response to the info the team leaked on Jackpoint, especially with the UCAS announcement that they are rescinding the Business Recognition Accords in order to investigate just what happened in Detroit, and to III Corps.

CG, worried about a repeat of Chicago, checks in with Ringmaster, who says he has a lot of work for the team if they’re looking- a lot of the mercs have left, and he needs people looking into all sorts of local issues, as well as what happened to III Corps, if they want a trip out of town. The team also calls up The Walker in Ways, and gets contact info for someone named Cass Wandering Horse, with WiW telling them that they are also concerned about the spiritual future of Detroit, and that Cass has been doing some investigations along these lines, though he also has his own agenda….

Plenty to do! Back to work.

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
and reintroducing: Tabasco aka Cholula

The team keeps partying for a bit at the Platinum Zone, though they announce that the party will have to end in the next day or so as stocks are running low and Marv needs to resupply. The team decides it’s time to raid the Shadow spirit farm, get revenge for Iva, and get their Tarot cards back. First though, Chew Gum needs to start setting up a new lodge and prepping a fresh corpse vessel. So they decide to figure out what to do with their safehouses. Since they’ll soon be fighting the Shadow spirits that are the ones who know the locations, they decide to enhance the security (and comforts) of the Hamtramck safehouse and ditch the bolthole in Windsor. Creep flirts a bit with the AI landlord, Rutledge, who seems potentially interested.

Dig inquires again about hiring others to assist with the mission, and this time Ringmaster has some suggestions- he also wants intel on what the Shadow spirits are up to beyond Tarot, if anything. The team winnows down the potentials list and sends out job offers to those who look promising. They call in their favors with Ellis to get some assistance from the Betas/Deso Angels, and hire Old Crow and Sikh Burn with the promise of Tarot card payment, and also SINder and the bounty hunter duo Charlie Foxtrot and Moondog for cash. Walker and her dog Tofu turn them down, not interested in payment and trying to help their community area, and Smoach and Myrryr offer recon/investigative assistance but are not combatants.

Jaga comes along for healing support, and Ringmaster manages to scrounge up a decent van that the team buys to replace their busted one. Cast Iron also hires on for cash, though he seems worried about the dark spirits and says he hasn’t been in the field in a while. The team makes a plan, with Old Crow’s tactical input proving quite useful, and they plan to start the attack late the next day. First, Tabasco decides to take Ellis and Praxis up on their offer of change, and against many on the team’s advice, merges with a Goliath Beetle spirit who they were able to save while it was injured, and who accepted their offer of sanctuary.

Tabasco upon returning, finds that though he still has his own, human, memories, he also has memories of his time amongst a teeming mass in Vhortas, before being pulled through by a shaman to fight in this battle, being injured and separated from the horde, and being approached by an inquiring mind of a type it was previously unfamiliar with. As Tabasco’s new insect half wakes to full sapience for the first time, he finds that he feels he needs a new name, and requests that everyone now call him Cholula. Responses on the team to this development are mixed, but everyone adheres to the name request.

They meet up with their hired support near the farmhouse by Ypsilanti, and see a bat swarm flying back towards town as they approach. Foxtrot and Moondog get creeped out by Cholula and bail on the mission, saying that they know the team is good with the Plat Zone so they won’t make trouble, but they don’t want any part of whatever “this” is, though Cholula tries to explain. Otters opens up with the van HMG on the barn on the property as everyone else approaches, though Cholula and CG both get mind-controlled and fire at each other, luckily missing.

A Wendigo and a mass of what looks like trid zombies pour out of the barn, all badly injured, and Creep hits them with the rocket launcher, along side more fire from Otters in mule drone and van. They cut down the mass quickly, with Sikh Burn and Cast Iron going around and making sure they all stay dead. Dig start watching for mental manipulation while preparing to cut off TacNET access/shut down weapons as needed if so, and intervenes a few times. As they breech into the house, the spirit retreats into the astral, where it comes under attack from dual-natured Cholula and the Betas, Deso Angels, SINder and Old Crow.

The team all manages to shake off the fear that the spirit tries to emanate out, except Castiron, whose bad past experiences with dark spirits sends him fleeing for a time before he regains his composure. The Shadow spirit starts taking damage and is forced to defend itself, as other team members start sneaking inside and reclaiming some of the Tarot they’ve seen scattered around in what appears to be a ritual circle. Otters also manages to shoot and destroy a disturbing obsidian orb that is at the center. This seems to weaken or distract the Shadow spirit momentarily, and also forces a vision of one of the Shadow moons into the mind of CG and Cholula.

They press the attack in the astral, with one of the Deso Angels and one of the Betas killed and the other 2 badly injured, and both SINder and Old Crow flatlined with Jaga desperately trying to keep them alive. Cholula is the last down, not quite able to finish the spirit off, at which point it manifests and Otters one-shots it with the HMG. Jaga asks The Detective to choose healing priority, and they split it up as follows: Dig tries to save Cholula, but it’s dicey and unclear if it will take. Otters loads Old Crow into the VTOL and zips him back to the Plat Zone, which saves his life but harms his magic. And Jaga manages to stabilize SINder, who seems physically ok but mentally scarred by the experience.

Sikh Burn, meanwhile, wildly slashes at wispy shadows in the main house, fearing spirit regeneration (correctly), and Foxtrot and Moondog finally roll back up, Dig having called them back for extra money in a moment of desperation. They help confirm the place is clear, and the team calls in Smoach and Myrryr for investigative help, with CG and others assisting. It seems like the spirit they fought was a Wraith, the Shadow warrior class, and very deadly- S&M are impressed they survived. They got most of the Tarot back, but all the cards with bloody handprints, along with a few others, are missing.

Checking the “zombies” they find that they were seemingly possessed by low-force Shadow spirits, and were being cursorily patched back up/reassembled- so this is where at least some of the bodies have gone. Checking the Wendigo, they find a scarified “Fear the Dark” across her chest, and worry about who might have escaped in that bat swarm. S&M confirm that the second Shadow spirit, likely a Succubus, was recently at the house, but is not currently around/detectable, so seems to have retreated, fled, or just been out. But, for now, victory! They pay everyone out, and head back to the safehouse for the first time in a while to rest.

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective

Dig heads off to attend to his magical order while the rest of the team is poisoning Michael Turpentine. He barely makes it through some active combat while disguised as a bird and masked, but does arrive intact. The 2 members of his order trickle in, along with a preppy, affable, new potential named Freddy Bales. Bales has to step in a few times to provide additional instruction where Dig fails in the moment, but they all successfully take on animal form, though only Dig and Bales manage to initiate, as the other 2 weren’t properly prepared, Dig not having told them to expect that as a monthly component of the meetings. They all take off, and Dig focuses on internalizing some things he learned about instruction from Bales.

Everyone else rests up and stocks up on some gear at the Platinum Zone, with Creep getting a rocket launcher and Chew Gum learning to cast spells from Li Wei, who encourages him to grow his power. They receive the bounty payment from ARES for killing Otto Hendricks, routed through a series of cutouts as promised, and split it up once Dig returns. Tabasco, still in a weird mental place, bows out of the subsequent mission to seek further upgrades, to be ready to take revenge on the Shadow spirits. He also prefers to stay at the Plat Zone and fight ALPHAs than go to bug vs ARES central.

The rest of the team gets the call in the morning to go grab Carol and get him to ground zero- the bugs have a huge new crater just in front of ARES Tower, and are pouring out in what looks like a suicidal final attack. ARES forces have fallen back to the Tower and surrounding plazas and are waging a desperate defensive action, but could be overrun. The various merc forces are effectively unable to reinforce as they are fending off ALPHAs (and trying to save/rescue the civilian populace, unlike ARES). The team heads north, with Otters in the VTOL, Dig in bird form, and the rest on foot. They also call Ellis and their ghoul allies to warn them to stay away from Downtown/out of the astral due to an unspecified “mana threat”, and tip off the Irregulars as well.

Under The Detective’s guidance, they use some small unit tactics to safely avoid entanglements on the way, and find a somewhat gray-skinned Carol waiting in the irradiated van. They all hop in and plot a route, with Creep’s extensive knowledge of the city from his nighttime prowling providing excellent navigation.They exit the NGZ to the north of the nuclear blast zone and swing around west, entering back in through Irregular controlled turf in Zone 4. From there, they cut into Downtown from the west, with Otters carefullly sneak-driving to avoid trouble.

Otters flies CG in the VTOL up to a forward vantage point to get eyes on, and Dig accompanies as a bird. Dig decides to snag an ARES comm from one of the many corpses, so that ARES hopefully won’t shoot the van as it approaches, and CG provides sniper cover against some spirits as Dig gets it and flies away. However, some ARES drones almost spot CG so he as to hide for a bit before Otters can fly him back out, he got good overview info of the battle ahead though.

Dig and CG head back to the Plat Zone to help there, worried about the mana effects of the device in the van. Otters, with Creep’s help, hides her body in some rubble and remote pilots van and VTOL from there. She also uses the electrochromic coating to make the van look like an ARES vehicle to match their stolen comm signal. Unfortunately, this attracts some ARES stragglers in the neighborhood who try to get to the van for a ride to safety, pursued by bugs. Otters gives them some covering fire from the HMG but then speeds off, and the ARES survivors are quickly cut down.

Getting closer to the battle, Otters switches to full speed approach as the few square miles around the Tower are basically flattened rubble piles and mounds. It’s rough driving, but Otters is managing, partially using the VTOL to have an overhead view to steer from. She dodges the blasts of some stray ARES shells, though the van takes some flack damage. They manage to speed right up towards the crater, as a large amount of bugs split off from the main assault across from them and race towards the van. Otters uses HMG suppressive fire to corral them into a close center, while Creep leans out the side of the speeding van and launches a rocket into the bugs’ midst, holding on with his magnet hand and The Detective supporting.

They smash through the remaining bugs and Otters pulls a bootleg turn to swing about and stop, flinging the back doors open. Carol has been loosening all the bolts on the device’s frame, and with the help of the mule drone, hauls it out to the crater edge. Just as he does so, a massive insect emerges right behind him. Creep fires his last remaining rocket, and barely misses, still doing a decent amount of damage. Carol chucks some FAB grenades into the crater while running forward and pulling some ripcords on his armor, which starts emitting a stream of FABIII. He calls out to the team that they must trigger the device!

Creep races out and with The Detective’s encouragement, Dig’s previous explanation, and Otters providing covering fire from the mule and the van, manages to input the trigger sequence correctly on the first try. He dives back into the van as Otters revs it and peals out, having seen the 10 second countdown start. They gun it as a far away as they can before the detonation, which peppers the van with shrapnel, along with a following shockwave that flips them and wrecks the vehicle- luckily not badly enough to severely hurt those inside.

There seems to have been some kind of EMP effect as well though, as comms go down and Otters loses connection. Luckily the effect field seems fairly limited and she has a good view through the more distant VTOL of what happens: after the initial explosion and shockwave, some kind of rift opens in the sky about the Tower and plaza and some sickly green energy pours through. When it touches the energy emitting from the increasingly unstable area where the device was, a second magical shockwave pours out. This seems to kill smaller bugs where they stand, and paralyze or send into paroxysms the larger insects. Shamans appear to be driven mad and are easy targets for ARES sharpshooters, though Otters also spots some amongst the ARES troops falling and seizing- either bug infiltrators or mages, presumably.

This magical wave also hits at the Plat Zone, and both CG and Dig take some damage that feels like bad drain, while also making them somewhat nauseous, though they manage to shake it off. They do some others around them who were more battered fall, and help get them down to the medical area, where Jaga, though puking, is helping to heal and stabilize. Back at the front, Otters picks her body up with the VTOL, and then locates the van crash site via dead reckoning and regains point to point comms with Creep, the mule and The Detective. CG and Dig get the Quicksilver camera airborne to get some magical pics of whatever just happened, and get a few usable plates of the rift and immediate after-effects.

They initially plan to head back to the Plat Zone, but instead decide to do one more recon on the battlefield. From a distance, they see a lot. ARES troops are casually executing any surviving bugs and shamans, the bugs seemingly unable to move or defend themselves and the shamans stumbling, maddened, from the crater. There is much cruelty from some of the troops, though the majority appear to be just mechanically slaughtering. They see Carol also crawl forth from the crater, arms raised and shouting something, holding a commlink in one hand. The matrix appears to be down but the team’s devices all seem to work, so they try to get a message to Carol that they can come grab him, but give up on this after he is quickly surrounded by ARES forces.

Shortly thereafter, an armored platoon shows up, which looks to be Zone 4 and 6 survivors, having cut through the remaining ALPHAs to get here. General Ritter (aka Grey Ghost) emerges and confabs with some other ARES leaders on the ground. Tensions seem high but he distributes some info that seems to calm things. At this point, a heavily armored Arthur Vogel emerges, seemingly have claimed control, suggesting the Knight has indeed died or been incapacitated. The armored command of the conventional ARES forces at the Tower seem to refuse this transfer of command to Vogel and open fire on the newly arrived troops, but it seems like Ritter was prepared for this possibility, and the fascist Downtown commander Danforth and his loyalists are quickly gunned down.

Vogel gets Carol free and they shake hands, but amidst the chaos and confusion, the team sees a figure in blood-spattered heavy armor walk up behind Carol and calmly shoot him the head repeatedly. This figure rips off their helmet, and the team sees it is Carol’s brother- Michael Turpentine! Screaming something about “betrayal” as far as they can tell, he continues shooting Carol’s corpse as he himself is gunned down and turned to pink mist by Vogel’s bodyguards with their railguns. The team, shocked, pauses to reflect for a moment, until Creep realizes that Carol was how they were going to get paid, and against better advice, heads over to Vogel, who luckily recognizes him before Creep is destroyed by railguns as well.

Vogel seems at least put out by Carol’s death, but also very busy, and confirms that he will ensure the team is paid before sending Creep on his way, quickly muscled out of the inner circle by bodyguards. However, Creep manages to slickly pocket the commlink that Carol was holding. They all head back to the Plat Zone, marked as friendlies by Vogel’s command (it seems that all Irregulars have been). Hearing celebratory shouts and gunfire from the battle zone, Dig and CG were hoping for the best, and as the rest of the team arrives and new trickles in of bugs dropping citywide, and ALPHAs either killed or in retreat, a massive party starts.

Dig takes a celebratory BTL to celebrate, and plans to accompany The Detective back to their safehouse in Oakland County so they can do some Bliss and take a bath while Dig keeps an eye on things. The rest plan to stay and party. First, though, Otters shares the VTOL footage, and Creep shares Carol’s comm. Dig manages to hack it even while high, and they find that it is basically a high-end burner through which Carol had been communicating with his brother. It seems like it started out with Carol trying to provide anonymous help, but his bro figured it out, and eventually used it to track Carol’s location and kill him.

There is an attacked vid file that Dig opens, which shows the cybereyes perspective of Michael as he psychs himself up in a bathroom mirror to give Damien Knight the chess piece. He is talking initially about how this can secure him a permanent board place, and also get Carol safely back on the corps’ good side. He heads into an ornate conference room past two muscle-bound, oiled up teen bodyguards. Knight greets him as he enters, almost calling him Carol again before correcting, and asking for help getting into his battle armor, which “must have shrunk since last time.” As Michael moves to present the chess piece, Knight begins hacking, and his veins start turning black and bulging out as he falls to the floor.

Michael panics and tries to catch him, but then has to defend himself as the 2 guards outside rush in and assume he did this (which he did, though he doesn’t know it yet). He kills the two teens, seemingly horrified, and then seems to put 2 and 2 together. Sensing that Carol has been working at cross purposes, he starts strapping on what he can of Knight’s armor and looks into another mirror, vowing revenge, as Knight’s body dissolves into the carpet behind him, before the feed cuts.

Dig suggests they make a snuff BTL of Knight’s death/a brother’s revenge, but the rest of the team convinces him to hold off for now, though Otters confirms it will be a best seller for sure. They share some info with Ringmaster before getting into serious partying, and Dig and The Detective take off, with Dig getting the first look at The Detective’s strange shabby chic abode. They stop at Grandmother Biyu’s on the way so Dig can tip her off that now is a good time to make a move on the mafia- any dead can be claimed as bugs, and their mages were surely effected by the mana blast wave, and with Knight gone they’ve lost their best ally in ARES. Ravenheart approaches CG and asks if he has seen Li Wei- apparently Wei’s blood magic got the better of him while fighting off a major ALPHA assault earlier in the day and he hasn’t been seen since. A rogue blood mage is a big problem, though Ravenheart would like to help him if possible.

After the partying, everyone crashes. The next day Dig and The Detective return, and the matrix starts gradually coming back online- not just the local net but the whole deal, it seems that ARES jammers are offline for the first time in a while. The team gets their remaining pay from Vogel, and also sees that Jackpoint is back up! A new group called the GOD-Slayers claims credit for helping end the embargo, alongside many thanks to the Nexus and Asgard Data Haven for assistance and secure backups. The big news, as well as Detroit and the death of Knight (assumed in battle) and the return of Vogel (previously thought dead) is “what happened to III Corps?”

From the currently available info, it seems like the entire III Corps, plus everyone else within a large radius around Dutchville, PA, all vanished off the face of the earth. There were strangely/conveniently no satellites overhead when it happened, and noone on the boards has been able to get sat feeds overheard since. Attempts to send drones have failed, so intel is low. But speculation is high. Perhaps something to investigate? However, the boards are warning runners not to try to leave Detroit JUST yet, in case whoever is controlling the satellites that enforce the cordon haven’t stood down yet.

The situation in the UCAS as a whole looks a bit dicey- Colloton has pulled back military forces to defend important installation and major cities, in the wake of the III Corps disaster and what’s happening in Detroit, and this has left some borders vulnerable, which the CAS, NAN, and other bordering nations are all too happy to exploit. Detroit also seems to have suffered badly- civilian casualties are estimated to be around 150k so far, and that doesn’t even include the SINless, DDB dwellers, and Irregulars from out of town. ARES forces also took a bad hit, though they aren’t revealing any internal info, external estimates are putting their losses at 60%+ of their military and auxiliary capacity. But- there have been no signs of bugs in the NGZ since the device went off, so Latvian Gambit may have kind of worked?

Otters heads out with mule and VTOL to salvage what she can from the now-less-irradiated van, and finds scavengers picking over the battlefield all over, with more official ARES salvage ops nearer the Tower. However, there seem to be less bodies around than there should be… and the rift is still glowing green above the Tower. Otters manages to save the concealed turret and HMG but the rest is a wash, either wrecked or already picked over. She heads back, the mule dragging the expensive turret and gun. When she gets back she reports the weird missing corpses, and CG and some others go out to investigate, grabbing a few corpses they do find to analyze.

With Ringmaster’s support, CG gets some space to do a ritual of bones, and finds that all the corpses were touched by some kind of corrupting energy, not strongly enough to have an effect, but strongly enough to leave traces. The thing it feels most similar to is Shadow magic. Examining the Quicksilver plates, they also see a massive Scar through Downtown, centered on the blast, that seems to be a powerful mana ebb or dead zone. When the team talks to their ghoul friends (yay functional matrix!) the ghouls report that Downtown is kind of a no-go zone for the dual-natured right now- bad vibes. Dig also calls Freddy Bales to thank him for his assistance during the magical order meeting, which Bales is his usual affable self about.

They decide that first off, they want to hire some assistance and go after the Shadow spirit farm and get their Tarot back (if they can), and then maybe help Ringmaster with all his new investigation needs, as he seems worried about the rift, which reminds him of the Watergate incident that brought Shedim to our place, as well as interested in what happened to III Corps. Also maybe help Biyu against the mafia, maybe help the ghouls against Fear The Dark, etc. Many jobs available, and maybe the city is finally free of bugs and checkpoints! It definitely seems like, for now, ARES is defending their HQ and licking their wounds. However, with all the bug tunnels, sinkholes and collapses are common, so travelling the city is far from “safe”.

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Tabasco
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective

The team spends a bit more time going back and forth on the bounty question at the Platinum Zone while also putting together their gear needs list to fight the Shadow spirits who stole their Tarot. They get another call from Carol and finally answer. He tells them he knows they’ve been dodging his calls and have been in touch with Ellis, but that he has a 3-4 part offer for them from Vogel, who he says is finally positioned to make his move. They agree to hear him out, and he says first off, Vogel has a message to pass to Ellis- essentially, offering amnesty for her faction if she gets on-side ASAP and answers a few basic questions satisfactorily. The team agrees to pass to along, at least.

Next, Vogel has two jobs for them, the first is to pick up a large device that it being air-dropped in shortly, stash it somewhere where it would be difficult to access or track magically, and leave it there with Carol. An optional stage 2, which they also accept, is to pick Carol and the device up from this location and get them into the center of the ARES vs Bugs fight Downtown at the moment of Vogel’s choosing, he thinks it will only be a few days from now. The team negotiates pay, and gets all the relevant info.

2nd job, Carol doesn’t know any details, but Vogel has prepped an info packet they can examine before negotiating pay, though they have to agree to the job before they can see it. They do so, and he passes them an encrypted file that MAMA has the key to decode. It seems they are meant to use Carol’s brother, Michael as a trojan horse of sorts to get a toxin attack in range of Damien Knight. Further assistance incoming via drone once they agree to terms. They negotiate with Carol for a major payday, and he takes off.

The Detective calls Ellis and passes along the message/warning, as well as Carol’s current contact info, she thanks them for it and says she’ll ponder it, quickly, and decide what to do. The team decides to use the van to conceal the device (and Carol) in the radioactive zone on Vendor’s Row, and head to Triple R to get radiation shielding upgraded, as well as add a concealed turret for the upcoming Downtown run. While they upgrade, Otters flies Tabasco in the VTOL, along with bird-form Dig over to the drop site, way on the west side in some farm country near Livonia.

They arrive and spot a half-size shipping container dropping down with 4 small corner chutes deployed a short while later. Unfortunately, they also spot an incongruous swarm of bats hanging out in the area, seemingly keeping an eye on them and the crate. Otters flies Creep over as well while they debate what to do. After some attempts to influence the swarm with spirit powers are counter-acted, Tabasco decides to take action, and shoots a bat. He is then quickly felled by a massive spell, and fall out of the tree he was perched in.

Creep tosses him in the VTOL and Otters zips him back to the Plat Zone for healing, as Creep pops some smoke grenades before nearly getting felled by another spell. Dig finally spots the caster- a powerful high level initiate is in bat form amidst the swarm, and with that Dig and Creep retreat inside the crate. Unfortunately this lets off a tiny moment of astral visibility to the strange and powerful magical device within. It looks similar to an ARES portal closer from Project: Bottleneck, but significantly modified. Dig analyzes it with his magic a bit, and gets spooked again.

They hear a voice with a Germanic accent outside the door, as Creep welds it shut from the inside and Dig holds it closed with magic fingers. The voice offers them power and safety if they hand over the device, which they refuse. Creep threatens to set it off rather than give it up, which the voice seems to believe. It asks where they are taking it and on who’s behalf, and Creep answers honestly, without explicitly identifying Vogel. The voice seems satisfied and says so long as they don’t deviate from their plan, he will merely watch, but that if they try to pull a fast one, they will have an issue.

The van finally arrives to find Creep and Dig still hiding inside (the crate seems EM shielded and they have lost comms inside), and they get the device loaded into the van and head out of there. They park it in the rad zone, fine-tuning their placement to maximize the effect while ensuring Carol and the van will survive without too much effect. Carol arrives, and Otters passes backup control to him in case of a comms loss. They then head back to the Plat Zone on foot, and start working on the next job.

Step one- they need an intact pheromone gland from an original ALPHA. They spend some time monitoring comms frequencies until they hear a promising alert for ALPHAS nearby from a spotter. They call out as “engaging”, and head out, using some tactics to proceed quietly and set an ambush. It works surprisingly well with The Detective providing some critical leadership. They take down the new ALPHAs before they even can respond, though the lone original ALPHA nearly kills Dig with a burst from their Excalibur. The team manages to finish them all off, and Creep and The Detective start burning the other corpses, while CG and Dig carefully extract the gland, Dig once again using esoteric magic to perform skills he doesn’t seem to possess, and declaring himself a surgeon.

They head back to the Plat Zone and debate whether to try the next step themselves or not, eventually deciding to contract it out to Stanli the Candyman. Dig flies over with the gland, and passes it off. Stanli takes a look at the instructions, and seems legit surprised. The team pays him extra to tell them what they are crafting, as they are also paying him to forget the whole thing after. He explains that essentially he will be able to extract and refine some pheromones from the gland to make a targeted toxin, so that when whoever they inject it into comes into smell-range of the target gene markers they will emit the tailored toxin.

Once they have the toxin, Dig flies back, as Stanli smokes some läes to forget. A drone delivery arrives, with a business card with Michael Turpentine’s number on it, and a small fancy box. Opening the box, they find a black chess king piece. Creep and Dig manage to put together that likely is the piece given to Aurelius, the ARES founder, in Big D’ Will, with the rest of the set given to Knight. Supposedly Knight has been seeking to acquire the piece in the years since the last of Aurelius’ line died, but has not succeeded. Putting it all together, they realize that giving this piece to Michael will allow them to get close enough to dose him with the tailored toxin, and that this piece will ensure Michael a meeting with Knight shortly thereafter.

They remember that Hendricks controlled the ALPHA breeding lab for some time, and ponder if he altered their genes to specifically want to target Knight if they encountered him, or if someone else did… regardless, they have their job to do. The Detective calls Michael’s private line, and arranges a meeting in the fancy Downtown hotel that he and some other corp higher-ups seem to be living in during the fighting. The Detective goes alone, smuggling in a flyspy that is being hot rigged by Otters, and with others on remote backup, watching through the Avatars linked tattoo that CG possesses.

Michael already seems hyped and a little drunk when The Detective arrives, and Otters manages to slip the drone past the observant corpsec onsite. The Detective goes along with Michael’s bro-y vibe, and gives him a big backslap just as Otters tags him with the drone’s injector, which seems to have been the perfect distraction, though Michael seems to be coming down with something a bit as they continue drinking. The Detective passes over the piece, and the team is a bit horrified to hear on the comms how desperate Michael still is for the approval and corporate success that has destroyed his family, especially as he casually reveals Damien Knight’s human-centric metaracism- mistaking him for his brother, etc.

Regardless, Michael seems well-satisfied, believing that this will ensure Knight remembers who he is and trusts him, and he tells The Detective he won’t forget them and what they’ve done for him. The Detective feels a little bad, as they know how this is likely to end, so gets out of there quickly, with Otters managing to sneak the drone back out as well. With that done, they just need to amass personal gear and wait for Vogel’s call to deliver Carol and the device….

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Tabasco
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective

Upon emerging from the tunnels and regrouping, the team finds that the Desolation Angels had managed to hold back a larger ALPHA assault, though a few got past, and they suffered some casualties. The injured and unconscious on the team get hauled to the triage center in the basement and treated, while the rest merely rest up. When everyone awakens, Praxis offers Tabasco the chance to join up with Ellis and them as a full time bug hunter but he turns it down for now. The team then gathers and begins discussing what to do with the info they have. Lacking some situational context, they report in to Ringmaster and Rifleman.

Rifleman thanks them for the mapping data and tells them that the Irregulars were able to make some good raids with it, though in response the tunnels have been flooded with some kind of modified Seven-7, making it very dangerous to operate underground for the moment. Which has also made the ghouls and BETAS/Deso Angels even more valuable allies. He leaves them with Ringmaster to discuss how to get paid.

Ringmaster tells them that there’s a large bounty for proof of Hendricks’ death, but it is through ARES, so he’d have to use a series for cutouts to get it, which would eat into the payday. They could also go to Vogel, though the pay would likely be less, but it would allow him to make some moves ahead of ARES knowing of the power vacuum underground. In the end, the team fills Ringmaster in, and then sells the info to Ellis, in order to let her make some moves herself for her new faction. They get significantly less pay but tighten their bonds with Ellis.

They then try to call home to make sure Iva is ready for incoming repair work, but noone picks up at the safehouse! Otters flies Tabasco up there in the VTOL and does some surveillance on the way- looks like bugs are falling back to Downtown fully, as are ARES forces as mercs and Irregulars try to kill ALPHAS and save civilians- the big battle may be reaching a finale! On reaching the safehouse, they find the entrances covered with magical vines, but no other obvious issues, though they can’t get in.

Dig flies up in bird form to join Tabasco as Otters drives the rest up in the van, carefully, to avoid combat encounters. Tabasco inquires with Zennia, but she says part of what they pay for is privacy, plus the neighborhood seems kind of edgy and post-combat themselves. Chatting further, it turns out there were some desperate bug breakouts, followed by the poison gas, and though they were contained, there were some local casualties and noone has seen Jaga- unusual but she keeps odd hours and wanders a lot.

The team, recognizing Jaga’s green magic as the source of the vines, manages to communicate their good intents and is allowed in past the magic barrier, after CG slips through and reports it looks like a major brawl took place inside. There is a lot of blood, Dig’s golem is shattered, and CG’s lodge has been desecrated, seemingly by shadow magic. They find a badly injured Jaga in a seed pod that seems to have preserved her, and Dig manages to heal her with a massive spell.

Questioning her, they find out that Iva seems to have been mind-controlled into letting the Hands of Fate into the safehouse and guiding them to the Tarot cards. By the time Jaga realized what was happening, they were already fighting the golem- they came in concealed and under a large area silence effect, making it extra creepy, but she says there were multiple metahumans and at least two massive shadow spirits in the astral. Quickly analyzing the scene before fleeing, they see at least 5 distinct blood traces- likely Iva (who is missing), Jaga, and 3 others.

Most of the blood seems to have come from one individual who looks to have been sacrificed to ruin CG’s lodge. The team flees back to the Platinum Zone, since Dig and Tabasco are both still badly injured, and they pay to get their armor fixed there. They rest again, and discussing next steps decide to hire Smoach and Myrryr to look into this further, and also make sure they didn’t get attacked too. S&M seem glad to hear from the team, their office was ransacked but they had taken precautions and their card is safe. They agree to investigate, and suggest that based on HOF SOP, Iva may still be slowly dying somewhere, if it isn’t already too late. While starting their investigation at the safehouse, they find a sketch of the 10 of Blades in Iva’s area, altered to have her face, and suggest the team think of places she might be. They head north to check the spot where they found Roderick.

It occurs to the team that they haven’t checked the bolthole, and they call into the radio there, hearing what sounds like knife actions and blood dripping. Tabasco insists on being flown down there immediately, with Dig accompanying in bird form, masking himself as best he can, worried about a trap. Tabasco rushes in, but unfortunately seems to have fallen under a dark influence and finds himself compelled to shoot the suspended and badly cut up Iva with a white phosphorous arrow, surely killing her. He still tries to apply a trauma patch, but lights himself on fire in the process. The team triggers the narcoject in his auto-injector, which they had added in case of mind control, and Otters rigs his body out of there back into the VTOL.

They call the landlord and have another humorous convo where she seems fine with their misadventures so long as they pay for the damage, as the rental market is in a current slump due to the crisis. They say they’ll get back to her but arrange for ghoul-based body disposal once the fire goes out. Knowing that Tabasco won’t be able to handle what he did (even though it wasn’t his fault), the team comes up with a lie- Iva was already dead, and Tabasco lit the unit on fire in anger, and asked to have his memory (and the footage) erased.

Otters calls up Howell, who helped her forget some of her past in Florida, and he provides an intro to a local dealer/info broker named Stanli the Candyman. Howell warns Dig that Stanli is forgetful but loves setting traps. Dig approaches carefully, avoiding various dangerous and deadly traps, and has an odd convo with Stanli, who seems to have started smoking some of the laës while waiting for Dig to arrive. He sells him a vial of the injectible variety and also some other drugs, and they does Tabasco, back at the Plat Zone for now til they figure out what to do re: safehouses.

Dig proposes that they can’t let themselves be bullied, and keeps almost giving up the lie to Tabasco, but Tabasco seems willing enough to go along with it that they all manage to keep it together. Eventually, everyone gets talked into Dig’s plan, which is to hunt down the Hands of Fate/shadow spirit and get their Tarot cards back. Jaga, Dig and CG do a massive ritual to track them down, with The Detective being flown around Detroit in the VTOL as the spotter. They eventually track them to a dilapidated farmhouse way outside of town near Ypsilanti.

Not wanting to rush into an incredibly dangerous situation, they start making lists of necessary gear and the like. Meanwhile, Tabasco heads out to Metal Maniacs where he gets hand razors installed and pays one of the gangers there to buff him like Iva used to. They accidentally trigger his orgasm switch while doing so, which is a weird experience for him. Creep hides the remaining 2 tarot cards (sealed up) in his leg waste compartment, and heads up north to try to get his parachute back from the jailbreak mission.

When he arrives, he sees that new go-gangers have taken over the whole area around the Blight, and the jail is badly burnt down. He chats with some Ancients, including the 2 the team rescued, and they confirm that anything flammable at the jail is long destroyed. Oh well. One of the Ancients, who seems magical, warns Creep that some kind of dark spirit is pursuing him, and gives him some tips on how to ditch it. He accepts a ride from them back to the north edge of the NGZ, and hides out near the nuke detonation site for a while to ditch astral tracing, then sneaks back to the Plat Zone, where he gets a biopocket installed to hide their remaining few major arcana from astral sight.

The team continues to go back and forth on whether to cash the ARES bounty before it’s too late, since CG gathered some bio-samples of Hendricks’ exploded corpse, with Dig adamantly for it, Tabasco adamantly opposed (ARES killed his parents, as he says) and the rest of the crew vacillating between. However, they need to gear up for this shadow spirit raid….

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Tabasco
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective

Tabasco returns after helping protect the Platinum Zone from bug assault, which also further cemented their alliance with Ellis and Praxis. The team debriefs a bit and talks Dig out of making a potentially sketchy deal with Grandmother Biyu to get a much better deck than he can afford in exchange for having a constant info channel open to the Triad. Dig instead borrows money from many on the team and gets a decent deck. Tabasco upgrades one of his arms, going obvious to get more capacity for mods.

After doing a few more assorted sabotage and magic fly-by’s to keep pressure on the Mafia at the port, the team decides to head into the tunnels and deal with Otto Hendricks once and for all. Given that bugs are locked in combat with the newly arrived MET2000 reinforcements, along with all the previous combatants, and that this is luring far flung ALPHAS back to the city center, the team figures noone will be looking for an alpha strike on the Henricks himself, so they hope to sneak in.

They decide to use the tunnel that emerged near the Plat Zone as an entry point, and spend a while training and gearing up for the mission as sounds of heavy combat continue all around them. They head down, and using drones and spirits, manage to bypass a few initial traps, including tunneling around an alarm ward by magically reshaping concrete in an old subway station. Otters reports back to the Plat Zone on progress until her drone doesn’t return one time, and they worry they are surrounded. Dig, in wolf form, is doing an impressive job astrally tracking Hendricks based on his and CG’s ritual prep.

As they enter a large multi-chamber area, seemingly a major old underground station, a massive magical barrier drops down behind them- a trap! 4 massive spirits manifest and attack the team, with the team managing to avoid taking serious damage and felling 2 of the spirits before coming under attack from Hendricks and his bodyguards, wielding Gauss rifles, which shred Tabasco’s armor badly. They get in a brutal throwdown fight, but are making progress when some ALPHA’s. lured by the strong bug magic being thrown around, breech through the magical barriers since Hendricks is distracted with the battle.

Hendricks’ bodyguards appear suicidally loyal, and keep taking hits for him, though they manage to fell Tabasco with their railguns. CG and Dig’s spirits manage to keep the rest of the team reasonably safe, and the ALPHAs make quick work of the surviving bug spirit, though they also shoot Otters’ prone body as they enter, not bothering to stop and confirm their kill, luckily for her she had upgraded her armor before this mission. CG snaps the small bone charm he was given by Li Wei, which summons a Blood Spirit, and he and Dig send a spirit each after Hendricks.

He quickly banishes the blood spirit and destroys Dig’s spirit with astral combat, and the ALPHAs destroy both of CG’s necro spirits, a bad day for spirit rep for both of them. Dig and CG flee the ALPHAs further in, chasing Hendricks and his lone remaining guard further underground. The team fells one ALPHA up top as CG takes out the final bodyguard, and Dig manages to trap Hendricks with an embarassing/overcast magic fingers grapple. DIg holds Hendricks prone, while Otters’ drone, Creep and the ALPHA all attack him.

Unfortunately, it seems like he had one final plan and detonates a mine he has built into his armor, nearly killing Creep and Dig, damaging the ALPHA, and destroying the drone. Creep and CG manage to take down the ALPHA as it tries to KO and infest Dig, who barely survives. Otters salvages what she can from the mule, and CG distros some Buffout so that the team can haul Tabasco out. They race back up the tunnel as quick as they can, hoping the flyspys that Otters sent back ahead would have reported any obstructions.

They get lucky, and safely reach the Platinum Zone, where Tabasco is revived, though he looks much the worse for wear, and the rest of the team heals up a bit, before debriefing.

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Tabasco
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective

With the Blight still hot and aggressively guarded post-prison break, the team heals up for a few days, and the contractors for the job go their separate ways. After everyone is basically back to normal, they decide to pay Kong to keep the van safe til they can get it out, and pay the Maulers to smuggle them out through the McKenzie Arcology, which goes smoothly. They travel back to the safehouse on foot, except for Dig who goes in bird form, and manage to gun down two fresh, hungry alphas who attack them on the way, without any significant damage to themselves.

Dig insists on solving the mystery of one of the 6WT greater arcana: the Avatars. He does decipher how to resolve it, but tries to participate in bird form and misses out on the boon. The other 3 participants (Chew Gum, The Detective and Otters) all gain a visual only shared sensory connection with the other 2 that, after some experimentation, seems able to bypass magical defenses with ease. They experiment a bit more and plan to use it for recon until it runs out. Unfortunately, it does magically link them also and makes them a bit more astrally visible.

The team does some planning and recon for the heist for Howell;s mysterious Johnson, and finds that the artifact in question is a Tzuri Group Janus statue of some sort, a recent loan to the private museum in Grosse Pointe’s ritzy Casa Aurelius gated neighborhood. The Detective uses their good SIN to gain access and tours the museum, under the effect of a catalog spell ritual from Dig and Chew Gum, though they are forced to let the spell go when they trigger some passive museum security and are confronted by guards. Overall, the place seems quite chill however, and they quickly make a plan to sneak, bypass the detected security features, and replace the artifact with a well-made copy, hopefully leaving noone any the wiser for at least some amount of time.

In other news about town, ARES has apparently dug deep in their remaining coffers and secured the services of MET2000, one of the world’s largest merc corps. They are expected to arrive within the week, which may dramatically change the situation on the ground. Otters, on behalf of the team, also shares some intel and info with Ringmaster – specifically discussing Ellis and her trustworthiness, given her altered status. The Irregulars are debating an offer to unite or at least collab with the BETAs and Desolation Angels, and seem to legit value the team’s input.

They also warn that Carol and Vogel are very much still looking for Ellis, so the team should expect contact at some point. They discuss Kensington and the Comeadai network, and Ringmaster fills them in on the Black Lodge’s likely involvement- from what he could tell, Kensington was a former member of the Seer’s Guild, a powerful Euro foretelling org, which is heavily infiltrated by the BL. What was done to him also seems like a classic BL punishment/experiment, and they are definitely invested in the secrets of the Seelie Court, so it feels feasible.

Armed with knowledge and a plan, the team prepares to make the imitation artifact and get the heist down before the arrival of MET2000 changes the situation on the ground. The heist goes pretty well, with the team first making contact with the small local Seoul’Pa presence via Chew Gum in order to upgrade some SINs. Creep gets his good enough to get into Casa Aurelius, and heads in carrying Dig’s hacking rig. He stashes it in a tree near the museum, where Dig flies in in bird form, and puts on his custom animal form trodes with his magic fingers.

Dig manages to hack the cameras on the museum and make it look like Creep left, while Creep actually hides in a utility closet. Once the museum closes, Creep sneaks around and lets Otter’s mule drone in, after Otters drops it off with the VTOL. The mule drone sneaks to the third floor and disables the automatic security shutter, while Creep carefully bypasses the physical and digital security, and swaps out the near exact replica that CG crafted, also swapping the digital sensors and trackers attached.

Unfortunately, Dig doesn’t really understand the matrix, and GOD comes down on him, destroying his deck and badly injuring him. He leaves the area, and Creep and the drone hide inside overnight while the team figures out a plan. The next day, the Detective returns to the museum at opening while Dig, in bird form, uses a spirit of beasts to control animals from around the neighborhood to rush dozens of cats, dogs, rats etc into the museum , causing some chaos, during which Creep and the drone sneak off, with Otters flying the drone and artifact away in the VTOL.

Otters makes the drop off to Howell after flying through some toxic zones to ditch magical traces. The team then connects with Grandmother Biyu so Dig can learn some new spells and try to get a new deck. The rest of the team quickly determines that she is a high ranking Triad, and they get down to biz. She wants to take turf from the mafia while ARES is on their back foot, and offers the team whatever level of involvement they want. After some debate, they agree, and begin planning a disinformation and sabotage campaign.

While that happens, Ellis warns of a major upcoming bug assault, and Tabasco manages to help fend off a direct attack on the Platinum Zone, while the rest of the team helps prep defenses in Hamtramck. After multiple ARES positions collapse, some under shelling from their own command Downtown, MET2000 dramatically drops in with gravjets and starts pushing the bugs back and holding the line. Luckily, ARES has had to also call in all backup, so Otters finally gets the team van back from the Blight, and notices that there seem to be some incipient go-gangers starting to build up bikes and war rigs and preparing to leave the Blight as well….

Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Tabasco
Otters aka Roadkill
The Detective
and some assistance from: Leonid Svaja and The Brokenheart

Leonid, having come to town for bonus pay with the Irregulars and looking for some side work now that some of the funding has dried up, gets recommended by Kong as a freelancer in look of work to help with the prison break. Noticing the team’s imperfect grasp of social skills, he also suggests hiring on the washed-up boy band star/face/adept The Brokenheart, Kamizan 0 to fill those gaps. Brokenheart got stuck in town after a con appearance got crashed by Horizon hired goons and he had to lay low with a fan for a bit and got stuck inside the wall during Latvian Gambit, and he’s out of drug money so he’s desperate for work.

Dig heads out to meet up with Grandmother Biyu to learn some spells, and finds what looks like a small Triad setup to cook and feed people during the crisis. They seem to be operating pretty freely in the dangerous Vendor’s Row so that implies some power at least. They have a slightly esoteric conversation as Dig realizes that Biyu is teaching him the spells as she makes him help cook. She also says she has some work for him- she needs to acquire some territory in town which is currently possessed by others. Dig agrees and says he’ll circle back soon.

The team all links up, arranges pay with Praxis, and gets access to a Desolation Angels bus they can beef up and use for the prisoner rescue. They add run flats and a ram plate, and get Leonid and Otters hooked into the rigger interface. Chew Gum does some astral surveillance on the prison while the 2 riggers do some drone flybys and Creep and Tabasco scout the neighborhood. The team has to remind Tabasco to cover all his extensively buffed and shiny cyber to avoid detection. Otters heads to Run and Sollars and gets some info on the building- an old and not very updated structure. They make an initial plan for entry and start acquiring the necessary gear.

They get a rocket launcher and a bunch of EMP’s from The Trading Post, and fly to the Plat Zone to acquire some C4. Dig turns into a mouse and rides in Creep’s pocket, along with most of the EMP’s, 7 flyspys and a miniwelder, while Creep gets dropped on the roof of the prison by the VTOL and infiltrates the old vents. They spend a night sneaking around and surveilling, and manage to use the mouse and flyspy’s to get messages to the prisoners they need to break out, hoping they can also get a few more if they get the chance. In the morning, Creep sets the C4 (which Leonid had pre-shaped) above the facility spider’s rigger cocoon, and tells the team it’s go time.

Leonid, having mounted the rocket launcher on his roto-drone, and waits while Tabasco climbs up the side of the toxic Chrysler Valley to cut the perimeter fence. Brokenheart heads up to the front gate and starts performing and jumping around to magically distract the guards. He pulls 3 of the patrollers off, which gives Tabasco enough time to cut the fence, though he attracts the attention of 4 exterior rail drones and 1 remaining patroller. Creep falls back in the vents and detonates the C4 as Leonid launches the rocket. They blow open the side of the admin wing and take out the spider in one go, and then Tabasco comes under heavy fire.

He retreats into the building with Chew Gum getting flown in by the VTOL and dropped inside also. Otters sends the bus over to back up Brokenheart with it’s newly mounted LMG, as the guards out front are coming back to their senses. Creep drops down from the vent as Dig summons a spirit, and they quickly take out the 2 on shift security mages. They get in a gun, magic, and EMP battle with the drones and sec guards, and the bus almost gets wrecked before Otters can pull it back. Leonid hot swaps back to an assault rifle on his roto-drone to provide cover fire, while CG uses his corpse spirit for long distance powers on exterior guards and Otters starts heading over in the mule drone.

With some massive pulse spells and lightning bolts, followed up by prodigious gunfire and arrows, the team manages to take out all the surrounding guards, thinking there are likely only a few deeper in. Tabasco is nearly killed and is hopped up on slap patches to keep going. Otters gets into the detention wings with the mule drone, which is nearly destroyed in an ambush. The team manages to take out the two guards firing from cover while Dig uses his new mind probe spell to learn the secrets of the facility from the lone living captured guard, as well as his deep personal feelings, before killing him.

Brokenheart heads in, talks the last guard into surrendering, and walks him out as CG’s spirit further compels him to flee and not call backup. He does. They start cutting through the locked down cell bolts, as they fried the spider’s controls so can’t digitally open doors. Otters and Leonid get drones airborne, and spot KE reinforcement coming their way, so they have to hustle. They just manage to free the 6 Desolation Angels, 3 Razorboyz Edge runners, 2 Ancients, and assassinate the one First Union member before the backup arrives, and Otters and Leonid race towards the Blight, laying down suppressive fire in front and behind.

They smash through the border gate, destroying the bus, and tell the people aboard to flee into the Blight as they team cover them. Otters then drives deeper in, hiding the van, as KE forms up at the entrance but seems reluctant to pursue. The team has really burned themselves with ARES but gained a lot of good rep with locals and gangers, and makes a good chunk of cash as well! Onto the next job!

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
and introducing: The Detective

With the disturbing news about the disappearance (or at least the disappearance from sensors) of the UCAS Army III Corps, as well as the nearby town of Dutchville, PA, the team has a mildly fraught morning discussing possibilities, exit strategies, and survival plans. Otters is glad she got her reflex augment surgery in beforehand as this is likely to make things even scarcer and more expensive. Chew Gum returns from learning a new necromantic ritual from Li Wei, who seems a bit creepier than the team file had previously suggested. He also buys a Mortis Optigram off of Smoach and Myrryr who say that they just kept it around on the off-chance and can’t actually use it.

Meanwhile, across town, The Detective finally emerges from their depressive state/bath after grieving Locke’s death for a week. Absent their protege and source of street intel, they feel it is perhaps finally time to get back out there themselves, work the angles. Having also caught the radio broadcast about the III Corps mystery, The Detective is hooked and on the case. They can only think of one obvious place to turn initially- the team Locke was running with before their death. The Detective chooses Tabasco to reach out to, based on the limited psych workup they have done on the crew from Locke’s reports.

Tabasco, quickly feeling a bit out of his depth, brings most of the rest of the team in on the call, absent Dig who is sealing the mafia hole up and currently unreachable. They all agree to meet The Detective and suggest the Tin Can bar, which Locke seems to have not told The Detective is right in front of their safehouse (score one for team norms). They debrief a bit back and forth, commiserate about Locke’s untimely passing, and discuss some ongoing mysteries: Tarot, Fear The Dark, III Corps. Most of the crew claims to not be in the world saving business so The Detective pays them a decent consulting fee for the info share.

An urgent call to a meeting at the Platinum Zone comes over the bar’s radio setup, and Marv manages to punch a message through to The Detective with an invite as well, so they all load into the team van and then drive down. Otters does some impressive sneaky driving while the others keep lookout- they see that the 77th Independent Rangers are policing their zone as well so they have their Irregulars transponder ready to broadcast if needed, but don’t get spotted. It looks like the large pack of ALPHAS on the north edge of Downtown have been driven off or moved on, also, leaving devastation in their wake.

They reach the Plat Zone with no trouble and start to head inside but get halted by security who recognize Chew Gum’s corpse spirit host as one of the would-be assassins from the last big meeting. They go to tackle the spirit and luckily Tabasco intervenes and explains before CG is able to try to use mental manipulation powers on the guards, as Tabasco remembers there is constant magical surveillance as well. They check their corpse spirit at the door and head in. They get ushered over into the Brickhouse side through knocked in interior passages along the block, it seems increasingly fortified every time they visit.

Waiting there are the Irregular command: Ringmaster, setting up an AR projector deck, Ravenheart looking calm and collected, and Rifleman, all keyed up, Marv greets The Detective as they enter but is otherwise hanging back for this. Once enough Irregulars have arrived, Ringmaster starts the presentation. Bad news: not only has III Corps vanished or dropped off sensors (both worrying), Jackpoint, The Nexus, Frozen Shadows, and Asgard Data Haven all appear to have been taken down. They present the last batch of messages that Electric Blue was able to pull before getting badly dump shocked, and it looks bad- a coordinated attack shortly after the III Corps news came through.

Without easy outside access to funding, recruitment, and buyers, Ringmaster warns that Irregulars will be seeing reduced support and pay, though they will continue to do what they can. Most of the mercs grumble but hang with it- this was a volunteer position after all. Some of the locals and some of the out of towners bail, resigning their commissions, but most stay. Although they can’t really afford even those losses, Ringmaster sells it as a further loyalty test: now everyone knows that the ones who remain are there for the right reasons and will have each other’s backs, whatever comes next.

Tabasco tries to broach some speculations about what caused all this, and gets shut down on doing it publically, but Ringmaster tells everyone to share any intel with leadership- they need to be on their toes and not engaging in wild speculation at the moment. Still, plenty of rumors are circulating the room, from the plausible to the truly outlandish. The team also notices there are more ghouls mixed into the Irregulars than previous- more arrivals from Chicago perhaps? They head to the back to share their suspicions with the leadership.

When in the back, Ringmaster seals it up and tells them it’s a newly installed Faraday cage. He also runs a white noise machine and scans everyone for bugs, as well as instructing everyone to disable recording and comms. They all do, and the team suggests that the attack on the boards was likely the fault of the Null Sect. They hardwire a copy of the Null Doc to Ringmaster, who confirms that he has heard of the NS, though the team has more specific info on them than he does. The Detective sits in the corner taking frantic notes: another mystery! The rest of leadership is unfamiliar, but gets brought quickly up to speed, with Ringmaster reinforcing the team’s dire warning about ANY digital transmission involving the NS.

They get some more intel than was shared publicly as well, and are given a month-long codebook, to go old school with radio encryption. Creep secrets it away on his person, and they are told to destroy it if they look likely to be captured or killed.Most of the other Irregular units will just get daily code books with their assignments for the day, but some of the more specialist crews and farther flung operators are getting longer term ones to reduce travel risk. While the team is driving back they have an internal discussion about what to do with The Detective, since they already know so much.

They sit down at the Tin Can and gets some drinks, with Tabasco getting Iva to fashion him a drinking pipe/horn to get around his junkyard jaw “drinking problems” (i.e. cutting up glasses and mugs). After some further interviewing, they pass The Detective the team norms, which they eagerly sign, and the team adds them to the team file, with a warning that they can’t just instantly rabbit hole on all the info and need to also do some work. The Detective agrees, and seems to think they just won’t sleep for a while maybe. On the night’s RFD broadcast, they hear that ARES has cut loose The Cutters, after their leader refused to throw a bunch of her people into a meat grinder suicide mission in the Downtown tunnels. They’ve pulled back from positions around the city and taken over a large old bank Downtown as an HQ. Tabasco tries to call his “uncle” Don Michaels, and finds out that he’s too late- Michaels was killed in the fighting.

They all crash at the safehouse, and awaken to a meeting request from Ellis. Heading north, they sneak out of the No-Go-Zone, with Otters once again showing off her skills. They reach the Mackenzie Arcology overlooking the Blight, and enter. The Maulers look to have taken back their turf after the Cutters pulled back. Otters exchanges brief nods and chat with them, confirming that the smuggling tunnels under the Arcology into the Blight are still open if needed. They use the access codes Ellis provided to head up a few floors and head into the unit they were told.

They find Ellis there, along with Praxis, who noone on the team had seen since late Chicago, and who is the only Desolation Angel present. Also there are Pretty and Needles from Long Pig Farms and a few more ghouls the team doesn’t know, who look like heavy hitters. Everyone is armed and armored but not showing any aggression. Ellis invites them to sit and they do. She asks that they hear her out, and then if they’re willing to work together, Praxis will offer them a job. She begins.

Ellis explains that she has found an alternate path forward for both metahumanity and insect spirits: the true voluntary merge. She says that as it can only be entered willingly by both sides, it differs from any other previous merges, though she modeled the concept off of the Desolation Angel mantid merges, which are voluntary but still largely consume the original host, leaving some memories, personality etc intact and present but not exactly in charge. Ellis says she is terming the new process the “BETA” to counter the macho/destructive ALPHA program.

Chew Gum gets suspicious and assenses both Ellis and Praxis, and sees that their auras look weirdly similar, though in Praxis’ case the bug aspect seems dominant, whereas in Elli’s case both seem equal. CG also notices Ellis drop her impressive aura making to let him see this. Inquiring what exactly she did, she explains that she was forced to merge with the nymph sample that previous team members secured for her in Chicago, when her lab was raided and the current team wasn’t able to get her out in time. She explains that she had planned to appeal to Vogel for continued funding and protection while she kept investigating her “alternate path”, but that now she has moved completely beyond that and believes ARES has nothing to offer her.

Also, while she trusts Vogel more than anyone else who might end up in charge, she doesn’t think he really has what it takes to cleanse the corp of it’s internal evils to the extent necessary. She does explain that she can replicate the BETA process on others, and plans to, though she reiterates that it requires willingness on both ends- ALPHAS were willing humans with forced bugs, initially, and now are something else, and worse, with their ability to breed, which she admit was a terrible feature to include. And standard bug is an unwilling host with a willing bug. She compares it to being more similar to Monad-ism, in terms of synergistically merging personalities. CG concedes that this does appear to be astrally accurate, but the team has some intense internal discussion about what to do.

Deciding that even if they wanted to (which most don’t but some do), they couldn’t take out Ellis and survive, they decide to take Praxis’ job for now and discuss more later. Pretty also explains that Ellis is continuing to help develop sustainable ghoul food in her free time, and the ghouls seems to treat her a bit reverently, as she also tipped them off to ALPHA edibility. Praxis explains that with the Cutters pulled back, ARES’ private prisons are notably understaffed- there’s one main facility they brought the gangers they rounded up to, and have been recruiting out of for tunnel rat missions. Praxis wants the other Desolation Angels out, and suggests the team could make some new friends by freeing others as well, if they want.

She also explains that she has no desire to kill Ellis, even as a dedicated bug hunter who needs to consume bugs to breed. She seems to be of her right mind and speaking freely as far as the team can tell, and seems to have fully bough into Ellis’ plan. Tabasco also asks the ghouls if there are ghoul gourmands who would like to feast on specific ALPHA parts and they seem interested. So for now, the team leaves, and starts planning a prison break!

Runners
Creep
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill

Otters rejoins the crew, having gotten Moreau sufficiently set up at the Bloomfield biodrone reserve for the time being. Tabasco needs to spend some time prowling the city and getting a feel for the vibes again, so takes off for a bit. Chew Gum continues to help out the local area and communities that he and Jaga have connected with. Dig and Creep convince Otters to make an appointment at the Run and Sollars Private Library to look for some tunnel maps. Otters, having used their resources before, does so, careful not to mention his connection to the 3 who were there the day prior, when they trashed the place a bit and killed some Shifting Pyre guys who were legit clients.

Otters VTOLs over, and sees that the library is still being defended by the steampunk-y runner crew, who he recognizes as a hacker gang called The Coquillards. They’re loosely French-Canadian nationalists, which explains why they didn’t come to the big meeting at the Plat Zone, as they believe Windsor should split back off from Detroit. Luckily, this means they aren’t familiar with Otters’ new crew, so she doesn’t run into any trouble there. She does share some intel with their leader Prospero about the UCAS Army III Corps headed their way, which they appreciate.

Then Otters spends a while researching and finds an old KE training map about Detroit Down Below navigation, as well as some intel suggesting that ghoul communities might be good to reach out to. She also finds the name of a library volunteer “Daiyana Dimeeko” who seems to have annotated some of these files most recently. Dig keeps working on re-building his ritual circle in the long storage bolt hole, while Creep catches up on some flatvid reruns off his hard drive.

They link back up and decide to reach out to some of the ghouls they know, and radio over to Smee at Neverland Candy Shoppe. Smee tracks down Rains for them and a few hours later they chat on the radio, and make an agreement to trade the ghouls for updated DDB/tunnel maps in exchange for helping the ghouls deal with whoever is behind Fear The Dark locally, and with pushing out good PR about the ghoul community here.

Rains puts them in touch with a Chicago ghoul named Pretty who is in town looking to see if Long Pig Farms could take advantage of the chaos and move up here, and the team arranges to meet her at the Plat Zone that evening. While travelling around the city the team notices that a merc corp, the 77th Independent Rangers, seems to be significantly bolstering ARES forces in Zones 1 and 5, but combat seems to have settled down a bit in both areas.

They arrive for the meet at the Plat Zone, and find the area further expanded and fortified. Pretty is waiting for them with a small mixed group of local and Chicago ghouls who they don’t know, and is made up to appear as “baseline human” as possible- more effective at a distance than up close where it gets a little uncanny valley, but she explains that it helps her be a point of contacts with local normies and civilians who aren’t necessarily used to dealing with ghouls, ARES having kept the large underground community fairly secret.

She shares a PR doc that previous team members had helped write in Chicago with the current team, some of whom recognize it from the team file. She says it helped a lot in the Bug City wrap up times, but without the bugs as a unifying threat, those in power in Chicago are using fear of infection (and FTD) to make ghouls and vamps the new bogeymen to justify their crackdowns in the CZ as the corps continue to rebuild and reclaim there. It’s still a good party, but maybe not for the Infected anymore.

She tells the team to feel free to share that doc around, but that they have a few more specific jobs in mind to trade for the underground maps. She suggests looking for wealthy vamps or other secret cabals who would benefit from using Fear the Dark as a fearmongering tool- since a lot of lone wolves claim the name, they’ll likely never be able to stop them entirely, but if they can cut off the head of the org, locally, it should go a long way.

She also wants them to track down Ellis- apparently Ellis had a dead man’s switch which sent a message to the Chicago ghouls about the viability of eating ALPHA flesh, and Pretty wants to return the favor, especially as Ellis had hinted at possible further ghoul food developments she was working on in her free time. As far as Pretty can tell, Ellis was grabbed by the mafia, then grabbed by some organleggers and stashed at the port and then captured by maggots when they breached the stacked human smuggling cargo containers from underground.

Dig’s been getting some looks from various people at the Plat Zone as he is only wearing illusory clothes to make his animal form transitions easier, so he mods his illusion so that his shirt reads “Choose to Believe.” People seem to have larger concerns but Otters gets a little worried about how this would go over in more polite company in the future. Regardless, the team agrees to the job, and Pretty says the ghouls will have some transports ready for any other hostages the team can rescue from the maggots, to bring them to the Plat Zone to get checked out for Inhabitation and generally healed up.

The team heads over to the port and finds it fully and openly under mafia control. Dig goes up to talk to them and they seem weirded out by him and his nakedness but intrigued by his proposal, til Otters jumps in and uses her good rep to get the Mancino family fixer Mr. Friday to intervene. He seems to recognize Dig and Creep from a previous bad run-in with the mob, but Otters is solid enough and the plan seems to their benefit so he agrees. The team agrees to seal the hole after they’re done (with magic) and track down the traitorous infiltrators that Friday says were involved in the initial collapse. He charges the team a bit of money on principle but they pay up, and repel down the large crater in the midst of the piled stacks of isontainer in The Yards. The mafia has it ringed with autoguns and sensors, which they don’t turn off as the team rappels down, an eerie feeling.

They find the wreckage of 2 stacks of isotainers that dropped into the large hole, and evidence that it was blown open rather than tunneled. Looking inside the containers, they find evidence of longterm people holding/smuggling- racks of cheap bunks with restraints and IV’s. Dig, in dog form, plus a spirit he summons, plus all the drones manage to sense a few trails, and correctly ID which one the hostages were brought down, while Creep uses his navigation implants to orient them while travelling in the pitch black tunnels, a mix of man-made and bug dug.

They eventually track their way to a massive old storm overflow cistern, filled with about 100 captives, who are overseen by 4 ant workers who are slowly walking through the crowd feeding them some kind of goop. The captives seems more sedated than restrained. As they watch, 2 beetle warriors emerge from the opposite tunnel and grab 2 of the captives and lead them off somewhere- likely for inhabitation. They make a quick plan, and Otters doubles back with the spirit guarding him to set up 2 C4 charges, while Creep sneaks through the crowd of captives to place the 3rd.

The team sneaks past another worker spirit in the tunnels while doing so, lines up their shots, and then hits the detonators and triggers their ambush. They manage to drop all 4 worker spirits before they can respond, and successfully fully or partially collapse all 3 tunnels they were aiming to. They debate trying to winch the captive back up through the mafia-guarded hole, but hearing some angry digging sounds from beyond the collapsed tunnel areas, decide to take a faster but more dangerous route. Otters zips down the new tunnel under the water, which looks like a recent bug connection to Otto Hendricks’ old turf in North Windsor, and though it is leaking it isn’t collapsed yet.

She pauses to plant some explosives at a weak point while Dig throws up some concrete spells to further hold back bug pursuer and the spirit and Creep get the captives moving. They seem quite docile so once they start going it isn’t too hard to get them all going along, though the team is only able to save 80 out of 100. They blow the tunnel just behind another concrete spell and fell a terrible water pressure rush in, washing away the pursuing bugs and eventually shooting a little geyser of water out of the concealed basement exit they find in Windsor.

They call up the ghouls to pick up the survivors for medical care, and one of the survivors comes over and removes a magical diguise- it’s Ellis! She thanks the team for the rescue and says she’ll go with the ghouls for now and debrief them later. They ask her what happened to the nymph and she tells them not to worry about it. The team, having previously committed to letting her make her own choice between ghouls and Vogel, and with Dig unable to read her aura, let her go.

Pretty and Rains seems satisfied, and send the updated maps, with the promise from the team that they will continue to help with the FTD and PR issues. Now they just need to track down and kill Otto Hendricks! On a few nights worth of Radio Free Detroit, they hear a couple updates: it seems like the local situation has entered a kind of stalemate, with ARES (Knight) vs. Irregulars vs. Bugs (+ Hendricks’ ARES assets) vs. ALPHAS, where ALPHAS are the terrifying wildcard who prefer to fight bugs but will fight anyone. There are reports that Zones 1 and 5 are relatively safe for Irregulars as long as they are running ID, as the 77th Independent Rangers have repeatedly refused ARES orders to fire on fellow mercs, so long as they aren’t firing at them first.

Dig calls around looking for someone to teach him the Mind Probe spell, which Myrryr seems to regard as deeply unethical. Smoach agrees to help though, and gets him a contact from someone in Vendors Row, if she’s still alive, named Grandmother Biyu. The team is awoken by an unscheduled update on the radio- the UCAS Army III Corps, as well as a town in western PA that they were near, appear to have vanished. Jackpoint, Nexus, Asgard etc are all freaking out trying to figure out if it’s a new camo system or something more sinister, but it seems something is definitely afoot…..

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Dig

After Locke’s tragic death, Chew Gum takes some time to compose an epic poem in their memory, and also reports to the team the body of the Hands of Fate assassin in their safehouse has some weird magical traces that could use a closer look. Otters heads out to clear her head as well, and gets busy helping Moreau get all the rescued biodrones settled and rehoused. The remainder of the team starts looking into what’s up with this assassin, and enlist the assistance of the PPI’s Smoach and Myrryr, uncovering that as well as Myrryr’s skills at using bird messengers, Smoach is a technomancer, so they have some unique comms abilities in the present crisis. They convince S&M to come to the Tin Can, since the team’s group mobility is limited in Otters’ absence.

They trade notes with S&M about Hands of Fate, Roderick Kensington, and the Tarot, with Tabasco semi-accidentally revealing waaay too much info about the team’s knowledge, involvement, and possession of the Tarot. S&M are totally hooked by the mystery, however, and agree to help out. The team loans them one card to help their investigation while S&M try to track down Kensington, who they fear may be dead. The team give S&M one of their remaining radios.

Meanwhile, Creep checks in (awkwardly) with the radio operator at the Plat Zone, and hears that the Windsor runner crew lead by Rose left a message for them- they have something they think the team will want, and told them to get in touch when possible. Knowing that Rose is also a TM, Tabasco figures they can get ahold of them once in Windsor, and Dig wants to head to his magical lodge at the Bolthole there anyway to try to use a ritual to track down the Hands of Fate.

Dig flies down there in bird form, while Tabasco is piloted down in the VTOL, setting up one more radio at the Bolthole as well to keep comms up with Creep in Otter’s absence. Creep joins them, also via VTOL after finishing his comms checkins. Dig casts the ritual with Tabasco as the focus, with a spirit assisting. They quickly spot 4 individuals, fairly close by, thinking about the Eclipse card, that they know Kensington possessed. They scout the rough area the thoughts popped up from, and with some intel from S&M over the radio, find out that it is an obscure physical documents collection/private library called Run and Sollars.

Tabasco also calls up the Windsor crew, and they trade them the final radio for the items they found that they thought the team would want- maps of new bug tunnels recovered from Hendrick’s former north Windsor stronghold! The Windsor crew says they’re looking to set something up on Belle Isle proper once the fires go out from the wrecked ARES airbase, and is doing some preliminary scouting. They once again affirm that they prefer to get paid, but thought this was too important of intel not to share, and trust the team more than the Irregulars at the moment, as a somewhat known quantity.

S&M also report back that they found Roderick Kensington murdered deep in some toxic woods in the Auburn Blight. He had been strung up between 2 trees, and repeatedly shallowly cut, and likely bled to death over hours, though whoever did it didn’t stick around. A bloody handprint is smeared on his chest, likely in his own blood, and his stuff is trashed. No sing of his Tarot card or his notes on the Tarot (or the team), also. They say they need to do more analysis at a lab, away from the toxic magic zone.

The team then heads over to scout the private library, and Creep sneaks into the massive vents on the old building. He spots 4 individuals consulting documents, with 2 librarians occasionally bringing more over. He ID’s one of them as the leader, though their insignia, such as it is, is subtle and not obviously corp, merc or gang. Dig bribes one of the librarians to let him in the front door, but the leader of the group of 4 sees through his illusory clothing, as do some of the others- and wondering why a naked old man with an eyepatch, collar, and rocky deposits projecting from his skin just wandered in, decide to take a closer look.

The leader flips down some goggles, and tells the other 3 that Dig “has some traces on him” and to grab him. The 3 rush over to dog pile Dig, which they do, but he shifts to a cockroach and escapes before they can inject him with…. something. Creep takes out the leader with a couple shots, but not before the leader uses some enchanted knucks to badly hurt Dig’s spirit. The other 3 flee after Tabasco badly injures one of them, after breaking down the front door with a crowbar. Tabasco manages to slip a tracker on the injured guy as they flee, and follows at a distance.

The dwarf librarian is very upset by all this, and berates Creep and Dig, who shifts backs to human form to loot the leaders corpse, and grab a bunch of the documents they were looking at. The dwarf seems to be calling in backup, so they leave a little money for the damage caused, and flee. Tabasco tracks the fleeing 3 back to the same building that the Bolthole is in (Yong-Dundas Long Storage), and finds they have a smaller unit a few floors up from the team’s garage- popular safehouse spot apparently. The 3 zap his bug before dashing into the safehouse, seemingly just as a precaution, not because they were aware of it, so it’s good he also kept eyes on. Creep hangs back and spots a team of steampunk-looking runners who show up to secure the library. He hasn’t seen them before, meaning they weren’t at the big Plat Zone meeting, so who are they?

Creep and Dig rejoin him, and Dig magically looks inside. They seem to be packing up their op, and discussing next steps. They say that the intel from “Fivecoats” was right, and that more than just the Eclipse card is in play locally. One of them is packing maps and other material from the walls into a hard case while the other treats the wounded 3rd man. Unfortunately, they have a glowmoss strip over the door, which Dig’s spell activates, and they go into overdrive since they know someone is onto them.

Creep shoots through the door, but misses, and almost gets tagged with both barrels of a shotgun in response, before killing the wounded guy who was using it. Tabasco dodges a full auto burst and stuns one guy with a narcoject arrow, while Dig’s spirit tries to put out the fire the 3rd guy starts to destroy their documents inside. That guy starts Dig’s spirit on fire with a phosphorous grenade , so Dig dismisses the spirit, not wanting it to suffer, and kills that guy with a massive lightning bolt.

Tabasco makes a quick choice and hauls the KO’ed survivor out, letting all the doc’s burn, and the team vacates the hall as some fire protection shutters slam down and heavy duty ventilation kicks in. They head a massive lightning bolt crack down out of the sky somewhere to the west- it doesn’t seem related to them at the moment but does seem odd. They retreat to their unit with the captive, and wake him back up after restraining him. Tabasco tries to intimidate him and totally fails. Creep and Dig have a much better time just having a pretty normal convo with him, and trading some intel after promising to let him go. It turns out these guys are from a group called the Shifting Pyre, who are trying to destroy the Tarot, as an evil outside influence from the metaplanes.

They seem to view spirits and everything else metaplanar as a threat to the sanctity of Earth, though not opposed to magic in and of itself. This guy is just a street level “Dealer”, the leader who they killed at the library was a “Cutter” (mid-management) and this guy doesn’t know who gives the Cutters their intel, outside of whoever “Fivecoats” is. However, it seems like Shifting Pyre doesn’t like Hands of Fate either, and says they’re some kind of dark possession spirit who want the cards for themselves- exactly the kind of danger that means the cards should be destroyed.

Deciding this guy knows too much, Creep shoots him in the head and kills him with no warning. They decide they better clear out of the Bolthole just in case, and Dig dismantles his magical lodge as Creep sprays C-squared all around. Tabasco then thinks to maybe just call the landlord and see if they’re cool or not.A static-y image of a woman called Rutledge answers, and charges them extra for the damage but otherwise doesn’t seem too bothered, explaining that the team is lucky they did this in a low demand time. She seems like she might be an AI. Dig starts setting his lodge back up, bummed that he wasted 8 days by taking it down….

The team all returns to the main safehouse after resting one night in the Bolthole and not healing very well there. They take the next day off, mostly just conferring with S&M about the nature of the Hands of Fate (Shadow spirits? something worse?), and getting the autopsy results from Roderick Kensington: someone had used some kind of magic to wipe his mind, and turn him into a Coimeidiai, or something similar, which is what caused his burnout, and likely his prophetic ability and mental instability as well. Interesting….. Dig examines the documents that the Shifting Pyre were examining, and finds that they were looking into possible magical intersections and power sites, as well as any rumors to lost collections of arcana that might have disappeared in Crash 2.0. He then return the docs to the library, anonymously, along with a further payment in way of apology.

On a few nights of Radio Free Detroit, they hear that an engineering PHD named Ronnie Griggs has shared some vibration sensing tech to help warn people of bugs tunneling, after hearing of the deadly assault on the Second Chance enclave. The Plat Zone, Tin Can, and elsewhere are building and distro-ing as many as they can to try to keep people safe, as well as trying to get them down to an easy mobile scale so less of their patrols while disappear into bug tunnels. With this new tech coming out, and more (deeply unpopular) “tunnel rat” missions occurring, the bugs seems to be pulling back a bit to the central hive under Dowtown, with the ALPHAS more of an above ground threat, day to day.

Also, that huge lightning bolt apparently fried a UCAS Spec Ops mage who was trying to lift the magical cloud cover to get intel out, and perhaps in response, the UCAS government has announced that the Army III Corps has been fully mobilized and is head to Detroit to pacify the local situation “by any means necessary”…. eep!

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
and a sad goodbye to:Locke

The team checks in on Tabasco’s healing process, and finds him mostly conscious at least, but still in bad shape. He plans to stay in touch via comms relay from the VTOL while the team checks out the ARES biodrone facility for Moreau. They get in touch and head over to Moreau’s position, and see what looks obviously like 2 shod and 2 unshod Alpha footprints leading into the facility, where they seem to have basically kool-aid-manned through the fence and wall. Moreau equips them all with dart guns to try to capture and rescue any animals they can, and says he has plans for the building if they can maintain it’s integrity.

They head in, worried about what they might find. Otters stays back with the van and accompanies via drone. They find some wrecked sec drones outside, and some bloody smears and drag marks inside. A perimeter hall wraps around a central core, which when they enter, they find filled with cages and enclosures, with various animals in various states of modification within. It looks like the Alphas tried to Infest some of them, but the animals (perhaps thankfully?) did not survive the transformation, leaving horrifying mutated corpses, and an awful smell, though the industrial extractors seem to still be working well so it only registers up close.

Worse yet, they spot a ritual circle carved into the ceiling, centered on an elevator shaft which seems to have a lot of unnecessary components attached. While exploring they are surprised when an unarmored Alpha bursts forth from under a pile of animal corpses in one of the cages and assaults them. They manage to take it out, and Otters runs in with some white phosphorous grenades provided by Moreau to burn the corpse and stop the regeneration. They continue exploring the top level of the facility, worried that the elevator is an obvious place for a trap. Astral space definitely seems buggy in a way they couldn’t detect from the exterior, also.

As they find a corpse pile (some of the metahuman guards, but definitely not all), they come under heavy fire from outside, through the loading dock. 2 more Alphas charge them, one armored, one unarmored. The unarmored ones, being more visible, are even more horrifying somehow, with their misshapen and mutating flesh pulsing and bulging, various bits of different bugs visible across the surface mixed with the once human features. They get in a brutal fight in which much of the team is badly injured, and Locke is felled and stabbed with an ovipositor. Chew Gum, acting quickly, blows the downed Locke’s head off with his shotgun before they can transform, a sad and sudden end for the talented investigator.

The team pauses briefly to mourn once they finish the Alphas off, and burn all the bodies, inclduing Locke’s.They head outside and see where these Alphas tunneled up from below, on an angle that looks to intersect with the base of the elevator shaft. They tranq as many animals as they can inside, and get Moreau to start hauling them out, deciding they’ll likely need to do some mega-damage to whatever lurks below. Creep heads down the tunnel, with the drone swarm. Creep hangs back a bit while the drones make a first pass, and uncover a scene of true horror.

The remaining armored Alpha is standing guard as the newly mutated facility staff feasts on various animals and metahuman corpses, seemingly fueling their transformation. More upsettingly, there is what looks like a stable portal, likely to Vhortas, that seems very similar to the team file notes on the portal on the space station that ARES had previously been using to instantiate the Alphas. They also see surgical bays, staff housing, and another tunnel leading off towards Downtown.

Panicked, Otters sends the VTOL to the Platinum Zone with a report on what they found, and Rifleman loads up a hard case with Ravenheart’s approval, when it arrives back, it contains one of the mini nukes that the Irregulars seems to have salvaged from one of the ARES APC’s that were carrying them. Creep sneaks it down to the basement, and gets it tucked in behind the portal, arming it and leaving a few smoke grenades to go off to add confusion to cover his exit, and then legs it. Luckily it wasn’t set to an immediate detonation, and he gets clear in time.

Dig seals up the tunnel exit with concrete, and the team all hauls out as many tranq-ed animals as they can. The massive explosion rumbles the earth, pancakes the building, and launches Dig’s concrete tunnel plug flying far away. Luckily, this all seems to have severely curtailed the radioactive spread, and likely amplified the explosion. Briefly checking astral space, Dig and CG confirm that the buggy vibe seems gone, annihilated by an overwhelming radioactive shredding that has destroyed the local mana sphere. Portal closed, but at a cost….

Luckily Dig and CG got a good look at the ritual circle in astral space, and think they could perhaps ID the caster. Otters sends a report in to the Plat Zone and they get paid. They also call the Detective to report on Locke’s death, which greatly saddens them. Dig and CG both contribute some funds to the Keepers, who Locke had just begun to hire and befriend, and also compose a memorial poem, which Otters also forwards to the Plat Zone.

Dig, in bird form and CG, in the VTOL, travel over to the bolthole safehouse in the storage facility and do a lengthy ritual to locate the caster of the insect portal ritual. They confirm that it was either Hendricks himself or a close associate based on where traces crop up around town, but he seems to be underground and likely behind some sort of magical defense. They think they could track him using this, however. They report this into the Plat Zone as well, and get paid. The rest of the team rests, heals, and repairs gear, with Iva frantically patching their armor.

They hear on the night’s Radio Free Detroit broadcast about Locke’s heroic death, and also some even worse news: there’s been an Alpha breakout to the West as well as the North. Some bugs tunneled up into a mostly SINless survivor enclave, and Alphas followed them in, slaughtering everyone inside. Also, Julia “Deadline” Pesina continues her reportage on the ghoul situation locally, and finally is able to ID the ghouls working to use the ferals to nefarious ends: Fear the Dark is in town! The slogan “Eat Locals, Fuck You” has been found at multiple bloody feeding sites, where they preyed on civvies trapped at home. This is a perversion of the popular Irregulars slogan “Eat Local, Kill Fucks!”, originally popularized by the neo-anarchist chef Castiron.

Otters also checks in with Howell about the completion of the job for Moreau and they settle up for that. Howell has another job, not a rush this time, to pull a museum heist amidst the chaos. Otters runs it by the team and they agree to get to it when they can. Disturbingly, as they all return to the safehouse on their rest day, they find that Dig’s golem has torn the arms off an intruder. Worried who it might be, they flip the body over but don’t recognize them. A scrap of paper falls out of their pocket as they shift the body though, and they find one of Roderick Kensignton’s journal entries, about the team and their possession of Tarot cards.

They decide they better look further into this, and add it to the list. Tabasco, finally not dangerously radioactive, gets flown over to the Metal Maniacs clinic and ushered quickly back into the surgical suite, where Leanna Octave once again tries to convince him to become a Monad, but settles for doing some radical implants, including a full cyberskull with junkyard jaw and some orthoskin to replace what’s absent. The team is collectively a bit horrified upon his return to the safehouse, aside from Otters, who is her usual chipper self.

Having gone for a stylized skull, Tabasco has a weird moment looking in a mirror when he realizes he can no longer take off his mask and cowl. The sharpened scrap metal jaw is also pretty extreme, to be fair. However, he’s feeling the post-surgery high and is excited to be back on his feet and ready to rumble. The team takes a moment to figure out which task to prioritize next…

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Locke

The team kits out with the rad-resistant gear as best they can, with Tabasco and Otters’ mule drone getting the upgrades. Chew Gum plans to accompany them as near as possible to the hole to provide support and overwatch, while the rest of the crew secures a spot for Tabasco to hang out away from others when he emerges as he will be radioactive for some time. They head over to Grosse Pointe and Creep remembers a promising, poorly guarded lockup, where they steal a kayak with an outrigger and put out to sea in it. Creep and Locke hang out and chat while Dig flies above, keeping an eye out. He sees the wreckage of some watercraft that have tried to run the ARES cordon, unsuccessfully, and warns the boaters to stay well inside the perimeter.

CG holds back on the north edge of Zone 1, as his spirits are unwilling to go further- even astrally examining the irradiated Zone 3 causes them all light nausea, but they shake it off. They provide concealment as long as possible, and CG covers with his rifle. Otters, circling high above in the Dustoff guides in the mule drone, while Tabasco sneaks alongside. They find an old rusted car with a camo tarp over it parked right up next to the hole, and some tracks suggesting that between 2-4 people dragged one or more heavy items from the car into the hole. Tabasco becomes instantly fixated and abandons the primary mission to focus on this.

They descend into the hole, spotting the 3 ruined but not fully destroyed APC’s, still stuck in their side tunnels. Otters has to stop at the edge of her effective range before reaching the blast center due to rad damage and bad signal, but Tabasco, boosted by Stitches’ drug cocktail, pushes on. He stats experiencing some very disturbing side effects- hair falling out, skin blistering, hallucinations, but reaches the epicenter, and finds the wrecked bits of the other 3 APC’s. A path has been pushed through and the tracks continue.

He loses his astral sense of taste and feels blood pouring out of his gums, but he pushes through, and spots which tunnel the tracks head down, seemingly due south, before turning back. All of his teeth fall off and his skin begins to slough off as he begins to enter cellular death. He starts running for the exit as fast as he can, his cyberlimbs carrying him most of the way, with Otters (via the mule drone) getting him the rest of the way, and jumping into Tabasco’s cyberlimbs using previously granted permissions to use his grapple hand to get out.

Fortunately, while hanging back, Otters remembered to complete the primary mission, and retrieved a damaged data core from one of the command group APC’s for the Plat Zone to dig into. Otters drags Tabasco free of the high danger zone with the mule, then zips down in the Dustoff, loads Tabasco in, and manages to stabilize him through some miraculous medical checks with the Valkyrie module, and Tabasco’s strong natural resistances. However, all of his skin and external organs have sloughed off and he is in bad shape. The drone covers him in medical gel, as Otters heads back to the safehouse, leaving the mule a ways away from everyone for a day or two til it’s safe to fix.

CG stays behind to keep an eye on the mysterious car, but fails to spot when someone moves it, and decides toxic mages must be involved, if they were able to get both in and out of that terrible area. The Dustoff drops Tabasco in the kayak, and Dig tries to magically heal him but fails. The Dustoff circles at a safe ditsance to not take more damage from the rads, stopping in once an hour to maintain treatment. The rest of the team decides to chill at the safehouse for the night, and Dig shows off some cool illusions. Upsettingly, there is another earth shaking explosion from the south, but no mushroom cloud this time at least.

Creep goes on a solo recon to check it out, while Locke befriends some street kids who call themselves The Keepers and seem to collect mangy strays. From Creep’s recon, supported by a Watcher spirit from Dig, they determine that what they likely witnessed at the hold was evidence of toxic mages allied with Otto Hendricks using explosives salvaged from the downed ARES bombers to blow open a new front in the bug vs. ARES fight downtown. Luckily, this doesn’t seem to have pulled in the Plat Zone, so no worries there at least. The team reports all their intel in, and gets paid a decent amount, with a hazard bonus for Tabasco,

While relaxing after everyone is back, they get a frantic call from Jaga, who says that a new group of refugee arrivals to the area came in with one suspicious member, who apparently got lightly grazed by an ALPHA but seemingly escaped serious harm. After carefully examine, they confirm Jaga’s worry that the person was infested by the ALPHA in the same way they tried to do to Tabasco, and that the process seems to work incredibly fast. Jaga has contained the patient in a mana bubble, and Dig enters and lethally lightning bolts. This does seem to halt the transformation, so that’s good.

After confirming that this also took care of any astral traces, they send the body to the Plat Zone for some additional pay. They also call Carol to warn about Hendricks having gone full toxie/bug, and get some more cash, as well as a reminder that Weathernight wants them to look into dangerous infiltrators in ARES corporate. The team rests after listening to the nightly Radio Free Detroit broadcast, and hearing some more propaganda in favor of pro-social ghoul factions, including the surprising news that ALPHAS, as opposed to most bugs, make good eating!

The next day, Otters checks in with her fixer Howell, who is also her BTL-A sponsor. They check in about how that is going, and then Howell hires the crew for a mission on behalf of Moreau, the strange man at the zoo who wanted to join Dig’s Order but wasn’t magical. There is a secret ARES biodrone research facility outside of the No-Go Zone that Moreau has eyes on that was recently breached, and he wants to save any animals they can. They accept the gig, and Otters calls up Moreau, who is keeping an eye on things at the facility for now.

He tells them it looks like something broke in, not out, and it looks likely to be ALPHAS. Having already been worried that there could be a bug portal somewhere locally, and knowing this facility was likely one of Hendrick’s, the team decides they better hurry over there and shut down whatever is going on. Tabasco regains consciousness, but seems likely to be in for a long recovery, so he bows out of the next mission, and punches in a call to the Metal Maniacs, which luckily is close to the water in Grosse Pointe, so he plans to paddle over when he regains enough strength.

They hear the night’s Radio Free Detroit as they prep to head out, and apparently a lot of Chicago ghouls are answering the call, and requesting sanctuary if they help deal with the bug threat, with Presbitero’s “anti-infected” campaign apparently gaining enough steam in Chicago to make in untenable to remain there. With the recent influx of Neo-A’s as well, it seems like a lot of the weirder elements of Chicago are being forced out as the rebuilding corporatizes, though the spirit of the dance is still strong there…

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Locke

First thing, the team decide they need their van back, and that the increasingly chaotic fight may have created the opportunity they needed. Otters does overwatch from the Dustoff while Creep and Locke head over on foot. Unfortunately, Locke gets spotted by an alert ARES gunner holed up in a ruined building, and nearly felled with an auto burst. Creep manages to chuck some smoke grenades out and they make their escape, with Otters providing some pathfinding for them and hot pickup via the van once she gets the drone close enough to leapfrog in and hot-rig it out.

They get back to the base, and convince Zennia to set up a radio at the Tin Can, but convince them not to use it too much to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Zennia brings them a little further into her circle of trust, showing them up to where she keeps her birds on the roof and revealing that they are messenger birds! She says the team can bring them with on missions when needed to send offline messages back to get relayed, but says that Myrryr (a Pidgeon shaman) is one of the few in town who can get birds to flew to destinations as well as back from.

The team head north to Vendor’s Row to finally see what happened with that nuke, with most of them doing overwatch while Creep sneaks up to the blast site accompanied by the fly-spys.Radioactivity is real bad, as is astral space- Dig and CG have to hold way back, and the Wealth vibe that had previously dominated the area is now overlaid with a nasty toxic aspect. Creep hangs back at the edge of the blast site after getting some visuals, and acts as a comms relay to the drones until Otters gets the Dustoff positioned high up over the blast zone. From what they can tell, something tunneled up from underneath the reserve line, and one or more APC’s entered/fell into the tunnels.

Otters pushes the drones further in, having to max out her signal strength on her RCC to counteract the bad interference.She finds blasted wrecks of 3 APC’s down some side tunnels, and the team recognizes these as part of the command group of the reserve force from previous recon- seems like a targeted tunneling attack! She pushes the drone a little further and finds the blast’s epicenter, getting some data before it fries. It is likely the worst background count area any of them have seen, and it looks like 3 more APC’s got stuck in the main tunnel further in and detonated as either a failsafe or desperate last resort.

The team surmises that the Alphas up here, already amped up from the pheromones let loose by other Alphas in combat, likely fully broke loose after the tunnel break out and nuke detonation, as the ARES reserve line seems to have totally crumpled and fighting seems rampant throughout the district. Not having any ability to get better data currently due to the high rads, they head back to the safehouse to regroup. Iva is still working on patching up the van armor, after having needed a long sleep following a long day patching up Tabasco and Locke’s armor. CG heads over the Magic Bean, has a weird convo with the new age proprietor Penelope Bean, and orders a summoning focus.

Otters then flies in the Dustoff down to Windsor, surveying the extensive damage to Hendrick’s former position on the north shore, and drops another radio off with the ghouls at Neverland, who seem eager to dispose of more bodies the team may come across. Otters return with this info, but decides to swing by the Plat Zone on the way to get paid, and gets some followups and further intel while there. She also sees that a bunch of Neo-A’s from Berlin and Boston have answered the call and come to town, and a big crew of radical bug fighters/Black Star/Midway vets from Chicago have rolled in as well. They’re setting up heavy duty anti-air defenses on/around the Plat Zone, and Otters also spots some merc patrols headed out- the leadership seems to be trying to integrate mercs and runners into small squads with perhaps mixed results.

Otters reports in, gets paid, and hears that they need a tunnel rat to physically head into the tunnels off Vendor’s Row and try to pull any surviving data from the not fully obliterated APC’s- the command group might have useful intel. Also, some toxies or possibly members of Hendrick’s force have been spotted trying to salvage explosives from the various downed bombers, and Otters get the impression that Vogel/Carol managed to get a message through to the bomber wing commander to get aloft just before the attack, which was ignored by the main base command, to their extreme detriment.

Tabasco, overhearing all this, volunteers for tunnel rat duty, surprising many, and Stitches and Rifleman send Otters home with some equipment to help Tabasco and Otters’ new Mule drone get into the radioactive zone while minimizing risk and exposure.Otters flies back with all that and starts modding the Mule while Iva tunes up Tabasco’s armor. Tabasco gets flown over to the Metal Maniacs clinic and gets a few mods that Creep reco’s for navigating an underground tunnel system, and also snags a MM bandana for Iva, a gang memorabilia collector, as the local implant junkies seem to have formed a street gang around the clinic.

Otters starts flying herslef over for some mods as well, but overhearing the bizarro transhumanist banter dominant at MM decides better of it and turns back, which gets a chuckle from MAMA, which also worries Otters a bit. With Tabasco loaded up and ready to go , the team rest up and prep for another mission north, while listening on the radio to the day’s broadcast- Julia Pesina, using her new street named “Deadline”, on “Radio Free Detroit”, giving the threats and recon update to any and all listeners. It seems ARES forces have been ordered to hunker down and hold position, so most of the civilian rescuing and bug fighting is falling to the Irregulars so far. There’s been some cooperation from ARES forces in a few Zones, especially the ones with heavier casualties and more command level losses, so the team gets some good ideas of where to distro the next few radios. However, a few other Zones, including Downtown, have gotten extra fascist and paranoid, with summary executions common, so travelers beware….

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Locke

Locke rejoins the group after the chaotic shadow meeting, and they all split off to socialize a bit and make new contacts. They see Carol rush out after exchanging info with some of the movers and shakers. Tabasco tries to make friends with Rose from the Windsor crew, which initially goes well until he loudly announces that she is a technomancer, which she would prefer is kept on the DL. The Windsor crew leaves soon after this, and seems a little skeptical about the top down command style proposed, but overall on board for co-oping.

Dig starts speculating to some of the waitstaff about what it will be like for future archaeologists to excavate the nuclear ruins of Detroit, freaking everyone out, until Otters notices and distracts him for a bit. They both hang out with Tofu the dog and Walker, the blind adept staff fighter, and chat a bit about the situation. CG claims one of the bodies of the dead assassins for his future spirit needs, and talks to Ringmaster about the value of allying with ghouls, specifically the Skins, who helped them out. Ringmaster seems amenable and asks the team to set up a meeting. They are told they can recruit others to the cause as well, but they’ll need vetting at HQ.

Creep and Otters both notice a surprising lack of gangers present, which both enquire about. Walker tells Otters about the major roundups recently, and the Cutters weren’t invited for the obvious reasons. Creep also gets some info that they were mostly reaching out to pro’s when setting up the meeting, so if the team has useful gang contacts in the Blight or elsewhere, they should use them to bring more people in for the cause. Otters also helps Electric Blue set up a comms station with spare parts salvaged from the Numbers Station, to cut down on the young TM’s massive work load.

Locke chats with Julia Pesina, who seems hopped up on pain meds but amped on her reportage plans. She offers to pay for scoops and hot tips, and thanks the team for saving her, and says she will have to thank the Skins as well after Locke hypes up their role in the rescue as well. CG links up with Castiron and trades him some odd plants and ingredients that Jaga helped him find for some freezer access for the other corpses, and Locke calls the ghouls to tell them to come get them when they get a chance.

Otters quickly buys a mule transport drone, CG straps his claimed corpse to it, and the team heads out on foot (or wing, in Dig’s case) for the safehouse. They aim to bypass the loose Alphas they saw on the way down, but Otters botches it and gets spotted. They get in a brutal firefight, but due to Tabasco’s incredible armor, manage to avoid taking any damage and get some great data and some alpha samples. Tabasco licks one of the Alpha corpses to try to get some astral info, which works, but he almost gets stabbed with a post-mortem ovipositor and is covered with eggs which quickly hatch and start crawling into the seams of his cyber limbs.

Thinking quick, Dig fries Tabasco and the bugs with a lightning bolt, which luckily grounds out through Tabasco’s cyberlegs, not doing major internal damage. Still, he’s pretty hurt, but seems to be free of infestation. Otters flies Tabasco back to the Plat Zone in the Dustoff drone while the team keeps watch for more trouble and burns the bodies. Tabasco gets ushered into a decontamination unit and drops off the samples. Otters then flies herself back to the Plat Zone as well, and gets pay from Ringmaster, and then reverses the process to fly Tabasco and herself up the safehouse.

The rest of the team hoofs it up there and rests up, repairs armor, restocks ammo and the like. Locke fills everyone in on The Detective’s investigation into 2 Tarot cults that may have gotten operatives into town. Jaga helps CG do his corpse ritual. Iva patches up Tabasco once he’s back, and Otters finally gets into the guts of the med-drone (very impressive) and sets it about providing medical assistance to everyone resting. Otters and Locke, not otherwise occupied, head up the roof when they hear more explosions to the southwest.

Otters panics and thinks it’s for sure the Plat Zone, but makes contact with them and confirms it isn’t. She gets drones up and follows Locke’s fears, finding that Damien Knight Int’l has extensively exploded as well. It looks similar but larger scale to what happened on Belle Isle to the airbase there. Otters follows the airports bomber wing, who look to have gotten airborne just ahead of the attack, as they make a bombing run over Otto Hendrick’s position in Windsor, devastating the North part of the area along the river. Some anti-aircraft fire responds along with some spellcraft, but the bombs look very effective.

Lacking long enough landing strips, the bombers split, with some ditching into the water while the pilots eject, some flying over the town seemingly looking for clear stretches of road, and a few trying to flee the cordon around Detroit. Otters watches in shock and terror as the ones trying to escape are cut down by an orbital laser as they reach the edge of the magical cloud cover, leaving surely no survivors. Otters live streams this all to Ringmaster, who as usual requests follow-up’s and more info. She also sells the data to Carol, who once again proves the stronger negotiator but doesn’t aggressively take advantage.

The team all wakes up/finishes healing and reconnects- time to figure out what to do next, lots of opportunities for work!

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill

Locke announces they’ll be sitting this one out to make contact with some local allies, look further into the Tarot and Prophecies, and similar. They stay behind at the Platinum Zone to make use of their comms. The rest of the team prepares to head out, though Marv tells them to return by the next evening, as they’re planning a “big meeting” of some sort that the team should be at. They head out after debating what to look into first.

They cut around the main battle sites successfully, swinging out into Dearborn and finding only isolated bug outbreaks nearby. Luckily for the team, this means the underequipped KE troops guarding the Zone perimeters have their hands full, so the team easily bypasses them. Noticing a ton of air traffic at Knight Int’l Aerospaceport, they make a brief diversion to surveil. it looks like since that massive detonation at the FOB on Belle Isle, ARES has rerouted their air support, refueling and resupply here. The ground crews seem understaffed and frantic, and it looks like they’re running midair refueling flights as well to try to keep their drones in the air.

Useful intel! But back to the task at hand, the team continues South, and cuts over Grosse Isle into Windsor, swinging southeast to the park area where Otters instructed the sub to drop Julia Pesina off. Otters gets some pings from sub equipment but can’t make a direct connection, and when they arrive, Dig (as a dolphin) finds some of the sub’s armor and sensors have been blown off and are floating nearby. No sign of the vessel itself, so they hope it survived whatever happened here. Looking around, Creep and Otters piece together that Pesina seems to have crawled ashore and then been grabbed by what looks to be 2 shoeless ghouls.

The team tracks the ghouls back to a necropolis in central Windsor, and while surveilling from the perimeter see that the place is crawling with ghouls, with a high proportion of ferals. This is a recent change, as the team had scoped this place out for threats a few weeks back before renting their bolthole garage space nearby. They spot one friendly seeming ghoul approaching them, and Creep makes awkward contact. The ghoul, dressed as a pirate, introduces himself as Smee, and says that he saw a woman get carried, semi-conscious, into the cemetery, and offers to help. The team accepts.

Smee explains that he is a “Topsider”, one of the rare ghouls tolerated by ARES to live above the surface. He says most residents of Detroit are unaware of the quite large ghoul population that exists underground (who he calls “Downsiders”). Tabasco gets hung up on the Top vs Down distinction, convinced there are better linguistic options. Smee continues: the Topsiders want to ensure that the local populace doesn’t view ghouls universally as a threat (though some certainly are), so if the team will agree to put in a good word with their allies, he will introduce them to a ghoul gang called the Skins. The team agrees.

Creep and Otters sneak into the cemetery, though Otters quickly falls back when she notices some of the ferals sniffing around after her. Creep follows Smee to a mausoleum where they find some decently armed and armored ghouls waiting. Creep is introduced to their leader, Rains, and notices that they all seem equipped with a mishmash of KE gear and some seemingly prototype weaponry. He doesn’t enquire further, but the team has heard rumors of the KE tradition of needing to get a ghoul skin in the underground to join Firewatch, so presumably this is the other side of how that can go.

Rains agrees to the deal that Smee made, and the Skins and Creep head over to where the ferals are preparing to feast. Otters pilots the VTOL in for a quick rescue and some medical attention. The Skins breach through the back wall, grab Pesina, and chuck her in the VTOL, while Creep blasts a feral trying to grab hold of it as well. He sneaks back out of the cemetery and Smee tells them where they can contact him again if needed.

Otters checks on Pesina via the drone’s internal medical feeds, and finds that she is injured, but luckily not infected with HMHVV. She seems pretty drugged and out of it, so they have a brief convo and then he sends her to the Platinum Zone, giving Marv a heads up that she’s inbound. The team continues North to figure out what happened on Belle Isle, but come under attack from some of Otto’s troops, who are guarding their Southern perimeter as well as the Northern side. Otters almost eats a Gauss round, but Tabasco dives in the way and takes the hit, before the team retreats while CG’s spirits cause trouble for the soldiers shooting at them.

They do a bit more recon, and determine that roughly half of the visible forces in Otto’s area seem to be illusory, so they find a better place to sneak through, ditching the spirits for now since they are too magically obvious. They reach the bridge to Belle Isle and find it bombed out, though still barely crossable by pedestrians. CG barely dodges a sniper round before the team makes it the relative safety of the Isle.They find it a smoking ruin- the ARES air base seems to have been fully ignited- fuel, weapons, etc burning at such an extreme heat as to destroy the structures on hand and effectively cremate the personnel caught in the blast.

Doing some magical investigation, Dig finds that some number of personnel were killed before the explosion and piled up, and that much of the damage was done with Gauss rifles and other bizarro science weapons, so they suspect Otto’s troops were behind this- the illusion would be good cover for secret troop movements! They also find that the explosions were triggered by planted charges and not aerial bombardment, so it doesn’t seem likely that the forces here were overrun, especially given the lack of any sign of bugs. The eastern half of the isle seems in better shape, with some park buildings, wilderness areas, and water treatment facilities still largely intact, though currently seemingly unoccupied due to the toxic smoke from the chemicals still burning at the temporary airbase.

The team sneaks north again, finding the bridge once again too damaged for vehicles but traversable by pedestrians- seemingly designed to helped bugs and/or special ops more so than ARES military with their reliance on groundcraft. They cut around the main battle site Downtown, which seems to have contracted a bit, and find the other Zones have kind of sprawled out into multiple small/scattered engagements, some of which are quite mobile. They also barely avoid some loose Alphas rampaging around south Oakland/North Downtown before finally reaching the Platinum Zone.

Heading inside, they find the place filling up for the “big meeting”. They spot Carol, and grab a booth to catch up. They sell him the Malakim info as promised, and he shares some of Vogel’s plans, as well as giving the team another job- to look into some high level infiltrators in ARES known as “68G”- could these two things be connected? Creep also accidentally gives up the info about Otto being behind the destruction on Belle Isle, and Dig has to remind him about info exclusivity etc. Carol gives them a hefty payout, and they head over to talk to Ringmaster, giving him the recon report from the day. He doesn’t seem overly distressed that Carol knows about Belle Isle, but the team gets the impression that may not always be the case.

He also pays up, and gives them a few follow ups and updates, and is impressed by their extra recon re: ghouls, the airport, Otto’s illusions, etc. The team also sees Pesina up and about, quietly narrating events to a cam drone while stomping around in a medical boot. She gives them the “let’s talk after” look. Everyone starts to hush up as the meeting begins. Locke and Otters are a little surprised to recognize the woman they smuggled in, now out of disguise, as Colonel Anne Ravenheart, the former head of Firewatch, now leader of the Freewatch bug fighting org, last seen in Chicago under attack from ARES. She is accompanied by Li Wei, the man they smuggled in with her, who is wearing a red crystal cybereye, which Tabasco thinks is likely a blood crystal, a new addition since Chicago.

She introduces herself, as well as Ringmaster, Rifleman, and Marv, as the leaders of this meeting, and gives her spiel- they need to unite against the bugs, and defend this city and it’s people against them and against ARES/Knight’s foolishness. Dig and Creep notice a dog one of the other attending runners brought with is growling at a sweaty, bearded street sam, and Creep goes to tackle him, luckily giving the dog just enough time to prevent him chucking a vial he had concealed in his hand. Tabasco and CG leap to action just in time to prevent another street sam from opening up on Ravenheart with an implant cybergun, and (via inhabited dire rat) chomp down on the arms of a mob hitman looking guy as he tries to pull the pin on a grenade.

All hell momentarily breaks loose- the woman who brought the dog chucks her staff straight through the bearder sam’s head as Creep tussles with him, Rifleman quick draws and drills the cybergunner right between the eyes, and the mob hitman manages to pull the pin, but the explosion is contained inside CG"s spirit, though it is destroyed in the process. Everyone else has weapons out and is in a massive standoff, til Dig does a thought recognize and spots two more potential assassins who are headed for the door. He alerts the crowd who quickly gun them down as well, before Creep tries to get everyone to chill, fails, and then Marv does the same, successfully. He tells them that this is what their enemies want: everyone so busy fighting each other they can’t unite for the common good!

Ravenheart continues her spiel and explains that she understands that many runners won’t be used to working under a command structure but that it’s the best way to run something like this, and that no this is not the Shadow Chapters, which people are right to be suspicious of given the news out of Seattle. One of the street docs from downstairs stabilizes the mob hitman, who is missing his forearms, and after some quick drug and magical questioning, Rifleman reports that Otto Hendricks has taken out a contract on himself, Marv and Anne Ravenheart. Ringmaster doesn’t look upset to have been excluded.

The team makes some new contacts, including Walker, the blind staff fighter, and her dog Tofu, and also sees a few more members of the Belle Isle crew that they’ve worked with a few times. They prepare to chat with Pesina and figure out next steps.

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Locke

The team, pausing to allow for Jazz crash to wear off, plot out their route to the next numbers station. While waiting, Otters and Locke do some analysis on the data Otters scraped while jamming the last stations and drones, and confirm that it looks like the drones were being used as a back channel/off-matrix comms relay to allow the stations to communicate indirectly without blowing their cover/being directly traceable. Worried that this will have blown their chance to find another station intact, they plan to rush along. Otters convinces Tabasco to carry her so she can stay hot in the VTOL and do some route mapping and then some long distance surveillance on what the explosions in the distance are….

Otters spots some ARES military deployments seemingly surrounding and slaughtering bugs pouring out of the craters that the explosions have opened. It looks like the the Alpha deployments are working well so far, with what appears to be a high kill to casualty ratio. Their support teams seem to be taking minimal casualties, and the Alphas appear uniquely destructive, almost frenzied. From what Otters can gather from the VTOL, it looks like the ARES detachments in the outer zones are looking to push the bugs back into the tunnels they’ve opened into the underground and follow them in, forcing them all to emerge from the major bombing site downtown, where the main (and most elite) ARES forces are. Interestingly, they don’t spot any Firewatch members anywhere, and given that the Alphas are all wearing modded Bug Stompers, it looks like the entire elite corps has been transformed into these merge monstrosities.

The team swings wide of the major engagement sites in the outer zones, heading south, and manage to avoid the poorly equipped KE patrols holding the outer perimeter. Unfortunately, Dig is unable to get his tech locator spell to work- either the gear is gone, or he’s too beat. Otters also is unable to find the expected broadcasts, so it seems like the Numbers Stations have switched protocols or gone dark in response to the team’s attacks. Feeling pretty tired after pulling an all-nighter, they head back to the safehouse. Unfortunately, Chew Gum gets spotted by a KE patrol, who open up with a machine gun mounted in their back seat. Creep manages to chuck some smoke grenades in the way and the team escapes, eventually, finally returning to the safehouse.

Dig instantly crashes while Otters does further drone recon, and the rest of the team pushes North to do some more recon on foot. Otters sees similar engagements in the rest of the zones, ARES forces looking successful so far at holding the line, and starting to push the bugs back into their tunnels, as the Downtown meat grinder continues. South of the river, bizarro science soldiers, seemingly Otto Hendricks loyalists from the R&D division, wielding modded Excalibur magitech guns, look to be ready for any breakouts that direction, though it looks like the bugs are fully north of the river at this time. The other zones all seem to be in a similar state as Otters does a quick flyby.

To the north, the on foot recon team gets a vantage at the Vendor’s Row area and gets some good intel- this looks to be the reserve force, deployable via VTOL’s, but they look to be bored and waiting for the most part at the moment. Many of the businesses (restaurants, brothels, etc) on Vendor’s Row look to have been allowed to remain open to keep the waiting reserve forces fed and entertained. The team does get a better look at the loadouts- it looks like squads of 6 in modded APC’s, with a containment chamber for the Alpha’s taking up half the space in the troop compartment. The reservists at least look to have one portal closer/tacnuke per squad as well- a distressing amount of explosive power!

Creep and Tabasco also sneak closer while Locke and CG provide overwatch and manage to overhear some chatter- getting some important stats updates on how the battle is going etc. CG also notices an astral aspect towards Wealth here, and Tabasco feels quite comfortable in the area. They head back to the safehouse, and Otters pulses a data packet to the Platinum Zone before they all crash. Waking first, Dig heads over to the Zoo in case anyone shows for his Red Magic Order meeting. He sees that Moreau seems to have taken charge of keeping the animals safe/fed during this crisis, with the minimal staff who remained onhand. After a short wait, a Watcher spirit shows up to excuse Norman from attendance, saying the University is locked down, while Marjo-Lin dashes in shortly after.

They schedule the next meeting, then send the Watcher back, and Dig teaches Marjo-Lin to shapeshift, though she makes Dig transform out of bird form first, as she says that Lion will only allow her to take feline forms. She cracks some jokes about Dig being naked etc which mostly confuse him. She seems to know Moreau and says she’s gonna stay at the Zoo for a while and study the big cats, so Dig heads out and flies back to the safehouse as a bird. The rest of the team is just starting to get moving as he returns. They check their messages and find that a few updates have made it- Chessick sent a retainer to help a colleague, assuming she can get into town, a journo who wants to try to document the situation on the ground.

More upsettingly, they get some major updates from the Plat Zone- apparently things have taken a turn for the worse for ARES in two major ways. First, the desperate bugs seems to have tunneled faster and farther than ARES expected and there have been breakouts behind their main lines, leading some of their forces to be attacked from flanks and rear if not fully enveloped. Second, the Alphas seem to be unable to leave their combat rage, which in areas where ARES has been successful, means that they turned on their support crews and handlers, seemingly content to rip through whatever is at hand. The pheromones from this have lead to Alpha attacks amongst the reserves as well, and there is apparently active combat up on Vendor’s Row.

The team decides to head in to the Plat Zone, get some on the ground recon, and figure out next steps. They check in with Zennia at the bar, and find many locals having a lock-in “end of the world” party. The team convinces them to all conserve some water, and head up to the roof to help Zennia start filling some tanks, just in time to see the distinct mushroom cloud of a tacnuke going off to the North. Rushing inside they all take some iodine that Zennia had stashed, but she explains that the explosive will have limited range and spread, giving the infantry size charges and the still weather. When the team looks overheard, it seems ARES has pulled something similar to Boston and pulled in some cloud cover, keeping it magically in place to conceal what happens here.

The team heads out and quickly encounters some Children of Loxley, who have fought off a small bug breakout. They heal up the wounded and send the dire cases back to Jaga at the safehouse for more attention, and then head in to check out where the bugs broke out. They find a slaughtered family, a 3rd dead bug, and a small tunnel chiseled up through the basement’s slab. Dig seals it with magic, and they report to Zennia and the CoL to tell people to guard and seal off basements and tunnels. They see Sikh Burn and some others going house to house to check for other breakouts, and no sign of KE locally.

Otters also gets ahold of someone behind the CoL to talk strategy, and chats a bit with someone named Alfredo, agreeing on an info trade. Alfredo seems to have some former ARES ties but seems quite bitter towards the corp so seems safe. Otters inquires about the Numbers Stations, and gets the feel that Alfredo isn’t involved but has some ideas who might be- some old-timers with a grudge, former corp special forces for CAT, a megacorp almost ran that ARES (and some other corps) devoured between the two Crashes. Locke calls The Detective, and gets some distressing talk about bugs and cities dying, but also passes along the Numbers Station info and finally gets a name for the mysterious fourth faction: The Malakim, having renamed themselves after dark angels from their former named, The Seraphim.

They head to the Plat Zone, and find Marv collecting intel from locals who are reporting in, Rifleman trying to keep on top of the tactical situation on a digital map spread over multiple shoved together pool tables, and Ringmaster eager to chat. The secretive dwarf hints that the Null Sect are behind the intense matrix blockade, though Dig massively misunderstands so Ringmaster has to clarify a bit. Using a way over-taxed onsite technomancer, he manages to get a data packet out with the team’s info, brokering a sale and getting them a sizeable chunk of change. He also arranges for them to train some small unit tactics, and offers them a few more jobs.

While training, Locke recognizes one of the instructors as the Asian man they helped smuggled in, who introduces himself as Li Wei. Tabasco also gets offered the opportunity to do some training himself, as he seems to know the ropes pretty well. The rest of the crew trains with Mama Dot, who Creep knows from Seattle, and who seems to have answered Rifleman’s call for aid, leaving her store in her son’s hands. All a bit better educated, they head back upstairs (having also seen a large, well-equipped clinic in the formerly secret basement) and get the latest from Ringmaster: they are to find out what happened with that nuke up north, and they are to find out who is behind the latest upsetting update.

Someone, just now, has bombed the ARES forward operating airbase on Belle Isle, with massive explosions taking out much of the ground fleet of planes and drones there, plus destroying infrastructure, fuel and weapons depots, and killing personnel. As this will significantly advantage the bugs, Ringmaster needs to know who’s behind it and what their next play is. Otters then uses one of the favors they took as partial payment to get access to the team’s sub’s feeds and controls via the TM, Electric Blue. EB says they’ll have to make it quick, as the matrix security keeping Detroit locked down is no joke. Otters manages to punch into the sub, but finds an unexpected passenger: Julia Pesina, the journo Chessick paid them to help.

Otters talks through the sub speakers to Pesina, and makes a plan to run her ashore a park peninsula in Windsor, that Otters and Locke have used as a smuggling spot before. However, she will have to trust to autopilot to manage to job since direct piloting for that long will prove impossible. Pesina provides some encouragement based on Chessick’s reco, and says worse case, she swam in college. Feeling bolstered, Otters does her best to quickly input the requisite commands before getting dumped, to find an even more fried looking Electric Blue saying he kept it open as long as he could. So another job: rescue to journo from the landing site! Luckily she said she still had a few days food and water, and it’s warm and muggy out but not deadly hot so in the tree cover should be fine so long as she can keep her head down…

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Locke

The team gets the debrief on the situation and what’s needed from Marv, Rifleman, and Ringmaster- basically, reliable comms and recon. After consulting with The Detective, the team shares their numbers station suspicions, and get the go-ahead to try to gain the use of them through whatever means. Intel on ARES movements, positions, and activities is also quite useful. They stay for the concert, which closes with a duet with a holo of Jonny Silver, symbolically giving ARES the finger by celebrating the victory of the anti-corp forces in Denver who saved the Nexus back in the day. However, 2 members of Glock .50 are absent, either unable to make it cause of checkpoints and curfew or something worse, including Marjo-Lin, from Dig’s new magical order.

The team heads out, with Dig flying off in bird form to start using magic to look for a numbers station in the next zone scheduled to broadcast. The team swings by their safehouse to restock on arrows from Iva and crosses the last checkpoints with moments to spare. They camo their van as a delivery vehicle, and park outside an affiliated business, laying low for a bit while triangulating the broadcast as it goes out, and avoiding KE entanglements. Once the KE patrols move away/die down a little, Otters does some fancy sneaky driving to link up with Dig at the target location.

They do some drone and astral recon, and Tabasco sneaks up onto the roof. They spot some well-concealed hardwired sensors and antennae, and Dig decides to disable one as a bird, getting a bad shock for his trouble, and attracting the attention of a stealth drone which grabs him and pulls him into it’s body. He uses an lightning spell inside it to break free, but takes more damage and retreats. Meanwhile, Otters rigs Tabasco’s arms to use her superior tech knowledge to bypass the other sensors without tripping their electrical defenses, though not being a hacker, if anyone is watching the feeds they’ll know they are down.

Tabasco carefully creeps down to one window of the target unit, but since he and Otters (via flyspy) both spot turret HMG’s inside both windows, is reluctant to go in. Dig lightning bolts the window to get things going, as Otters can also see a human sized heat source inside blowing the tech. Dig zooms in as a bird and flies between one of the guns and the heat source, as Tabasco drops from the roof, fires an arrow while falling (taking out the other gun), and lands unharmed due to cyber-legs.

Dig avoids getting hit, but the turret gun shoots the shit out of the older man who was inside, as well as the last bit of tech he hadn’t fried yet. He then quickly explodes, seemingly some kind of failsafe or last ditch defense. Dig fires the last turret and leaves again, while Tabasco, Creep and Locke enter to investigate. They find a strange scene- the front door of the apartment is wired to blow with a massive outward facing shaped charge, and there are 6 months worth of rations on-hand, it looks like they set up early in the month.

They find a calendar with the current date marked (the start of Latvian Gambit?), and manage to salvage enough tech bits from all the fried station to make one radio from parts. There are three broadcasting stations, one receiver, and two code machines running in parallel- a decrypter and encrypter, seemingly how they are passing the messages around. They salvage what they can, but between their delayed entry, machine gun fire, and explosions, it’s not a lot- mostly deductions.

They decide to skip the next broadcast zone and try and beat the schedule to get to the 3rd station in the broadcast order before it’s time to broadcast, hoping to catch the messages mid-stream. Knowing what they know now, they have an easier time finding the place, which has a similar setup. They plan it out a little more carefully this time, and using Tabasco and Otters (via drones) use radar feeds to the TacNet as targeting info for Locke and ChewGum to blast the 2 turrets with their sniper rifles.

CG and Dig’s spirits both zoom in and try to disable the somewhat older man they find inside, successfully confusing and nauseating him. Creep slips in and finishes off the one turret that survived the sniper barrage, and Tabasco races in and restrains him, but unfortunately doesn’t listen to the others’ advice to get him out of the room, as he quickly explodes. Creep is nearly killed, Tabasco is badly damaged, as is Dig’s spirit, who he dismisses out of respect. They also once again lost the code machine, where the guy was standing.

They do however salvage all 4 radios this time, find another similar calendar, and a similar amount of rations etc. These operators all seem to be barricaded in, and both used a stylized angel wing icon. Locke and Otters think back and realize they’ve seen these around town occasionally, associated with anti-ARES graffiti, all of which is quickly sprayed over or washed off. They get out of there before the KE cars making sweeps can respond to the explosion and head out. Dig and Otters try to convince everyone to go back to their safehouse (in their current zone), but Tabasco makes a compelling argument that they need to hit the next station before they have time to find out what’s going on and respond.

Seeing as the team spotted two more stealthed drones watching them (before jamming and shooting them), whoever this is may already be onto them, but Tabasco convinces everyone to go along by suggesting they just try and talk to the occupant of the next one rather than busting in, and all agree to flee any combat, as they are not well-equipped for a fight at this point. Dig fixes up Creep magically as best he can, and they wait for the Jazz crash to wear off of Tabasco from the fight before heading out. As they push south on foot, sneaking around in the dark, they see a glimmer of light on the horizon and hear some loud explosions, sounding like demolitions or artillery from the direction of Downtown….

Runners
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
Otters aka Roadkill
Locke
and goodbye to:
Carol
and Creature

The team spends a while trying to figure out what to do about Ellis. Dig attempts to use his new “hacking box” to investigate the drive that Creature found in Ellis’ lab, but fails to cast the spell he needs to do so and decides to go to sleep instead. Tabasco gets Iva to patch up his shredded cyber-armor while the team discusses next steps. They scan the drive as best they can, and finding nothing worrying, check out the files within. They find a text note that says “sorry, they’re breaching, can’t wait” and an attached video file. The video file shows Ellis seemingly disabling the facility security to give the team access, while also preparing the pod in her lab to get rolled out. She gets overridden when the hit squad shows up and starts gunning down security, and starts trying to figure out next steps.

As a cutting torch from the hit squad starts piercing her lab’s bulkhead door, she looks to the camera and says that she doesn’t trust either Otto or Knight’s plans, and thinks she found a different path, before flipping a bunch of switches, and crawling into the pod alongside what looks to be a bug nymph spirit. They embrace each other as the pod closes again, tilts towards the wall, and a retrofit rocket blasts it out through the side of the facility. The feed cuts when Creature comes in and yanks the drive.

They decide to get in the sub, hope to avoid FAB, and get down into the river, though hours have passed as this point. CG manages to use assensing both to avoid the FAB and follow the pod’s path down to the river bottom, where it looks to have plowed in pretty hard and shed some plating and exterior bits. Following some drag marks, they track it to where it appears to have been winched out of the river into some woods. Carefully heading ashore, they find the pod itself camo’ed with some tree branches and debris, and some evidence that fight took place. However was involved used a liberal amount of Cleaner-Cleaner, and seems to have had a mage do some cleanup on the astral as well.

They report in to Ringmaster, and are told to gather what info they can and continue, but that if Ellis merged with the bug this is now a termination contract. CG uses his spirits to search out her last known location, and finds that however encountered her on the river bank took her over water to the large Docklands port area. They head there and Creep sneaks around a bit, finding that her last known location was a loading area for cargo containers, with mechanized cranes and huge stacks of isotainer all around, as well as ship and truck loading zones. So she could be nearly anywhere, and whatever she is in seems to be blocking further attempts to astrally track her.

Tabasco calls up Remo, who reports that there is something bad afoot in the Detroit matrix: lots of killer ICE, etc, so Remo refuses to help hack the port, and warns the team to be careful. Lacking a hacker, they decide to report in first to Weathernight, hoping Vogel might be able to salvage something out of this, before reporting their failure to Ringmaster. Weathernight convinces Carol to finally come in out of the cold (not that it took much doing), and he tells the team he’s stepping back to more a fixer role, and buys them a new van as a parting gift. Carol also calls RIngmaster and explains that they failed, but that he passed the info along to the “3rd faction” who he confirms he works for, without ID-ing Vogel, though Ringmaster as usual seems to know a bit more than he lets on. He agrees to an info-sharing agreement on this one particular gig, as a possible avenue to a future alliance. He also gets the remaining team members some fake merc SINs to allow them to continue to move about town, in exchange for the info gathered.

When they get back to the safehouse from the port, Creature also announces xe is leaving, along with Shan and Shun, to help maintain the Sea Dragon’s gains in Chicago amidst the corporate push back into the former CZ there. They take the sub and head off, with Tabasco briefly debating going along with as both he and Creep ponder what exactly they’re still doing in Detroit. CG and Dig have made some more local connections they’re invested in, and Creep is learning his way around the city, so they decide to stay. Creature seems more likely to return in a “day-to-day” capacity than Carol, though xe will be more geographically distant in the interim.

Dig, waking up from his nap, hears all this and informs the team he recently met a driver at the Zoo, who seems to do some shadow work on the side. They call up Otters and get her to come take the van for a test drive, very much impressing them. In Tabasco’s best attempt at OpSec, this all takes place in front of the Tin Can, instead of out back, directly at the safehouse. They sell Zennia the FAB suit they found in Ellis’ lab, but Creep proves to be a poor negotiator, so they quickly realize they’ll be neeeding a face. Luckily, Otters just met one, the face/sniper Locke, doing some smuggling jobs, and has actually just gotten a call from Locke to look into a mystery for The Detective, Locke’s mentor.

There are some strange broadcasts occurring around town, and The Detective thinks it might be a numbers station or similar, and wants it looked into. They’re too deep into a Zen binge to do it themself, so has enlisted Locke’s assistance. The team agrees to help Locke with this job in exchange for their help with a job they need a face for: getting the local rap collective Glock .50 to agree to sing to Johnny Silver’s “Silversound” imprint on Perianwyr’s label. Otters calls her Keepers contact Arda, who passes along the number for another Keeper who is also part of the loose G50 collective: Marjo-Lin. Recognizing her as one of his new magical order members, Dig makes contact, and after allaying her initial suspicions, she listens to Locke’s pitch and passes it onto the rest of the group.

They get back in touch shortly, agreeing to the terms with two addendums: they want a celebratory gig at the Brickhouse, and they want a meet and greet with Silver himself. The team gets the gig set up easily via Locke’s connections with Marv, who seems to view it as a good opportunity for a secret meeting that he invites the team to. For the meet and greet, the best they can get through Zennia is an agreement that it will happen sometime, when Silver is available, as he is still on the run from the Wild Hunt at the moment. G50 agrees, so job done! Zennia pays the team the signing bonus and seems to have taken a shine to her new safehouse renters, as they are proving adept at closing contracts for her.

They next all head out to check out the numbers station mission, as an exchange for Locke’s help. The team kinda fumbles around for a while before semi-accidentally revealing to Otters and Locke the existence of MAMA. the RCC/TacNet CCOB hidden in the van’s smuggling compartment, and a few other big/expensive secrets. However, once they give Otters access to the RCC, the mission goes a lot faster, though Dig did manage his spell this time and got some good data from it as well. They find 7 broadcast points on different frequencies, and spending some time on it over the day, figure out the schedule as well. However, Locke is unable to decipher the code, so they might be using a one time pad or similar, which would make decoding incredibly difficult. CG also harvests some interesting toxic-adjacent plants up in the Blight that Jaga had recommended as interesting culinary additions for Castiron.

As they all link back up with the van to compare notes, they spot and hear a number of KE drones and cars travelling the city, as well as receive matrix broadcasts, that there is a shelter in place order starting at midnight for the duration of an ARES “special military operation” training period (an unspecified duration). Remo manages to get a message through to Tabasco with a screenshot of Jackpoint post telling users there to “keep an eye on Detroit in the next few days”, as well as a linked video what looks to be a hacked weather satellite that JP was using to do just that getting shot down by a ship coated in Void Black.

In a bit of a panic, the team decides to quickly bring Otters and Locke into the team norms, files, and secret knowledge, and after they both agree, do so. Locke quickly disappears into a Tarot and secrets hole, and is almost non-responsive while sponging up info. The rest of the team decides to head for the Brickhouse for the G50 show ahead of the curfew, and see what this secret meeting is about. They are unable to get any matrix comms out of the city, though comms inside still seem to be working. Otters is very stressed about an AI with self-editing capabilities living on the teams TacNet but otherwise is very excited to be included.

Reaching the club, they are ushered into a back room, with some stairs leading underground, into the warded area CG had previously spotted from outside. Marv, Ringmaster and Rifleman, as well as some other mercs and runners, are poring over screens and info, and Marv ID’s a technomancer in a hacker’s crash couch, hooked up to IV drip, as their current means of getting info in and out. He says they have a lot to talk about, and invites them to grab what seats they can amidst the chaos and get down to biz, then enjoy the show, then head out to get to work…

RUNNERS:
Chessick Allens-Whitehill
and introducing:
Otters aka Roadkill
and Locke

Chessick, having learned some lessons from the reopening of Boston, where the corps crashed back in and undid a lot of the good work that runners had done building communities during the Lockdown (at least aboveground) has been working to keep the same from happening in Chicago. He has also as usual been documenting the casualties and losses suffered by the civilian populace, as well as the various figures who live along societies edges. With some Neo-Anarchist contacts in town he has also been trying to help runners, gangers and others in Detroit to survive the ARES crackdown there. Having lost connection to the city as ARES tightens their hold, he is looking to make some new contacts there and set up a new smuggling pipeline.

He takes a contract to bring a package in, assured that Detroit fixers have found some runners to meet him and get him safely to the delivery point Meanwhile, in Detroit, Howell has called up Otters and told her he has a transpo job for preem pay, and The Detective has instructed Locke to assist with this task as well. Both fixers were contacted by the PPI duo Smoach and Myrryr on behalf of an outside third party, and both runners are told that if they pull it off, this could be the start of a hot new smuggling pipeline, much needed in these tight times, especially for those who don’t want to live fully under ARES’ thumb.

Chessick hires some smuggler contacts to take him across Lake Erie from Toledo over near the ARES cordon, and waits there for contact. Locke and Otters meet up and do some scouting to choose an ideal spot to get him to shore, and choose a nature reserve in South Windsor. Otters uses a delivery drone to get a biofiber bag and wetsuit out to Chessick, and also to help him ashore after he proves to be a truly shit swimmer. Locke times all the patrols out and figures their patterns, but with the delay due to Chessick’s bad swimming has to take out a drone with their sniper rifle.

Chessick and Otters do some quick thinking, and use a burner comm for a distraction for pursuers, while using the ambient life in the nature preserve to try to lose any magical trackers, while Locke watches their backs and leads them out. Using the van provided by Howell, Otters impresses the other 2 with some quality sneaky driving over to the Green Groves water treatment plant, while Chessick makes sure cameras and other sensors don’t pick them up on the way, and Locke provides studied encouragement.

They deliver the mystery package to a gender-fluid eco-shaman named The Walker In Ways, who says some cryptic things about maintaining and balancing the local manasphere, and bids them well. They all crash at their safehouses, and get contacted by their fixers again the next day for a followup gig. It seems the first delivery was a test run for this, the true mission. They are to use similar tactics to get 2 people ashore with noone spotting them, and making sure to lose any magical pursuit as best they can. These two need delivering to a runner bar called the Razorboyz Edge in The Blight.

They pass along a message for the sub dropping the two off to park outside the ARES cordon in Lake St. Clair and wait for them to make contact. Chessick and Otters team up to boost Otters’ signal, and she takes over piloting of the sub to steer it in, while Locke provides thorough updates on ARES patrol patterns, and Chessick hacks some nearby stores and signs to create some distractions. They get the 2 passenger hustled into the van, and Otters once again does some impressive sneak driving, with Locke on lookout and Chessick keeping them off feeds and sensors.

They reach the Oakland County Zoo and Locke puts her specialty skills to use, taking the group near, through, and around a series of animals and enclosures to obscure their astral traces, especially via some access tunnels under the aquarium. Thoroughly “greenwashed”, they load back in the van after Chessick checks it for trackers, and head to McKenzie Arcology bordering The Blight. Chessick and Locke manage to negotiate a better deal than Otters has ever managed on her own to use the tunnels underneath, though luckily Otters knows the tunnels well as she manages to navigate them around some traps set by The Cutters, who seem to have taken over much of the turf from the Maulers, the traditional gang in charge.

They safely sneak the two passengers over the bar and drop them off. The Asian man seems very dangerous and tightly coiled, and the Dakota woman seems calmer but also quite powerful, or used to command at least. They refuse to ID themselves but say the team impressed them, and they may be in touch in future if they need their skills again. They also hint they’ve heard of Chessick and tell him to keep up the good work. They tell him the sub is available for him to return to Chicago, and he heads out, confident they can at least get supplies to their Detroit allies in a pinch. Locke notices that the 2 passengers are wearing subtle disguises, likely enough to fool AI facial recognition, but thinks they could recognize them again if they seem either of the 2 out of disguise.

The other 2 go their separate ways for now, but feeling they have a good thing going, vow to work together again soon….

Runners
Carol
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

Chew Gum and Jaga make some friends in Hamtramck with the People of the Book Burial Society and others, and CG uses this as an excuse to get a little more intel on the mysterious Children of Loxley. Carol receives a “condolences” message from Vogel, at some risk, who also suggests it might be time for Carol to come work for him directly since things are heating up. Carol wants to do this one last job with the team and then plans to make his exit. Creature, having given Shan and Shun the tour, also seems to be planning to leave to return with them to Chicago and focus on cementing the Sea Dragon’s position there, as Detroit already has too many dragons looking at it:Ghostwalker has agents on the ground looking to push for a Free City, Arleesh has an agent in town stirring up trouble, and Lung is apparently looking to make some moves into town from Toronto via the Triad. Plus, the bad bug vibes everywhere….

Shan and Shun arrange to rent the sub from the team for a few days in order to transport themselves to Chicago and then send it back. Dig hears back from a few more promising people about his Red Magic post, and manages to found a 3-person Order based out of the Oakland County Zoo room he rented from the rigger Roadkill. The two acolytes are a street-smart tough kid and a strict hermiticist academic, so an interesting combo so far. Creep scopes out “lay low” spots around town, and he and Tabasco head over to an unlisted cyber clinic after getting some names from Smoach and Myrryr. They find the former Probe/DeeCee transhumanist Leonna Octave running the spot, called the Metal Maniacs Clinic, which has amassed a small crew of aesthetic enthusiasts. Creep talks to them, planning to make fun of them, but actually has a nice convo about esoteric implants.

They both get some surgeries scheduled, with Creep adding a few more survival-focussed mods, and Tabasco clearing up some essence hole room to fit in some combat mods. Octave tries to sell them on more extreme mods and embracing maximum implant culture, but they demure, for now. Dig and Jaga help CG replenish one of his spirits, making a new rotting plant matter mass to twine about himself. Tabasco and Carol get a call from Ibn Hassan, offering work if they happen to indeed be in Detroit. They accept, and get a gig to drive the mafia loansharks out of Hamtramck in order to let the Hawala networks there fill the gap.

CG arranges a meeting with a local runner named Sikh Burn, a combat mage who fights with a flaming zulfiqar, and who maybe used to run with the CoL. After feeling him out a bit, SB agrees to put CG in touch with a man named Alfredo who he says is the tactical coordinator for the CoL. CG and Carol set up a deal with Alfredo to smuggle in a bunch of guns, armor, explosives, and other materiel in exchange for them working to drive the mafia off, a goal they already believe in. They seem to look more favorably on the team being in “their” neighborhood after this.

Having passed a few days and given Carol time to process his dead dad feelings a bit, they decide to crack down on the Ellis job. They look into Ringmaster’s dossier, and seeing no better option, decide to riskily contact Ellis directly, though in code. Carol uses his knowledge from the ARES space station to send her a message posing as her former lover, and she responds in a way suggesting that she knows what’s up and will help them help her. They roll over to the facility where she works (and seemingly can’t leave), and use their ARES SINs and van electrochromic coating to get into the lot. Spotting some passive magical security, Dig and CG stay in the van.

The rest of the team sneaks in through a side door, which unlocks, just as they approach. They find the drone guards inside temporarily disabled, with a map to Ellis flashing on their ARO projectors. They proceed further in, losing comms with those outside. The team outside spots another runner van similar to the hit crew they went up against on the Zoo/Jones extraction, and CG does some astral recon- it seems like they learned their lesson from last time, and left a guard and spirit with the rigger this time. The guard opens fire on the team van with a minigun, damaging it badly. Dig starts magically driving, as CG uses spirit powers to befuddle the rigger and gunner, but comes under attack from the spirit.

After some magical speed control and dramatic crashes, Dig and CG emerge victorious but the team van is almost wrecked in the process. Meanwhile, inside, the team gets into an intense fight with some sec drones camouflaged as vending machines, taking them out, but hearing what sounds like another team breaching into the facility along a parallel path to theirs. They continue in, getting into a running gun battle with facility security. They manage to turn building security on the other team, and loop around back behind them to try to get the drop. Unfortunately, amidst all the chaos, something triggers Ellis to decide to take her chances and trigger her own escape plane.

The team is surprised to see a large capsule blast through the facility walls and start sinking into the river outside, trailing various fluids. Creature sneaks into the lab it exploded out of, and finds no sign of Ellis, but does recover a hard drive that says “README” and one of the FAB suits before escaping before the goons in the next room can recover from the phosphorous arrows and lube grenade combo and start shooting again. Tabasco and Creep dive into the river to follow the capsule, but Creep can’t swim and starts drowning, so Tabasco has to save him instead. Creature debates following but doesn’t want to get the drive wet, and and head spotted a leaking FAB pipe in the lab and so is worried about that too.

Carol races back out to take over driving the van and get out of there as Dig runs to the river and leaps in, turning into a dolphin. He luckily also spots some leaking FAB trailing the capsule and abandons pursuit, not wanting to risk it. He swims to shore, and sneaks back to ground, meeting up with the drone he purchased to carry his belonging when in animal form. Tabasco and Creep also get to shore and sneak back to the safehouse using some of Creep’s new knowledge, worried their ARES SINs might be burned.

Carol picks up Creature with the drive, and races off with CG in the van as well. Unfortunately, he feels he didn’t drive fast enough and is worried about fast response tracking them, so they find an obscure spot to ditch and split up, also sneaking back to the safehouse on foot. It turns out it was good they did- when they are all about a block away a drone detonates the van with a missile, they can feel the heat even from where they are. Close call! With everyone reunited, it’s time to analyze the data, sell that suit, and figure out how/if they can get to that capsule….

Runners
Carol
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

With Jones in the VTOL asserting that she’s been running “comms off” since DeeCee, the team decides to still not take any chances, and links up with her on the roadside, jamming her just in case, before heading to the Kiss Me Quick. Carol and Creep decide to stay there overnight and continue to examine Roderick Kensington’s lunatic manuscript to stay awake, while the rest of the team heads back to the Tin Can safehouse to rest up. CG convinces everyone to swap the walk-in freezer for a permanent ritual space, and gives them all the debrief about what’s he learned about the area and who he’s made connections with.

Carol and Creep find an illustration of what looks to be a Tarot card in Kensington’s notes, and the team spends a while speculating what it might mean. In the morning, the same crew of local runners (Smaug, Lunatech, and SINder) show up to collect Jones on behalf of Weathernight, and Carol negotiates for some pay. She says she’ll be in touch next time they have another job for them, and Carol and Creep head back to the safehouse, deciding to rest a bit during the day while the rest of the team figures out some logistics and personal agendas.

For one thing, the sub has arrived from Seattle. The team decides not to offer Shan and Shun space at their safehouse, so Creature volunteers to show them around and give them the lay of the land. Iva has a SIN from Vogel, and Dig purchases a license for his construct, so the only one they have to smuggle in is Jaga, and the van is well-equipped for that. CG puts in a call to Rubberhead and pays for access to a quiet dock that night out near the airport in Windsor. They pick everyone up and get them back to the safehouse with no trouble- Iva is excited to get to work in her new dev lab, and Jaga begins setting up the greenhouse.

Meanwhile, Tabasco and CG decide to go investigate the Platinum Joytrolls club, with Tabasco heading straight in (after being stripped of weapons) and CG investigating outside. Tabasco quickly gets made by the owner Marv, who seems to know an uncomfortable amount about him, and tells him to return the next night with whoever he wants to bring from his crew for a longer convo. CG gets spotted and also spots a neo-anarchist German gnome named Castiron, who after being impressed by his ogre belly provides some info about the area- the whole block is owned by Marv and informally referred to as “the Platinum Zone”, composed of the titular strip club (trolls of all genders and body types!), to the Brickhouse (a legendary venue), to some restaurants, cafes, and apartments. CG spots some warded underground areas as well but doesn’t get any info about those.

Dig has headed to the Oakland County Zoo to seek out Red Mages, but finds none. However, the area would be a great power center for such an order, so Dig decides to try to build one up. He makes some awkward matrix posts, and rejects the first response from someone who seems like the wrong sort of animal enthusiast, and awaits further replies. He does meet a Zoo employee named Roadkill who seems quite enthusiastic and helpful, though not very knowledgeable about magic. She implies she could help move product or other things if Dig needs, and they trade contact info. She also agrees to rent Dig time in a rarely used loading dock once a week for his magic order, assuming anyone else ever shows up.

They head back, agreeing to return tomorrow, and everyone awakens the next day wuith CG, Dig, and Jaga all having had weird shared dreams again. Dig is not sure if this was enhanced by the strange crystal his talismonger insisted on selling him, which he insisted wouldn’t do anything. This time, the dreams show two different underground cities, one teaming with bugs (and as Roderick had said, too many shamans and not enough Queens), and one seemingly a massive, lovingly-tended to ossuary, including bones appearing to be from bug hybrids. Disturbing! They decide to use the hair they acquired to track down Roderick and ask more questions. With the help of a massive spirit from Dig, they find him and discover that he has a Tarot card in his possession.

They show him a few of theirs, but it isn’t until Dig describes the shared dream that Roderick is willing to show them his. It’s a card they haven’t before: The Eclipse! This also seems to be the same card illustrated in his notes. He claims the card gives him visions. The team briefly debates taking it by force, knowing how valuable it is, especially on the Seelie Court, and Creep once again speculates that this guy might be a former Coimiediai, based on some various info in the team file. For now they decide to leave him be, after he starts getting suspicious of their lengthy, silent convo.

They head back south and pick up CG, who had split off for the morning to do some Grave Binding for the People of the Book interfaith burial society. This will justify his presence, and the presence of his magical lodge, in Hamtramck, if the team needs that cover story. They all head back to Platinum Zone for the meeting, except for Creature, who is still off with Shan and Shun discussing what the Sea Dragon might want to get into/out of Detroit.

The team is once again disarmed and ushered back to a meeting room by a Boston survivor with a strong accent. They find Marv waiting for them casually carrying an old autocannon- Carol tries on some jibes about the old model and Marv mostly plays along. He is accompanied by a wiry and somewhat tense human man dressed in specifically unmemorable casual wear, and a very nattily dressed Black dwarf who is fully bald. Marv says there’s no need or introductions until they clear a few things up, and that the team isn’t leaving til they have this convo. Creep blusters a bit and Marv says everyone can still leave as friends but it’s cards on the table time.

The trio quickly reveal that they know a good bit about the team- the dwarf seems like the intel guy of the 3, and knows Tabasco, Creep, and Carol’s history reasonably well, he seems less familiar with CG and Dig, though he’s aware of their Tzuri Group ties. After the team all confirms that they are aware of multiple ARES factions and the infighting therein, and that they aren’t loyal to either Knight or Otto’s factions, the dwarf seems to suggest that he’s aware that Carol at least is working for another faction, though it’s unclear if he knows about Vogel or not. The team seems to pass whatever kind of test this was, and the trio agree to share some info and hire the team on for a job.

The wiry human introduces himself as Rifleman, who Tabasco had previously messaged on Jackpoint about the mysterious gathering of mercs in NW Ohio. He explains that he and some other like-minded individuals are trying to field a small force in town to try to limit the damage of Latvian Gambit, which is bound to be a total clusterfuck, especially for the civilians in town. It seems like the team knows a bit more, specifics-wise, about what ARES has planned, overall. The dwarf intro’s himself as Ringmaster, and after some back and forth, suggests that he is working for/with Arleesh, which gets the team on-side a bit more. He explains that their theory is that Otto never stopped being a bug shaman and has managed to effectively turn a significant portion of the corp towards the bug agenda from the inside, slowly and over years, only now openly moving to take control.

The job they want the team to do is to extract one Dr. Ellis! Only Carol has met her, but the others are familiar from the team file. Ellis has apparently been integral to Otto’s plans and would be a valuable intel asset, but they assume she’ll be well-protected and that Knight will likely be after her as well. The team agrees, and Ringmaster sends over a dossier with her location details and the intel they’ve been able to gather. Before they can discuss anything further, the server knocks at the door and passes Rifleman in an infochip. He slides it onto the screen in the corner, and the team watches the breaking news.

A massive explosion shook ARES HQ tower in Downtown moments ago, reportedly killing the entire Board of Directors except for Damien Knight himself, who has now assumed total control of the corp, saying that in honor of their memories, he will not appoint a new board, merely an emergency advisory group (which seems like it will have no real power). Listed amongst the dead in the bombing is Carol’s dad, Michael Turpentine II. Tabasco tries to offer some comfort, but too quickly, and Carol dashes off to be alone in the bathroom for a bit, where he turns off the TacNet and does some novacoke. Adding confusion, Michael III, his brother, was named to the advisory board, a major promotion.

Ringmaster buys some drinks for the team, and tells them to try to get Ellis soon. Although ARES PR has labelled this as a terror attack, he thinks it was almost certainly Knight deciding to take the shackles off and begin operating with no real oversight, which implies things are about to get bad in Detroit. They also get a message from Vogel offering condolences to Carol and telling them that things will be accelerating quickly from here, with Knight apparently increasingly paranoid and prone to outbursts.

Runners
Carol
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

The team, flush with their payday from Weathernight, decides to focus on making some connections and finding one or more safehouses. After debating for quite a while, they decide to go all in with Smoach and Myrryr, PPI, and call them up. They have a fruitful convo, and trade some info. First off, S&M tell them they got some initial results from the sample from the strange Underground critters the team encountered while stealing the dragon egg. These seem to be Petrophages, rare deep metaplanar beasts that transform their prey to stone before crushing and consuming them with their wide teeth. They prefer magically active targets, which explains why they focused on Chew Gum. S&M ask to send off the sample for further analysis, saying they have some contacts at a privately funded lab who can probably get more data. The team agrees, and Tabasco makes a quiet note to dig further: could this be Toast’s mysterious “ex-corp scientists” lab that he read so much about on the shadowboards?

Carol carefully warns S&M about the forthcoming bug threat, without providing specifics, and okays them to quietly warn their networks to keep an eye out four trouble. S&M seem surprised that based on Carol’s info, a wandering street preacher in the Blight seems to have predicted some portion of what’s coming. The team decides to track him down after finding safehouses. They get a rundown from the PPI’s on safehouses by style and district, and choose two: a climate-controlled garage unit in Windsor out near the airport, and a spot behind the Tin Can blues bar in Hamtramck. They rent the Windsor unit through the limited AI that runs the facility, and drive over to give it a quick once over. Dig plans to set up a ritual circle there.

They head to Hamtramck, and find the pink-bedecked dwarf fixer Zennia expecting them. She orders shots (seems like a hard party-er), and reveals that Myrryr is a pigeon shaman, who keeps some birds on the roof, along with some of Zennia’s. She says with all the sweeps ARES has been conducting and the difficulty of getting into town, there haven’t been a lot of runners needing her services of late, but the team agrees to talk business the next day after resting up. They put in their “build to suit” requests for the space, and for now just rent a double wide trailer in a fenced in lot out back of the bar, where Dig quickly passes out from Long Haul, having looked progressively more and more haggard.

They all luxuriously rest, and wake up the next day (absent Dig who is still passed out). Chew Gum wanders around Hamtramck, making contact with the People of the Book Joint Faith Burial Society, where he has to spend some social cred to get them to trust him as his magic looks pretty creepy at first. Once he explains that he can help with the Grave Binding ritual to allow them to bury their dead intact, instead of following ARES’ cremation requirements, they seem much more enthused, and he makes a few new friends there, as well as getting some further info on the area and the city.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team meets with Zennia over breakfast, a few of them getting rare real eggs from the barkeep, who makes them promise to keep quiet about the chickens he keeps on the roof- for tenants and trusted patrons only. Zennia fills them in on a few open contracts she has, but seems to be trying to stay out of the ARES infighting, perhaps correctly fearing the high lethality incumbent to those runs. They agree to look into her jobs if they get the opportunity, and head up to the Blight to track down the street preacher. Finding a local clinic and making a donation, they get some intel on a recent sighting, and manage to track the guy down near the toxic-smelling Black Creek.

He seems pretty out of it, but after they awkwardly pay him too much money, he shares his “thesis” with Carol (mad scrawlings on a variety of surfaces, in various directions and languages), and also delivers some worrying prophecy, predicting that something lies beneath them which will soon devour them all, and also reciting Hansu Prophecy 9 verbatim. So they aren’t sure how much of his “prophecy” is original, or where he’s getting it from, but eventually they ask one too many questions and he scarpers. Luckily he agreed to provide a piece of hair in case they need to track him down again, after they promise not to do “anything creepy” with it, as Tabasco has confirmed that though the man himself is not magical, there is something magical on or about him….

They head back to Hamtramck, and get a call on the way: Weathernight has another job! She fills them in on a DeeCee fixer who got mixed up in the ARES internal war and apparently fled town, headed for Detroit, just ahead of some assassins who took out her boss as well as the senator she had blackmailed. Weathernight expects this fixer, Sahara Jones, to arrive in town the next day, but doesn’t know via what means or where exactly, and explains that everyone wants her and what she might know: if the team can’t take her alive, they are to make sure she doesn’t survive for someone else to acquire.

The team spends a few hours researching the strange thesis they got from the street preacher, but it seems quite discordant and not overly useful, so they head to bed. Dig finally wakes up the next day, and the team fills him in. They seem very fixated on the thesis still, but Dig decides it’s the ravings of a madman, and that they should focus on the job, and gets the team on track. Chew Gum is still off on his wandering and helping the people adventure, so they proceed without him. After some research into the target and some recent political intrigue in DeeCee (including a threat to rescind the Business Recognition Accords as a power play against ARES’ extraterritoriality), they check the old team files, and find that some former members actually had some run-in’s with Sahara Jones when they were running in DeeCee.

Based on this, and some factional analysis, they determine that she is likely under Otto Hendricks’ sway, willingly or not, and is heading for his protection, which means she will likely be coming in under mafia protection, as they have a rep for safe people-moving (the local Mancino family doesn’t traffic, as a rule). From the docks, the quickest and easiest spot to stash her would be an ARES parazoological facility that Hendricks controls via his R&D department, so the team decides to head over and scope it out. Tabasco, deciding any tiger cage is as a good as another, also brings the rest of his mom’s ashes. He heads in to the public part of the zoo to scatter them, and does so successfully this time, though some excited kids quickly run through and kneel in them to get their faces right up on the plexi window into the enclosure.

Meanwhile, Dig has down a thought recognition spell with the image of Jones, and found 4 hitmen thinking about her in a “closed” nocturnal mammmals wing of the zoo with a good sightline to the parazoological facility dock. Tabasco and Creep prepare to sneak in and take out the hitmen, while Carol hangs back to pilot van and VTOL, and Creature and Dig (now in muscular dolphin form) wait underwater near the docks. They put in a call the CG that things are about to go down, ping their location, and wait for Jones to arrive….

CG rolls up to the parking lot on his bike and sidecar just as everything kicks off- the mafia smuggler boat is approaching the docks, and the kill team is setting up weapons in the closed exhibit. Creep and Tabasco sneak up on the snipers through some employee-access passages, but don’t quite get there in time to stop them taking out most of the mafiosos as they exit the boat. The snipers are prevented from taking out Jones by a large water spirit allied with the mafiosos. CG and Dig send their spirits to start attacking that spirit, while Tabasco and Creep fell 3 of the snipers with non-lethal rounds.

Dig, in dolphin form, keeps trying to sink the mafia boat to prevent escape but repeatedly fails, and it is sunk by some holes shot in it by the snipers. Creature takes out one of the 2 remaining mafiosos in water drake form, and Carol knocks the other one into the water with the VTOL, where Dig savages him with his huge dolphin muscles. Carol convinces Jones to climb into the VTOL over the speaker and zips her out of there, as CG goes over to deal with the sniper’s getaway van that Carol spotted in the parking lot. CG decides to skip the non-lethal option, and uses a terrifying combo if spirit powers and shotgun to befuddle the rigger inside and then silently blow his head off.

Tabasco and Creep exfil under fire as the sniper team wakes back up from stim patches etc, and begins rallying. However, with some slick driving from Carol and all the useful stealth features on the van they manage to get out of there without any further trouble. Creature and Dig leave via water, with Dig turning into a bird a little ways away to link up with the team, and Creature taking public transit back to the safehouse.

Runners
Carol
Creature
Tabasco
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig

The team begins the day by checking the local feeds, and find them very throttled under ARES control. There doesn’t seem to be an independent media other than some freelance bloggers, and the local shadownet is pretty anemic- mostly missing persons posts and tips on how to avoid getting caught up in the sweeps. However, the team still catches wind that their high profile extraction yesterday has gotten ARES interested in them, so they decide to get an electrochromic coating on the van, and keep Carol out of sight for now, since he was the only one the ARES corpsec saw.

Tabasco calls up Smoach and Myrryr, PPI, and dropping Vermont’s name makes a new connection in town. They provide the name of a repair shop/parts emporium that can fix up the van, and a rigger named Rubberhead who they can make contact with there. Chew Gum heads over to do so, fearing he’s too disturbing and memorable for a subtle recon mission. S&M also agree to analyze the sample CG got from the strange critters the team encountered underground that had the petrification powers. Tabasco, wanting to make new friends, warns them about the Seattle area dragon danger, but they seem snagged by the mystery are onboard.

CG wanders Rigs, Rims and Ratchets (“The Triple”) for a bit before paying off a local tout to show him to Rubberhead, who quickly agrees to work with him. and seems to be a smuggler by trade, affiliated with the Technicolor Wings syndicate, who Kit had worked with a bit on CarBoxing in Seattle. They get the van sorted, and CG buys a new small vehicle with sidecar for himself and his spirits. The rest of the team is doing recon on the Golden Microchip club- based on Nyssa Hallas’ intel the spot some high end security, but it seems like magic is their weak point (an ARES classic). Dig gives Carol a clairvoyance ritual which allows them to scope out the inside of the club, and also does some astral recon while still at the Kiss Me Quick monitoring the extractee and his dogs.

There is a single watcher spirit observing the club, only 2 entrance/exits (one of which is emergency only), good fire suppression systems, and modern, small/efficient vents. So the team decides on an unconventional plan, and aims to execute this evening upon the target’s arrival. They buy some injectable laxatives from a medical supply store on the way back to the safehouse, and meet up with CG. They take the van and Dig, while CG wards the safehouse and keeps an eye on things. Scoping out the ARES Orchard housing complex, it essentially looks like an arcology-sized sprawling campus. Tabasco heads in using his fresh ARES ID and scopes out the public areas with a visitor pass. No easy way to get to the target via that means, but Dig has an idea.

They summon the stealthed VTOL, and Creature rigs up a multi-part explosive: one high ex, one frag, and one chloroform, all daisy-chained. Xe also shows Dig how to start the short timer on it. Carol pilots the VTOL up to the target’s window and crashes it through, with Dig inside. Dig crawls out, naked, and tells the surprised woman he is here to get her out for Vogel while running a jammer to foil surveillance. He hands her a knife and tells her to leave a bio-sample and then sets the timer. She stoically cuts off a finger and then climbs in the VTOL. Dig transforms himself into a shrew and climbs in as well, and Carol pilots them back out as the room explodes behind them. The chloroform seems to have possibly ignited and a noxious cloud is spewing forth, without looking like they did much damage outside the room- right on target. THey hope this “biohazard” plus some DNA left behind will confuse and slow pursuit efforts.

Still jammed, Dig and the target climb into the smuggling compartment, and Carol slowly drives away. They get pulled over by KE, but Carol manages to talk his way out of it by playing the “good corp citizen”, and all their ID’s scan, so they are on their way. They get back to Kiss Me Quick, and this extractee seems to know the drill- she points the jammer at herself, bandages up her missing finger, and climbs into one of the body bags, zipping it up to her face. She says she’ll keep an eye on the dogs while the team heads out on the next leg of the job, and DIg leaves some old flatvids playing to keep her entertained.

They head back to the club, and execute. Creature gets in line, well-disguised, and Carol and CG wait nearby in the van to spot the target. Creep, Tabasco and Dig (in bird form) wait out back. After a few VIP arrivals, they finally spot their target exiting an air cab with his security detail. Creature manages to do a brush pass and inject him with the laxative, while playing it off as if xe were just drunk and stumbling. Xe manages to talk xyr way away from security and loops back around to the van. Meanwhile, out back, Tabasco is scanning back and forth with another clairvoyance from Dig, and quickly spots the target rushing into one of the bathrooms.

Dig begins shaping concrete to open the wall up, while Creep prepares to grab the target. Unfortunately, a woman barges in to the bathroom, seemingly thinking that the target has something planned. He’s totally confused, but the team decides not to investigate further, and Tabasco knocks her out with an arrow as soon as the wall opens enough, surprising both the people inside. Creep grabs the target and tranqs him, stuffing him into the VTOL while he’s still shitting himself. DIg, in bird form still, flies back to the safehouse. Tabasco takes public transit back, and Carol drives the van crew. Seeing that she hit her head in the fall, Creep slaps a trauma patch on the woman in the bathroom, and then sneaks off himself.

Tabasco, Dig and CG stay at the Kiss Me Quick with the 3 extractees, keeping the first and last slabbed and zipped up, and leaving the 2nd one conscious since she is very hepful (and was the only one who knew she was going to be extracted ahead of time and was onboard). The rest of the team heads back to the Black Creek coffin motel, but are woken in the middle of the night by some suspicious sounds, and manage to bail just ahead of a raid on the building. While sneaking off, they spots what looks to be Cutters out of their colors, with a small crew of Desolation Angels seemingly on the lookout for mages and bugs amongst those the Cutters are rounding up and scanning.

Meanwhile, Weathernight has called the KMQ crew and told them to expect a team of 3 runners to manage the pickup, who quickly arrive- an ork named Lunatech is driving, while an elf mage named SINder and a dwarf with draconic cyber-theme named Mr. Smaug handle the physical end. Tabasco, CG and DIg help run jammers and haul the extractees to the waiting van, and are excited to meet some other runners in town. This crew also seems excited about some new talent in town and they exchange contacts. The pickup crew rolls out, and both halves of the team link back up. Tabasco debates whether to contact Don Michaels and try to find out what the Cutters are up to and if the team is a specific target or not, but for now they get paid, and need to make some more local contacts and find a new safehouse.

Weathernight says to take a day or two to get settled and she’ll have more work for them soon.

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.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
Creep

With Kit’s rough location data on the TM they need to rescue for Remo, the team does some research. Wherever they’re being held (and whoever by) it seems likely to be in the Carbonado/Crocker Mine complex, which after some digging turns out to be Mafia smuggling turf. Tabasco warns the team that Gianelli mafia shouldn’t be trusted (he feels burnt by his experience of Enzo corrupting Urban Brawl still), and they debate a few different options before deciding on stealth recon.

Creep gets dropped off via stealth VTOL while Aradia and an air spirit accompany in the astral. The area seems to be covered with ash clouds and runs over the powerful leyline Aradia had spotted at Grand Council Lodge. Plenty of cover and distractions, but harder to do their own surveillance. They find a sort of main entrance to the abandoned mine, and head in, moving slowly and looking for defenses and traps.

It looks like an active smuggling zone, but noone seems to be around at the moment, and there aren’t any detectable devices, sensors, etc. Aradia sends the spirit to search for irregularities, and it reports back that deeper in the mine is an area aspected towards Toxic Dog. Reporting back to the team, Tabasco suggests that this is likely another of Alice’s facilities, as he knows she follows that corrupted mentor. They gear up and head over while Creep keeps an eye on things.They also add some stealth mods to the van, and park it off track in the ash wastes to keep it from getting spotted (or stolen).

Heading in, they follow a winding path as Aradia navigates towards worse and worse feeling background counts. They eventually reach a mana barrier, and Kit sends a drone through, which spots a tunnel lined with explosives with a blast door at the end and a motion sensor above. Aradia sneaks herself and an invisible Kit through the mana barrier, and Kit sneaks up and hacks the motion sensor with nanites, but there’s a terrifying person inside so they bail. They then jury rig the explosives to blow the door. They then head back and cross the mana barrier with Aradia at the same time Tabasco comes through from the other side and waves his arms a bunch to trigger the motion sensor, before getting yanked back behind Kit’s shield as the explosives go off.

The team races down towards the door as the tunnel caves in around them, with Tabasco’s armor somewhat blasted. They get in a fight with two rail drones firing assault rifles and a horrifying toxic spirit inhabiting a mutating dog body (with extra legs and mouths). Carol gets pretty fucked up but Kit keeps him in the fight and the team prevails. They enter a server room, which was badly damaged in the explosion, but is connected to an adjacent chamber. Kit rips some data, and is distressed to find that this seems to be a major “Marry Me…” server, before getting chased off by the upsetting e-entity again.

The team enters the next room and hears many voices crying out for assistance, saying they were kidnapped and just woke up and can’t see anything. One of them seems to be the one who sent the message. They pull some tarps off some vats and find a bunch of brains wired together into some sort of meat computer, even worse, each brain seems to correspond to a major expansion, area, quest or NPC in “Marry Me”. Creep smashes the speaker on the jar closest, and suggests they don’t bother trying to save these brains, as this is obviously the outcome of the mind/body separation work that Alice was up to in her other lab.

Kit refuses and tells the rest of the team to go on while they stay behind and try to save at least a few, if they can figure out how.They also mini-weld shut some ceiling valves that seem prepped to spray Cleaner-Cleaner on everything, but also see that a countdown clock has passed the 4 minute mark, and the brain vats are all draining liquid onto the floor. They break open 2 vats and manage to get a little liquid in one busted end to slosh 2 brains around in, choosing 2 of their favorite expansions.

The rest of the team chases after Alice, but Carol stumbles into more rail drones and is nearly killed. The team takes them out and continues, finding Alice’s lab. Creep and Tabasco decide not to document and continue pursuit, and head the other way with Creature in tow. Aradia and Kit heal Carol, who goes to document the lab while Aradia mind probes one of the brains. It knocks her out, but they confirm that these are kidnapped TM’s from the missing persons list Tabasco has, and worst of all, they don’t know that they’re only brains in jars. Carol gets a ton of data to review later, and also finds a problem- the lab is flooded with a currently inert compound that is highly flammable when combined with some second element, aka a binary explosive! They need to get out of there.

As there’s only 90 seconds left on the clock, they flee to where the rest of the team went. Meanwhile, the rest of the team has found one of the mine’s boreshafts, and Tabasco has managed to shoot his grapple hand up to the ascending elevator therein. Creep and Creature start climbing a ladder stuck into the rock. Another toxic dog drops on Tabasco and nearly kills him before Carol and Creature (drake elemental attack very good vs spirits!) manage to take it out. However, the elevator reaches the top and Alice blows some charges, trying to drop it on Tabasco. Luckily he makes a heroic swing to the side and Creature catches him with a web. A massive explosion behind them seemingly destroys the lab and blows a huge dust cloud up the shaft.

They make it to the top of the shaft, and Aradia cleverly sets off an acid trap left for them using a trid phantasm. Kit and Aradia hurry the brains back to the van outside while the rest of the team chases. Carol is the only one fast enough to catch up to Alice, who seems to be riding on a massive dog spirit. He triggers a grenade trap without taking damage but chooses to continue the chase as the tunnel collapses, separating himself from the team. Racing around another corner, he is shot and nearly killed by some Ex-Ex rounds, and the team has to dig through the collapse to get to him before he bleeds out.

Seeing that Alice and dog are headed deeper into the mines instead of out, the team abandons pursuit and heads back to the van, getting out of there. Meanwhile, Kit has contacted Remo and S@m to try to get help uploading the 2 rescued brains before they shrivel and die. They jury rig an upload system using the RCC, van comms gear, and a satellite uplink, and manage to upload brain/persona copies into the Endless Archive. They aren’t full e-life forms, without the magic of the Tarot, or Big D’s “Jack-B-Nimble” program, but it’s at least a form of life and preservation, and who knows what else could occur. They thank the team but are horrified at what they found, and Remo feels a little bad at the level of favor this ended up being.

The team heads back to the safehouses and review the data: Alice has a plan of world domination through financial markets, and to that end has a few fundraising ops going: Marry Me is a big one, each brain she brings online adds new layers (and lairs) to the world, and gives the game it’s unique lifelike/dreamlike feel. She’s become a critical dev for the game, and it’s highest paid employee. She has also been selling her mind alteration skills to anyone willing to pay locally, using a purloined ARES AIMAD device in conjunction with Dawkins Group Project:Orion sleeper agent tech apparently stolen by the Null Sect and traded or sold to her. Her local clients include most major corps and syndicates as well as the Shadow Chapters, which explains some things Tabasco has heard.

They get the layout of her local network: which bars she kidnaps from, which gangs she works with, and her contact for selling the leftovers to the Death Ships: a fixer named Natalia. They also find out that she’s been helping the Halloweeners infiltrate the ACHE for some reason in exchange for recovered DEUS tech leftovers. She’s also after rumors of something called the “Kechibi Code” which seems like some sort of financial/predictive specialized AI. She modelled her program on Danielle delaMar’s “100” as well as the advances of Thomas Roxborough at UniOmni, though neither appear to be directly involved.

Also, the crazed e-entity that Kit encountered seems to be her former mentor, and originator of these projects, Dr. Halberstram, a true mad scientist thought dead. She’s trying to figure out how he was transformed (or created) in his current form, not to cure him but just to know. She seems to enjoy keeping him localized as a crazed defender. Anyway, she seems like a true supervillain with ridiculous goals, but maybe the skill and tenacity to at least cause extreme chaos?

The team, realizing they’re sitting on a gold mine (ha) of paydata, decide to take some time and think about who to sell what to, but warn people off the kidnap clubs for now at least. They rest and recuperate, and the next day Creature heads to OtherCon to make more contacts for the Sea Dragon. Xe meet all sorts of interesting characters there, and make some good connections, deciding to once again use local Merrow communities as an in for the Sea Dragon, by helping them out against Aqua Arcana experimentation and trying to get them recognized as sapients officially.

Xe quickly latches onto a hip Vashonista named Soresha, who says she is new in town but seems adept at making connections, and helps Creature make the rounds and meet some people. In the surgeries and mods hall, Creature spots the quiet street doc from Fenris Nacht, who intro’s herself as Trickster’s Daughter, and seems to possibly be a fox shifter. Creature gets some minor mods from her to cement the connection in case xe needs to rely on her medical skills (and discretion) in the future. Xe also wanders a bit, and spots various advocacy groups, panels, costume contests, fandoms, etc, as well as a “We Remember: The NIght of Rage” exhibit that the hotel seems to have put on with the Tacoma MoM chapter (they sheltered many that night using a formerly secret Underground connection, now another level of the hotel).

Eletheria also tasks Creature with observing corps at the con, as many use it as a recruiting opportunity for beings with unique abilities. EVO is well-represented of course, and seems relatively benign. SK is recruiting through a drake named Scale, who seems a lot less fun than Simon Andrews, but similarly loyal, and gives the corp a good sell. He’s also staring daggers at a merc corp called “New Assets”. which appears to be drake-only, and is also recruiting, offering peer alliance as an alternative to servitude to the “Greats” to their fellow drakes.

Creature buddies up to the NA rep, Tommy Talon a bit. He seems friendly enough, but is also a vain LA type. He seems intrigued by Creature, but recognizes that xe already has a bond to a Great, so doesn’t have much to offer beyond being a potentially useful connection out of town. Xe also make friends with some local couriers for (and the dispatcher of) the Alley Cat Express, aka ACE- some side work that Creature and Tabasco amongst others might find useful from time to time. They seem to be friendly with Jimmy Kincaid, amongst others, and Creature recognizes one of them as the decker from one of the team’s that helped distro the items from VDH’s hoard.

Creature also sees Proteus recruiting pretty hard, which is interesting as they are an AGS AA-corp, but do have a local Arkoblock. Their reps also seem to be meeting with some other corp reps using the Con as a cover: Creature ID’s reps from both Maersk and Wuxing, which worries Eletheria, as all 3 are involved in ocean experiments and shipping, and may be trying to cooperate against the Sea Dragon. She declares it’s time to teach them a lesson, and tells Creature to get the team ready for a job.

Tabasco also calls Rahel Juric, and tells her they haven’t forgotten about her. She seems agreeable to an open timeline for most stuff, but throws it out there that she would love paydata on the ARES rep, and also wants to know what happened to the CAS rep who was supposed to be at the gala but never turned up and has been incommunicado ever since. As the CAS was one of the sector owners in Denver, it makes sense they would want a say in a new treaty city, though it hadn’t occurred to the team before. Anyway, they missed their shot and apparently folks back home are steamed and want answers…

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
Creep

Kit decides to take a day off and go see a movie via hotrigging his wimp, using his new William Wimpleton SIN, while doing some background research for the technomancer rescue mission that Remo gave them. Aradia heads out to take care of some witchy business. The rest of the team decides to use their downtime to look into some mysteries Tabasco had uncovered, and try to knock some tasks off Creature’s list of jobs for the Sea Dragon.

After doing a bit of research, they head over to Tacoma so Creature can try to make some connections at Fenris Nacht, the predator/hunter bar. Xe gains entrance via namedropping the Sea Dragon (a powerful hunter herself) while the rest of the team hangs nearby to provide audio input and backup if needed. Tabasco tries to surveil other arrivals but is foiled by a magical fog, which Carol fears is vampiric in origin.

Creature first enters the bar area, and finds some various Infected hanging around, mostly starring daggers at a pair of cybered-up Catholics with a lot of prominent iconography. A pair of equivalently cybered Russians are loudly trying to outdrink each other at the bar. Creature wanders a bit further in, and finds Gregory Bear-Killer conversing quietly with what looks to be a wolf shifter or werewolf in a hunting lodge area- some of the trophies are definitely immoral if not illegal.

Creature continues down into a network of grottoes, small caves, and private rooms. The whole place is laid out to make visitors feel hunted/vulnerable if they don’t view themselves as an apex predator. Creature spots a young vampire woman emerging from one of the rooms, seemingly having just been treated by a street doc who looks a bit out of place here, and is wearing a fox lapel pin. The street doc hurries off, but the vamp, who is wearing a heavily battle-damaged anime “sexy schoolgirl” style outfit (looking extra bizarre now that it cut, burnt and shot to pieces, though her wounds seem to be healing quickly), sticks around.

Creature gets a drink and makes conversation with Bear-Killer, using Aradia’s name as an intro, and also is introduced to the wolf man, Saroosh. Saroosh seems to be an assassin, new to town, who is looking to kill one or more other assassins, though he won’t specify who. Bear-Killer also seems to have taken on some contract work during the recent uptick, and it seem they are sharing info now that they’ve confirmed their targets won’t interfere with each other’s work. Creature participates once they verify that xe also won’t be working at odds with them. They both seem to think that in the current landscape, doing mob/syndicate hits is small potatoes compared to the high value contracts that are being tossed around in the lead up to the referendum.

They all split off, and Creature is approached by the young vamp, who gives xyr a hard time for a while before revealing that she is a friend/protege of Red’s, and knows who Creature is. They chat a bit, and it turns out that this vamp, EB, knows the Triad vamp that Tabasco has been investigating, Su Cheng, and offers to make an introduction, though she offers no guarantees on how that will go. Creature agrees, and buys EB some blood from some onsite blood bags, who seem happy to trade for whatever the bartender gives them small doses of after they are fed on.

Creature also asks EB about membership, and EB tells xyr that xe must complete a major solo hunt of some sort- bring down a big target. a trophy and/or a good tale will also help a lot. Creature plans to pursue this for the Sea Dragon’s benefit, though this place doesn’t seem like a community per se, it seems like a useful place to have regular access to.

The team heads back to Tabasco’s condo to “party” which entails buying 2 six packs. Creature gets a call from Su Cheng, who sets up a meeting the next day. It feels like it could be a trap, but they’re all curious enough to go along. They head to Triad turf in the Downtown Chinatown district, and after an extensive security check (and getting all their weapons checked), are ushered into a windowless room with trid screens projecting nature scenes on the walls. Su Cheng turns to them from some sort of ritual task, and they all take a seat to discuss biz.

He proposes that, since they are asking questions, they go into business together. In exchange for performing some tasks for him, he will answer at least some of their queries. There is definitely an element of threat over the whole thing, but Carol pushes for a little more info (instead of money) and Su Cheng seems to appreciate that the team recognizes the value of the immaterial. He explains that the Laeasa syndicate has been smuggling in Tir Tairngire Peace Force armaments and selling them exclusively to the Yakuza, which is an obvious source of imbalance in the local crime scene. He wants the team to get evidence of this: footage of meetings, documentation, etc, and pass it on to a Puyallup PI named Jimmy Kincaid, who should be able to make good use of it in another deal that he is working on. They are not to let Kincaid know that the info came from Su Cheng.

The team agrees, and does some recon, splitting into 2 and tracking both some Laeasa and Yakuza members around town until they do find them meeting at the Tacoma docks, and get some good footage of a handoff. If they can just get some digital records/weapon ID’s etc to back it up, they should be set. Meanwhile, Creature is getting excited for the start of OtherCon the next day, another location xe is supposed to investigate on behalf of the Sea Dragon for possible allies.

Aradia, meanwhile, finally meets up with the Sisterhood of Ariadne and begins trading a little info on entropy circles and the like, as well as getting more info on the group in general. She also tips them to the powerful leyline from the Grand Lodge on Council Island leading to Mount Rainier/Tacoma. They hint that the forces behind the entropy circles are powerful adversaries but agree to share some info or assist in the investigation. They specialize in foretelling/portents and the like, so don’t seem as skilled in physical magics, though they do some alchemy and rituals as well. Aradia is also excited to meet a bunch of cool older ladies, who give her some tips on achieving lifelong power.

Next, Aradia and Iva conjure and manufacture up some over the top outfits to get into Shades, the new club up in Snohomish. They manage to catch the doorman’s eye and get ushered in past the line- the club is officially still invite-only but with some flexibility for the famous and interesting. Aradia talks their way into a “premium” area in the back of the former Masonic Lodge, where she can access more illicit substances than are available out front. She fails to bluff her way into any of the VIP/private areas further on, but gets some info about how to potentially apply for the exclusive memberships.

She also scouts out the security a bit, and notices that the club has unusually good magical security, and multiple means of verifying its VIPs. She also does some people watching and some info gathering amongst the crowds, mostly local celebs of various levels. She decides to return later with Creep and possibly some better surveillance gear to continue the investigation.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
Creep

Needing to get a move on, the team decides to do the heist with minimal mission gear (weapons, armor, etc) relying instead on implants and surveillance/B&E tech. Tabasco gets Bernie Carter to swing by his condo and pick up his gear from Emdachat, and Creep has all his stuff, but the rest of the team is going in their rented formal wear. Carol once again bemoans the fit of his rented tux. They head to the Tacoma docks to the location Telestrian provided, and meet up with a mini-sub smuggler named Sounder, who has a good rep on Jackpoint. Kit is a little bummed to not be allowed to pilot one, but Sounder insists on being in control.

They do a minimal amount of research on Council Island, but can’t get much useful surveillance data or security details, so they decide to wing it. Sounder drops them off without incident, successfully bypassing their water patrols, but tells the team that they’ll be stranded if they miss their very narrow pickup window, as she isn’t going to wait around. They head into a dense forest along the shore, and Carol and Tabasco quickly spot some hidden cameras and pressure mesh scattered around. Most of the team is confident on their ability to bypass them safely, but Aradia isn’t, and levitates herself and Kit, as well as making both of them invisible.

They safely pass through the forest, and come into sight of the Grand Council Lodge. They had heard there was a protest turned riot on the south end of the island, which they hope will distract on-island security. They spot some more pressure mesh, a spirit patrol, some patrolling guards, and 4 caged barghests, as well as cameras covering angle of approach across 100m of open space from the treeline. They check out the front of the building, but that has stationary guards and even worse coverage, so they decide to stick with the back door.

Kit disguises themself as John Abernathy, the targer, using his handprint that they copied, as well as their false face, plus some more spellcraft from Aradia and disguise help from Carol. Aradia and Kit approach the back door invisibly, with everyone else spotting them. Kit manages to bypass the door lock and disable the camera inside via nanites, while Aradia does some astral surveillance (noticing a powerful leyline connected to Mount Tacoma, as well as some underground levels), while Kit sneaks over to the SSC embassy wing, and uses Abernathy’s handprint to access it. Unfortunately, some guards notice the beep as the scanner works and opens the door.

Aradia drops the invisibility on Kit, and Kit bluffs as Abernathy, not doing a great job, but the appearance is so strong that they manage to sell it to the suspicious guards. Kit continues in and heads to Abernathy’s office, which fortunately has automatic lights so they know which one to go to. Tabasco repositions in the trees to cover the window to the office, now that he knows which one it is. The rest of the team watches for trouble.

Kit does a quick search of the room and finds that Abernathy doesn’t have a terminal and seems to prefer hardcopy. A safe in the corner looks promising, so Creep sneaks in, following the path the others took. Kit and Creep make quick work of the safe, and find some promising paydata inside. Kit quickly memorizes it all before carefully putting it back, wanting to leave some plausible deniability that anything happened. Unfortunately, something has tipped off the guards, who are headed in to investigate. Creep opens the window and Tabasco shoots in his grapple hand for them to zipline out on. Aradia slips out the back door and floats back towards the trees.

Creep ziplines back to the trees just fine, but Kit drops about halfway, luckily Aradia makes them invisible before anything bad happens. The team hoofs it back to the water and makes their pickup window, getting dropped back off at the Tacoma docks. They get a call from Romeo, saying that Telestrian has tasked him with collecting the data and paying them off. He also offers to buy any other paydata on behalf of Annie, as arranged. He says he thinks this is a power move by Telestrian to reveal that she did her digging on the team, and also why Annie wanted to use Romeo as a cutout.

Remembering another aspect of their job for Annie, they decide to dig into Romeo a bit before handing over the data, and get some intel from an Underground hacktavist named Tauren. Romeo has some family ties to Humanis and other extremist orgs, though his parents appear to have “officially” left when he was born a dwarf. He also may have some personal ties, which Tauren wants the team to confirm, as Romeo presents himself as a beneficent meta-rights supporter.Tauren also seems interested in the Shadow Chapters if the team can prove it’s a legit org, as he’s heard mixed things.

They pass along and sell the data, but get Remo to watermark the intel from the gala, and then check with Annie to see if Romeo copied the file or altered. He looks to have copied it but not altered it- could be pro, or could be sneaky! More investigation needed. The team does some various other digging around into assorted other ongoing missions and mysteries, and make some future arrangements for collaboration with Domingo Febles and others. They check in with Nyssa Hallas, Iva, and Don Michaels about assassins in town, and get some intel, and also some updates on some happenings in Snohomish.

They get Remo to look into matrix security at the Iron Jungle as a favor to Nyssa, and he reports back that, somehow, the Freedom Network/Popular Will crew there appears to have the Null Sect doing security, which is very troubling. In exchange for all these favors, Remo asks them to rescue a technomancer that just managed to smuggle a message to him from wherever they are being held, as they sound pretty scared and desperate. The team agrees to focus on that next.

They also officially make Creep a full member of the team! Though he doesn’t seem too interested in their safehouses, they have a fun time riding the jet ski around in the small lake while the water spirit makes waves. He shares a bit of his sad past as a child model/pageant star, which inspired his current anti-appearance, not particularly wanting to be observed anymore.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
Creep

The team readies themselves for the gala in a few days time. Creep takes advantage of the final touch construction chaos at the building site to sneak in ahead of time and insert himself into the ducts, where he can crawl around, surveil, and get an eye on security and layout. Kit and Carol do some research on the layout of the building as well as gather some info on it’s sister structure in Dubai. The configurable maze, on the 5th-8th floors, is the site of the main VIP portion of the gala, and will likely be set to it’s highest security/privacy setting, making exterior surveillance difficult. They discuss having Creep use a data tap to get Kit access to the maze controls if needed, but decide not to rely on that.

The team brushes up on social skills, and comes up with appropriate backstories. As the team travels downtown, they notice that there are some large protest crowds and clashes, just short of riots, seemingly advocating for either “stay” or “leave” with the recent vote tally from the informal poll at the music fest having riled things up. The team does a little research and sees that a lot of the “leave” faction seem to have backing related to the Real Americans and the Pacific Independence League, both of which are at least partially funded by Ghostwalker. The “stay” faction seems to have some local funding from a new group called the “Sons of Snohomish”, which almost for sure is a metaracist org based on name and location, and which the team has a job to investigate. They plan to dig in more on both sides in the future.

Tabasco reserves Bernie Carter and his armored cab for the evening, and Aradia and Creature rent a short distance town car, while Carol and Kit travel in another. On arrival, they spot a few people watching over the crowd and arrivals, as well as some notables from around town. Tabasco ID’s some organized crime figures from the Downtown and Bellevue families, but they don’t seem to have tickets to the VIP area. Aradia approaches the rumpled dwarf doing surveillance first off, and they have a friendly (on the surface) but probing convo about who exactly they each are. Recognizing each other’s magical abilities, they exchange contacts.

Aradia also gives a nod to the elf who watched them arrive but is ignored, and offended. The team in their 3 groups heads upstairs fairly quickly, seeing that most of the political and corp movers and shakers do so, not lingering in the semi-public soiree in the atrium. Creep re-positions himself near a private corner of the 3rd level of the maze in order to try to observe any quiet convos any VIPs might have there.

The other 2 pairs of the team make some conversation at the maze entrance with some of the various figures, and meet a Seattle government official, Chuck Beale, who they manipulate into revealing that he is the one compiling the list of delegates for the FS referendum, and that this meet and greet will give them a chance to make their cases to him. Kit manages to snag a copy of his hand print. but fails to scan his irises. They also meet a very jolly Horizon rep who creepily doesn’y have handprints when Kit tries to scan them. Most of the other VIPs cleverly rebuff handshake attempts.

The team finds out about a bit of drama between a few of the reps: the SSC guy really does not like the Telestrian sent on behalf of Tir Tairngire, and the PCC rep sent up to advocate for Seattle as a treaty city doesn’t think much of the SSC rep. Omnistar wants in, and their rep Rahel Juric makes Tabasco as a runner after he drops some hints, and hires him to ensure she gets on the referendum list, and hunts at more future related work. Creep overhears the UCAS govt rep get berated by Margaret Telestrian, who suggests that her vote will be amenable to bribes, but she’d prefer he offer her the best one. She also hints at some scandals in his background, which the team only finds some whispers and hints of online. Creep repositions a few times and overhears some more convos as well.

The ARES rep (who Carol steers clear of) and the Renraku rep seem to be planning to work together to push the “stay” vote, as both have a lot of contracts they might lose if things go the other way. The Horizon rep seems VERY good at navigating the maze and stumbling into convo’s at interesting points, and claims not to have a preference or agenda. This is also Beale’s line, who claims to just be excited to be in the room where it happens. The Pacific Independence League rep makes Creature as a drake beholden to the Sea Dragon, and suggests that both of their masters will want the same result so they should work together. Miranda King, here on behalf of Spinrad, confers with the Wuxing/PPG rep, and both seem open to either outcome, but interested in the possibilities present.

King seems to almost recognize some of the team, especially Creature, but doesn’t push it, so they avoid her as well. Telestrian eventually threatens the team into doing some work for her, having noticed Creep in the walls. She’s very friendly about it all. but seems like a real social predator, and Carol is a little spooked. The team decides to throw caution to the wind and steal Beale’s commlink, make sure Juric is on the list, and then send it before returning the link, in order to create a situation where it would be too embarrassing for him to admit what happened. Aradia distracts him by questioning the integrity of the process, and he goes off on how he is very neutral and wants an unbiased discussion with even opinions on all sides as well as some undecided.

Carol snags the link, though Beale seems to have some exec protection training and almost spots the palming. Kit does the hack, gets the full delegate list, and decides to add not only Juric but also Ceri Gilbredes (the PIL/Ghostwalker rep) and King (Spinrad), hoping this will give the “leave” faction a head start, and keep Stuck from killing them. Creature handily returns the comm to Beale’s suit, and the team disengages, needing to head out to do a quick B&E job for Telestrian that evening so as not to get Creep into hot water, plus wanting to get on her good side in the hopes of swaying her vote.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
and reintroducing: Creep

The team returns to Seattle, still mourning ThinkTank’s death, and planning to carefully guard their new ID’s to try to avoid blowback from ARES. Tabasco, noticing that one of their other sneaker/fighters is permanently absent, proposes a replacement: his occasional comrade Creep, a weird but reliable fellow. The team concurs, planning to try Creep out on some of the many upcoming missions they have in Seattle: astral library returns, throwing the Free Seattle referendum Stuck’s way, fighting off the many assassins in town while discovering their targets (and without their access to TT’s assassin contacts!), plus all the mysteries Tabasco was investigating prior to joining the team. Time to get to work!

Worried about being able to cover upcoming rent on their 3 safehouses, they decide to try to do some quick money jobs, get that settled, and then delve into the bigger concerns. The team meets up with Creep, and agrees to do a few test run jobs before fully onboarding him, but it seems like he’s eager for work, talented, and pretty weird. Tabasco calls up Cheeks and they arrange to meet up and chat about some jobs and investigations that Cheeks would like handled. Carol calls Vogel, and asks for any intel on what ARES jobs are on the line in Seattle, and which way Vogel wants those to go. Vogel tells the team to not interfere with the bug infiltration of the Mafia via the N’Drangheta (more of an international problem), as having his Mafia allies in disarray will put Knight at a further disadvantage. He also tells them that Dr. Ellis is seeking to capture one of more Botflies, a rare (in this region) bug spirit type, and that the team should instead wipe out this nest.

The team takes a few days to restock on gear, catch up on local events (Aradia is bummed that she missed a full moon chance to investigate the strange entropy circles), and give Kit time to set up the new van. Kit also borrows some money from the team fund (recently increased in size with the influx of ThinkTank’s funds at his death), and further upgrades their new Wimp drone.With the van arm and armor equipped, the team heads out to NE Redmond to meet up with Cheeks and some other Dogmen.

They make introductions, and Cheeks gets down to business: he wants Tabasco to follow up on the previous work he’d done for the gang, and figure out what exactly is going on with the Spiders gang, and also see if they can get any intel on what is happening to the people they snatch. The team agrees, thinking this will link up well with the Vogel job, potentially. They do some recon, and find some sort of huge trapdoor spider spirit catching stray passerby in a magic web, and passing those off the what seem to be Spiders gang members, but who have a bit more of a cult-y vibe.

Creep manages to follow them as they drag the unconscious kidnappee underground, but Tabasco has to fall back when he is spotted and caught with some sort of astral webbing. Aradia and Carol take a pic with the Quicksilver Camera for proof as needed of the situation aboveground, and KIt sends in a crawler stealth drone to back Creep up and relay signal. Creep and the drone follow the cultists done through some narrow tunnels into the sprawling sewer system under Redmond, which Creep knows is big and dangerous. Creature follows partway to keep the signal working, and Tabasco hangs nearby for combat assistance as needed.

Creep sees a shaman with a black widow focus (likely the gang;s leader, based on description), with about a dozen gangers/cultists all chanting “Grandmother” in various languages. Widow touches the kidnappee and speaks some quiet words in a language Creep doesn’t recognize, and as her focus glows, the victim transforms, mutating into a spider hybrid form. This isn’t bugs, but this is bad. Some of the cultists come forward and usher the newly transformed victim to a nearby bench to recline, offering words of reassurance that he is one of them now and they will take care of him.

Taking another scan of the large reservoir chamber, Creep spots a massive, newly manifest spirit lurking in the shadows, and sees another shaman come forth from it’s vicinity with some fluid from it in an ewer. He watches in mute horror as the shaman gets the newly transformed man to drink it, also offering words of reassurance. Creep decides it’s time to go, and the team exfiltrates. They report into Cheeks, and post warning to the Shadow Chapters, the Crypt and Jackpoint. Cheeks gives them the small “missing persons” funds he’s raised from the community, and tells them they did a good deed. He seems to be pondering next steps, and also not 100% sure none of them are corrupted, so he says he’ll be in touch.

They talk to Fargus Sol, who confirms that something weird is going on in the astral planes with Spider: Metabeles, their traditional home, has new connected hyperplane known as the Twisted Web, which seems to be the creation or at least home of a malevolent trickster spider who broke free from his astral prison in Metabeles. This is apparently where “Grandmother”, whatever it is, resides. Sol doesn’t know how it started corrupting shamans from there, but suggests this would be worth further investigation. He also suggests that both the trapdoor spider and the huge black widow were likely quite dangerous but both tend to not be overly aggressive, so just as well the team didn’t attack, for now.

The team starts researching Botflies, and manages to identify some likely focal points. Remembering that Cheeks had said the Spiders only really got bad and weird after they ran out of bugs to eat, they decide to try to play one faction off against another. Conversing with Prof. Maggie Magnusson about Botflies while he confers with some colleagues, they hear that some Spiders gangers recently got picked up Downtown without SINs and dropped in the ACHE, and decide to get a third faction involved as well. They call Tosh Athack and tip the Black Knights off to the panned Spider raids coming up. Unfortunately they then hear back from Maggie, who says that the hosts can likely be saved with the help of a skilled medic and a skilled banisher, if they are found before the incubation is complete. The team feels bad they already sent the Spiders after them but feels it’s too late to stop what they’ve set in motion.

They wait a few days and then hear the good news: a large number of Spiders gangers were detained by Knight Errant after being found in the vicinity of a suspicious number of recently deceased individuals, none of whom bore any obvious signs of harm other than having been restrained. Due to the Spiders’ lack of ID, they are being detained in the ACHE for now. They team pats themselves on the back, and calls Vogel, who says he will spread the info they uncovered about how to ID and counter Botflies far and wide, to make sure ARES can’t try to use them as sleeper agent infiltrators. He sends them some cash, and with relief, they pay their rent.

In worse news, Jaliyah Angél cakks Aradia from the ASPS, having heard about the Spiders ending up in the ACHE, and shares her worries that the Spirit of the City, which seems to be centered on the ACHE, could easily be corrupted in it’s nascent form by the cultists.So maybe not an unqualified success. But at least the team knows where to look for them. They also get some intel on the ACHE itself, which could play into resolving the Free Seattle referendum: Shiawase is bidding to take over care and upgrades of the structure and it’s reactors from the UCAS military, which is good leverage.

The team decide to go with Imaginary Annie instead of STV as an employer to look into Free Seattle, and givers her a call. She says that she wants direct reports from the team, but that jobs and money and gear and whatnot will all be handled by a local fixer named Romeo who she is testing out, and also wants looked into. She confirms that Shiawase info, and tells them that there is an upcoming gala where they could likely meet a lot of the power brokers in town and try to ID who the likely delegates to the referendum will be- the first step.

They contact Romeo, and are less than delighted by his easy sleazy nature, but he seems to know his business, and gets them tickets to the gala (except Creep, who wants to sneak in), as well as nice rental clothes. Carol cringes at the thought of attending an event in a rental tux but has to remind himself he doesn’t have the corp credit card anymore, and goes along with it. They get a down payment for any gear they need from Romeo, and have a few days to prep for the gala itself. It will take place as an opening event for a grand new structure called The Aspirant’s Tower, a vertical maze inspired by a similar building in Dubai.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
and a sad farewell to: ThinkTank

With TT and Kit on board to take Tate out, they start debating tactics. They decide to take a few more days to get some cyber upgrades and do some shopping, with Kit and Aradia taking a day trip to Cairo to shop the massive markets there. Aradia, unable to avoid temptation, goes looking for something illicit and special, and eventually gets put in touch with Am-Mut, a regional fence, black marketeer and info broker. She insists on getting their street names and checking their rep before doing business, but gets them what they need a day later after they check out. Kit buys schematics for Tate’s cruise ship, as well as some info on onboard security. Aradia gets some reagents, an ancient death mask that could be made into a focus, and also decides to drop a large sum on a mysterious weapon focus.

After spending some time examining the focus, they consult with Fargus Sol and do some internet research. It seems it is a legendary blade known as Ketel’s Dagger which can transform living matter to gems and crystalline forms depending on use and target. Sol says that since it uses blood magic to enact the transformation it would likely be quite addictive and might be an item that other’s seek to acquire, by force if needed. Aradia decides to trade it for a less dangerous magical sword, a Blade of Hark, which allows some level of spirit binding and control, and when bound as a weapon focus will make her a significantly larger astral threat.

Aradia and Kit decide to board the cruise ship as passengers to get some early intel, while the rest of the team approaches with all the gear on a zodiac provided by Ibn Hassan. Kit and Aradia spot some magical security, and confirm that the crew are either all bugs or maggots, and decide not to explore further until the rest arrive, though Kit inserts their new crawler drone into some maintenance raceways to skulk around and see if it sees anything. They also determine that there is definitely strong bug magic in and below the VIP spa area. Carol stays behind to get one more spa day, and also pilot in the escape boat if needed.

Tabasco learns how to pilot the zodiac, and after some trial and error and some withering looks from TT and Creature manages a successful stealth approach to the cruise ship. TT and Tabasco board via a tactical grapple, while Creature uses xyr web to stick to the side. Not seeing anyone inside the nearest chamber, Tabasco cuts through the porthole glass, and Creature manages to contort xyr way in. Using Tabasco’s radar and the plans Kit bought, everyone manages to link up, with Creature opening a door to the below decks area from inside, while Aradia bypasses the ward to allow everyone to pass through undetected.

They avoid some eerily efficient crew patrols (always in pairs and seemingly linked to some sort of hive mind or shared perceptive network), and head for what on the plans is supposed to be a bilge tank that seems to be the strongest magical location. They find it cut open, with some crude stairs welded together descending into it. Hearing more footsteps, as well as some voices, approaching, they dash down in. A horrifying sight awaits. At the far end is a massive bulbous, slimy entity, looking something like a huge putrid toad. In the center of the room is a Bug statue, similar to some they’ve seen before, this one obviously of the Scarab tradition.

Lining both walls of the room are various contorted metahuman forms in various stages of transformation, although they don’t look to be getting transformed into bugs. Instead, they seem to have some kind of small grub inserted into their heads, which seem to be causing the heads to massively swell and distort, consuming the rest of the body as they grow, and eventually projecting a mass of limb/antennae from the chin. The 11 bodies are in various stages of transformation, with the ones nearest the gum toad (as the team ID’s it) the most transformed. Two of these snap their massive, torso sized heads off of their shrunken husk bodies and charge the team on their spindly chin legs, targeting Aradia and Creature, as the gum toad flicks it’s tongue out at TT.

The team manages to dodge the initial assault, but are unable to connect with the enemies, who seem quite quick, until Tabasco targets the gum toad, who seems fairly sluggish. He manages to light it on fire, providing some better illumination in the dark chamber. Unfortunately, this refocuses the toad’s attention, and it quickly snags Tabasco with it’s tongue and begins to swallow him. TT gets off a solid javelin attack, destroying it’s mystical armor. Tabasco gets another arrow off, lighting himself on fire as well but badly injuring the toad. Meanwhile, Creature finds that xyr dwarf minigun is quite effective against the fast (but weak) head monsters, managing to slay one. The other continues to hyper-extend it’s jaw as the top of it’s head lolls back and it tries to chomp down on Creature.

Kit manages to prevent Tabasco from burning to death while the team finishes off the toad and remaining head, with Aradia loosing her air spirit on the grub/head monsters that are still incubating. 4 pairs of cruise ship guards dash down into the ballast tank, all moving disturbingly synergistically, and the team finds themselves straight back into combat. They all take some hard hits, especially TT, before Kit has a plan and manages to snatch the Scarab stone off it’s altar, and Aradia destroys it in astral space with her new sword. All of the cruise crew stop attacking immediately and sort of go limp, though their autonomic functions appear stable- Kit speculates that they are wimp clones, and decides to keep one for some experimental surgery.

Meanwhile, Carol has been chilling at the resort, and is approached by one Georgiy Abolev, who says he is a rep for the APEP Consortium, the magic/artifact hunters who were recently acquired by MCT. He fishes for info about VDH’s hoard, and offers large payouts in the future for other magical oddities, etc, giving Carol his number. Carol, with amazing perception, notices that his room was subtly searched while he was out, and calls Abolev on it. Abolev admits it was his people who did it, but nothing is missing, and he seems to be attempting to use it as a power play- “we can reach you anywhere”. Carol feels like he successfully won that social encounter by noticing it though, and expresses his displeasure in the skill level of the team Abolev used.

The next day, Carol plans to just chill more while the team does the job, but ends up deciding to get a second boat from Hassan and heading out to extract them when he realizes noone made an exit plan. He refreshes a bit on how to drive a boat, and zips over to the cruise ship, arriving quickly but not stealthily. Having lost comms with the team when they went belowdecks, he heads for the porthole Creature used to enter, and yanks open the compartment door from outside, using his grappling hook. Comms back on!

Creature and the air spirit finish off the grubs still in the transformation process, and the team prepares to chase after Tate, with Aradia sending her spirit off to search him out. As they follow the spirit, TT spots some chained plastic explosives all built into the lower area of the ship, that, if detonated, will definitely sink the vessel, so he offers to stay behind and sort that out while the rest of the team pursues.Kit heads for Carol’s zodiac with one of the wimps in tow, and manages to toss it down and wingsuit down after themselves. A very crispy Tabasco follows. They zip around the front of the boat to try to intercept Tate, who looks to be heading for an escape craft of his own.

Aradia and Creature give chase, with Creature faster. Xe gets lines of sight on Tate just as he is about to step off the cruise ship onto an emergency launch, which is starting to lower down the side. Xe fires with xyr minigun, and perforates both Tate and the rubber boat. Aradia, racing towards the deck, goes astral and summons a fresh air spirit, commanding to to engulf the wounded Tate. Seeing Tate about to press a detonator, Creature shouts a warning, and Kit manages to jam the signal just long enough for TT to clip the wires midway down, and prevent about half the explosives from detonating, the ship doesn’t start sinking. Unfortunately, the other half in the areas above/the spa/etc all do still detonate on a light lag, burying TT in a mound of debris after shredding his body. Creature cries out, seeing him flatline on the TacNet and heads back down to see if he can be saved.

Aradia jumps down to the zodiac, and has the air spirit drop Tate’s body in after is suffocates him. Kit is able to stabilize the unconscious Tate, while Carol restrains him. Creature manages to retrieve TT’s trashed commlink and one javelin but not much else, as he was blown apart and then crushed quite thoroughly. Though his face is hard to remember, Creature does not think xe will forget this view… Xe dashes back upstairs and webs down to the zodiac as announcements from the ship’s captain try to keep the passengers calm, especially since no other crew seems present/sentient at the moment. Kit gets them out of there before anyone can try to climb aboard, and they call up Hassan from the water and request a safehouse.

He directs them a bit west on the Mediterranean Sea, to an abandoned part of the former Libyan coast, where they link up with Bedouins traveling with a camel caravan including some dot camels. One of the Bedouins takes the zodiac and heads back out to sea, while the team covers up to blend in and hops aboard. A few hours south in the middle of the desert, they enter a secluded cave which looks like a smuggler’s cache. The Bedouins start their own fire and stay a short distance away, though seeing both the team’s injuries and the captive, say they are happy to help dispose of any corpses as needed. The team rests around their own fire for a bit and mourns TT, whose large sunny absence is noted.

Carol calls up Vogel, and gives him the intel on the Horror cult, and the suspicious fact that both the newly built cruise ship and the explosives were ARES manufacture. Even with the dot camel’s signal boost and Kit’s quality ECM, they are only able to text. Vogel gets back and says that Tate, under his new name, seems to have gotten added to ARES payroll during the bug dragon battle in Chicago, so seems to have fled and switched allegiances when he saw which way the wind was blowing there. But Vogel is distressed about what exactly he was up to and what ARES knew… as is Carol. Aradia mind probes Tate once she has rested a bit, eager for answers.

They find out that Tate seemingly got corrupted by V’golkatl after the team gave him the bug dragon to try to heal (before they knew it was buggy). V’Golkatl was apparently already using the dragon for its own designs, and convinced Tate to join it, as Tate came to view the coming of the Horrors as inevitable, and wanted to be on the winning side. He tried to bring Chicago contacts who were loyal to him along with, but most either refused (like Creature) or were killed during the chaos of his escape. He came to ARES’ attention due to the team, and Candice Phillips passed him up to Michael Turpentine II and III to run. In exchange for info on the last few nests in Chicago after the battle, they got him out and are using him to ferret out other nests in the Mediterranean region. They manages to insert him as head of a local Scarab cult using the artifact that Aradia destroyed, as Tate has no magical abilities of his own. He seems to have independently acquired the gum toad and the Crawlers (carol ID’s the grub/head monsters as something he saw in his vision of Kadath), and used them to maintain control of the artifact and also begin his own secret breeding program for lesser Horrors.

Meanwhile, ARES had him implanting various A/AA/AAA mid-tier execs and the like with various bug spirits that they think will be controllable, as what they believe could be the ultimate in corporate sabotage and infiltration. Luckily, Tate is very detail oriented, and the team gets the full list of all the converts, and this seems like a pilot version of this program, based on ARES’ success in it’s Project:Apex bug soldier hybrid experiments. Tate doesn’t think ARES knew about his current Horror activities, but they were very happy to provide him a lot of latitude as long as he kept up his target numbers.

Feeling like they’ve plumbed his mind as fully as they can, Kit kills Tate with a medical cocktail, and they trade his body to the Bedouins for a ride south. The Bedouins put it on ice in a large case, and also ice the wimp that Kit has hauled along. The team sells the list of names to Hassan, who compliments them on their work and says if they need more jobs in the region to get in touch. The next day they head south, and Carol starts to worry. TT is probably fairly identifiable, even in his exploded form, and they left the body there with distinct javelins and such scattered about. That night when they rest, Kit posts a memorial to TT on Jackpoint, and users there quickly link it to reports of a “shadowrunner terrorist attack on a cruise ship” that are being spread around. Someone also mordantly jokes that they’ll repost on Neutral Ground to get people off that bounty.

Carol finds that his corp credit card has been cancelled, and he doesn’t have any messages from his dad, bro, or Candice. He starts freaking out and planning to disappear in the desert and join up with Vogel, which Vogel seems excited about, but eventually talks him down from. Carol also passes along the general info about what Tate was up to for ARES, which Vogel is glad to know, and just seems like more motivation for him to take over. Carol makes a plan to get a fresh SIN or a few, and fake his death when they get to Asamando, using some bio-material removed from some major cybersurgeries he plans to get. They travel across a few countries in NW and central Africa to reach the ghoul nation, slipping over most borders deep in the desert without encountering anyone, and paying the ghouls at the Asamandan border with Tate’s body. The Bedouins leave the team at the outermost transit station, saying they have their own business, but recommending a few people and places in town for runners on the go.

Aradia and Creature get some minor biosculpting down in streetside walk-in clinics, while Kit just changes their appearance, and with the help of a curious aristocratic British “family doctor”, implants an ASIST rig into his wimp, effectively making it into a second body/biodrone for them to rig. Kit posts this info to Jackpoint as well, and gets a pretty wide range of responses, from the horrified to the impressed. Kit and the second body then help the doctor, Baxton Gresh, to do a series of surgeries on Carol, including giving him a False Face mod. Using the leftover tissue from that surgery, Carol pays off a fixer called The Butcher to report that Carol died of his wounds and was transported to Asamando and consumed, with the proof being some of his face in the Butcher’s possession. Aradia also calls in a favor with Juan Xiuhuitl, who flies the Brooch of Shifting over to AZT"s regional office (they are one of the few corps doing major business in Nyamkopon), and altering Carol’s aura to a different aspect, to throw off any attempts to magically track him. His low essence should also help here. The Butcher also offers them more regional work anytime they’re interested.

Aradia calls some Chicago contacts to report Tate’s death, and has another depressing checkin with Lothan, who is not doing well and has moved fully to his basement where he listens for tunneling in the walls. Aradia calls Goober to go check on him, and throws in a lot of money to start a “bug city survivors” PTSD support group at the Wisest Troll. The team all buys fresh SINs using Vogel’s contacts, and Hassan gets them suborbital tickets back to Seattle on a business flight where they won’t get searched (though they’ll still have to check and seal all their combat gear). They see some large, flagship-y Taco Temples on the way to the airport. What a vacation! As they swoop down towards Seattle, they are all a little depressed to realize that they have less than a week til they owe rent again…. time to get busy!

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

Assessing the situation, the team finds that their arrival seems to have attracted the attention of one of the Emerald Cities bizarre reflections of a go-gang. Quickly naming them “wheelers” the team decides to try to evade before committing to another fight since the van/wagon is almost trashed, and 2 team members are unconscious from stun. Kit once again does some amazing driving, even in this unknown environment, and manages to ditch the bio-mechanical go-gang. However, Carol spots a low-slung scrap built racer following them from a block over, and then loses track of it. They are all surprised when it appears directly in front of them, compliments Kit on his driving, and challenges them to a race. The windows are all tinted, and the car seems like an odd classic muscle car in form, but built out of period-appropriate equipment to the metaphor that this hyperplane exists in.

Kit accepts, and they do a quick loop around a chunk of terrifying roller-coaster highway. Kit manages to squeeze out a victory, and the car introduces itself as Butter, and says that those who race together are “family”, since they all live a quarter mile at a time. Kit, recognizing the name, tries to connect with Butter about having had some distant connections, but Butter seems to have only vague understanding of the past life or alternate existence or whatever it is that Kit is referring to. He does seem interested in carboxing though, and says he will add capacity to his form before the next time Kit comes through so they can give it a go. He also offers an introduction to the Parliament of Cars, though he says they’re a little stuffy for his taste.

Butter escorts them safely to the edge of Oz as a favor for winning the race and wishes them luck out beyond, where the roads don’t run. Luckily Kit has the offroad upgrade kit installed, so the van/wagon doesn’t have any trouble. The team’s gear all seems to be some sort of odd WWi/WWii mid-era mish-mash, but they do what they can with the analog equivalents of drones and TacNet. They make a point to try to avoid engaging with any of the different events/historical periods/etc that they see represented throughout the densely packed metaplane, trying to safely cross the borderlands, and keeping the Tower in sight in the far distance. They are disturbed to see a portal crack open in front of them, and 3 individuals in what look to be armored diving suits step through. Using what look to be auto-loading harpoon guns, they manage to nearly wreck the van and almost pin Carol before the team manages to injure two of them badly enough that they retreat.

Upsettingly, they retreat by opening another portal, with the survivor pulling his downed team-mates through. Shaken by this encounter, the team redoubles their efforts to avoid any others. As they reach the edge of the borderlands, they gaze out over a massive expanse of different hyperplanes within the Kindred plane: ideologies, cities, ideas, etc all have their particular metaplanar reflections and representations here. Worried about evanescence, especially if they accidentally transit to a deeper metaplane, they plan to make haste for the Tower and ignore the rest. Before they can start moving again, a hooded figure approaches, and throwing back his cowl introduces himself as Carter Hayes, Tabasco’s dad.

Kit says “too bad” and drives off, but Hayes seems easily able to keep pace without any particular difficulty. Tabasco questions him and notices that he seems to have his dad’s memories and gestures, but something just seems slightly off. Carol spots that they don’t seem to be getting any closer to the Tower, even though they are moving at top speed, and starts really focusing on it. This seems to annoy Hayes, so Aradia and others threaten him and he backs off, though not without some parting words saying that he tried his best. Tabasco is left sad and confused. But the team feels that the van is now actually making forward progress again so something was up for sure….

A short time later, a summoning circle flares on the ground and a massive hydra erupts from the soil. Kit barely avoids slamming the van into it, but the hydra makes quick work of the remaining structure, and the van is wrecked and partially melted. The team fans out, using the van as cover, and Carol is badly wounded and some others injured in fight before they manage to figure out how to fight it effectively, by countering it’s elemental heads with different elements. Aradia summons a fire spirit, and actually sees it launch, comet-like, from the distant metaplane of Fire hovering in the sky, to come to his aid.Creature decides to chance it, and throws on the Babr-y-Bayn, gaining it’s famed elemental resistance, as well as shifting into drake form to gain xyr own elemental attack.

They eventually manage to defeat the creature, which dissolves into black sludge as the summoning circle fades. Aradia assenses it, and based on her and Carol’s knowledge, assume that this was the work of the Black Lodge. They definitely would have been monitoring VDH’s hoard, and have wanted any/all of the things therein, and have the magical capacity to pull off this kind of attack. Kit frantically pieces the van back together, with some assistance, jury-rigging it well enough for one last push. The while team focuses on arriving at the Tower, and with some miraculous driving, Kit manages to scrape into their yard just as the wheels fall off and engine block drops out. Interestingly, they seem to be fully back to their own era appropriate appearances.

Gazing at the Tower, they see that the lower levels look to be new/modern construction, but as it rises higher, it’s a total grab bag of eras, styles, and qualities. A confused seeming librarian exits the Tower and standing on the front steps inquires as to their business. ThinkTank takes the lead, introducing himself as a LoreKeeper from the Vault of Lore in Seattle, which interests the librarian, who introduces himself as Mr. Bookbinder. Kit starts to explain what they need, but Bookbinder fussily silences them, and tells the team to collect their “things” (gesturing dismissively at the pile of car parts) and meet them inside, before heading inside with TT.

Kit takes a moment to patch the team up, and then salvage what they can from the van, in terms of expensive mods and the like. The armor and camo coating is obviously wrecked, but they manage to recover a lot of the expensive add-on’s, though Carol refuses to help and dashes into the library to research ARES, futures, prophecies, etc. What he finds mostly seems to line up with what Vogel has been telling him, so that’s nice. TT and Bookbinder meanwhile discuss a reciprocal arrangement between their two libraries, as Bookbinder wants more material plane book depositories for recovering loans, and TT wants to expand the VoL.

The team heads in, and agree to retrieve an overdue book from a denizen of Anderson Island when they return to Seattle. When pressed, Bookbinder acknowledges that it is one of the 3 Books of 9 Gates, and advises them not to look inside if they value their sanity. Bookbinder seems to want to chat more, but Kit insists on portaling back to the material plane ASAP to get these magic items safely stored. Tabasco finally convinces Creature to take off the armor, which is just so incredibly perfectly tailored and fit that xyr regular clothes feel like scratchy trash in comparison. Unfortunately, Tabasco also starts running his mouth (lol) about his ancient symbiont tongue, the Dis Trader on the Moon, etc after getting nervous about the portal.

Bookbinder seems fascinated, and shares a little about Dis in exchange- there are multiple factions, with the Traders being one. But some of the other factions may disguise themselves as Traders also. He says not much is known, but that the opening of Kadath has caused many new rumors, creatures, and distant places to seem a lot more real all of a sudden. He offers reward for more info, on both Dis and the metaplanes in general, as well as other retrieval missions for the Library, but the team says “maybe later” and he huffily opens a gate and passes them through. They find themselves in a matching room, but seemingly back on Earth.

An out of breath Australian dwarf dashes into the room with a taser, seemingly not expecting visitors, but TT flashes him a coin that Fargus Sol provided for ID purposes, and says they need to stash some items in the Vault. The dwarf introduces himself as Barnaby Rudd, and takes them downstairs, there’s a lot of visible and audible construction going on around and above them, but more “in use” spaces the lower they get. Rudd passes them off to a scarred and hairless ork, who Carol recognizes as his old team-mate Test. They chat a bit, and seems like Test has been doing well since joining the collection of technomancers protected by the Coptic Church here in Egypt, many of whom work on the Library.

They explain again about items/vault/etc, and he says he’ll need to find one other being to help, but takes them down into a sub-basement, where a Filipino man in a business suit seems to be directing some crew heads on next steps in the project. Quickly trying to get a grasp on the situation, the team determines this is likely the great dragon Masaru in his human form, partially by ID-ing his voice standing nearby in a hardhat. Masaru heads downstairs with them, and he and Test both deactivate parallel security systems- the vault seems to require both a mage and a TM to open, though Kit thinks the TM part could possibly be done with nanites. Test explains to the team about his cutting-edge research into the similarities of technomancy and magic while Masaru nods a long with a slightly long-suffering look.

TT has to use the coin to access the vault, and only one is allowed in at a time to avoid temptation, so he heads in to catalogue the ring and the armor and store them safely. Masaru offers to portal them back to astral Library if they wish, but they say they plan to vacation for a while before heading home, so he gets them visitor visas for Egypt instead, and they cross the land bridge to Alexandria, curious about why dragons won’t set foot in Egypt. Doing some matrix digging, they settle on using fake SINs and a lot of nuyen to get rooms at a local seaside SpinRad luxury resort, not wanting to reveal their ID’s and get a discount at the nearby ARES spot.

They get a variety of different quality of rooms, and Kit bounces between rooms the first night, tending to everyone’s wounds. They also notice that 3 days have passed in material time. Aradia, Tabasco, and Carol, exhausted, all collapse into a deep sleep. They wake the next day, and Aradia and Kit hang in the enclosed cove pool and swim-up bar, while Carol lounges in the infinity pool that his fancier room bought him access to. Tabasco, still feeling iffy on vacations, practices on the archery batts and the climbing wall, before doing some swimming and drinking as well. Creature heads out on a day trip for an experiment. Xe swims out to sea from an unobserved place, and transforms into a drake underwater, swimming down to touch the bottom near shore. Nothing bad happens, so xe feels content, but notices a feeling of passing through an oily membrane when they walk back onshore in xyr human form.

Worried, xe calls the team, and Carol is stressed out that it might be FAB 1 or 2, one of the detection strains.Creature decides to hide in the wild for about a day, and does have to dodge some beach patrols, before heading back to the resort and rejoining the team. Carol returns to his room on the 2nd day to find a note on his pillow requesting a meeting about a mutual enemy the next day, at a teahouse in the old city. Kit and TT stay behind, but the rest of the team attend. They meet a large, jovial, bearded man in traditional Islamic dress, who introduces himself as Ibn Hassan. He says that after his organization, the Alliance Under Allah, was infiltrated by bugs in Mars City, he took it upon himself to fight them wherever he encounters them. He has heard similar things about the team, and believes he has some info that will interest them.

He says that there is a man, new in town, who offers exclusive rejuvenative treatments on a cruise ship, the one cruise ship not operated by one of the Big 10. He says that many execs, politicians, etc use this particular ship for off-book dalliances, and that this gives access to a wide-range of individuals with a lot of access. He says that this man is working with a local Scarab Cult to infect these powerful people and infiltrate their organizations. And he says that this man’s name (though he uses a different one here) is Dr. Martin Tate. The team quickly agrees to investigate further, wanting revenge, but say they need to run it by their 2 absent team-mates first. Hassan says that he is a good person to know in the Middle East and Africa, with a lot of connections. He can provide logistical support for the job, but not much reward other than the connection- he hopes that doing the right thing and achieving closure/revenge for Chicago will be enough.

The team heads back to the resort to discuss….

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team makes a slightly uneasy peace with Fargus about their groundshaking discovery re: the Tarot/The Cornerstone, and Fargus speculates that they may be the only 7 people who know how that works. However, he thinks that Queen Brane Deigh may know or at least suspect, as she has been obsessed with collecting a full set of the 6WT, and owning the Cornerstone would supposedly give her full control over the castle and it’s ways. And as they say, “as goes the Castle, so goes the Court”…. Aradia tries to pyschometry the stone chunk that they summoned, to see if they can determine if it was stolen, if it was one of the 4 rumored chunks in people’s possession, etc. However, she experiences strange psychic feedback and doesn’t get much info- it seems to have some sort of strange object intelligence that she’s never encountered before, and it feels almost more like trying to read a mind that normal psychometry. It also seems to have powerful passive defenses against detection and manipulation magics, though it doesn’t seem that it was “intending” Aradia any particular harm. She decides to leave it be, feeling pretty wrecked, and on a few stim patches now.

The team goes down the list of saleable items, and votes on who to sell each to after some debates. They decide to start with their most loyal contacts first, and proceed downward from there, ending with getting the lil Black Book to Tosh Athack. They decide to keep the Orn’s Ear, figuring that it’s value versus it’s utility is worth the trade. They sell the Watch to Stuck for a discount, in exchange for letting them sell everything else inside the casino and getting some additional security around in case anyone tries anything. He seems delighted by the trade and instantly siphons off some of Tabasco’s luck. They call up Juan Xiuhuitl, who is quick to send Izidor and Achilles over to pick up the Brooch of Shifting, seeing the massive potential for such an object.

The handoff goes off well, with Tabasco managing to reset his aura using it before passing it over. Unfortunately, his astral taste is not very well developed yet, so he decides to do this in the casino, and is now aspected towards the Wealth and Greed plane. Better than toxic! Tabasco ventures outside after Stuck’s guards warn that they can’t protect him out there, and spots 2 separate teams keeping an eye on things. He quickly ducks back inside, and the team figures that some interested parties must have accessed VDH’s feeds in order to see when his Vault was opened, and got tipped when they team didn’t turn off that sensor on the door. They seem to be waiting to see who gets what perhaps, and either are only seeking intel or are planning to hit people as they leave.

The Howard and Philips, INC team reports that this is exactly what happened to them- they had to send out proof that all the stuff they took out was already damaged and/or destroyed to get their pursuers to break off. The team decide to call in some backup, and calls in their favors with Takashi and Yoko Aruki to get some folks on their side keeping an eye on stuff outside. The good news is the casino guards seem to be doing a good job checking for implants and weapons on arrivals, and keeping an eye out for hostile magic. The team next calls up Vogel after a long debate, and offers him the 2 Cornerstone chunks. He is thrilled, and as usual, gives Carol some real praise, which Carol laps up. He also offers Carol a position on his advance team in Detroit, if Carol wants to get off the streets anytime.

Aradia spots t2o separate individuals with solid magical power monitoring the situation from inside the casino, but they aren’t taking any actions so Stuck refuses to move against them or let the team do so. Rooster, Jamaal Quigley, and a non-binary eco type with a junkyard jaw named Smeed all show up to get the Cornerstone pieces, and pass over a massive payday. Covalent also seems to be benefiting from this based on his alliance with Vogel, and offers the team help transporting other artifacts/themselves if needed. The team then calls up Squeamish to sell him the vat-grown organs and the fool’s gold solution, and he agrees. He shows up with some massive toxic spirits on an armored moto, and gets the gear before heading out under spirit cover.

The team calls up Dyna Mite, and sells her the Crystal Traveller, in exchange for promises to share her research and help the team with astral travel when and where she can. She gives them a few hot tips for now. She sends a runner team pick it up, and the team meets Kukulkan’s team, who have been hunting Tzitzimine’s since a fovae spilled a bunch out in Tenochtitlan. Having rescued both Dyna and Kukulkan from the astral shadow prison of Fauth-Doshgoi, this team seems relatively well-disposed towards them, and interested in sharing info in the future when the team mentions some of their experiences and what they saw in Chicago and Kadath.

Aradia calls up the Sisterhood of Ariadne with the contact info she got, and gets a hold of a friendly older woman named Aunt Clara who is excited to buy the Compendium Malifecarum, and also to meet a young witch on the go, and invites Aradia to come visit their clubhouse in Snohomish. Aradia, as a longterm witch poser, it too excited to resist, and agrees, until the team team makes her call back and gets the witches to come to the casino, as per the plan, and aim for a hang sess later. They successfully make the handoff, and Aradia gets to meet 4 members of the coven, who are excited to meet her, seemingly, and share vague prophecies which could be pretty widely interpreted. Aradia warns them a bit that the house might be extra lucky tonight, but they seem to have a set budget for fun and aren’t worried.

The team then calls up Athack, and arranges for the KE Black Knight to come into Stuck’s without causing an incident. He shows up out of uniform in an unmarked APC, and takes the 2 evidence bags and the lil Black Book from them, giving them a silent nod before heading out to the well-armed and armored vehicle, likely full of backup. The team then begins debating how to get the Ring of Gyges and Babr-y-Bayn out of the casino, and out of town, safely. Fargus offers that Grey Cell has a contact in Brokerage X who has access to the global network of Freeports, which they can use to move themselves and the items without inspection, though not necessarily without interference. Carol is initially excited until Tabasco fills him in a bit more about the dark side of BX, based on his research into Toast and his downfall.

They decide to get Covalent’s assistance, and consulting him and Fargus, determine that their best bet is probably to get to Downtown and try to cross into OZ, the pocket plane in the plane of Kindred/Man that reflects Seattle. From there, they’ll just need to transit Kindred to the astral Great Library at Alexandria and arrange crossing into the physical plane to deliver the items. Kit plans to try to bring the van through, and the team starts prepping for the trip. They realize they may need to burn SINs to do this, as they’ll likely get recorded thoroughly travelling through Downtown (and a portal!) so Tabasco plans to ride in the smuggling compartment as he is the only one without a spare SIN, and he can an eye on the 2 artifacts down there.

Kit orders a rental truck full of sod to the casino, to get a second vehicle and try to gain some astral camo. Fargus arranges to leave with his knowledge, and says he hired a local crew run by a troll named Ms. Myth to escort him, so the team doesn’t need to worry. The team splits the sod between both vehicles and loads various containers into both. Aradia summons a Kindred spirit to ride in the sod truck and cast some illusions to make it look more occupied, and the team sends it off on Grid Guide, where it is quickly pursued and attacked. Meanwhile, they tell Takashi and Yoko to start taking out the opps drone and sniper overwatch, which Takashi especially does with relish. Interestingly, Tabasco gets another " unknown number text saying “I’ve got your 6” after an unseen sniper takes out one of the enemy drones that was following the team van.

Kit plans an incredibly tight and challenging route to Downtown, trusting their skill and knowledge, and manages to almost instantly ditch one of their tail cars. 2 moto’s remain, and Carol opens fire on them as they move into Renton. The bikers return fire, seemingly trying to disable the van, and do some serious damage, before Kit and Carol manage to drop both bikes, seemingly without killing either rider, which Kit is thrilled about. They white-knuckle it through the tight Downtown crowds during the last day of the weeklong festival, and call the contact Covalent gave them, a rift specialist named Tinman. Tinman seems a bit weird but caves to Carol’s threatening name drop of Covalent, and tells them there is an unstable portal to OZ just outside the Alabaster Maiden, so they race there, and manage to just slip through, clipping the mirrors off the damaged van, as the rift snaps shut.

They find themselves on Kindred, in a weird Frank Baum style reflection of Downtown Seattle, with strange representations of other districts in the distance. Rolling to a stop on the yellow road, they examine the camouflaged hay cart they are all now riding in, as Tabasco excavates himself from under the bales. They all seem intact, with only minor metaphorical changes to their equipment, with the tech all looking distinctly 20th century. Carol, with his incredible eyes, spots a teetering layer cake tower far in the distance, and assumes this must be the Library of Alexandria, based on descriptions, so they plan to make for that, hoping to avoid any trouble on the way….

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team starts making arrangements to get the VDH hoard job done, worried that others in town will beat them to it if they don’t make a move. They get a meeting with Stuck through Ranya Zhong (via Tommy Vermont), and cut a deal, though it’s a dangerous one. They agree to finally get involved with Free Seattle referendum, but instead of just finding out all the info, they agree to throw it towards independence on behalf of Stuck. He makes VERY clear that failure is not an option, and that their deaths will be long, messy and unpleasant if they do fail. However, with this out of the way, he agrees to give them private access to VDH’s vault under his casino, and allow them to keep whatever they find inside in exchange for clearing out the security, whatever it may be. He offers to help them sell anything they need if they wish.

The team stocks up on some B&E gear, including a counterspelling focus for Aradia to try to protect against magical traps. They head to Stuck’s, and get shown in the back by Zhong, who tells them they closed off the small area of hallway outside the vault door but that the team will be responsible should anything “get out” while they are clearing the vault. The team prepares to be cautious. Noticing that VDH upgraded his security since Joygirl IX’s visit, Kit manages to bypass the anti-tamper circuit and sequence the numeric code to get access to the bio-scanner. Kit decides not to mess with the one bit of matrix security visible- a simple “open/closed” switch attached to the door.

Creature warms up the bio-sample of VDH’s remains they got from Tosh Athack, and it scans successfully. Carol then inserts the magical frat ring and twists it, and the vault door hisses and cracks open. A foul stench emerges, which Carol begins analyzing, and then stops after almost puking. The team hauls open the vault door, and finds themselves staring into total dark, with a weird muffled effect on sound. Aradia goes astral and comes under attack from some kind of disturbing web, which manifests and continues attacking her after she drops out of astral. The team manage to kill it without taking much in the way of damage, though Aradia gets some unpleasant psychic feedback.

Almost immediately, Aradia gets tackled by a massive rotten panda, which charges out and mauls her. The team manage to wrestle if off and slay it, before seeing what seems to be an animating spirit leave the body and slip back into the vault. The panda corpse begins liquefying almost immediately, which helps explain the awful odor, further explained when they enter and find that a Sangre del Diablo tree has partially digested a man who seems to have been caught in it’s clutches. Aradia summons a fire spirit and sends it after the spirit they saw, and the team comes under attack from the tree (spitting out it’s previous meal), a floating eye, and a shadow beast. A twisted pile of limbs and organs cruelly kept alive by medical and alchemical technology also reorients itself towards them.

The eye slow most of them down with some sort of magic, and the shadow beast slices at them with claws that leave behind dripping shadowy ichor. Luckily, none of them take major damage as they manage to defeat these threats, though Tabasco is almost swallowed by the tree. The fire spirit reports that is has chased the enemy spirit from a skin suit it inhabited, into a key, and the fight continues, though Aradia has to keep using services to order it to keep fighting as it seems repulsed by the enemy, some sort of toxic spirit that fights back with an astral toxin that harms and disgusts the elemental. However, the fire spirit emerges victorious in the end and a loud crack rings through the vault.

The team carefully checks for further threats, and sensing none, begins to explore. Creature decides to kill the pile of limbs and organs, just in case, first with boiling elemental water in drake form, and then getting in close with the monofil garrotte. It takes a while and is disgusting work, with severed components turning to black sludge almost immediately. TT hauls the rotting panda corpse back into the vault and they seal up the door, not wanting to give any extra time for magical snoops to get a look inside. TT almost immediately starts feeling ill, and Kit is worried he caught something from contacting the panda corpse, however minimally, as he forces himself to vomit foul smelling substances.

Kit patches up Aradia’s armor a bit as the team catalogues the vault and debates what to do. It looks like what happened is that one of Tabasco’s list of missing freelancers, an alchemist, seems to have been trapped in here, seemingly by VDH, and forced to work on various craftings and potions. Unable to escape and without resupply after VDH’s death, he appears to have essentially activated all the security systems as an attempt at revenge from beyond the grave. It looks like much of the valuable alchemical gear, as well as a blood magic “shaman tuxedo”, were destroyed in the fight, but many artifacts, preparations, books and scrolls remain. Kit also just barely manages to gain access to a small floor safe without setting off it’s self destruct, finding a hard-wired burner comm (the vault door, when closed, blocks wireless), the little black book (which they owe to Athack), and 2 Tarot cards, inverted.

The Tarot cards in their presentation seem to back up what the team determines happened here, and also are obviously valuable in their own right, though the team plans to keep them. They check the book to ID some of the other items, and at least get names for many of them, as well as some info about what they fought and where VDH acquired it from, which all implies he had a lot of continental connections. It looks like some of the items in the vault had already been sold, also, though the team agrees not to honor those deals. Realizing they are in way over their head, they debate a few options (selling it all as one batch to AZT or someone else, trying to freelance auction it, etc) before deciding they need help to even know what things are worth, and what is too dangerous to sell.

They call up Fargus Sol and propose a deal: if he will catalogue and price the items present, they will let him set aside anything which seems too dangerous for selling, to either destroy locally and transfer to safekeeping with Arleesh. The team will be compensated for these items, as usual, though probably not as highly as they might have been if they auctioned them, but it gives them a lot more info, maintains a relationship, and is at least reasonably moral. Sol tells them he will bring a local crew called Howard and Phillips INC that specializes in the destruction of dangerous things and data, and will head over ASAP.

A few of the team head out back to receive the newcomers and bring them down to the vault, and check in with Zhong. They spot someone maybe surveilling them but lose sight quickly, and don’t want to chance pursuing, but warn Zhong who says she will have security keep an eye out back. Sol and the H&P team head down, and he begins sorting the items. He convinces the team to transfer the Babr-y-Bayn armor (made of dragonskin) and the Ring of Gyges (madness-inducing invisibility at will) to safekeeping with Arleesh, as he isn’t sure they can be destroyed but believes them to be too dangerous to let loose in the world.

They set aside various toxic, bug, blood etc reagents, a hand of glory and a few blood magic scrolls, as well as some organs harvested from various metavariants and sapient critters for destruction, after some discussion, and also the SDD tree, which looks to be one of the rare HMHVV-infected variety- Tabasco is especially glad it didn’t get through his armor now! Sol also gets TT to drink a delicious elixir to cure the disease he caught from the panda corpse, even though it was very valuable, as it will save his life. The H&P team do some careful initial destruction on-site, in case they are stopped or attacked, to make sure the things they are leaving with are no longer valuable for harvesting or reuse, before heading out.

Sol stays and gets the team some price suggestions for the items he considers safe to sell, and says he/Arleesh would likely be interested in some of them, though probably couldn’t compete at open market prices. He seems especially interested in/concerned about a chunk of the Cornerstone, a mystical object from the Seelie Court that can supposedly control the castle and allow easier movement around it. The team realizes it resembles one of the monolith symbols on the Tarot cards, and Creature sets the card in question on a table next to the Cornerstone with some intention. The card burns up and vanishes, and the Cornerstone vibrates, disappears, and reappears where the card was.

Watching in astral, Sol and Aradia suggest that the card summoned the stone. The team frantically searches through the cards they have to see if they have any others that have unique symbols on them. They destroy a few in experimentation before getting one right, and manage to summon a second chunk of Cornerstone. Both Sol and the team realize the implications of this and get a bit stressed out at what they’ve uncovered: this is essentially priceless info and items, which could make their sale a bit problematic, but this is a major discovery…

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

Aradia reaches out to the ASPS to offer to work together on entropy circle business, getting a contact from Maggie Magnusson, and talking a bit about weird local magic. Jaliyah Angél, the local ASPS liaison, agrees to share data and work together, since DeeCee, Boston, and especially Chicago have pulled a lot of the available resources for the org. She also asks the team to look into local Spirit of the City rumors and sightings if they get a chance, since they seem to have some affinity for that. Aradia and team agrees. Aradia also plans to get in touch with the Sisterhood of Ariadne but doesn’t feel up to venturing up to Snohomish yet, so plans to follow up on linking up with the diviners later.

The team decides they should follow up on the ARES lab that’s been out of comms for a few weeks now, and decide to do the job for Juan, since they didn’t get him anything on the space lab. They plan to give Vogel the info without the paydata, and try to appease Candice by revealing that AZT has a mole in their corp. Juan puts them in touch with a local info broker contact, Izidor Kurtlanik, and they meet him at a Downtown sports bar, which is noisy enough to provide a reasonably secure convo, especially once he turns on a white noise generator as well. He gives them contact info for their inside man, who will help them avoid sensor/security trouble on the way in, and will provide the secure password needed to gain access to the private elevator to the lab. They negotiate pay, and agree to do the job soon.

They stock up on some supplies, armaments, ammo, fake ID’s and permits, and some potions from Squeamish. They pose as musicians plus entourage/bodyguards to have a reason to be hauling a bunch of cased gear in a van through downtown, using the multi-location weeklong music fest as a cover. They make it into the lobby with no trouble, and blag their way past the security guard with the help of “Webmaster”, the inside man. Using the provided codes of the day, they gain access to the secure elevator, and head down to the lab, gearing up for combat on the way. They emerge into a disturbing scene- arcane sigils line the walls and floor, but appear powered down, and there’s some odd stains and overturned furniture in various states of disrepair just outside the elevator.

Weirdly, as they head further in, the cafeteria, kitchen, med lab and dorms all appear undisturbed, as if they were abruptly abandoned with no time to shutdown or clean up. They find records in the med lab suggesting that the facility has 12 people on staff. They head further in and find the first body – which strangely appears to have been turned into a husk by some sort of magical effect or strange weapon, it looks to Kit like years of decay occurred effectively simultaneously. They find 2 more bodies in a lounge area, who appear to have been killed while napping and gaming respectively, so it seems the killers were either very sneaky, very fast, or both.

They find a secure data lab, which has been breached, and locate the body of lab lead Robert Hammond, who had been summoned down to this lab from Daedelus station after some sort of major discovery here. Carol knows he is a specialist in weaponized manatech, and assumes that something has gone horribly wrong. They also spot that Hammond almost managed to call in Firewatch through a secure line to Carol’s dad, who is working directly under Damien Knight. Kit begins working on gaining access to the servers, while Carol heads back to the lounge to get some water to rehydrate Hammond’s finger to get it to work on the bio-scanner.

As he returns, Carol spots something upsetting- a floating tentacled crab monster made of some void-black like material with odd glowing eyes traveling up and down it’s tentacles. Carol warns the team and they enter combat. They are having trouble damaging it with conventional weaponry, until Tabasco makes some progress with his bow and TT manages to finish it off with a javelin thrust and punch combo. However, it manages to do incredible damage to both TT and his armor, using some spikes on it’s undercarriage- whatever this spirit is seems to be what killed the others here, as TT’s armor rusts and cracks where he is hit, and the area under ages a few years just from the small contact. He’s glad he dodged most of the spikes.

They get into the computer system while Tabasco takes watch in the hallway to keep more threats from sneaking up. Kit manages to wipe the headware systems of a few other scientists on-site, unlock a safe in a different area, and get copies of both project data and Hammond’s notes before wiping the system with nanites. Apparently they found a Latin copy on an ancient book, which contains a formula for summoning strange spirits from an unknown home plane. They managed to summon and bind some of these spirits in special containers, and Hammond was excited about their destructive capabilities, though both the summoning and binding was unexpectedly difficult, even for the talented corp ritualists they brought in for the project.

Then, they accidentally summoned a spirit too powerful to contain, which broke itself and the others free before they could banish it. Almost half the staff was killed in the initial outbreak, and the rest have hunkered down in various different warded areas to monitor the situation and try to regain control. However, nothing they try worked and the spirits seem to have a corrosive effect on magical spells, wards, etc. They eventually gain access to all the employees and kill them, Hammond last of all, just before he can call in the emergency signal. Up til then, he seemed content to merely collect data and hope for the best, not wanting to admit failure.

The team continues, and finds a prep area and 2 doors. They decide to leave the larger door for last, and Tabasco heads into the smaller room, finding the safe which contains the ancient book. He comes under attack from another spirit, and Creature has luckily stripped down and flipped into drake form, where xe finds that xyr elemental water power seems effective against the spirit, as do punches from TT and Kit. They manage to defeat this spirit without significant damage, and open the safe. It was still warder, though the outside is pitted with rust and decay. They find a book with blood-red leather covers, that seems very old, as advertised, but also in remarkably good shape.

They all decide they’ll need to have a convo after they get out of there about whether or not it’s safe to pass this on to AZT, but for now they feel they need to disrupt any other spirits onsite, perhaps as many as 4 more, since otherwise they will likely escape, given time, an cause unknown amounts of trouble. Aradia has noticed that they seem to corrupt the background count at an advanced rate, which is also quite worrying. The team tracks down 2 more spirits in the containment room and manages to disrupt them without much damage to themselves. However, based on the number of destroyed cages there are still 2 spirits missing. The team heads back towards the exit, clearing and closing off room as they go. They get in a brutal brawl with the final 2 spirits, which are both a bit larger. TT almost dies, and Tabasco and Kit are both badly injured.

However, they do defeat the spirits, and then make a pile of all bodies, terminals, notes, etc in the server room, and use some chems from the kitchen and med lab, plus some incendiary arrows, plus a fire spirit to incinerate everything after Kit disables the fire suppression systems in that room. They head back up the elevator, with Aradia maintaining some illusions to prepare for a potential trap. However, they easily leave past the lone lobby guard, who seems professionally uninterested. They all burn their SINs that they got for the job, and get out of Downtown before debating what to do. Tabasco believes strongly that they cannot possibly pass the book along to AZT, feeling that no corp or entity should have access to this awful power. He wants to either destroy it or pass it to Arleesh. However, the rest of the team has money signs in their eyes, and also doesn’t want to take a rep hit or burn their ties to Juan Xiuhuitl. Heavily outvoted, Tabasco gives in, but reiterates that this is deeply wrong.

They contact Webmaster, who passes along the details for the meet. They link up with Izidor Kurtlanik, with a beefier security detail this time, in an empty lot in Redmond, and pass over the book and data. He seems pleased, and gives them the pay. The team mostly heads to various clinics to get some ’ware upgrades and new gear, while Creature heads out to Blake Island to get some drake lessons from G-Dub, having been impressed by how well xyr abilities worked versus the spirits. Tabasco, depressed, gets roped into helping TT make a delivery the next day: the Sea Dragon found an appropriate gift for the Vault of Lore. They pick it up from Eletheria, and head Underground. As usual, Tabasco hangs back at the appropriate point, and TT heads into the Vault. The Lorekeepers are mightily impressed with the gift, a collection of lost texts about 4th World troll culture, language, and magic bound with a folded dragon scale, seemingly from the legendary library at Barsaive, one of the wonders of the 4th World.

The Lorekeepers agree to the Sea Dragon’s proposition to work together on her research needs in exchange for her patronage, and also tell TT about an ork and troll magic order called the Turgan Magnu, who they think will gain valuable knowledge and influence from this. TT is now a member in good standing of the VoL and can come and go as he pleases. He and Tabasco go drinking in celebration, with TT not wanting to just be a tourist, and making sure to spend money when he comes underground. He gets Tabasco to try Hurlg, which goes about as expected. Tabasco staggers back to his safehouse, and finds out that Creature paid him a visit and left him a present: the strange desiccated grub that xe got from the Dis Trader on the moon. Wanting to feel something new after the revelations about his parents and getting outvoted on a moral issue, Tabasco shoves the grub in his mouth and passes out.

He wakes up and finds that grub has replaced his tongue. He can no longer taste normally but seems to be able to “taste” astral space, and calls Aradia up to ask for some lessons. He also thanks Creature for the gift. Initially he mostly notices that his condo tastes a little sad and lonely, though with some recent excitement overlaid. He gets another session with Hard Case, and gets some lessons about how this recent moral defeat could help him define his code and make sure he knows what questions to ask before a job, and what also what jobs not to take, or how and where to define hard lines with the team.

Carol calls up Vogel after he gets out of surgery, and passes along the info about what happened on the mission. He gets an angry call from his dad about the lab, with his dad seeming to suspect his involvement. However, Carol has learned that Excalibur wasn’t quite the failure it was presented as, and knows that his dad knew and still threw him under the bus. Carol tips his dad that AZT has a spy inside ARES, blowing Webmaster’s cover, and then he surprises his dad by not caving to his anger, which seems to throw his dad off, so he ends the call but seems disappointed and still pissed.

Aradia goes clubbing, stopping in at Club Penumbra and chatting a bit with Nyssa Hallas. She gives some warnings that even having shut down the Blue Dragons and Project Iapetus, as well as getting that one Death Ship raided, the disappearances continue. She also says that she had her matrix guy take a look at the Iron Jungle and they have matrix security that is way too good, and also pretty weird and upsetting- not something he had seen before and he didn’t want to get closer to. Hallas also gives Tabasco and Aradia some missions to scope out new joints around town- a hot new private venue in Snohomish amongst them. Aradia gives in to Seducer and takes too many drugs, so TT calls her an armored cab home via Bernie Carter. Aradia also looks into rumors that Spinrad’s newish wife Gabrielle Al’Thani is throwing around a lot of money looking into any potential dalliances he may be engaging in.

Carol talks to Vogel somewhere, and tries really hard not to call him “dad” with all the positive reinforcement he gets. Vogel thanks Carol for the info, discusses where the book came from and what it means (seemingly, when V’Golkatl opened those doors in Kadath before the team captured it, it opened up some previously unknown metaplanar pathways and connections). He tells Carol that there will be a place at ARES waiting for him once Vogel makes his move, as he’ll need useful people that he can trust near to him.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team follows up on a few things, as Carol continues prepping for the ARES lab raid- he’s got it all figured out, they’ll need to go in quiet since there’s only one secure elevator in and out, and they can use the huge multi-location music festival downtown this week as cover for moving themselves and gear around in a big van without unusual suspicion. He’s gonna feel out the various options for Johnson, and then it’s time to make some money and go to work.

Kit links up with Hans Yolo to talk more about the carboxing league, having to decided to call it “Glovebox” (get it?). Yolo suggests a few organized crime connections who might be good to loop in, and since Tabasco is skeptical of Enzo Gianelli based on his Urban Brawl tampering, they go with Bing-Lei Shen, a fashionable Triad boss with a few tough looking women guarding him, fresh in from Hong Kong- presumably this new imported muscle is a sign of the ongoing syndicate wars as well. Shen agrees to watch a test bout, and Yolo unveils the craft he’s been working on obsessively, a trike with 2 unfolding arms- lighter and faster than Kit’s one-armed van, but with less power. They have an initial match, and Kit dominates, but offers to help Yolo fix up and tweak his craft.

Shen then challenges Kit to take the van up against him, and smoothly leaps into the air and kicks the hand off Kit’s van arm without doing significant damage, with a perfect Bruce Lee yell. Everyone is very impressed, except his bodyguards, who roll their eyes. However, Shen agrees that this has promise, and says they came to the right guy. They plan to shut down some streets in Puyallup and have some escape routes out into the Ashlands if the cops come in hot. They’re scheming on a combo of arena bouts, as well as combat racing, but all with the “unarmed combat via a vehicle” angle. Exciting. The team heads over to Squick’s Vaults to check out their “secure storage” bolthole, and find it very much to their satisfaction: the owner, Squick, seems grumpy, watchful, and paranoid, and the onsite security measures look beefy, and their unit seems exactly as promised.

Creature wants to deliver the package given to xyr by Eletheria, so the team rents a speedboat and heads out to Blake Island, where they meet a steely-eyed STV lawyer named Eva Mari, who seems amused to see Tabasco, as she appears to have been the fund manager on his unofficial bereavement settlement from ARES. Creature passes over the package, and Mari scans it with a sensor -covered cyberhand, and the team can see reflected data flow across her cyber-eyes. She says all looks in order, and congratulates River Guard Investments in being the new owners of the private island, a former state park. It seems the Sea Dragon now owns an island in the Sound….

Mari gripes a bit as she boards a VTOL drone about STV not being willing to spring for a chopper for her. Shortly thereafter, a dwarf woman with a shark-y aspect wearing only a loincloth, swims up to the island, and introduces herself as G-Dub. Tabasco recognizes her gang tat’s as signifying her as a longterm member of the Red Hot Nukes who recently left the gang on good terms. She tells Creature that she has been put in charge of security for the island, as well as assessing it’s condition, but that the team’s welcome to hang there for a while if they wish. G-Dub admires TT’s bod as he strips down to sunbath, Kit stays with/in the boat, and the rest of the team takes advantage of the low tide to explore some narrow exposed tunnels riddling the shoreline.

Assensing, Aradia detects some sort of incredibly pure water magic source deep in the tunnels, and assumes that there’s either a metaplanar connection or a leyline somewhere, but they fail to find their way there. Summoning some water spirits to help them escape before the tides come in, Aradia finds they come out much more powerful than expected, due to the local aspect. Creature plans to return and explore further in Drake form and explore more, noticing that the tunnels seems almost perfectly sized for that. The island life is starting to convince Kit that being friends with the Sea Dragon might not be the worst…

They had back to land, and follow up on another thread: the Shadow Chapters. Tabasco uses Flipside to get a meet with Mrs. Snow, at a neutral downtown spot called Cuppa Joe’s. They meet Snow, and albino elf who play it up, in a secure room in the back, and have a not fully conclusive meeting where they try to push her on disappearances and potentially creepy local SC behavior, and she explains they aren’t in Chicago anymore, and that without a common enemy it will be a lot harder to unite everyone behind the idea, so they’ll have to work a little more harshly to get it done here. The team agrees to work with her but remains untrusting. She also essentially admits that they are doing some personality alterations to some local figures who are useful in the economy/scale but were not reliable, previously, like Flipside. Kit already has a couple recruits to the cause though, and Snow seems mostly friendly and like she’s trying to explain different realities to them, rather than manipulate them. She gives them a few initial tasks to look into when they have time.

Aradia decides she wants to look into some strange “entropy circles” that have cropped up around Auburn once each of the last 3 full moons, and the team does some matrix research and goes and looks at them and takes Quicksilver photos. Aradia determines that whatever is being done has some sort of Luna/Comet connection, and creates a perfect spherical radius of entropy that not only drains anything caught inside it of life, but also completely destroys the manasphere inside it as well, and that it seems to only be healing VERY slowly. Worrying! They look up the next full moon, and plan to do some more research in the next few weeks before returning to perhaps catch someone in the act. They think it might be toxies of some sort, given the proximity to the very polluted Lake Tapps.

TT checks in with Eletheria, and arranges to reach out on the Sea Dragon’s behalf to the Lorekeepers, in further seeking out the “Deep City”. He pays another visit to the Vault of Lore, solo to make sure he gets in. He speaks to Ned again, and Ned agrees to at least share research in exchange for an appropriate contribution. TT contributes some original research of his to a guestbook, which magically sorts it into an appropriate section, and Ned explains that the gift was a book from a librarian at the Seelie Court who came to visit once, seeking some esoteric info. He also tells TT a bit more about the history of the Vault and the Lorekeepers, and their connections to the indigenous shamans at Uluru in Australia, who taught them some of the ritual magic they use to keep the Vault secure but still accessible. TT reports in and Eletheria says she will acquire an appropriate initial gift from the Sea Dragon’s hoard while the Lorekeepers discuss a further alliance.

Creature wants to start checking out the local paracritter scene, so they head up to Blackstone’s in Snohomish, and find that it unfortunately seems to be owned/operated by metaracists, given it’s seemingly intentionally un-troll-friendly design. TT shrugs it off and they learn a decent bit looking at both the zoo and museum portions. Tabasco stays outside, spotting a small runner crew, all human, with some customized dart rifles, seemingly transferring some caged beasts to and from the facility. The team heard rumors that this place helped with import papers and supplied some of the fighting beasts to the Coliseum, and assume this must be part of that. Tabasco mentally designs a tracking arrow with a detaching shaft, to be able to quietly track vehicles like this in the future. The human members have a revealing convo with the nightshift front desk employee, further confirming the metaracist vibes of the spot. Creature is disappointed overall, but got to see a lot of new critters xe had only read about, so still some exciting inspo at least.

Feeling like the night’s still young (it’s not) the team wakes up Tommy Vermont in his apartment/office in Stuck’s, and hires him on to makes some introductions for them, to try and get the stuff they need to get into Van Der Hum’s vault under Stuck’s casino. Vermont suggests they cut Stuck in via Ranya Zhong and just try to gain legit access, as Stuck would take it poorly if they acted against his security. He also puts them in touch with the Black Knight leader/KE detective Tosh Athack, who agrees to meet them the next morning at the Big Rhino downtown. The team finally crashes out after a long day, scattered around between safehouses.

The next day Tabasco and Aradia rally to head to the meeting and find Athack, a very buff troll, wolfing down some food at the restaurant. In exchange for VDH’s “little black book” of clients, sales, etc that he always kept offline in the vault, Athack agrees to get biosamples and his signet ring out of evidence at the KE morgue where the body has thus far gone unclaimed, as the team needs these particulars to gain access, based on the info they got from reading Joygirl IX’s mind. Athack tells them he will need whatever he provides back at the end of the deal, but otherwise seems to be fully onboard- this could be some major evidence and /or leverage against some powerful individuals.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

While day drinking after their semi-successful recon mission at The Joke, ThinkTank convinces most of the team that they should really take a vacation. As Tabasco and Carol don’t initially seem interested, they decide to plan a longer group trip for the future, and just each take a few days staycation around town to work on their own stuff for now. They hire 9Tails, Creep, Yoko Aruki and Kobold to do the actual run on the Iapetus lab, giving them all the info, and taking a small finder’s fee from the rate they negotiated with Annie. Their hired crew manages the job well, getting the data and finding out that the kidnapped awakened people are either turned into Yakuza killing machines or sacrificed in an attempt to trigger/copy awakening in others. Yoko kills all the scientists on site and burns the lab with white phos grenades, hating metahuman smuggling, and offers the team more work for Las Muñecas if they’re interested. Kit doesn’t approve of the high lethality but has a hard time arguing against the team, given the morality of that lab. Carol splits off for a bit to begin doing recon on the ARES lab raid job, and figuring out which employer to do it for.

With Annie’s help the team gets ahold of Giovanni Pentti, an MCT shadow fixer, and negotiate to not release the Iapetus data / publicize the experiments in exchange for MCT getting the Yak to stop kidnapping the awakened, leave Takashi alone, and not come after the team. Pentti agrees, and offers the team future work, appreciating their professionalism. After that they head into some time off, heading back to their various safehouses, though TT accidentally reveals to Tabasco that his mom killed his dad, so Tabasco needs some time to process. He decides he wants to have the team over, and consults with Emdachot Fahd, his building super/caretaker about updating his unit for guests, and she helps him take down his childhood posters and racecar bed, basically his only furniture, and replace them with a new generic flatpack condo set. Unfortunately, Tabasco leaves his eyes connected to the TacNet so the team sees what he’s up to and Kit especially gets pretty depressed about how he’s been living.

The crew heads out to meet up with Covalent, following up on Vogel’s reco for a safehouse for the sub when it arrives. They find a strange, animalistic man living in an abandoned, moldering mansion on Fox Island, and make a deal to trade him certain Tarot cards for his assistance. He seems to have very powerful magic and some kind of animal form but the team can’t quite figure him out. He seems to want to fuck with the Seelie Court, fairly explicitly, and the team’s latent connections to the Unseelie seem to reassure him. Kit arranges to return to help guide the sub in in a few days. They then head to Eletheria and finally meet up with her, check in about Sea Dragon jobs, and get a few further tasks. She’s using a formerly sunken luxury yacht as a safehouse, which it seems like the Sea Dragon brought up off the ocean floor and only patched up the outside, the inside still shows many signs of longterm water damage and rust. But the meeting goes well. Creature arranges to do some drake lessons with Eletheria, and begins perfecting xyr abilities.

The team collabs on some research and Tarot analysis to seek out Van Der Hum’s hoard, and gets some good intel: the figure depicted on the card is a runner named “Joygirl IX” who is an amnesiac with expert impersonation skills and an unknown metatype. They reach out and offer to swap info, and she just happens to be in town, having just completed a job and not yet left on the next one. She reveals that she knows that she is on the card, having retrieved it on a run, which was what started her on Tarot investigations and on regaining what she can from her memory. She agrees to let Aradia mind probe her, with some contractual caveats about what Aradia/the team can do with the info, after checking the team’s street rep and finding it quite good.

They meet up in a tech and gear alley in Auburn near the Clone Zone mall, right down the block from Technicolor Wings’ local office, it seems like JGIX at least has the use of a small roll-up storage locker here, and it is maybe an in-town safehouse of sort- conveniently near the international smugglers. She has some drone security, concealed, that Tabasco and Creature spot while they are also doing overwatch, and Kit stays with the van, perusing the various wares for sale in the neighborhood and dropping some digital flyers for their “Glovebox” carboxing league that they’re trying to get going. TT and Aradia head in, and find JGIX waiting with an old Italian man sitting a ways back in the corner keeping an eye on things. Aradia probes her mind, and manages to break through a hidden magical partition where it looks like someone really tried to secret away some memories they couldn’t erase.

It seems she was hired on a job to access Van Der Hum’s hoard herself, some time ago, and managed to find out that it required both some bio-data and a fraternity signet ring (explaining the greek letters on the Tarot card) to access. It seems she gained access but whatever she found inside has been cleared. It seems like some unknown scientists (who were very careful to conceal faces and voices while detectable by her) used one of the early CFD experimental “cures” to effectively but crudely mind wipe and rebuild her with her current skills via skillwares and wires. This explains her occasionally somewhat rote way of negotiating, etc. It is unclear if Van Der Hum was the one who originally did this to her, or is she got mind-wiped twice, but she thanks them for the info and says she has a lot to think about. Kit manages to ID the old Italian as Fianchetto, a legendary spy and Jackpoint-er, who seems to have taken a shine to JGIX after working some jobs together, and has had her guestpost a few times to share Tarot info on the board.

Tabasco has everyone over to celebrate, and they all get VERY interested in what exactly is up with his life. It turns out his building super/caretaker Emdachot is an ex-Ork Underground freedom fighter (or terrorist, depending who you ask) with the Sons of Sauron. She owns up to it when they ask, but has intentionally damaged her face and fingerprints to make it harder to ID her. Tabasco realizes she basically always stays in the building too… he calls Don Michaels, who explains that she did him a favor a long time back, and he helped her get out of the life when she needed to. Satisfied, the team decides to let that lie, but chides Tabasco on his inability to cook for himself, do his own laundry etc. They find the building laundry room, and notice that there’s a hidden tunnel behind the dryer. Aradia uses pyschometry to figure out that it’s a secret Underground entrance, seemingly used by Emdachot’s family to move trog families around away from prying eyes.

Tabasco, his mind a bit blown from all these revelations about his life, drinks for the first time. The next day, Kit heads to Covalent’s rotting mansion to help guide the sub in, and is interested to see that Covalent seems to open up a portal to some sort of water plane to hide it in- a very secure safehouse indeed. He says if the team keeps paying him in other Tarot cards and the like, he will work other “miracles” for them too. The team chats with Takashi once they get ahold of him to tell him he’s safe from Yakuza threats, and he tells them he’s been hiding out in and around Glow City, and investigating both the Rusted Stilettos and some local toxic druids (not the Isotopes, interestingly) who seem to be kidnapping people and disappearing them through astral rifts, telling them to “embrace the glow.” They compare notes a bit and agree to collab on diving deeper into this eventually. It seems like Takashi is setting himself up as a bit of a do-gooder, and maintains his sunny attitiude, despite leaving a trail of extreme violence from his good deeds.

Kit logs off the call, disturbed again by the violence, but everyone else is stoked to hear he’s doing well, although a little worried about what he may be uncovering. Aradia, Kit and Tabasco head to Squeamish’s alchemy lab in Auburn, and pick up a Vault of Ages so that Aradia can start collecting ritual samples from targets that the team needs to magically effect and stashing them at the safehouse. They also make a disturbing introduction to the powerful alchemist, who seems like a real creepy weirdo but has a lot of useful intel and knowledge, and hints at available work and exciting projects, and seems like one of the least prejudiced against Monads people that Kit has met who have known that they are a Monad.

Think Tank, Tabasco and Aradia then head into the Underground, checking out Touristville and the various stalls, restaurants, trade bazaar’s, etc, eventually working their way to the Ork Underground, away from the more “official” policed portion. They find a monument to a runner who died protecting multiple families from a violent eviction, and note that is the man depicted on the Karma card. They are a bit inspired by his legend. They eventually find the Underground branch of Sticks and Stones, and TT gets chatted up by a nattily-dressed pimp, dealer, and fight promoter named Fancy Derek. As TT initially claims he’s not great at unarmed combat despite his size, Derek tries to get him to agree to take a fall, and Tabasco commiserates, having done so himself with complicated feelings about it still.

TT says that that is against his code, says that actually he’s decent at fighting, so Derek agrees to make some introductions for him in the Underground if he wins. He challenges the biggest and roughest looking of the Rooter gangers who are training there, a buff ork named Mariusz. TT throws him off by being friendly and asking questions instead of buying into the pre-fight shit-talking, and they agree to go for drinks after. TT wins the fight via a technicality, as Mariusz is quite skilled, but gets some solid hits in, and Derek says he’ll put the word out about a solid new troll in town on TT’s behalf. TT and the Rooters head out for drinks, but Mariusz tells Aradia and Tabasco to head back at this point, as the place they’re going isn’t friendly to unknown “smoothies.”

They hit up a bar even deeper in the Underground called the Watering Hole, and the Rooters warn TT about the Feral Underground areas, including a ghoul neighborhood, and the Depths- unexplored, unknown locales filled with danger and mystery. They hang in a back room at the bar, and TT admires the skilled dwarven carvings that someone has crudely modded to have more orkish faces. The Rooters get him to try the “Dunkelzahn hot” rat-on-a-stick, and impressed by his fortitude and lack of machoness around it, both, seem to accept him as a decent sort. They tell him to stick around a while, and take off. After TT has a chance to sober up just a bit from the Hurlg, he spots an eye watching him from a recess in the carvings.

A door swings open along a previously concealed seam, and a troll with a staff and cloak does a brief interview to make sure TT is acceptable, before taking him to the Vault of Lore, a legendary Undergound library maintained by an order of troll Lorekeepers. The troll, Ned, explains that they “sing the stone” to keep the passages to the VoL secret, especially with all the new interest in the Underground. He gives TT the tour, and TT notices that though the space appears built with dwarven craft, it is all sized for trolls as well, implying a past collab before the current schism in their cultures (or at least in the popular representation of such). He finds a comfortable reading nook commemorating a fallen runner named Christopher Toff that has a cozy chair, a small shelf, and some carvings of dragons, and settles in to peruse the library, finding some fascinating 4th World hints of something called “the Deep City” and something called “Kothan Kaer”.

He plans to dig deeper, but satisfied that he’s made a good first impression, calls it a day with plans to return, once he sees what it is that the Sea Dragon wants with this place. Ned tells him that as an assassin, he might be best used to preventatively protect the VoL’s secrets, and TT says he would be happy to do so.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team links back up with Aradia, who has completed setting up her magical lodge at the safehouse, and compliments TT on his new slightly slicker looks. They rest up and Aradia also gets a task from the Sea Dragon: seek out a lost vault of a dead man who “wanted to be a dragon” based on the size of his hoard. The team decides to meet Tabasco in Puyallup again and go through with their kidnap and mind probe plan to get info from Han Liu of the Blue Dragons. They stop in Downtown to get Carol’s modded rifle back from Iva, who flirts heavily with Aradia until TT gets impatient and interrupts with a huge fart. They get back on the road, and meet Tabasco near the Sleeping Dragon, the BD’s clubhouse/vice den. Carol, Creature and Tabasco all surveil from some nearby roofs for a while, while TT keeps an eye on the area and also on Aradia, who goes astral to scout it out as well. Kit cruises around in the van to get a feel for the streets/escape routes/etc.

Not seeing much magic nearby, and seeing only 1 prospect tasked with guarding the bikes, Aradia makes Kit invisible and Kit sneaks up to the parked bikes and uses their nanite cloud to infiltrate the biggest and nicest one, surely Han Liu’s. Aradia disguises herself a bit and magically enhances her fashion before heading into the bar to seduce Han Liu. She manages it almost comically quickly, and gets him to take her for a ride on his bike. Tabasco calls in a favor from Stella K, the TM he rescued from Alice’s lab, who loops the bikes signal, making it look like it’s coming from a nearby Bump and Sleep love hotel. 2 more BD’s follow on bike’s discretely to keep an eye on the boss, but hang back a few blocks and don’t seem to notice anything wrong, but Tabasco stays back to keep an eye on them.

Aradia drugs Han, and Kit takes over the bike, steering it carefully to keep Han onboard since Aradia isn’t very strong. They head out to a barren spot in the Ashlands, and park the van and set up a little perimeter while Aradia mind probes the unconscious Han. They find out a lot of useful info: the Blue Dragons are picking up awakened victims kidnapped and sold by Alice and other gangs, and delivering them to a secret lab under a Yakuza bar downtown called The Joke. This all has to do with Project Iapetus, and Han knows that Takashi is wanted by the Yakuza in connection with this as well, but doesn’t know more than that. He seems insecure about his potential for advancement in the syndicate as he is an elf, and Aradia finds out that he has a cousin in the Ancients who he keeps in touch with, but can’t find any really juicy blackmail other than the normal crime stuff that the BD’s do.

They sneakily return Han and his bike to the love hotel, using one of the many entrances where the BD goons can’t see them. Hoping that Han will be too embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t remember anything, they call it job done and head out. Tabasco calls Annie, and updates her, she pays them and offers more cash for getting into the lab and finding out what the Yak is actually doing with the awakened there, and also any project data they can get. Worst case, it will maybe be some good leverage against MCT at some point, due to their past involvement. The team agrees, but calls it a day for now, inviting Tabasco back to the safehouse, though he has to sleep on a couch. He’s very impressed by the digs after initially being put off by the rural setting.

Aradia calls Simonetta Chandra, and suggests she get transferred to Seattle, which she reluctantly agrees to, as Aradia has her blackmailed successfully still. Tabasco hears from Butch, who fills him in the weird “mind/body separation” experiment that Alice seemed to be running, and it seems like Stella K got saved just in time, though from what is unclear, and also she has definitely been altered by the experience. Aradia also checks in with Lothan, who still isn’t doing super well but gives some reco’s for Seattle magical orders to learn spells from. The team calls up Patty C and Wingman to try to get Lothan some help and they say they’ll see what they can do, but years of being a dick seem to have effected a bit who wants to go out of their way for him. The team also hires Creep and 9Tails to track down Takashi and warn him to lay low, and to give a location non-specific update on how he’s doing.

The next day, they drop Aradia off at the Mana schoolhouse in West Redmond, with Tabasco providing some warnings about what gangs to watch out for. Aradia manages to learn her spell quickly and get out of there, but does end up chatting a bit with a ‘Weener razorgirl named Borderline. She then gets an armored cab ride from Bernie Carter over to meet up with the team. Meanwhile, the team has been hanging out at The Joke and scoping it out. They know from Han where the secret garage entrance is off the back alley, but it looks pretty high security, so they want to scout out the inside a bit more. They do some karaoke and drink as a cover, and figure out that one of the 3 elevators in the elevator bank goes below ground, as well as servicing the MCT extra-territorial housing units above. The floor is reinforced enough that Tabasco can’t see through it with radar, and Carol see that the elevator is activated with a palm-print and key reader, unclear if it’s either or both since the staff keeps chasing them away from the elevator area.

They eventually get kicked out for being a little too snoopy, and Aradia walks right by them to go in when she arrives, to finish the recon. She spots a mana barrier on the down elevator, but nothing else of note. They all link back up at the Alabaster Maiden to grab another drink, in case anyone is seeing where they go next, as they want to just look like day drunks and not runners on a recon mission. Creature spots a Talis cat near the kitchen, and joins it sitting in a weak sunbeam, which the cat seems fine with. They discuss taking some time off soon to go on a little vacation somewhere, though it’s unclear if all of them want to, or want to go to the same places if so.

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.

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…

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and goodbye to: Foghairal ke’Coille

The team can’t sort out what to do with the data right away, so they decide to finish up all their missions and then sort it out. Most of the team head for Zurich Orbital after leaving basically all their gear in a rented hotel room at Artemis base on Luna. Kit, refusing to participate in a hit, luckily gets a call from Fagus Sol while monitoring the gear, and heads to Darkside Junction to investigate an astronomer’s mysterious death. The team on ZO gets a tour after Foggy uses the local STV branch to rep her as a visiting dignitary (not really even a lie), and then do a bunch of research on Fentin. With the help of a comatose technomancer who works for STV and spends her entire life in the ZO matrix, they plant some falsified and altered evidence of nefarious activity on Fentin’s part, and also publicize a statement he posted on Jackpoint when he got membership some years ago. Hotkey helps with some hacking since he’s also on the line with the Tan Robes to get this done.

They stir up a scandal by making it look like GOD is trying to cover up creepy behavior and abuse of power on Fentin’s part, and station security uses the opportunity to seize some power in their ongoing competition, and gets Fentin sent downwell in custody to face charges. He likely would have gotten his named cleared from the investigation had he survived the trip, but the Tan Robes mash him into a fine mist inside his transit cell as soon as he enters the manasphere. So that’s job done, and Carol gets a creepy smiley face text from an anonymous number, so he figures they’re good.

Foggy announces that’s she’s headed back downwell and to the Seelie Court, after convincing the team to give her the Spirit of the City info re: Chicago as payment for helping with the hit. She invites them to visit sometime, but Carol’s not sure he’d be welcome since he did some major work for the Unseelie last time he was there. However, Foggy has sworn to ensure that both STV and ARES get at least the opportunity to establish a successful presence at Court, and will likely be a useful ally given the nearly sure rise through the ranks she will be able to engineer upon her return given the info and artifacts she is bringing with her.

Meanwhile, on Darkside, Kit begins their investigation- they link up with a local info broker, Maxine Omega, who they found on Asgard Data Haven. Asking some questions, Kit is socially out-maneuvered and agrees to share their investigation info. Kit heads to the astronomer’s lab, and finds evidence that nanites and an EMP were used, implying tech-savvy attackers but not Monads. The data has all been trashed but some various scattered notes give Kit the name of another astronomer and some Tarot cards the astronomer was looking into.

Checking back in with Omega, Kit gets a tip as to some strange folks who just came through seemingly posing as miners, flying a salvage ship in mediocre shape. Checking their purchase logs, Kit finds that they bought up a ton of unprocessed high-magnetism metals from various brokerages around the station before leaving- so not real miners. Plotting their trajectory, Kit determines that they’re headed towards Jupiter. Calling the other astronomer, Kit finds out that the dead man, Ivan Orloff, was worried about Tarot hints about 5 meteors speeding into the outer system. She says she took a look due to his concern but they aren’t on an impact trajectory so she isn’t sure what the issue is.

Kit takes another look, and realizes that with a mining ship full of highly magnetic material, and Jupiter’s dense magnetosphere, and the fact that the ship and meteors will intersect just before the meteors would otherwise bypass Jupiter, implies that they are planning to try to divert the meteors. Kit confirms that this would result in them slingshotting into a new trajectory on an impact course with Earth in about 1 year. They call Fargus Sol and report in, and Sol confirms that there is a new Logos spinoff cult called “Call of the Void” dedicated to destroying human life on earth, which matches some graffiti Kit found at the murder scene.

This all also seems to line up with the info in Prophecy 10, and Kit manages to buy one of the 2 missing cards from Orloff’s list off of Omega, and Sol gets a painting of another from the seer Emily Llanfrechfa. They start planning how to intervene based on Kit’s know-how and info in the Prophecy. Kit also arranges to sell the plants they rescued from the ARES station to Sol, who arranges for an agent in space to pick them up, and quickly reports back that it’s good they sold them to him- one of the plants is from Vhortas, and likely explains their rapid growth, the shaman’s corruption and the rapid corruption of the staff, and the fact that the plants seemed to be eagerly drinking blood. Disturbing.

The team links back up and figures out what to do with the rest of the pay data. They sell info on Null Sect/Hitsec Burn/Isabella Boone to Holmes/EVO, and pass on some info about mana on the Moon to Dr. Dyna Mite, who seems excited about the info, and says that she is investigating other astral transit possibilities involving spectral trains. Having read about some of these in the team file from Denver, some of them are a little concerned but others are excited… The team also loses some loyalty with Sarah Silverleaf as they tell her they can’t tell her what they found at the NeoNET abandoned moon base, and assume she will be sending another team out ASAP.

They decide to tell Vogel what happened on Daedelus station, and he thanks for sharing the info and gives Carol some more positive reinforcement, and suggests that under his leadership, there will be a good space for Carol and other people who help him. They sell the info, as well as the recovered data drive, to Candice, to maintain that contact and try to get the max pay, assuming that ARES likely had backups of most/all of the data anyways. They get a significant payday, and prepare to head back downwell via the space elevator to head to Seattle for some of the various work they’ve been offered there.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and a guest appearance from: Foghairal ke’Coille

Having rested up and restocked after the explosive revelations (and explosions) of their last run, they stock up on gear, and start prepping to investigate ARES’ possibly bug-infested Daedelus station. They contact a hireable smuggler in the Space Rescue Service, and also pay Orbital DK to do some recon hacking for them, confirming that only drone deliveries have arrived at the station on the automated schedule for the last week, and that noone has been seen leaving during that time. They also take stock of some of their various paydata but decide to hold onto it for now. Kit plots out some orbital dynamics, and they pay the SRS smuggler to get some armor mods for them in order to make themselves as invisible as possible on their approach. They also craft some jury-rig javelins for ThinkTank.

Boarding the SRS craft, it takes them in a loop out towards Darkside Junction, and they all jump out, using Void Black, Ruthenium, or Electrochromic armor mods to blend in with the background, and following Kit’s carefully plotted plan, all manage to make their landings on the ARES station surface without bouncing off into the black. Carol and Kit, with some of the more advanced stealth mods, sneak up to the single exterior airlock, and Kit loops the camera feed there, although it seems to be powered down currently.

The airlock seems to be running in an emergency power mode, and Kit manages to bypass it with nanites. They get inside and find an orderly stack of delivery crates, seemingly the automated deliveries they’d spotted in ODK’s hack recon. Deciding they might as well forage, TT pops open the crates with the crowbars, stressing out some on the team who are worried about traps and defenses. Luckily, nothing springs out at them, and they find a pair of ARES laser pistols, as well as some KEV ammo and pheromones- seemingly either stolen or copied from AZT tech in Chicago, and some more generic resupply stock- parts, garden/greenhouse equipment, calorie rich and dense nutrient blocks.

They explore further, and find the that area of the station they are in is an outer shell fully surrounding and concealing an inner core, accessible through 4 interior airlocks. Aradia can detect a faint trace of magic coming from within. The area they’re in has been vented, and they see that security bars have sealed all 4 airlocks so they could only be opened from the outside. They find a corpse who looks to be early in a hybrid transformation but has killed themselves with a laser pistol, burning out the battery and slagging the gun by taping the trigger down, which likely caused an automated alert to deliver a resupply.

Using her new psychometry ability, Aradia gets the general story: this figure appears to have escaped whatever disaster struck the inner area, and made it out here to trigger the station shutdown to prevent an outbreak, but was too far gone to save themselves. Worried about what they might find, they cautiously enter the center area. Foggy especially is a bit concerned, as she has gained so much valuable knowledge (as well as artifacts) which would be lost with her death.

They press on, and find an aggressive, overwhelming amount of growth- it seems that generations of careful breeding and the introduction of awakened plants has allowed ARES to keep a stable manasphere alive in space, as Vogel had suggested, but that without maintenance the plants are taking over. Aradia pauses to take a Quicksilver picture, but using some mana seems to attract more hyrbrid flesh forms- fairly mindless but dangerous. They manage to take the first few out, and see that they are wearing shredded ARES Space uniforms.They investigate further and find a trashed lab with all the servers wrecked pretty thoroughly, and a digital whiteboard note saying that the Shaman was corrupted, seemingly from the laser suicide person.

Using Carol’s incredible senses and Aradia’s assensing, they decide to carefully ambush as many hybrids as they can throughout this area before continuing in to yet another airlocked central area. This mostly goes well, except for Kit, who gets sliced up pretty bad and luckily has patch kits and know-how to fix their suit. Between corpses they find (a combo of laser and bug wounds) and hybrids they kill, Kit thinks they’ve accounted for the whole crew complement, aside from the Shaman. TT breaks through the security seals to the inner chamber using the fluid motion ram, and they enter, finding a man in ARES armor standing atop a floating staircase, just on the other side of what seems to be a stable portal.

Acting quickly on instinct, Carol tells the figure that he is here from ARES and asks for a report. The figure seems to believe him once Carol drops his name, and breaks down what happened here- the station Shaman was corrupted by whispers from the portal, which connects to Vhortas. The Shaman then began corrupting other and sabotaging the station, too quickly and subtly to be effectively stopped. He also stole the data and trashed the lab before fleeing into the portal, seemingly thinking it a likelier method of escape that tightly monitored space flight. However, the figure explains that he managed to hunt the Shaman down and eliminate him. He passes over a flash drive with the station data on it for Carol to bring back to corporate.

He also tells Carol to close the portal and tell ARES that he and the other Project: Pyro survivors will continue their work as long as they survive. He explains that the Excalibur wasn’t a total failure after all, and complements Carol on having helped design a solid manaweapon, and tells the tale of how he and other Firewatch “volunteers” were transformed in such a way as to allow them to exist as scouts and assassins on the insect plane, but that this prevents them from ever returning to the material plane without evanescing. He asks them to tell Ellis that he is sorry, before fading back into the wispy surface of the portal. The team pushes the KEV ammo and pheromone crate inside before heading out, in case he or others come looking for resupply.

Kit hyper-oxygenates the air from the outer ring, and Aradia use one of the lasers to light the inner area on fire. They hang around for a bit until Aradia confirms the manasphere and portal are dead and gone using the Quicksilver camera. They decide to stay radio dark and leap free before calling for a ride, so Kit plots another trajectory out, and they grab the remaining crates of supplies to use as barter with their SRS smuggler. Leaping free of the station, they manage to get in a slightly higher stationary-ish orbit, and call for “rescue” a bit later. They get picked up, negotiate fees, and head back to Artemis base on Luna.

They start taking some group walks outside to debate what to do, and for now decide to trade some paydata to ODK to gain membership on the Asgard Data Haven, as they seem to have lots of useful space info. They also start perusing the flash drive, which has a LOT of dangerous info on it. Also, Kit insisted on rescuing two plants from the inner area, so they need to decide what to do with those as well.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and a guest appearance from: Foghairal ke’Coille

The team, still reeling from their major discoveries, heads back to ARES’ Artemis base and gets paid out by ARES Corporate after Foggy vows her courtly assistance. They rest up, recharge their oxygen supplies, and plan the next day’s excursion. They buy some various industrial and survival gear to allow them to gain access to the old, abandoned NeoNET base in order to scope it out, and plan to pick up the Monad EVO deserter and give her a ride wherever she needs to go. To that end, Aradia chats up the sole local bartender, and gets access to a secret stash of drugs, though it seems to mostly be various amphetamines and BTL chips. She also convinces the bartender to put her in touch with his smuggler contact, who seems to be a member of the Space Rescue Service, maybe a useful person to know. TT pays a lot of money to rent a nicer hotel room than the coffin-sized bunks the rest of the team sleeps in, and gets a tiny window with a lovely view.

They head out and aim for the rendezvous point that Kit had deciphered. They quickly spot a figure in a moon-camo cloak approaching. She hops aboard and they chat a bit before Kit gets suspicious that she doesn’t know the location of the secret Monad transfer station in-system. Remo confirms that he had already sent that to her, and noticing their suspicion, the “Monad” fires some rockets from a gyrojet into the buggy, wrecking it. The team gets in an upclose knife and fist fight with her, with her luckily only managing to get shots off on TT and Carol, who had the improved armor spacesuits on.

Creature gets a solid garrotte attack (finally!) and TT smashes open their opponents face shield, disturbingly finding a corpse within. Kit had noticed that the body was moving a bit mechanically and had wildly good matrix defenses, and believes they just fought a true AI of some sort thast was rigging the body. Also the oxygen was all drained from the suit to limit decomp after what looks like a death from laser. The body is the person they were supposed to meet though. Before they have much time to think, they get a wideband message bearing the signs of Null Sect involvement, and the corpse explodes, fully destroying the buggy, and leaving them stranded on the darkside of the moon with minimal gear. Luckily they manage to salvage most of their new equipment, and they decide to hoof it for the NN base.

While walking, they decide to follow up on some Tarot hints from the Trader, and finds the second half of Prophecy 9, as well as a lengthy new Prophecy 10, haven been released online from wherever Hansu wound up. 9 seems to refer to some Dis-related stuff, and possibly tie into Jasper de Howlie’s prophecy of the First Expedition, and P10 seems to imply that some sort of dangerous impact event is headed Earth’s way. They start analyzing the prophecy and the potentially related cards they’ve seen, and looking for hints, though Kit is really trying to ignore it all and just play “Marry Me…”

They get to the abandoned base and gain access in time, barely, and recharge some oxygen from a picked-over garage area that they gain access to. Exploring further, they find a smuggler’s cache, what looks like some emergency safehouse sleeping spots, and a relay for Asgard Data Haven (which Carol tags, in a friendly way). They then find an intact kind of jury-rigged greenhouse/oxygen recycler, and following some ductwork find a retrofitted interior airlock blocking off the final area of the base. Carol, recognizing it as ARES manufacture and spotting a concealed camera that definitely saw them, starts broadcasting his legal SIN and gets a surprised greeting from the presumed-dead eco-activist and ARES board member Arthur Vogel.

The dwarf, seemingly having secretly survived the bombing that was claimed to have killed him, ushers them in after they all submit to a UV sterilization (after confirming that none are vamps). He has 2 armored guards standing casually nearby, but given their gauss rifle armaments, they seem ready for trouble if it comes. There is also a massive surgical suite and autodoc, which Vogel sets to making them all some tea. He apologizes for the lack of facilities to host better, but suggests they all take a look out the window at Earth while they discuss what to do about the team discovering him here.

Based on his conversation and musings, Kit deduces that Vogel is edging into cyberpsychosis, of which he seems a bit aware, having needed extensive replacements following the assassination attempt, which he barely survived. After feeling Carol out, and giving him some much needed positive reinforcement, Vogel breaks it down for the team: he explains that ARES has managed to create a stable portal to Vhortas on a nearby space station, which has predictably gone wrong. The team shudders as investigating this very station is their next job… He also tells them about some of the experiments and programs ARES was up to there, and elsewhere.

He also explains an overview of Operation: Latvian Gambit, ARES’ plan to lure as many bugs (especially Queen’s, nymphs and shamans) to a “megahive” under Detroit, and then destroy them all using their new “perfected” Alpha man/bug soldier merges, from Project: Apex. Vogel is extremely skeptical that any of this will go to plan, and says that after Damien Knight tried to have him killed, Knight lost the lone true dissenting voice left on the board, and has gone mad with power. Vogel is planning to make his return, and try to save Detroit as well as ARES, and asks the team to at least keep his secret, if not help him. He says he still needs time to get all the pieces in place, but ARES can’t know that any opponents know of their plans or they may try to act early, which could be even more disastrous. He also explains how one of Hansu’s other prophesies foretells this possibility, and shows how it is the only safe way forward for ARES. Kit, once again, is not into it.

Vogel says he understands they also were likely hired by someone to check out the NN base, and asks for a week to relocate before they report in, as well as leaving the specifics out of it. The team agrees, with some gaining favors, some gaining money, and Foggy getting the early research Vogel pioneered into making stable mana fields in outer space, which he seems sad that ARES corrupted to use solely for weapons, as with many things they do. Having agreed to terms, he gives them the name of a useful safehouse master in Seattle, and says he’ll be in touch when he needs them in Detroit. They head out, and decide to have Carol siphon off all their oxygen tanks and run back to Artemis base and get another buggy, rather than call for emergency pickup.

Carol manages it, just, and gets back and grabs everyone with no trouble. They pay up to the quartermaster at the base for the destroyed buggy after Carol talks him into a significant discount, and all rest up and get ready for the next mission: gaining access to this terrifying bug portal station….

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and a guest appearance from: Foghairal ke’Coille

The team has one last hurrah in Chicago- at Kit’s suggestion most of the surviving members of the Shadow Chapters meet at the under-construciton Memorial site for a Masquerade, in order to break down the differences between roles etc. It goes well- finally a big meeting in Chicago that goes to plan! Creature breaks off from the group and accidentally destroys xyr clothes when xe decides to test xyr new power out and turns into a Sea Drake. Xe discovers some strange new abilities but seemingly can’t stay in this form for overly long without injury, so switches back, and reports into the team about being mostly nude in the Shattergraves and also now having a shapeshifter ability. Kit is a little skeptical, not being overly jazzed on dragon’s at the moment.

The team decides to keep Ahabitat for the moment, but give up the Bolthole, and sell some of their vehicles and drones. They order some gear, and use the environment in/around Ahabitat to get some training in space stuff from Kit. They call in their “free ride to space” chit with ARES and Kit navigates the sub to one of the equatorial Skyhook space elevators operated by the Corp Court. Kit rejects an offer from the Sea Dragon to receive her patronage in exchange for his contributions to a rigger collective she is funding. She seems somewhat affronted, and Kit says they’ll think on it. They dock at the Skyhook platform, and secure a docking slip with Carol’s ARES contacts. They leave some weapons and other illicit gear in the sub, and head out of the gravity well. Kit feels like they’re coming home, but it’s a strange experience for the rest.

At the orbital transfer station, they meet the Seelie Court rep they’d been told about: Foghairal ke’Coille, who Carol recognizes as being amongst the Queen’s retinue. They all agree to go to the moon first, and Foggy says she’ll assist them in their other missions if they help her on hers first. They board a shuttle and head to Luna, docking at Artemis station, owned by ARES. Carol calls in some favors from his brother, who seems surprised he’s in space but gets him a buggy and some other gear. They head out, relying on Carol’s memory of the Hakari Marama room at the Seelie Court and his conversations with Al’Farabi there, to try to track down the mysterious mana signs she spotted.

Aradia makes good use of the quicksilver camera to assist with this, and also take a photo of space (distressingly empty of mana) and Earth (a strong glowing mana orb with a hard cut to nothing around the edges). They fairly quickly uncover a rusted metal skeleton key, which Foggy ID’s as the Turnkey of Rust, an item that it is rumored can open any door the lost First Expedition to the Seelie Court entered. Searching some more, they find a mana web, which when photographed reveals it’s recorded signature- a door, seemingly on the moon, with some figures stumbling away from it, seemingly asphyxiating.

They continue searching, and find a small bone rod at the third and final site Carol recalls. This looks to be a Spirit Key, and the camera confirms something resides in it still- whether or not any services are left owed, who can say…. Extrapolating from the 3 points, the team realizes that they look like ejecta from a common point at their center, on the dark side. They head there, and Aradia manages to find a small bubble of mana which somehow exists there. Aradia and Foggy enter, and a strange spirit immediately jumps forth from the bone rod. None of the team has ever seen this type of spirit before, but it appears to be some sort of Trader.

IT starts talking to Aradia and Foggy, who somehow understand it inside the mana bubble, while those outside cannot make sense of the language transmitted on the TacNet. The spirit tells the 2 in the bubble that it will answer them 3 questions, after which they will use the key to open the door. They say “what door” and the spirit sweeps his arms and reveals the door they saw in the mana web. The team agrees, and the spirit insists one of them stay in the bubble with him while the team converses on how best to phrase the questions, and what to ask. They settle on their formulations, and ask away.

Inquiring what’s behind the door, the spirit ID’s it as the cityplane of Dis, which the team has heard of from some of 6Cyl’s ramblings of dreams and lost memories when he returned from the 9 Gates portal through Kadath. Although the Trader seems surprised at how much time has passed, he says that the time hasn’t come yet, but that perhaps their relative planes will align soon. The team decides they probably shouldn’t go through the door with the spirit since the only way 6Cyl and Aylin got back was via a bargain with Tohu Wa Bohu…..

For the second question, the Trader fills them in on the fate of the First Expedition, who apparently stumbled into Dis while trying to find the Seelie Court in the 2030’s, and the tried to bind the Trader to the spirit key to get back, but made a bad bargain, and ended up going through a door they shouldn’t have, and ending up on the moon, where they went mad and were dying, so the Trader calmly explains that he had to consume them to sustain himself, and then hid himself in the key and blew all 3 objects out, hoping someone would eventually retrieve and free him- and here they are! Foggy is delighted- this info will be hugely valuable at Court upon her return, and hopefully make up for her losing one of the Queen’s tarot…

3rd, they ask for the connection between outer space, astral space, and the Tarot. The Trader tells them that mana and space are anathema to one another, but that the Tarot does tie to both, and tells them to seek the words of their Prophet, who though mad, sees truth, and understands the constellations. He will not say more, and insists the team open the door. They offer to trade first, and Foggy gives up her tiara in exchange for the Comet Tarot card- huge deal at Court also! Aylin trades some spidergland silk for a strange grub from a jar, and Aradia swaps some novacoke for a potion of strength.

The Trader then insists on leaving, but says to look him up next time their planes align- Foggy uses the Turnkey to open the door, and Aradia manages to get a blurry pic of the chaotically sprawling massive cityplane of Dis as the Trader walks through, the door slamming shut and the mana bubble collapsing behind him. The team all feels pretty satisfied with how this first space mission worked out, and agree to keep working with Foggy for now, even though Foggy insists on keeping all the recovered artifacts. They negotiate a payment from ARES in exchange for Foggy boosting ARES’ corp rep at the Court.

They also decide they need to see if Hansu has dropped any new prophecies, and Carol begins wondering if Dis is some sort of strange fantasy equivalent of the cityplane of Zecorporatum.

Runners
Introducing: Tabasco
with cameos by: Creep and 9 Tails

Tabasco, as a young man, lost both his parents in some sort of mysterious incident. Since their corp, ARES refused to officially declare them dead, he got a medium sized payout and the boot from his cushy corp housing, since he wasn’t old enough to sign up for employment and get himself a corp SIN. Luckily, his “uncle”/godfather Don Michael took a protective interest and got him a decent condo in Auburn where he could safely reside, complete his online education, and receive some cooking and cleaning oversight from Emdachot Fahd, a middle aged ork women who is the building’s super. Don Michael saw to it that Tabasco’s payout got invested decently by a financial assets manager at STV, Eva Mari, and the nest egg grew in value as Tabasco grew up.

Having done some investigation into his parent’s vanishing and come up short, he also stumbled down the matrix rabbit hole of investigating and becoming interested in shadowrunners, assassins, and the life of crime that seem to permeate Seattle. He paid his way into a membership on ShadowSEA as soon as he was able to access his funds, and got obsessed with the prolific assassin/runner Toast. He began to model himself after Toast, beginning to strengthen and quicken his body and taking up archery. He was already decent at sneaking and deceiving, as the condo building he lived in has seen better days, and begun a long decline in quality and security during his tenure. Luckily his unit is secure, and Emdachot still provides meals and cleaning, and Don Michael seems willing and able to secure him any oddities he requests.

Tabasco, needing somewhere to test his mettle, began participating in casual Urban Brawl matchups, and eventually got spotted by the scout and ex-Brawler Savannah Chiba, aka the Scarlet Widow, and recruited into the minor leagues. Feeling this was the sign he needed, Tabasco blew through most of the rest of his savings upgrading his body with some quality cyberware, which he is a bit snooty about. Chiba keeps hassling him to focus on the basics, but so far buying his way in has worked pretty well! He trains by day, and by night he obsessively trawls ShadowSEA, looking for info on Toast, his parents, or anything else that catches his eye.

Noticing a string of pawn shop (and similar reseller locales) break-ins in his area of Auburn, he decides to finally dip his toes into the shadows, and heads out in his Urban Brawl gear with his bow to investigate. Luckily, he landed the scout role on his team, so he has decent infiltration boosts from his gear. He sets up a patrol around some likely targets, and spots one break-in after it occurs. With no obvious alarms going, he breaks a window to trigger one and see what happens. Strangely, the cops don’t show, but some goons in bulky suits do. He overhears some of their conversation with their boss, and hears that apparently some jewels and some kind of valuable card were stolen. It looks like the folks who did it carefully avoided setting off the alarms, too.

Continuing on his patrol after taking some notes, he hears, but can’t see to spot, one voice conferring with another person, who seems to be responding silently. They spot him, and engage in some banter, laughing off his threats and bluster, before leaving him in the dust when he tries to chase: he’s fast enough, but lacks in tracking. He heads home, reads up on how to track better, and does some research. He finds out that goons in suits are Ciarniello mafia, who seem to have replaced the cops as they pulled back from his neighborhood as it began it’s slow descent into precarity. He reads up a bit on some of the syndicate wars that are simmering in Seattle at the moment, and pegs them for further research.

He also pays a ShadowSEA contact from some info on the 2 people he encountered: apparently a team of thieves named Creep and 9 Tails started working together in town recently, both are child-like changelings, but not much else is known. It seems, however, that a fixer named Van Der Hum was recently killed as a side casualty in an attempted mob hit, and his mysterious Hoard of artifacts, reagents, etc is much sought after. Tabasco decides to get some rest before practice, as the sun has come up.

He runs to practice along some of the disused hiking trails in Puyallup and arrives without incident, though Chiba chides him on his tardiness, as he needs to be early to compete in this game. They run through a practice with stun weaponry, and Tabasco does best on attack, and gets chided again for needing to improve his defense and stealth. He heads home, and cat naps before heading back out on patrol. He heads to the area where he almost caught up to the 2 thieves the night before, and finds a note written in lipstick.

Calling the included commcode, he gets ahold of the female speaker, and impresses her by ID-ing her as 9 Tails, and her partner as Creep. She gives him a hard time about sneaking around and liking to watch, before offering to cut him in on a job if he wants some nuyen. He agrees, and she tells him to look for these strange valuable cards, as well as any hints of Van Der Hum’s hoard location. She also says they can fence anything else valuable he lifts and cut him in on the profit. He agrees, tempted by the danger and intrigue. Picking out a likely lore store, he uses some arrows as impromptu B&E tools, which, while unconventional, does work. He manages to burn his way into a floor safe, and quickly skedaddles with some loot after he sets off and yanks down all the smoke detectors, alerting the proprietor upstairs.

He manages to get clear without any trouble, and sees a local gang, who he ID’s with a quick search as the Blood Brothers, showing up to help contain the fire and look for the perpetrator, so he flees across the rooftops. Once home, he checks his haul: some reagents and magical gewgaws he knows nothing about, and a strange Tarot card with a built-in holo-projector. Most strange, one of the figures on the card is his missing father. He calls 9 Tails and accuses her of playing a trick- she assures him she isn’t, and tells him to sell the card and not get overly involved. He convinces her to introduce him to their fence, and they set up a meet for tomorrow. He’ll have to be quick to not be late to practice!

He does a bit more research, and finds out there’s some weird gang activity and gun smuggling going on in Redmond, and also some people going missing: fixers, fences, and other runner-adjacent types, and also some Monads, TM’s and similar. The only locus he can find for any of this activity is the Iron Jungle club, downtown. He pins these for later and gets some rest. Heading to the meet the next day, he quickly realizes he has a problem- with no valid SIN, he’ll need to be very cautious traversing downtown to Pike Place Market. He just barely manages it, dodging corp scans and cops alike, and finally meets 9 Tails in the flesh.

She is, as advertised, a literal cat burglar- a child-sized SURGEd changeling with camouflage cat fur, a magical 3rd eye, and a seemingly unnatural ability to inspire dislike from animals. However, she approves him to go ahead with the meet, and nods to Creep, who looks to be a childlike gnome with no mouth, and seems to be sticking to the shadows. Tabasco heads over to a table in a nearby cafe, and meets the fence: Imaginary Annie, the Invisible Esquire.

Tabasco, not really knowing how this all actually works, passes over the Tarot card and asks some questions. Annie reveals that she’s done her homework and knows who he is, and offers to help him figure out the mystery of his parents if he helps her with some stuff. Plus, she’ll pay. For now, for the magical items and the card, she’ll get him a decent fake SIN so he can at least get safely around, and she gives him a couple of basic intro runner tips. He agrees to it all, and she gives him the rundown on some mysteries she wants solved and questions she wants answered: gang and syndicate activity, a strange luxury yacht, the missing people, and the missing Hoard. She tells him that she wants to be in a position of knowing who all the players are and what they’re up to before the upcoming Free Seattle referendum, which has been rumored but not yet announced.

He races off to practice, once again getting yelled at for being “late”. Since he decided he needed to be able to break down his bow to make it travel better, he’s also unarmed today, so Chiba tells him to focus on stealth and defense, and he comes up a bit short, taking a beating. She slaps him on a bruise as he’s leaving and tells him to remember the sting, to motivate him to improve. She has some kinds of disappointed mom vibes that seem really effective at getting him to do what she wants, so far. He heads home, heals up a bit, and thinks about what skills he needs to improve next, and what gear to prioritize acquiring….

He rests a bit at his condo, gets the newest gear he’s ordered from Don Michael, and decides to run to Downtown to link up with Creep and 9 Tails, figuring he’s pretty quick and he doesn’t want to use the private cab service that Chiba recommended for his first real shadowrun. It takes him 4 hours. They decide to look into the mysterious yacht first, and 9 Tails decide to hang back a bit, saying it’s got weird astral vibes- sort of a smell of the sea, but she can’t tell if anyone’ aboard. Creep and Tabasco sneak onboard, with Tabasco showing off with his hydraulic legs. They poke around and figure out that this is likely a gunrunner’s boat, based on some mods and Interpol info, strangely that particular gunrunner went missing aboard his yacht 2 decades back.

Rumors says, he made a lot of enemies and one of them was the Sea Dragon, and she claimed her prize. The yacht does look to have been submerged for some time and then magically repaired, so could check out. Seeing noone on the next deck down with his radar sensor, they head down. Creep sneaks into some vent shafts, his preferred locale, and they reach the bottom deck before someone reveals their presence- an elf women appears to be bathing nude in a seawater pool in the former engine room. Tabasco is stoked, but then upset to discover that the area jammer built into the yacht is preventing him from recording to his comm from his cybereyes… add internal router to the shopping list.

They find themselves sealed below decks with a large spirit to keep them there, so Tabasco decides to converse with the elf as she requested. He refuses to ID their Johnson, and she commends his professionalism, and says she expects the same courtesy. She confirms that she is an agent of the Sea Dragon called Eletheria, though she won’t say why she’s in town. She tells them to put her in touch with their hirer, as a conversation is obviously needed. They agree, and she lets them leave. 9 Tails seems to have the heebee geebees from a spirit encounter.

The night is still young so they decide to move onto the next investigation, and check out the Iron Jungle club since they’re already Downtown. They do some recon, and spot some ‘Weeners dealing drugs inside, and some Disassemblers waiting nearby in cleaner suits with a generic van. Creepy. Creep hops on the van roof with his magnet handle and waits to see if they go anywhere. 9 Tails and Tabasco head into the club, and find a Marry Me! room, some weird Toon viewing rooms, a dance area and a chill room. Tabasco looks around for any suspicious behavior, and see a couple leaving where one of them looks reaaaal messed up and the other doesn’t. He intercedes but they do actually seem to know each other and are just trying to get home.

He keeps eyes on them for a bit just in case, and then Creep reports the Disassembler van is on the move. The van pulls up next to the couple and the messed up women gets a weird maniacal look in her eyes and pushes her partner into the van, before collapsing limp as one of the gangers grabs her and hauls her in too. Creep hears some taser bursts and an auto-injector noise from outside, and hangs atop the van as it heads to Redmond, obeying traffic laws carefully. Tabasco checks in and realizes 9 Tails seems pretty out of it too, worried a bit he gets her to switch to astral and she snaps out of it. She says she took some random drugs she pick-pocketed, and then was watching Toons. Tabasco records a bit of the programming without actually watching it, just in case.

Atop the van, Creep rides along to a warehouse in the north Barrens, and see the gangers pass the woman off to a weird burned scientist lady named “Alice” after she scans both the kidnap victims with a Wuxing Frequency technomancer detector. She rejects the man, and the gangers say he’s headed for the Death Ships. Alice tells them she’ll have some more bits she doesn’t need for them soon. Creep stays aboard as the van drives carefully to the Tacoma port, he dips off as it heads in, but sees which entrance it uses. Feeling like this is enough, and with daylight approaching, they report into Annie, and debrief her. She tells them to follow up on the Death Ship, the warehouse/scientist, the club, and thanks them for the contact info for Eletheria. She pays them and they all head off to rest.

Creep plays Marry Me! for quite a while while 9 Tails lounges and basks in the sun. Tabasco gets a tiny bit of rest before calling his new cabbie contact, Bernie Carter, who turns out to be a retired UCAS tank driver who got sick of the army but still likes the thrill of combat. So he drives an armored cab ANYWHERE in town, if you’ll pay his rate. Tabasco finally arrives early (aka on time) to practice. Chiba seems impressed with that and some of his new gear, and tells him to really go for it today. With that encouragement, Tabasco finally hits his stride and excels. Chiba tells him after practice he’s ready for his debut, but takes him aside and tells him she needs him to take a fall in his first match, sometime in the 3rd quarter- just make it look like he took a hit harder than expected, she tells him the team doctor’s will back it up so he doesn’t have to worry beyond selling it to the crowd, who will love it.

Tabasco is disturbed but he doesn’t know what else to do, so he agrees. He decides to run home to have time to think and burn off energy, and luckily doesn’t encounter any strange animals on the Puyallup trails.He rests for a short spell, and links up with 9T and Creep again. They check out the club again first, spotting the ‘Weeners and securing a sample of the drug they suspect as being involved, since Annie reported the footage along wasn’t enough to induce some kind of hypnosis/strange activation. Tabasco gets a good audio recording, not listening, to go with the video. They spot the Disassemblers in the same spot again, but don’t see them move on anyone tonight. They do see someone moving a little robotically head out the front of the club and get picked up by someone in a sedan flashing a credstick. They make note, and toss a tracker on the car, figuring why not.

They then head to the Tacoma docks, and scout it out a bit. They find a promising spot to sneak in, and manage to get up on top of some isotainer stacks to take a look around. They determine that the port is split into 3 areas of control: Yakuza, Mafia, and Vory. Their target came to the Vory zone, and they spot the ship that is likely the Death Ship, based on the large number of living but drugged auras aboard. They send the registration info to Annie, who confirms that this is likely a live body shipment to Asamando- a useful way to dispose of enemies and unwanted test subjects. She says she’s going to call some people to try to secure it before it gets out of local jurisdictions. She also gives them the contact for a dangerous alchemist who she says to be careful with, but to take the drug sample to for analysis.

Tabasco also calls in a favor on ShadowSEA and gets an intro to another local club owner named Nyssa Hallas, who might have some intel on who owns/operates Iron Jungle. Annie also recommends a retired street sam named Hard Case who now does consulting for newb runners, and they agree that she’ll just cut his pay to pay for some sessions to help him get his feet under him, since he’s noticed he’s missing a few basics. He also feels like he’s a little closer to figuring out what exactly his Code of Honor is….. luckily it isn’t sportsmanlike conduct, as he goes along with Chiba’s request to throw the next day’s Urban Brawl match, doing a reasonably convincing dive and faking a short in his electronics that takes him out in the 3rd quarter.

After getting cleared by the team doc and commiserating with the others on the team about the close loss, he fails to sneak up on Chiba’s private convo with someone and stumbles into a slightly tense meeting she’s having with a mafia type who after some research he ID’s as the Puyallup capo, Enzo Gianelli. Enzo tells Tabasco that he did well in the day’s match and that they would make a lot of money together. Chiba seems slightly on edge at being “caught” and reminds Tabasco that Enzo was never there, before Tabasco heads home. Having taken some damage in the match, he rests for a bit and does some more digging online re: Enzo and the mob.

He heads out and grabs a meal with Hard Case, getting his first “how to be a runner” lesson, and feeling it was worth his while. HC gives him basic intro tips and helps him refine his code a bit. Next, he heads Downtown to meet Nyssa Hallas at the recently renamed Penumbra Station. It’s before opening, so he chats with her at the bar while she checks stocks. They trade some info and he finds out that the mafia has been trying to move in on some Downtown clubs, but that Hallas and her “silent partners” had fended them off of Penumbra, and had reached out to Iron Jungle and other clubs to talk about working together against the mob. IJ didn’t even give a reply, so she dug into their ownership a bit- some kind of regressive Dutch policlub called the Freedom Network owns it through a Carib League shell corp.

Tabasco heads back to IJ to do some more surveillance, and researches Freedom Network while he’s at it. He spots some of their Popular Will street thugs using a side entrance to gain access to a floor above the club, and feels this is confirmation enough for now, not seeing anything else going on there except a “Marry Me…” tournament. He heads to the last know location of the tracker Creep placed on the suspicious car on a previous stakeout, and finds that it leads to the inner edge of the Glow City dump in Redmond.

Tabasco warily approaches, and digs around, eventually finding a what he at first things is a corpse (based on the bloodiness and missing eyes), but turns out to be a barely living PI named Tommy Vermont. After he rallies a bit, he explains that he used to be a Knight Errant cop, caught CFD on the job, got rescued by runners and “cured” of CFD by a street doc, which involved a lot of cyber replacement- probably what kept him alive. Plus, he was wearing murder armor and has gotten good at playing dead. He explains that he’s on a case hunting a serial killer who seems to target Monads, and might be one themselves. Most disturbingly, they apparently shapeshift or otherwise change their appearance between kills- the only identifying feature is that they swap in the eyes of their previous victim. Gross.

Anyway, Vermont was posing as a naive Monad at IJ the night he got picked up, and got hit with a powerful EMP and then shot multiple times, stripped of his armor and gear, and dumped. If he was actually a Monad, he would be dead, and he still might be if he doesn’t get help soon- he asks Tabasco to assist getting him back to his office in Stuck’s Carnival, and Tabasco agrees. Unfortunately, they’ve attracted the attention of some Halloweener goons, one of whom has knife fingers and a rotting pumpkin mask. The other one tells Tabasco to ditch his gear and leave, but doesn’t seem let down when Tabasco insists on a fight. He manages to light both the ‘Weeners’ candles real good with some phosphorous arrows, quickly eliminating the threat- though Vermont only hears the fight, he seems impressed.

Tabasco also received some distracting assistance from a woman the Weeners had been hassling prior, who comes over and says they better skedaddle before reinforcements or mutants show up. Hearing some loud pipes firing in the distance, Tabasco agrees, and they scrabblle out over the dump pile, assisting Vermont, and make their escape all comically overloaded on the woman’s scooter. She introduces herself as Iva Linus Hathaway, and thanks Tabasco for the inadvertent intervention. She says she’s hung around the Weeners a good bit and they’’ve gotten weirder and scarier lately. Tabasco notices she’s wearing muted Weener colors, but also a surprisingly well-made custom tailored garment made of multiple bits of different items/outfits.

She explains that she’s a materials engineering student at UW, who also does custom tailoring, makes her own clothes, and makes costumery for the theater department and others. She gives her number to Tabasco in case he needs her services in future, and then drops them both off at Vermont’s office. Realizing he can’t get in without eyes for biometrics or a commlink as a backup, he has to borrow Tabasco’s ‘link to call Stucks’ property manager, Ranya Zhong, a dryad woman, who shows up after they’ve sat on the curb and Vermont has smoked a crushed cigarette from his pocket.

Tabasco and Vermont share notes in his office, and manage to put together a few theories based on what they’ve both found out. It seems the Freedom Network is using their club to make money off of luring identity groups they dislike to a single locale, and then selling intel on their presence to various people who seek Technomancers and Monads for nefarious purposes. The Death Ships seem to be a separate conspiracy, but a useful way to get rid of the bodies as needed. Since Weeners and Disassemblers are seemingly working in concert, it implies they’re being paid by a third party. They also watch a video of the Death Ship Tabasco, Creep and 9 Tails ID’ed trying to flee at KE closes in- the crew scuttles the Death Ship as a distraction but all get gunned down. Tabasco finds the name of the officer who lead the KE takedown and rescued some of the captives from the ship at least, a troll named Tosh Athack.

Doing some research, Athack seems to be part of KE fast response group known informally as the Black Knights, who seem like KE’s equivalent of runners, and seems like he sometime will work with runners when it benefits him. Vermont also suggests that he’s being paid by some kind of anti-human trafficking network, and suggests they keep working together. Tabasco agrees, pending Annie’s approval. Next he heads to east Auburn to pay a visit to the alchemist Squeamish, to get the Weener club drug analyzed. Squeamish turns out to be a paranoid and kind of gross ork, with some upsetting “brain in a jar” cyberzombies and biodrones guarding his lab. He does confirm that the drug would put users in a highly suggestible state, and distills some down so Tabasco could use it with an injection arrow if he wanted to.

Tabasco then heads out and calls Annie, giving her the update on everything. She confirms that the video + audio that Tabasco recorded of Toon Horizon, when combined, are laced with hidden messages, and that combined with the drug these could likely implant certain triggerable commands in people, or activate those same commands if they were pre-implanted. With the info on club ownership, Annie feels like they have enough for now there. She says she does want to get in touch with Vermont’s employers, suspecting they may by the network known as Las Muñecas, who she didn’t think operated this far North. She also wants Tabasco to look into “Alice’s” lab (which Creep found in Redmond), and find out why fixers/fences etc are going missing.

Doing a bit more digging, Tabasco confirms that all the fixers, fences, info brokers, etc who have gone missing are low to mid-tier freelancers, so probably not connected to the gang/syndicate wars, and probably not corporate unless they’re trying to eliminate all competition. He finds a promising bar to check out and maybe meet some of these types, see if he can get any info. He also gets a mysterious message on ShadowSEA from “n1nj@” and begins chatting- it seems like he’s caught the eye of local hooder named Yoko Aruki, who gives him props for saving those folks on the Death Ship, and suggests they perhaps work together if he’s into doing more of the same….

Tabasco heads to training the next day, and gets another illicit task from Chiba- finding a hidden perch with good visibility, somewhere in the arena, and not letting anyone know he’s doing it. He succeeds and has a good day at training overall. He jogs back to his spot and does some research after Chiba won’t tell him anything about her Mafia entanglements. He finds out that she’s likely in the pocket of the Gianelli family, but can’t figure out why, and also finds out that his godfather, Don Michael, is actually a higher-up in the local branch of the Cutters, a “pro” gang.

He calls Michael and they chat a bit about the life of crime- Tabasco talks about some early running exploits, and Michael tells him about growing up with his dad and joining the gang together, before Carter got recruited by ARES. Tabasco also orders an off-road bike to be able to get around on his own a bit more efficiently. He (on grid guide) drives up to the Iron Jungle and takes one more look, but it’s daytime so he doesn’t get much. He chats with Annie, and she says she looked into the attempted mafia takeover and that it seemed like all the mafia goons sent to intimidate the owners turned up dead in mysterious traffic accidents and the like shortly thereafter.

He then cruises to Stuck’s and meets up with Vermont, and passes along Annie’s message to try to get her in touch with Las Muñecas, after confirming with Vermont that they seem to be his employers. Vermont says he looked into the one other group the Freedom Network doesn’t like, magic users (or at least those with Mentor spirits), and found some hints that occasional awakened attendees of the Iron Jungle also have gone missing, and it seems like the Blue Dragon biker gang (a Yakuza affiliate) have been the ones grabbing them up. They agree to continue working together on this missing persons investigation, and head to “Alice’s” lab in Redmond, that being their next lead.

Vermont calls some gang contacts he has in the area to get backup, and Tabasco meets one of them, a First Nations biker named Cheeks, who is very good-looking, and covered in tats except his chiselled face. Cheeks and the other bikers set a perimeter, and Vermont and Tabasco sneak up onto the roof of the lab building. They try to break in through a skylight, but bungle it and break the old assemblage, jumping down in the lab. Tabasco gets a message from an unknown caller saying “look out!” just as he jumps in, and is stunned by a flashbang trap, though his cyber prevents disorientation at least.

Vermont flops in behind him less gracefully, and Tabasco regains his feet only to be sprayed with acid by a burned woman in a lab coat, who quickly discards the squirt gun and runs for a room at the back, slamming the door behind her. Tabasco gives chase, while Vermont frees the lone prisoner- the technomancer that Creep had tracked here. Tabasco bashes through the door and barely avoids a point-blank shotgun blast from another trap. The woman is nowhere in sight, so he searches the room, eventually finding a trap door hidden under the bed. Vermont tells him they have to get out of there as the woman blew her servers when she left, which started a fire.

Tabasco says he has to chase her, and Vermont says he’ll grab what data he can, and get the catatonic women to safety with Cheeks and the others. Tabasco says he’ll meet him later, and carefully disarms another grenade trap on the hatch, before jumping down into the sewers. He barely manages to follow a trail out, and avoids a toxin trap on the ladder up, emerging in the outer barrens, and just avoiding stumbling into some sort of conflict between the Isotopes and some other gangers from the Spiders. He hoofs it back to the rendezvous point, and agrees to take the TM woman to a street doc Vermont knows, while Vermont take the First Nations bikers out for drinks as thanks. Cheeks warns him that the Spiders have been getting creepy and territorial- they used to hunt bugs but there aren’t many left in Seattle so people are less tolerant of their kidnapping and brainwashing. Also, they’re whispering of some new leader/totem called “Grandmother”…

Grid-guiding south, Tabasco gets to a gym called Sticks and Stones in north Puyallup, and meets a street doc named RIot, after getting scanned by a rigger called Hans Yolo. He passes off the TM woman, and Riot says she thinks recovery is promising based on an initial survey, and also patches Tabasco up while Hans patches his armor. Now he knows a street doc! Cool. He also gets some intel from Don Michael on the state of the syndicate war in Puyallup and some names of who to talk to if more is needed- essentially the Kenran-Kai yakuza tricked the Gianelli mafia into fighting off a Vory incursion, and the Yak gained some turf while the mafia was distracted. He calls it into Annie and calls it a night, getting paid and getting another “how to be a runner” session with Hard Case paid for. Next up: figuring out the gang and syndicate situation in Redmond…

Tabasco heads to practice the next day, where they keep it pretty light with the game the next day. However, worried about what he might be caught up in, he buys a nanny cam in a fake rock on the way and hides it (poorly) in the lookout spot that he had scouted out in the arena for Chiba. He heads home after practice, and calls up Hard Case to grab dinner again. He gets some tips on client management, and also the usual mix of aphorisms and cliches- though much of the advice is useful. Tabasco gets interested at the end of the dinner when he notice that he has older trainer/mentors in both the shadow and Urban Brawl worlds right now who managed to make it big enough to get out and teach others- maybe something to keep in mind for a long while from now!

Back at his condo, he does his usual batch of research and connects with some contacts. He’s primarily looking for Redmond info now to finish getting Annie up to speed, and Cheeks agrees to give him the rundown in exchange for Tabasco’s help the next night providing overwatch on a dangerous gang meeting. Tabasco agrees and recruits 9 Tails and Creep to help out, Cheeks promises that if all goes well he’ll introduce them to a person who can help with fake ID’s and stuff too. Tabasco comes to realization that Chiba is likely planning to insert one of Enzo Gianelli’s people into the lookout to swing the match in his team’s favor, since she’s ensured they’ve lost the last few they’re ranked low and the odds are against them- so it seems like this is all money business/gambling, which feels a little sleazy to him.

He gets a call from Yoko Aruki who asks for him to put together a last minute crew and help rescue some kids who were kidnapped. He agrees, and pulls 9 Tails and Creep into this one too. The target is a Hand of Five warehouse in Renton, where they’ll all meet up. Having some time to kill before then, Tabasco heads to the Murdered Mime in Renton and chats briefly on comms with Nyssa Hallas about ownership stuff in the area, getting the lowdown on the mafia vs Yak vs KE drama. He then meets the supposedly sketchy fixer Flipside, who seems to have signed on really hard with the Shadow Chapters, though the SC seems a little more violent or potentially sinister here. Tabasco gets added to Flipside’s rolodex but doesn’t take any jobs yet and doesn’t immediately sign up for the SC.

Doing some further research, he finds out that Flipside used to be a real bottom of the barrel fixer out of Redmond who would frequently betray or sloppily screw over newb runners, but not badly enough that anyone killed him yet. However, he vanished for about a week recently and seems to have emerged with a whole new spin on things. Tabasco wonders if the SC is threatening or otherwise forcing people to conform to their policies, but figures this is good intel to get to Annie, since Flipside admitted that the SC has had to dispose of some freelancers who didn’t heed their initial warnings already- possibly explaining one of the last open areas of the missing persons case.

Tabasco heads east and meets the crew for the rescue job, Yoko seems to be a badass ninja and says she’ll hit the front loud and hard, and wants 2 of them on the back and one on the front to make sure none of the Hand of Five goons escape, and all the kids get rescued, if possible. 9 Tails doesn’t like killing, but noone else minds, so she heads out back with Tabasco while Creep watches the front and Yoko busts in the door yelling something in Japanese and chucking flashbangs. 9T and Creep both sabotage all the cars on their end except 1, to which they each attach a data tap for Yoko’s offsite hacker to take over the vehicles through.

9T calls out some incoming targets to Tabasco, who scampers up onto a nearby roof and easily picks off 3 HoF goons with some flashpak assistance from 9T. They get 6 kids loaded into the hacked car and 9T heads off with them to the rendezvous point. Out front, Creep takes out the lone HoF escapee and gets 6 more kids loaded into the car, also heading out. Tabasco heads in, finding 2 more kids and deciding to hoof it with them. He texts Yoko the codes to his dirtbike so she can link up. He reaches the rendezvous point on foot, avoiding metaracist neighborhood watch patrols, and they wait a little bit for Yoko, who eventually arrives on the bike with the 2 remaining kids, but looking pretty messed up.

She tells them that they had a Flaming Sword member there- radical race terrorists, and his flaming blade almost was a match for her skills. She slaps some stim patches on and tells them to follow her to the safehouse, and they head up to Redmond, and are introduced to the Crypt, seemingly a squatter/runner safe zone that Yoko and some others help run. Yoko starts getting packed up by a crusty old ork who keeps insisting that he isn’t really a doctor, and Tabasco meets Dr, Digitalis (the decker) and a Mouse shaman named Mish. They explain that they’re the last survivors of a crew who got mixed up in some Yak cybersoldier drama around something called Project Iapetus, and show Tabasco some flatvid footage of a crew of pro runners taking out one of these Yak soldiers somewhere in the SSC. They say that they heard that the pro runner team might be in town, and if so, they owe them a drink and could share info.

Tabasco, not needing a safehouse, says he appreciates the offer and may make use of the Crypt in the future, but 9T and Creep both seem stoked to have a doss to fall back on when needed. Having gotten back on her feet, Yoko also introduces Tabasco to Professor Magnusson, and arcanolinguist at UW who seems to also help run this spot. He tells Tabasco to feel free to call on him with any esoteric needs, as they appreciate the rescue of the children, and the slaying of the metaracists. Feeling clever, Tabasco gets Didge to secure the feed from his surveillance device at the Urban Brawl arena, and heads home and rests up before the big game.

His team wins with a timely fumble by one of the enemy goalkeeps, and they all celebrate. Tabasco gets personally congratulated by Chiba, who tells him that’s he impressed the right people and is getting the boost up to the big leagues. She seems disappointed that he wants to take time to think about it, but gives him a day. He leaves the celebrations as early as he can, and asks Didge what his device captured. He sees a stereoptypical hermetic mage arrive, seemingly by spirit, and set up to hide there and presumably interfere with the match. Unfortunately, the mage quickly finds and destroys his device, but from his various markings, Tabasco is able to easily identify his as Uranus, the mage from the Order of Merlyn who seems to be one of Enzo Gianelli’s righthand men.

Tabasco calls Don Michaels and gets the rundown- the Gianelli’s are likely fixing fam league matches for gambling purposes, but also use the big leagues as a “clean” money laundering opportunity, writing off massive cyber expenses and the like while performing them on the cheap. Michaels once again advises avoiding getting in with the mob, as right now Tabasco has avoided any debts. Tabasco agrees and calls Chiba back, and tells her he’s leaving the league. He owns up to planting the device when she calls him on it, and she suggests that if anyone ever hears about what’s on it she won’t protect him. Unable to convince him to rethink his decision, she tells him to get lost and stop wasting her time, and blocks his number.

Feeling sad but resolved, Tabasco heads north to Redmond and meets up with Cheeks and the First Nations leader Scout Who Kills Six Times. They explain that Urubia, expanding on the idea of the Funhouse, is trying to establish a gang cooperative to keep Redmond safe®, and Kalanyr is helping entice gangers by smuggling in weapons via the Isotopes, presumably with some cooperation from those in the SSC and Metroplex government who would like to see the sprawl get a little more chaotic. The First Nations and the Crimson Crush are both basically already on board, but reps from multiple other gangs will also be arriving soon to discuss, and everyone’s worried about sabotage and false flags, which is what they want Tabasco looking out for.

He makes a perimeter with Creep and 9T, and they watch as Red Hot Nukes, 405 Hellhounds, Deaths Heads all roll in. A single mutant from the Rusted Stilettos shows, as do 4 low level Halloweeners. Feeling that’s enough for now, Scout starts the meet, and the Isotopes explain the weapons angle while she and some CC members explain Urubia’s coop plan. 9T spots some concealed figures approaching on the astral, and says they have a spider-y vibe, which Tabasco reports in. The assorted gangers waste no time bombarding the stealth approach area, which is probably for the best as the 4 Weeners all detonate shortly thereafter, taking out some gangers but none of the leadership. They seem to have been unwitting suicide bombers.

Picking through the carnage after the brief engagement (the Isotope’s weapons seem to work quite well), they find the remains of what looks to be a few Spider gangers, as well as multiple others who look like gangers but aren’t in colors, and show signs of recent tattoo removal. This could match up with recent reports of the Spiders recruiting non-consensually, and seems worth looking into further as well. For now having prevented a gangland disaster that could have stopped this coop before it started, Cheeks follows through on his promise. He introduces Tabasco, Creep and 9Tails to Jamaal Quigley, who explains that he can get them fake SINs through a corp contact, and then Cheeks gives Tabasco the Redmond crime breakdown.

Essentially, the syndicate war happened because someone tried to hit Chrome Ciarniello, and it’s still not clear he’s going to make it, and the mob thought it was the Seoul’pa, but it seems like it was actually a Yak assassin using some sort of magical disguise. The gang coop is intended to be able to leverage the power and reach of the gangs in Redmond (unparalleled in other districts) to compete as basically another syndicate. While explaining this, some louche Ancients roll up, tardy and saucy about it, but once they get the rundown on what happened they make clear that they actually are interested (as they have a local alliance with the First Nations), and were just late as a power play, not as the people who set the ambush. Appropriately humbled, tensions lower again and everyone heads home.

Tabasco reports all this in to Annie, and she pays him as usual, and he cuts Creep and 9T in as promised. She then gives him a last solo job: scout out a team that just arrived from Chicago, they seem real pro and she has reason to believe they may be just the crew she needs to follow up on all this intel, but wants Tabasco to feel them out and make sure they’re on the level and up to snuff….

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia

The team parties, mourns, and heals for a few days after the Battle of Chicago. Melissa Truman gets in touch and offers to fund a wake/funeral for Avocado, which the team accepts, and they make a plan for it. All of them speak or at least say a few words in memory of their fallen friend, and Melissa uses the opportunity to announce that she is seizing control of Truman Tech back from Horizon after some behind the scenes maneuvering. In the spirit of Avocado, she says she will be bringing jobs and representation back to the people of the Zone, and announces a hiring surge as well as a SIN drive. She has been quietly acquiring rights to vast swaths of the Shattergraves, which the other corps haven’t been touching, and plans to repair and rebuild. She also sets aside some land where the battle took place in a trust via STV, and agrees to fund Kit’s plan for a permanent memorial there, with the names of all those who dies fighting the bugs inscribed.

Over the next few days, AZT, SK, Wuxing and “local assets” get the main credit for saving the city, plus lesser credit for Renraku and MCT, and they also expose the UCAS plan to nuke the city.The UCAS III Corps is chased out/tactically retreats as the citizens are ready to revolt. Corporations move in full force, using the UCAS exit/chaos/threat of bugs as an excuse (and to get folks on their side). Ares is persona non grata after they bail on helping city before the big battle. Jonathon Pyke and his Shadow Chapters step in to consolidate (much like in Boston) after many of the trusted local Johnsons are killed, corrupted, retired or traumatized by all that happened. The ASPS heavily involved in leyline repair/investigation, along with Wuxing Geomancers. Ghostwalker agents and the “Real Americans” policlub start agitating in town, reaching out on Shadow Chapters/NooseNet etc to push for “Free City Chicago”, since “the UCAS apparently doesn’t care about them.”

The team lays low and recovers in Ahabitat for a while, catches up with Otoko, etc. Big Meat and other Merrow fetch a pile of lake-floor debris for Kit to feed on to get their strength back to regenerate their medic half, as she died in the missile assault on the dragon, so Kit is down to only their driver half for now. Creature hears some Dragonspeech in their head, and agrees to swear fealty to the Sea Dragon in exchange for a boon, and feels xyr body begin to change in some way as xe sleeps underwater the next few nights. The team gets a comm from Fargus Sol via the buoy, saying he’s in town and they should come meet him at elemental hall at their earliest convenience. They agree, and head back to the surface. Upon reaching Elemental Hall, they find themselves somewhat overwhelmed at the strangeness of the floating ASPS fortress, but luckily don’t have to venture far inside for their meeting.

Sol, Lu Wendao, Dr. Kersh, Daytripper and some others all meet them. They say Lothan was supposed to attend but has apparently become somewhat agoraphobic after catching a glimpse of Vhortas during the dragon’s attempt to portal away from the fight, Aradia cheers him up a bit by promising to share distracting data and research. The ASPS/Grey Cell group tell the team that the main physical battle is over, but Chicago isn’t saved yet- they still need to save it’s soul. They go back through what they’ve learned- Calumet, the former Spirit of the City was thought killed in ARES’ FABIII assault all those years ago, but was actually corrupted and horribly twisted, and has become the behind the scenes manipulator of much of what has gone wrong in Chicago in the last few years: V’Golkatl.

They tell the team that they don’t know if this spirit can be “killed” per se, but that it can be trapped. They explain that the team will need to track down as many other powerful local spirits as they can of any that survive, and will also need to figure out V’Golkatl’s exact location, as it has been using powerful dark magic to hide itself both physically and astrally while it twists and corrupts it’s servitors throughout the city. They give the team a FAB meter to detect strong competing background counts to help in their search, and Fargus Sol provides them with 4 ritual tokens to aid in their quest: these will allow 1 hour each of regeneration, piercing vision, intangibility, and luck. He says they may prove essential to the team’s success, and to choose their moment well.

The team heads out and decides to start in the Shattergraves. The city feels strange at first and they eventually realize why as they drive: the bugs seems to be well and truly gone, and most of the gunfire and shouting seems to be celebratory, for once. They make their way through the Shattergraves, disturbed by strange spectral visions and entities, until Aradia decide to do some classic Quimbanda summoning, and calls forth The Wailing Ghost, a powerful spirit who mourns and gains power from all who die in the city, who seems to have formed after the incident which created the Shattergraves: the Alamos 20k terror attack in 2039. She tells them that she knows of V’Golkatl and will tell them more if they eliminate an enemy of hers: a spirit of the bugs named Pestilence, who dwells nearby in the Cermak crater.

They agree and head over, and find a bizarre and massive spirit seemingly restrained with toxic fetters. It looks like a combination of all the different types of bugs (including mantids and spiders), but seems more like a manifestation of the city’s fear of the bugs, as it doesn’t have an actual insect aura. It begins singing a strange tempting song, harmonizing amongst it’s many mouths, which lures Carol in. Luckily the others aren’t strongly effected, and Creature notices that xe can’t be: xe is already sworn to one Queen and cannot accept another. Aradia manages to mind control Carol and make him fire, which breaks the spell, and they quickly slay the spirit, though it melts TT’s armor pretty good. It seems badly depleted by the bugs’ defeat and exodus. Aradia surmises that the Swamp Things were likely responsible for fettering the spirit, probably at V’Golkatl’s command in order to ensure Pestilence didn’t get too much power during the return of the bugs.

Reporting back to the Wailing Ghost, she tells them that V’Golkatl also managed to limit her growth, and that since the UCAS/shedim didn’t get their way and nuke the city she won’t be able to compete with it for power, but tells the team there are 5 other spirits that survive that might be powerful enough to help to contain V’Golkatl, if the team can make deals with them. The team forwards the list of spirit names back to their ASPS/Grey Cell Johnsons, and get some last know locations. Ibu AIr, a powerful free air spirit, tells them that he distributed tokens amongst the various powerful spirit entities of the city some time ago, and that if they can get all 5 spirits to agree to assist and provide their tokens, they should be able to trap V’Golkatl using an alchemical canister that Ibu Air himself has created for the purpose.

The team heads out to start making friends. First, Creature sneaks into Tamir Grey housing block past a Popular Will protest/blockade, after TT fails to take sense into some trolls there, though everyone at the protest applauds him for saving the city. Creature makes an offering at the commemorative stature of Tamir, and his spirit (or at least the spirit that uses his name) appears, and agrees to help them in exchange for Creature vowing to help find a new, safe home for Chicago’s ghouls. They next head to Archer, and Kit manages to do a strange impromptu dance performance with the van and it’s arm, summoning the Dancer on Archer, who dances with them for a while and promises her assistance as well.

Carol calls in a favor from ARES and gets the contact number from The Greek, the head of local branch of the Detroit mob, one of three mafia factions in town. He gets some ideas of where to find Joey the Pig from The Greek, in exchange for promising to put in a good word to favor his family over the others. They call in some rep with the Merrow, who retrieve some old lost bootlegger cargo from the lake floor, and head to an old smuggler’s tunnel where soldato leave offerings to Joey. He appears, and accepts the shipment, complimenting Carol’s ability to track down lost things. He agrees to help, and also to favor The Greek/Detroit mob going forward, impressed by their and Carol’s gumption.

The team then heads to the WInd Transit Terminal squatter community, and with help from some friendly locals, manage to track down Fury, a spirit of the desperate and dispossessed. Calling on their history of good deeds and friendship to the communities Fury protects, they request his assistance, which he grants, but doesn’t promise them anything beyond that. For the last one, they head for old city hall, seeking Daley, a spirit of backroom deals, corruption, business, and governance. They find city hall overrun by Gutsmen, a new extremist ghoul gang who are responding to the anti-ghoul violence by openly embracing their nature. Luckily, Aradia finds a note, and the team follows Daley to his new base in O’Hare Sprawl.

They arrange a meeting through some corp contacts, and encounter the jovial but somewhat slimy spirit info broker. He agrees to assist in exchange for intro’s to corp movers and shakers, which the team easily provides. Reporting back on their successes, they are told that they will need to have one person go with each spirit to make a rough pentagram around V’Golkatl’s location once they discern it, and bury their tokens at the 5 points. They will then just need to defend themselves and maintain their position while the ritual does it’s work, and whoever holds the canister keeps it intact until V’Golkatl is trapped inside. TT and Carol decide to be on team “spot/hold the canister”, Creature will go with Tamir, Kit with the Dancer, and Aradia with Fury. Fargus Sol will go with Joey the Pig, and Lu Wendao with Daley.

The team decides all 4 artifacts should go with team spot/canister, except the luck one which Kit holds onto to be able to race around town at breakneck speed as needed. Carol and TT get a ride from Roddy Steelsky, another Spire pilot, up to the top of the old, ruined Truman Tower, where they first saw V’Golkatl’s storm form. Using the piercing vision, Carol confirms this is it’s hiding spot, but distrubingly, it’s up to something he can’t see, through some kind of rift it has opened. The various spirit teams all call in some allies to help defend them and Kit races around dropping them all off before getting themself set up on Archer. They bury the stones, with Joey dropping his out in the lake, and Carol sees 5 beams of energy shoot into the base of Truman tower, up the central shaft, and emerge from the canister as TT opens it. The beams surround V’Golkatl’s form and begin pulling it in, as Ibu Air guides the ritual from Elemental Hall.

It doesn’t go without a fight though, it repeatedly lashes out at the small VTOL they’re in, and Carol uses intangibility and TT uses regen to stay alive long enough to get the ritual done. Still, it is a close things, as TT passes out just as the canister finally snaps closed around V’Golkatl. Roddy has jumped out of the shredded VTOL long ago, and Carol has been struggling to keep it aloft, but he manages to catch the canister as TT drops it, and grab a chute. TT regens back to consciousness, and also grabs a chute and both leap free of the wreckage, Carol having piloted just well enough to get them safely clear of the tower. Kit uses luck to pilot them remotely both safely to ground. They pass the canister off to Fargus Sol for Arleesh to store in her Vault, and Ibu AIr explains they’ve created what is known in alchemical circles as a Bottle Demon: a terrible tool which will make the user a nigh-unstoppable spellcaster, even as it consumes them.

Also, Fargus debriefs with Carol about what he saw as V’Golkatl was pulled away an the rift it had opened closed behind it: a door has opened in Kadath. And through that door, many lessor Horrors (m’flesits, crawlers, and gum toads amongst them) have entered the endless city, and now roam it’s labyrinthine pathways. Fargus tells the team that though they have saved Chicago, the world is still in grave danger…
But for now, a grand success. Fargus also tells them they’re in a somewhat unique position: they know the 6 remaining spirits who might be powerful enough to become spirit of the city, and they have a ton of solid rep and good will around town that they could expend to try to make it so.

The team heads to a bar to debate. They rule out the Wailing Ghost immediately, on principle. They also rule out Tamir as being too weak and depleted. They decide against Joey, though Carol has a fanboy crush. They also eventually rule against Fury, not trusting his motives, and feeling they don’t know enough. They decide between Daley (potentially a big payout) and the Dancer (party city!) and eventually decide to go unanimously in on the Dancer. They call in just about every last favor, token, and debt they’ve amassed, and the ASPS announces an effort through their new global endeavor, The Concord, to try to establish urban tribes who’s longterm mission is to bolster, support, and stabilize spirits of cities around the world, to try to stave off their corruption.

The team preps to head for space, and collects some additional jobs to do while there. Carol really wants to get out of debt with the Tan Robes as he has a disturbing sensation that when he stared into the abyss beyond Kadath, something stared back and spotted him. They decide to keep paying rent on Ahabitat for now, in case they need a spot to retreat to, and leave their other vehicles with Goober for the time being.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and the return of: Blue

The team heads back above the surface to meet up with Juan at a Taco Temple in the Zone, and find out what this “final mission” he needs them for is. On the way they hear that the Spider cult at Camp Lincoln has come under attack, and head that way to try to intervene. Finding a 100’s-strong group made of gangers, civ militias, and Popular Will thugs they decide intervention might be hard, and while they dither the assault concludes: a massive energy wave blasts out from the center of the park as the attackers breach the last maze-like defenses. Aradia, in the astral, determines a few things: this energy burst was from a metaplanar portal, likely to one of the Spider planes, closing, and V’golkatl seems to be stirring up some of the magically active members of the crowd.

TT encourages taking them out but is talked out of it by Kit and others, and Aradia decides to warn one of them that they’re being targeted, but this just seems to get one of the few magically active people going after the others and further riling the crowd. Deciding they don’t have any great options, they decide to head to the meet. On the way they make some calls, getting in touch with Fargus Sol to see about any useful anti-dragon/anti-bug artifacts they might be able to borrow. He says he’ll ask, and also vouches for The Collector, to an extent, in terms of selling home plate if they want a payday, but they decide to hold onto it and see if it will boost a future ritual.

Aradia does manage to get an enchancted nose ring in memory of Simon Andres, inscribed with “Fuck The Bugs”, that has a limited rasnge bug detector, that she also makes into a power focus with the help of the Ash Union. While this is getting made, they head to the meet at Taco Temple and find a somewhat impatient Juan, a little bit undercover. He leads them back into the freezer, bribing an employee, and they find that it seems to be both magically and wirelessly sealed: a good meeting spot. He explains to them that he’s heard rumors that the shedim faction within the UCAS military is pushing for some kind of drastic solution to the Chicago problem, so they need to act quickly.

His sources have told him that the UCAS military at Wrigley have recovered 2 members of the corp strike team, he doesn’t know if they’re alive or dead, but he needs the team to retrieve them (if alive) or their data (if not). He provides photo’s of the 2 members he heard were recovered: the Wuxing geomancer Lu Wendao and the AZT Shorn One Hector Ramirez. Juan also tells them what he knows of what happened to the team: they reported in after reaching the ritual chamber where the team saw the bug dragon, and didn’t find the dragon but were engaging in heavy fighting with the bugs. Lu had reported that he was mapping multiple converging bug-aspected leylines beneath the city, and Hector said the team was getting good mapping data of the tunnel systems.

However, the team was not in touch again after that, so Juan assumes they failed in their ultimate goal, and he will need to team to complete it while he causes a distraction topside. They agree on a price, and resupply at some generous rates through Juan. He also provides some AZT mages to perform some kind of blood ritual on Avocado and Aradia to temporarily aspect them towards bug magic so they won’t suffer such ill effects from the heavy background count underground. Both their Mentors, Seducer and Peacekeeper, seem to go along with this, for very different reasons.

The team heads out overnight, and finds Wrigley transformed from their last visit: the shanytown has been levelled and the surviving population has been relocated outside the stadium in trailers and other temp structures. The UCAS appears to have also demoed about 1/4 of the stadium itself, and appears to be using ground penetrating radar to spot tunnels underneath and deploy sappers. It is also fenced and a bit fortified, with checkpoints guarded both physically and magically. They plot out the guard routes, and plan a way in, having failed to get much meaningful assistance from Stereotype Abellard, though he warns them to get out of town if possible, or at least try to be somewhere without underground infrastructure.

Kit pulls the ruthenium-cloaked van up to the fence by the demo-ed stadium area, and use the arm as a bridge to allow people to cross the barbed wire layer. They then pull the van away remotely while the team sneaks in and clambers over the rubble. Avocado uses social skills and some adept magic to get in at one of the checkpoints, not trusting his physical skills to remain hidden. They rendezvous and with a quick look around, decide to focus on searching the medical and brig areas. Avocado, Carol, and TT get into the brig but find it empty, though there is evidence of 1 prisoner having been here recently.

Kit, Creature, and Aradia (invisible) enter the Med building, and find a stack of body bags, and 2 MP’s guarding a door to secure room in the back. The MP’s tell them medical has been relocated to the mess hall, and Kit fakes a work injury from hauling debris to stumble over to them, while Aradia sneaks up and Creature apes Kit’s movements to approach undetected. With Kit jamming, they manage to take out the 2 guards nonlethally without raising any obvious alarms, and the rest of the team joins them.

Kit uses their Monad abilities to try to use one of the MP’s prints to unlock the door, but they appear to not have clearance, and Kit sets off an alarm (luckily they are still jamming). TT pops the door with a crowbar, and the team comes under concerted assault from a nerdy looking interrogator, as well as spotting Lu Wendao alive. Kit is nearly felled as the interrogator chucks a knife into them, but luckily their Monad nature rejects the poison that coated the blade, and TT is shot up pretty good with some surprisingly fast light pistol firing, before he responds by killing the spy in one brutal javelin throw.

TT quickly pops Lu free from the table restraints but leaves the mage cuffs on for now, while Aradia casts a massive detox spell on him and convinces him to come with them, and talk later. Meanwhile, Carol, Creature, and Avocado have searched the body bag pile and found Hector Ramirez’s badly damaged corpse. Kit races over and manages to extract a bunch of data, though they don’t have any time to sort through it. Since the spy’s gun wasn’t silenced, even with Kit jamming, they expect a response incoming quickly, so Kit starts pulling the van up nearby again, and they prepare to race for the exit….

As Aradia casts a massive illusion of bugs breaking forth in the center of the UCAS camp, her new slightly buggy (temporary) aura seems to call to some actual bugs, who shortly thereafter also break forth in the middle of the camp, in an upsetting mirroring. Luckily, this causes a huge distraction for the team to break for some of the tunnels that the UCAS sapper team has exposed. Creature blasts some lube grenades and they get a call from another shadow asset, Blue, who Juan hired for hacking and sniper support, who is wiping camera footage of them and using stick and shock to clear a path.

They send Blue the data they got from Hector’s corpse and she very politely makes them an overlay map of a way out of the tunnels from where they jump in, and they get clear of the base as large firefight occurs behind them. They link up with Blue at the tunnel exit with the van. Heading to a Taco Temple to debrief, they bribe an employee again and step into the freezer. Conversing with Lu Wendao, they agree to let him send a rerouted code phrase to his handler, a “Mr. Hong”, to alert him that he made it out the tunnels in exchange for giving them all the info. He also helps them piece together the fragmented data and footage they recovered from Hector’s corpse.

What happened: the corp team made it to the chamber where the Queen was inhabited, fighting heavily the whole way, but the Queen had been moved. The different corp factions started getting more suspicious of each other as they went on, and Lu noticed corrupting influences from some strange leylines- the team suspects V’golkatl using it’s influence to turn the corp team against each other using their innate rivalries. This lack of cooperation proved fatal when they finally did encounter the Queen, and Lu spotted a convergence point of the terrible leylines at a disturbing artifact. He says this is likely the source of the leyline alteration towards bugs, and what is allowing the bugs to cooperate, according to his quick analysis.

Blue and Kit also manage to assemble the data into a coherent timeline of footage, maps, and comms logs and confirm the story. They send Lu on his way after popping off the mage cuffs and he thanks them for saving his life. They tell him to return with more assistance if possible after telling him Juan’s plan-they feel allies are more important than secrecy at the moment. They leave TT after Blue finishes scarfing some Bigger Badder Battered Butter Balls and make/receive some calls. Stereotype Abellard calls on a burner and warns TT that he is on a CIA watchlist now since he killed one of their guys with a distinctive javelin. He says he won’t be in touch for a while since Agents are crawling all over.

Tate calls, and tries to convince them all to leave town for a massive payday. He is very polite and friendly, but seems fully corrupted. They refuse the offer, and Creature tells him a knock knock joke ending in “y’urt me real bad” to express xyr feelings about the betrayal. He seems disappointed and apologizes, but doesn’t shift his goals or requests. They then call Juan to share the data as well as some extra info they’ve put together- he shares info back, seemingly sharing their philosophy that they need to cooperate now. He reveals that V’golkatl was created by the corruption and destruction of Calumet, the former Spirit of the City, in ARES’ FABIII assault decades ago, V’golkatl has been growing in power slowly ever since, and only recently has been able to act openly, but Juan confirms that this is a second sign of the coming of the endtime Horrors, the arrival of bug spirits being the first warning.

Juan says his corp has been studying dark magics and preparing for decades for this eventuality, but they hope to stave it off a bit longer. To that end: part 2 of his plan. AZT forces will lure the bugs out near the UCAS, forcing them to engage, and hopefully pulling the Queen away from the artifact. The runners will infiltrate using the corp team’s map data, and destroy the artifact, hopefully destabilizing the bugs or reducing their power. The team agrees, but needs some time to prep and whatnot, so they decide to go the next day. They start calling in allies and favors, expending much of their local rep to get everyone they can get to show up to a rally point that Juan will control to assess for bug infiltration. They will then relocate to the battle site and hopefully lure enough bugs out for the team to succeed.

They talk to Fargus Sol and get and share some Tarot info. Remembering Prophecy 8 and it’s connection to Chicago, they pass along the coordinates, and Sol says they have a Grey Cell operative in the area who can investigate. They also make a deal with the Collector to hand home plate over in exchange for participating the ritual of 5’s, which Sol says should grant some boons for a week. They restock on ammo and gear and explosives, and do the ritual once the Collector arrives. Lothan leads it, and Aradia and Avocado also take part. The Collector say the will need a 5th with the presence of home plate, and TT jumps in, says the Collector explains that with home included they can also include mundanes. They also receive 5 levels of an adept ability, and go their separate ways, the Collector leaves her number if they come across interesting collectibles. Aradia and Avocado organize a big concert with Vendetta Violet and Morris Knight and others at Midway, and get the Neo-A’s their to guard it while the Ash Union coordinate dance/music/movement based ritual to try to create some positive mana energy to assist them. Kit also gets some destroyer nanites from Carol Staples in exchange for the promise of data on their use vs the bug dragon. Kit begins to research how to use their Monad powers to control nanites also.

Sol also reports that a Neo-Anarchist merc named Mara Ariel recovered a strange artifact known as the Net of Marduk at the coordinates in Turkmenistan and is headed to town with it. The team feels about as prepped as they’re gonna get, so they rest one last time and then head to the undiscovered hive entrance that Juan’s scouts found in the Shattergraves in an abandoned dump with a multi-story underground compactor. They sneak in, and use the Ant pheromones to bypass some ant guards. The squatter communities locally seem to have been fully depleted by bug kidnapping- worrying and upsetting. The team heads into the tunnels, navigating via the map they pieced together, assisted by Carol’s excellent perception spotting the detritus of the corp team’s running battle. They reach a central chamber and see an awful scene: dozens and dozens of filled cocoons with various spirit forms growing and changing inside. 3 resin pillars hold the chamber up, and multiple magical barriers maintained by 2 huge caretaker spirits protect the pillars and artifact at their apex. 2 soldiers leap out to defend the hive, and multiple workers start freeing hybrid flesh forms from their cocoons as the team enters.

They get in a brutal fire/fist/teeth-fight, but finally manage to fight back the bugs and demolition their way through the barriers, and TT uses his special orichalcum-tipped javelin that Lothan crafted for him to destroy the artifact. This massivelt destabilizes the local mana sphere (and the chamber), and the tunnel they came in on collapses as Blue finishes blasting through one of the pillars to prevent any bugs escaping, they head for the one other exit: a shaft of sunlight at the far side of the chamber at a steep upward angle. They blow the other pillars behind them to destroy the remaining cocoons, and find themselves crawling up a steep shaft that it looks the bug dragon clawed it’s way up.

They emerge into a hellscape: a pitched battle between masses of bugs and multiple opposing forces. They see the dragon taking out the final UCAS chopper with some acid breath, and chucking the wreckage of into an AZT hover tank that got a lucky shot in with a railgun but was unable to follow up with it’s missile launcher. The tank is tipped over and it’s hover capacity wrecked, but the weapons look intact. UCAS and AZT troops are holding the lines against waves of bug soldiers, but they seem to be losing ground and largely pinned in place. Luckily, they get a brief moment to get better emplaced due to the destruction of the artifact, and the bugs seems to be self-sorting away from each other in the magical confusion, as the artifact seems to have been the thing keeping them cooperating.

The team sees Big Meat and some merrow ferrying civilians out the sea to safety and drowning bugs that follow, as they emerged along the lakeside in Union turf near the Navy pier. They spot Wingman and another Spire pilot flying fast attack craft aways overhead trying to limit the bugs air advantage with missiles while flitting away from the dragon’s lunges. They see Jeff the Chef frantically handing out armor and ammo from a transit van as support rolls in from the staging site. They see Goober in a killdozer and Carol in Zone ambulance ferrying casualties back to a pop-up med tent that Hole Patcher and Horogront set up. They see Mara Ariel with the Arcance 3 and Red at the center of a wedge of Black Star Bug Hunters led by Old Crow while they try to punch through the bug lines to get close enough to the dragon to use the net.

They see Lu Wendao, Opti, Lothan and some ASPS mages doing some sort of ritual to contain the mana storm and alter the leylines to their advantage, while Scurry launches lightning spells and Ryu Quan, and Flurris frantically defend them with some sort of magical sword, which seem to repel the dragon in some way. They feel the energy of chaotic joy conflicting with the mana storm, from the ritual the Ash Union is performing at the huge concert and dance part at Midway. They see Opti’s team, the Silver Vixens, Jazz, Mrs. Clean, Matt Wrath and some baby runners, all in a mish-mash of new looking Renraku and MCT armor and gear trying to bolster the UCAS flanks. They see Mako defending some Freaktowners who seem to be brewing and mixing chems with explosives assembled by Byom and Jaro, and chucking them into the bug lines. And Blue gets a comm welcoming her to the matrix support squad: 3D, Hotkey, Grid Reaper, Dot-Execute, Chessick, S@m, Remo, Kobold, Skeleton Key and Orior are making sure the UCAS can’t call in the “Ripley Initiative” strike, and also trying to coordinate, but all the different groups aren’t talking to each other right/efficiently.

So the team makes some quick plans: they are behind the bug lines so they have a moment to assess before they get noticed. TT and Creature decide to use the team’s remaining pheromones to refill some lube grenades to chuck into the bug formations to try to sow some chaos. Then they, with Kit, will break through and make a run for the tank, where TT will physically retarget the rail gun and missile launcher, while Kit adds Destroyer nanites to the missile payload and Creature fires the heavy weapons. Aradia will levitate Avocado and Blue invisibly around to convince everyone to work together and touchlink all their comms systems to the massive Deep Resonance host the S@m and Remo are setting up, to better coordinate the battle. And Carol will bodyguard behind Kit’s deployed shield to make sure noone attacks Aradia while she magics.

TT and Creature begin crafting pheromone grenades to sow some chaos and TT calls in the Ogre and the Chemical Boyz, the foot soldiers that Egrend Alexkij sent on behalf of the Horde. They see them on comms injecting a bunch of intense looking combat drugs before revving their combat bikes and racing for the bug lines to try to make a hole so TT, Creature and Kit can reach the downed tank. Aradia levitates Avocado and Blue, invisibly, over the bug line where there’s less air action occurring and drops them in towards the main group of runners, and they convince them to link up. Blue gets them connected to huge matrix support/Resonance Well group.

The dragon chucks Jeff the Chef’s vehicle, with him inside, into Wingman’s jet, causing him to spiral out. Carol and Blue manage to snipe some pursuing Wasp spirits, allowing him to eject and get safely caught by Merrow. Shishi, Rune, and Prudence Rosier sacrifice their lives the save the med tent from the dragon while the Freaktowners start chucking chem grenades at it. This distracts the dragon, but unfortunately it charges towards the Freaktowners and scatters them back into the runners’ lines. Meanwhile, Avocado and Blue get levitated to the flagging UCAS line and convince Stereotype to let them link comms, and do so. The Chemical Boyz make a hole, aided by bug infighting triggered by the pheromone grenades. Unfortunately, the Chem Boyz and the Ogre are all killed doing so, but Kit, TT, and Creature reach the downed hover tank.

Avocado and Blue get levitated over the few AZT survivors and get the command codes for the BLue-227 missile that the tank is carrying from Tenoch, just before he dies. They also get them on comms. A complete tactical overlay comes online from the matrix support crew and they start efficiently directing the battle from their remote vantage. The Black Star Bug Hunters race in to protect the tank from getting surrounded and one of them suicide bombs with a FABIII grenade after getting pulled into the mass. The dragon directly assaults the ritual finally, and slays Flurris and Ryu Quan, but ends up with Imperial Sword embedded in it’s belly. The dragon then finishes wrecking the medical area, though Goober safely gets most of the staff and some of the patients out in his killdozer. The dragon calls bugs over to assault the ritual as well, and many of the mages are actively burning out from overcasting.Carol takes a sniper shot at the dragon to distract it and try to save the ritual.

The team in the tank, with the command codes, manages to get the weapons online- TT is on the top, having to physically haul the turret around to aim it, while Kit cracks open the missile and adds their own nanites as well as the destroyer nanites to the payload. Creature estimates they’ll need 2 hits from the rail gun to have any chance at the missile actually making contact, and loads 2 shells, since the auto-feeder is busted. The dragon races past and blasts Carol, who manages to hunker down behind Kit’s shield, which fully melts, along with his armor, but he survives and keeps Aradia alive (and casting). Ricky Steelsky, the other Spire pilot goes into a death dive against the dragon as it ascends towards him, battering it with missiles. The dragon bursts through the jet, damaged but alive, in a massive explosion.

Aradia and Avocado both tell Creature to shoot real good, and xe gets a first blow with the railgun- success! The dragon starts descending for another assault, frying a bunch of the the Black Star Bug Hunters as they defend the tank. The second rail shot misses, and Aradia levitates Blue and Avocado up to try to grab the sword that’s stuck in it. They mange to reach it and both grab the sword, but the dragon also grabs them. However, it seems to have some kind of dragon repelling effect and Avocado manages to “steer” it a bit towards the ground, while Blue hack the healing nanites Kit had implanted in the dragon weeks ago to assist.

As the dragon descends, Mara Ariel takes a flying leap with the Net of Marduk off of Old Crow’s back, snaring the dragon in it. The dragon lashes out, killing her and most of the rest of the Bug Hunters. The bugs are getting more chaotic along with the magic storm, and the pheromones are causing some infighting in their ranks. The UCAS troops, seeing the need, pull back from the front to protect the ritual, while Scurry and Lothan keep a magical shield (barely) intact. The runners crews start taking heavier casualties as a result. Red races into the tank to reload the rail gun.

The team all rallies together and acts as one- Avocado, Aradia and Carol all provide leadership as Creature manages to get a second hit with the railgun, with TT still turning the turret to aim. Kit then launches the missile, which they pilot in (as their other self, from their nanites they put in). They get a solid hit and the dragon starts dissolving faster than it can magically regenerate. Blue assists Kit’s nanites as they spread through the dragon and boost the destructive power of the missile payload. Unfortunately, Blue and Avocado are also splashed with the nanites and Avocado is instantly killed (and the Sword broken) when the dragon desperately swipes at them. Blue is knocked clear, barely avoiding a deadly blow herself.

The dragon begins attempting a ritual to open a portal, perhaps to escape, and Carol races forward and chucks his mysterious backpack at it- he tells Think Tank: “I’m setting you up!”. TT takes the hint and chucks a javelin at just the perfect moment, spearing the device and detonating the portal closer bomb inside. This sends a small explosion and a large magical ripple over the center of the battlefield, disrupting the dragon’s attempt to open a portal and flattening most of the people in the immediate vicinity (though most appear otherwise unhurt). Creature takes ones more shot with the railgun and blows straight through the dragon: everyone sees a huge burst of gross green energy flash and dissipate as the body fully dissolves into a slurry, destroying Avocado’s body, who was right underneath.

Blue is barely saved by the Arcane 3 and Old Crow, who also use an EMP on her to get the nanites off. With the queen dead, the rest of the bugs seems confused and demoralized, and the allied forces begin mopping them up. Lu Wendao, finally dominant in the ritual, is able to guide the mana storm to a close, and Aradia and other mages gather a ton of valuable reagents in the aftermath. AZT is onsite pretty quickly to reclaim property, but other battlefield pickers get some good finds. Everyone hears the good news that the party at Midway remained safe, and those that are conscious head over to celebrate and mourn. Many lives were lost this day, but the city seems to have been saved, at least for now.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia

While resting, Carol checks in with Candice, who reports that the tip line he set up is working well. Unfortunately, the Jackpoint-er Sticks posted a warning to not trust whatever ARES was up, said something cryptic about looking into Detroit, and them promptly disappeared from contact. Carol tells Candice this is a bad look, but Candice says she certainly doesn’t know anything about it, and gives Carol a compromat file on Sticks, seemingly compiled by ARES in-house intel services. She says he is welcome to use anything within it to get people off his back if needs be, by showing Sticks’ history of paranoia and instability when it comes to ARES/bugs.

Candice also inquires about the Desolation Angels, as some mages on Ellis’ team got a look at their knife and auras during the rescue in the previous mission. Carol confers with the team but confirms that they have a Mantis internal order, since ARES already knows. The team spends the day putting together a proposal and calling in favors to set up a meeting, and ends up arranging a deal: the DA’s will act as on the ground investigators and hitters for ARES in town for dealing with bugs that Carol’s tip line turns up, and ARES will not target the DA’s and will supply them with arms and equipment ensure success. Becky99 reports that the only weird part of the arrangement is that ARES is very insistent on live capture for shamans, who are sedated and taken out of town somewhere, but all in all this feels like a win.

They get a call from Matt Wrath, telling them he’s got work and to get down to the Vault. They do so, and find a few janitors cleaning up and SImon Andrews (secretly) waiting in the green room. Kit waits in the van to make sure the team isn’t all caught in a trap again. Simon apologizes for not calling directly, but says everyone needs to be more careful due to bugs being seemingly everywhere. He tells them that he’s gotten intel that Tate might have moved the bug dragon down underneath Wrigley Field- there’s a huge shanty-town on top, perfect astral masking, perfect source for fresh hosts, and perfect place to make a warren of tunnels.

He has an old smuggler’s tunnel that can get them in, but most of the team decides to use their new UCAS rep to get past the guards at the gate that the UCAS just took control off, LoneStar still runs the other entrance. Simon tells them they just need to get in, get pics of Tate and the dragon, and get out- this will be the proof he needs to get a majority of the corp reps in town enough evidence to get to their superiors to force a corp intervention at the Corporate Court. The team agrees, after negotiating pay up significantly.

They head out, with Carol and SImon taking the smuggler’s tunnel in and finding it compromised by bug tunnels. Probably not a good escape route, then. The rest of the team gets past the UCAS gate by name-dropping Abellard and the rescue, but are warned not to make any trouble inside since it’s a jurisdictional nightmare right now. The team also recalls that the set of 5’s in the 6WT have some Wrigley connections, and review the images they’ve seen. With Simon’s help, and some assensing, they notice home plate glowing on the cards, and Simon leads them to a speak easy called “Slide Home.”

Heading in, they see a few decrepit patrons drinking moonshine, a surly dwarven bartender, and what looks like a 2050’s era home plate mounted over the bar. They decide to steal it, as the cards suggest, and TT makes quick work of it as Aradia conjures up an illusion of some Fraternitas Insectorum gangers busting in to rob the joint. Weirdly, none of the people who were inside seem surprised to see the FI “members”, believing the illusion, but seem to more be waiting to see how the team responds. Spotting a low door leading down behind the bar, they decide to bum rush it, feeling the Tarot cards must’ve lead them here.

They race past as the bartender blasts with a sawed-off, and Creature drops a lube grenade behind. Finding a tunnel entrance under a tarp in the floor of the cellar, they descend, and quickly get into it with some lice spirits that were well-concealed within the bizarre, organic walls of the tunnel structure. They manage to defeat the spirits but it is a close one. They prepare to continue on, feeling that speed is their best bet given how they entered….

Trying to move quickly but stealthily, they find a small connecting chamber that leads to a large central domed room- all made of the same resinous material. Inside, Carol is distressed to see Tate cutting open a massive cocoon inside of a magical barrier, containing what is very obviously a Bug Queen-inhabited dragon, the very same dragon they had rescued from a previous ritual and given to Tate. Unfortunately, the room also contains a huge number of worker spirits and one huge caretaker spirit, who all spot Carol and turn to approach.

Fearing both cops and bugs if they exit back the way they came in, they decide to chance taking a different tunnel out. Everyone but Aradia makes it through the chamber successfully, but Aradia is snatched up by the massive Caretaker spirit that is overseeing the workers tending to the dozens of cocoons in the domed chamber. Simon Andrews makes a heroic speech and manages to cut Aradia free, shoving her into the tunnel with the rest of the team as he seals the tunnel entrance with a mana barrier. He is quickly swarmed by bugs on the other side of the barrier, but the team makes good use of his sacrifice to flee into the tunnels. Carol pauses to quickly document the whole scene with the Quicksilver Camera for good measure.

They get into another brutal fight with some termite spirits this time, and barely manage to fight their way free, with TT nearly dying and the rest of the team’s armor shredded. Using Kit’s excellent navigational sense and some good fortune on their parts, they finally emerge in a ruined parking structure not far from Wrigley. They find a call waiting from Juan Xiuhuitl, who says they must meet immediately, and explains that he and Simon were collaborating on this job. He convinces the team, and they head to the AZT compound springing up in the NW Zone.

Spotting some Jaguar guards onsite, they appreciate that AZT at least seems to be taking this all seriously. Juan tells them that job isn’t done yet- they need to get a strong majority of CC members to vote in favor of a surgical strike here to prevent Chicago from getting FABed or carpet bombed again. Juan says he can get his corp on board with all the evidence the team got, and that Simon had prepped SK for the same. Juan needs the team to reach out to Renraku, Wuxing, and MCT. He suspects that Spinrad will sit it out, as will Shiawase and EVO, not having strong local ops, and that ARES and Horizon will go against anything AZT proposes at the moment, and can’t be trusted anyway given their bug ties (his words).

They agree, and get a partial payment. They call up the Johnsons they know at the 3 corps, and get some small favors to do for each of them in exchange for their help, as Juan had warned they might. They document the corruption of leylines by V’Golkatl for Ryu Quan, suggesting that Tate was slowly corrupted over time as dark magics were warped around his clinic sites, and get Wuxing on board. Quan is still working to resummon Flurris from his formula after the ally spirit was destroyed getting Quan to safety during the bug ambush at the big meeting.

They pick up the broken man, Clay Foster, whose life the team totally dismantled during Aradia’s first mission with them, and pass him off to Carol Staples, who has replaced her old boss Maggie Goldberg, after Maggie’s untimely death in the Wasp/Ant Queen ritual on Truman Tower. She says MCT will join on with Juan’s plan. They also convince a disgraced ex-Seelie Court financier, Gregor Stassen, to leave town for Metropole, permanently, as the corps don’t operate openly there and there aren’t a ton of Seelie connections, so he can likely manage to start fresh. This satisfies Sarah Silverleaf, who wanted him kept away from Renraku’s areas of influence, and she says they will also join the plan.

The team reports back to Juan, who seems well-satisfied, and pays them, as well as offering them some discounts on some specialty gear. He tells them to lay low and heal up for a few days but keep their comms on. They head back down to Ahabitat to heal, patch up armor, and keep their heads down, but they hear some interesting and disturbing news while under the sea. Ghouls have come under aggressive attack locally by the Freedom Network and others, after the news that bugs have been using ghoul nests to masks their auras, and the local ghoul population has been pushed back to Long Pig Farms and Tamir Grey Towers, or else killed or driven out of town. Popular Will thugs are “keeping an eye” on both locations for further bug trouble, but it seems Chicago is no longer a safe place for ghouls at the moment.

They hear of a bunch of legendary corporate heavy-hitters showing up in town and joining forces, but apparently the surgical strike doesn’t quite go to plan, and the UCAS III Corps moves fully in in the aftermath, booting LoneStar from a lot of their security ops, and bombing and flattening the Wrigley enclave before establishing a major FOB there. They seem to be taking a “shoot first” policy towards any suspected bugs, and due to the ongoing pissing contest between ARES corporate and the UCAS are going especially hard after ARES and their allies- including the Desolation Angels. As a response to this, and pissed at being excluded from the strike team plan, ARES pulls out all their public local presence (Carol knows that some of this was planned as lead-up to the execution of Latvian Gambit).

ARES offers to help the DA’s relocate to Detroit as well, and Becky99 and Praxis call the team looking for advice. Their other best option is heading for the PWV sprawl in Azania, which has grown significantly in the last few years as a manufacturing hub. Apparently there is also some local reverence and tolerance in varying degrees for different bug species, and bug hunts are also common there, so it seems like it could be a good fit. After a lengthy discussion, Praxis and a few of the other Mantids head for Detroit with ARES, while Becky, Blue, Misa, and most of the rest of the gang head to PWV. The team manages to call in another favor with Stereotype Abellard and ensure that the DA’s can leave town without further run-in’s with the military, and the DA’s all sadly swap out their Chicago patches on their cuts for their new cities.

Kit especially feels their loss as good allies and skilled bug-fighters, but there doesn’t seem to be much the team can do- Abellard doesn’t have enough power to change command decisions at that level, so they wish them safe travels and hope to reconnect someday. Worried about the outcome of that corp strike team mission, they are somewhat relieved to hear from Juan, who says he needs them for one last job, and will explain everything once they meet up.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia

The team gets a call from Samuel Collingsworth, the AZT Johnson Juan Xiuhuitl had warned them to expect, and seemingly wants to sabotage. They set up a matrix meet, and attending, find him to be a total human supremacist, just as they had deduced from his image. He hires them for a data retrieval in the Shattergraves, and says it needs to happen ASAP. They negotiate pay, and get some upfront. They then report in to Juan, who says he’ll make sure the team gets paid regardless of how the job plays out as long as he gets what he wants. For now, he tells them to proceed with the job as planned.

They load up and head deeper into the Zone, noticing some changes. Horizon is reopening Tate’s clinics under their corporate banner, Popular Will attacks and protests are up given Tate’s reported treachery, and the CZ borders are once again sealed and patrolled astrally, seemingly to prevent bugs leaving the Zone. They also hear and see some UCAS military vehicles moving around overhead, all marked with a “III Corps” logo.

Heading towards their target destination, they roll up to a gang checkpoint, the gangers having fortified a major intersection. Sensing some buggy vibes, they decide to shoot and bash through, though Kit insists on minimal lethality since this seems like more low-level gangers caught up in the Fraternitas Insectorum, though the rest of the team doesn’t share Kit’s empathy. They lay down some suppressing fire while Aradia uses some area Foreboding to make gangers think twice, and Creature grenades the jury-rigged gates. Kit bashes through the first one, with the van taking minimal damage from some small arms fire.

They then see a ganger getting a rocket launcher ready to blast them, which confusingly seems to have been fired recently as well. Carol manages to shoot the launcher out of the gangers grip, and TT chucks a harpoon through it without setting it off, and then as Creature grenades the second gate and Aradia uses some illusions to distract gangers, Kit bashes their way out of the trap and they continue on their way.

Driving a bit more, they see an oily cloud of smoke ahead. Investigating, they find the wreck of one of the UCAS choppers they’d seen flying over. It looks like it took a missile hit to the tail section but a very skilled pilot managed to put it down largely intact, though it is now on fire. What to do?! They decide to take a more thorough look and find that a team of UCAS soldiers seems to have fled the scene, but that the pilot seems to have barely survived inside a rigger cocoon. With some spirit assistance, sheet muscle, and engineering know how, they managed to gain access to the partially crushed cocoon and get the pilot, a dwarf, free.

Kit and Aradia manage to stabilize and heal him a bit and get some info- the UCAS feels the corps have failed to contain Chicago and President Colloton sees a wedge issue she can use for political gain in her and her parties favor in the upcoming elections. They’re conducting scout flights with ground penetrating radar to map out the hive network under the city and see if it’s really as bad as rumors say, and early reports do not look good for Chicago. Jenkins, the pilot, agrees to share the data with the team if they help get any other survivors from the flight out of the Zone safely. They agree and use a fire spirit to finish detonating the chopper before the nearby Fraternitas Insectorum gangers can get their and claim the weapons and ammo aboard.

Using Jenkins TacNET conneciton, they find the other survivors, pinned down and surrounded by a hoard of ghouls pouring out of a ruined building nearby. They see the UCAS drone rigger go down as they approach, and Jenkins gets some stims from Kit to get in and take over as drone controller. Kit uses the van as a a ram to clear a path for the soldier to get clear, while laying down suppressing fire with the new mounted gun, along with Carol and Creature (using grenades). TT hops on top of the van to fend off ghouls with his javelins after the van nearly gets wrecked getting clear. Carol also gets a super lucky visual on a concealed toxic shaman who seems to be guiding the ghouls in some way, and 1-shots her with a sniper rifle. The team plus the surviving UCAS soldiers finish the ghouls off quickly after that, as they are all feral.

The soldiers agree to help the team gain access to their job site as they seem to be going to the same place: one of the nearby ruined buildings seems to be a tunnel nexus, and has collapsed in a sinkhole, leaving the data vault that the team needs to reach somewhere underground. The UCAS mage stays up top with Jenkins, who is crashing again from the stims, and they agree to guard the exit and watch the van. The team heads down with the other 3 soldiers, 2 nervous human privates, and a fairly calm troll LT named “Stereotype” Abellard who seems quite competent and skilled. As they begin heading deeper into the wrecked structure, an ominous storm blows in from nowhere and breaks overhead.

They find a lot of evidence of bugs below ground level, but it seems their astral signature was masked by the ghoul pack above- this being the 2nd time they’ve seen this now, they make a note to report this to the Shadow Chapters. They get to the vault without further trouble, and the UCAS soldiers get a lot of useful info as the area is filled with criss-crossing tunnels. Kit manages to use nanites to gain access to the vault, and hops on a terminal inside that is luckily still powered- the room seems quite well-built and sealed. Unfortunately, the opening of the vault door vibrates the whole tunnel around it and the team starts hearing buzzing approaching.

Kit decides to hurry and get the target data, skipping what could be some good paydata, and they hoof it. One of the UCAS soldiers gets grabbed as a side tunnel suddenly opens as they flee, and some spirits manifest to try to stop them but they manage to fight their way back to the surface. They find that the UCAS mage has been corrupted somehow and killed Jenkins and started cutting on himself, so they knock him out and restrain him with mage cuffs. Aradia spots that the dark storm cloud above has some wispy magical tendrils connecting to the mage, and drops out of astral quickly. She calls it in to Lothan, who confirms that V’golkatl is gaining power and acting more openly, having killed most of the other contenders for spirit of the city. The team decides to mage cuff Avocado too til they clear the area, just in case.

They drop the UCAS survivors off near a checkpoint, and Abellard says he’ll be in touch if he can use their help again. They call in to Juan, and are told to securely and secretly copy the file before giving it to Collingsworth. Kit calls in a favor from Remo, who makes quick work of it with a Resonance infusion. They get a copy for the team as well. The team meets digitally with Collingsworth, who is once again a metaracist dick, so they don’t feel bad about screwing him over. Checking the file, they find that it’s old blackmail material about Collingsworth hiring metahuman sex workers, which would be a problem for his human supremacist buddies. But now Juan has a copy too, so they feel comfortable knowing that Collingsworth is going to be in the hot seat, and had to pay out of pocket for the team to screw him.

Juan, as promised, signs up to the Shadow Chapters, and offers KEV ammo and stealth pheromones for sale at a reasonable rate to members taking the fight to the bugs. The team considers this a big bonus. Aradia heads off to learn some new spells from Lothan, having signed up with the Ash Union, and the rest of the team kicks back and patches up armor and vehicles in prep for whatever the next job is.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia

After healing up and agreeing to more future work from Juan, the team agrees to take a job from Matt Wrath, who just needs them to meet him and deliver a package within a few hours. They head to the diner where Matt is and are just sitting down and starting the meet when the windows are shot out by hybrid forms, a van screeches up and disgorges some ant spirits, and a sniper nearly kills Matt. The team scrambles to respond….

After a brutal firefight and with the help of a large spirit Aradia summons, the team defeats the attackers and stabilizes Matt Wrath, racing off from the scene in case more attackers are incoming. They rendezvous with his DocWagon pickup a little ways away and pass him off after confirming the DW crew aren’t bugs. Avocado rides with to keep an eye on the situation.

The team then follows Matt’s request and heads out to deliver the blade in the case he gave them to Becky 99 within 2 hours. Having already lost a little time, they call Becky 99 and try to plan a safe route. B99 warns them that many Ramblers have been corrupted by bugs, so Kit plans a backstreets route, with Aradia and Carol watching out for bugs and gang traps. They get pretty close before some cops pull them over, Aradia can detect some mind control traces on them. But luckily the team’s fake SINs hold up and they’re able to talk their way out, even at a severe disadvantage.

They get a few more blocks before the bug ambush strikes, with one large insect manifesting inside the car while others surround it. Kit, quick on their feet, manages to ram their way out of the trap, getting the van clear of most of the enemies while Creature grenades their pursuers and Aradia helps with spellcraft. TT and Carol fight the bug inside, but Carol gets an unlucky miss with his Alpha and catches TT in the chest with a full burst, nearly killing him. They do finally mange to finish off the bug after Carol switches to knife and gets a lucky hit in. However, a lot of their armor is pretty shredded and the van has seen better days.

They finally reach the meet site and hand off the dagger to B99, quickly assensing it Aradia thinks it is a powerful weapon foci suited to a tradition she is unfamiliar with. Some DA’s race back and report that ants are pouring out of nearby sewers, so the team decide to help the DA’s flee and figure out pay later. Kit again bashes through the ambush with van, with 2 DA vans staying close behind. Seeing that the bugs are lead by a large nymph spirit, Carol calls in Dr. Ellis, but requests no FABIII carpet-bombing this time as the situation is mobile.

The team sees some ARES stealthed VTOLs drop some figures in BugStomper suits with FAB throwers corralling all the pursuing bugs, and then some smoke bombs are dropped and a large container, similar to the ones they saw in DC, is dropped in the midst. Out come the horrifying hybrid bug things that ARES seems able to control, making short work of the bugs around them. The figures in BugStompers use some kind of pain controllers to get the ARES hybrids to respond to command, and manage to capture the nymph, which Ellis is thrilled about. The team is a bit stressed about all this, but what choice did they have…

Reaching DA safezone turf, B99 explains that the dagger was a gift from Arleesh’s vault, to help against the bugs, and would only be useful to members of her gang’s magical order. She pays the team, with a bonus for helping them escape, and the team heads back to the Bolthole to rest and restock on ammo. Kit and Carole head to Goober’s, and Kit etches some cool art onto Carol’s new armor playing for his cyber-legs (an abstract representation of the two different personalities within Kit, which merge into 1 image when together). Kit also gets some upgraded van armor and adds a concealed 360 degree turret with 2 ammo hoppers, so they can switch between KEV ammo and stick and shock, wanting a non-lethal option for non-bugs.

Carol posts a bounty of Jackpoint and NooseNet for info about any bugs/nests/hives anywhere in the world, and starts getting some leads and positive comments, especially once he starts paying out above market rate for the info on his ARES expense account. He sets up a protocol for MAMA to filter out junk messages and apply a pay scale, and then forward the leads to Candace.

The team waits around a bit, wondering what will come next.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Avocado
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia

The team rests up and heals for a few days, and then decide to sell their massive paydata package to the Shadow Chapters. They use this as an enticement to get the last few holdout corp Johnsons in town (who survived the meeting) to sign on as well, except for Juan Xiuhuitl, who is still holding a grudge for the team not coming to his aid during the bug ambush. Since Carol couldn’t convince the team to sell to ARES first with an exclusivity window, he decides to meet with Candace Phillips personally to at least present the info well. They also convince the Shadow Chapters to pony up for a bounty for the traitor for whoever discovers them. The rest of the team decides they better check up on Tate, since he’s the only one they didn’t have proof of getting ambushed.

Tate reports that his Genesis Clinic is still under heavy guard and seclusion after the bug attack, so he suggests they meet at the Maker’s Collective clinic. The team heads in, and finds the MC even more corporatized/gentrified than before, as well as finding the Zone border crossing reinforced by LoneStar, presumably in response to news of the bugs’ return. They head into the clinic and find Tate has it cleared out for their meeting, he calls them back to his office. As Avocado and Creature step in, a security shutter slams shut behind them, trapping Aradia, Think Tank and Kit in the hall.

Avocado and Creature start talking to a holo-projection of Tate while gas starts to fill the room- he tells them that as trusted confidants, he is going to bring the 2 of them in on his new discoveries and plans, but that the 3 in the hall must be culled as they have not proven trustworthy yet and he can’t risk it. In the hall they hear an accelerating beeping in the walls, and taking some careful sniffs, TT figures out that they’re in a killbox wrapped in plastic explosives. Avo and Creature try to negotiate with Tate but don’t have any luck, he seems unusually fervid and they worry that the bugs have gotten to him after all.

Out in the hall, TT starts trying to blast through the door into Tate’s office but doesn’t have enough det cord, so Aradia summons a spirit to help, which makes quick work of it, with TT also bashing away. Kit tries to disrupt the bomb with some matrix attacks, but initially just triggers a security response from some waiting IC which seems confused by their odd Monad presence. The beeping seems to be accelerating, so the team bashes through the back wall of the office as well (with the help of some of Creature’s grenades) and tumbles out into a storage area, trying to get into cover just as Kit accidentally triggers a failsafe and sets off the bomb.

They take some massive damage to their armor, and make their escape from the MC amidst a scene of chaos- shrapnel from the explosion has blown out into the market and killed or injured dozens, it looks like. Aradia tasks her spirit to help with search and rescue as it’s final service, and the team bails, leaving drones behind. The drones spot a team that looks like Tate’s security, but moving with bug efficiency and unity, arriving a short while later and searching the clinic and wreckage. They ship their armor off to Goober to get repaired, and order in some replacement explosives from 3D, as well as paying rent on both safehouses.

They spread the word about Tate to their contact lists and the Shadow Chapters, to much surprise and dismay. They rest and heal for a few more days, and hear some disturbing bits of news: apparently a number of runners whose safehouses were known to Tate from house calls and the like have gone missing in the last few days, and some others have been noticed to be acting strangely. Paranoia rises. Simon Andrews gets the team the bounty payout for discovering the traitor, but they keep their name out of it for now, worried it will be suspicious that they proposed a bounty and almost immediately cashed in. They also hear that Freaktown has come under attack and some local changelings, including legendary Zone bus driver Murretta Burretta, have been killed, mistaken for bug flesh forms.

Simon also tells the team he’s done his best to make peace with Juan, and Aradia also uses her hold over Simonetta Chandra to try to get back into Juan’s good graces. Juan does eventually call them with some work, and summons them to a meeting at Club Apex, AZT’s new fight/sports bar. The team rolls over, noticing some heavy acrid smoke hovering over the Zone, and looks online to see what’s up. There was a big Urban Brawl match the previous night and the news is saying the celebrations got out of hand, and multiple large fires are burning, with gangers attacking LS first responders preventing them from getting the scenes. TT also gets a “kill penalty” alert- basically an open bounty on one of the Brawl players who is thought to have cheated. Kit wants no part of it, but the rest of the team seems open to partaking if they stumble across the guy.

At the club, they get sent back to a private meeting room and and briefed by Juan, and his 2 new assistants, Atzi and Tenoch. Apparently an AZT work crew that was extending GridGuide repairs into the Zone has gone missing, as has the sec team sent in to find them. AZT retrieved all of their vehicles using auto-pilots, so they don’t think it was an obvious gang hit or corp sabotage. There was no useful sensor data, though the sec vehicle had some small arms damage. Juan provides a list of names of the missing as well as their corp RFID’s, and the location of the work/last contact. TT doesn’t like Juan’s super corp-y energy, but the pay is decent and the team wants to be on his good side so they agree.

As they’re leaving, Atzi offers a small bonus if one of them will step into the fighting ring as a last minute replacement for a missing fighter. Avocado agrees, feeling maybe this will be good closure for the whole 6Cylinder thing. He gets whooped, but stays in long enough to get paid, and is mostly healed up by the ring doctor and Aradia. Outside, Kit is getting van ready to go when a Taco Temple driver backs into them in the lot. Kit gets out in a huff and thoroughly freaks out the driver, as the van begins to repair itself with the new nano repair suite that Kit just installed.

Avo and the rest of the team arrive and manage to cool Kit down, and gets a Taco Temple discount code for a 5 person 5 piece meal. The kid peels out and speeds off, but Creature, paranoid, looks up his info online. He seems to be an incredibly lucky/unlucky person, having been the lone survivor of multiple crashes and accidents. TT has a feeling and begins frantically looking around, and locates a Tarot card just under the van. It’s unclear if it dislodged when the van was hit, fell out of the kid’s pocket, or what, but they spend some time analyzing it, feeling that they have maybe found some sort of weird set showing the life of one person, TT thinks it might be an assassin who uses the name Hylda- another rare club/staff, and spear fighter in their world.

They head out for the last known sighting of the AZT crew, but get ambushed by gangers on the way. Kit luckily slams the brakes and avoids hitting a small ork girl who is thrown in the road ahead of them, but the van is quickly surrounded by a flaming dumpster pushed in front, and what looks to be a stolen fire truck pulling out in back. They notice wrecked cars making a sort of impromptu barricade on either side of the street just as the van is hit with a lube grenade. A massive fight breaks out, Avo and TT charge out, with Avo assaulting the fire truck and TT tipping over the flaming dumpster on the 2 gangers behind it just as Creature hits them with a lube grenade in return. Aradia sends a spirit up to take out the gang’s grenadier on a nearby roof, and turns TT and Avo invisible, as Kit gets the car unstuck and starts ramming their way out of the trap zone.

The team emerges victorious, but the van has come under attack from an as yet unknown hacker, and the gang was once again all wearing those bug masks and working with better coordination than their gear and skills would otherwise suggest… something is up! Carol zips in on the VTOL after he finishes getting briefed on the part he needs to play in ARES’ Latvian Gambit project, and grapples up to the apartment where the hacker is hiding after Kit spots her in the matrix. Carol finds that the gang hacker has plugged directly into the severed head of the AZT SecTeam hacker and seems to be using his deck (inexpertly). Carol pulls the plug and zip ties the hacker, which unfortunately also fries the head, so they maybe lose some paydata there.

There’s a debate about what to do with the hacker and Kit insists on not killing her, so they sedate her with some of Creature’s drugs. Aradia reads her mind and finds out that the Nasty Grrls gang has joined up with the Fraternitas Insectorum and some local bug shaman to gain power, feeling that they would otherwise just end up as victims, since they’re a small-ish gang. Carol and Think Tank also tell the small ork girl it’s ok to go back to her apartment, which is apparently the one the hacker was using, after Carol frantically cleans up the gore, and also leaves her a credstick

The team debriefs with Aradia and finds out that the work crew accidentally dug into a bug tunnel nearby and all got grabbed, and the gangers were told to ambush anyone who came looking, successfully trapping the AZT team and burning them and the building they were in (explaining the noxious smoke). The team heads to the dig site and finds the hole the work crew made covered over with some kind of fresh organic “concrete”, they confer and decide this must be termites. Doing some recon, they find a nearby building appears to be covered entirely on the inside with the same stuff- they can’t see in any windows etc. They explore into the tunnel a bit and find a commlink as well as one of the workers’ bodies.

Kit scans the link and they get some footage of the workers accidentally breaking into the tunnel, seeming confused, and then all getting pulled in by termite spirits. One is killed in the process, explaining the body. They call it in to Juan, who pays them extra to keep watch and make sure no one else goes in or out while he gathers another team and some materials. They do so, taking shelter at an old folks home that the gangers seem to have been raiding for meds and bug hosts. Kit heals up Avocado, still badly hurt from the fight, while the others take watch.

Hearing that a street doc named Hole-Patcher is trying to step into the void left behind by Tate’s betrayal, TT calls him up and arranges for a medic and bus to get sent over to get the surviving old folks to somewhere better, and Kit calls in a favor with the Shadow Chapters to send the restrained gang hacker along too to get rehabbed (or otherwise dealt with) as Aradia confirms that none of the gangers were actually inhabited. Carol sees the termites covering the tunnel opening again over the team’s excavations, and TT watches some AZT vehicles roll up as the sun rises.

They head down and get the briefing: Tenoch has brought a large explosive charge which the team will need to get down into the core of the hive- since it’s so reinforced inside the building this should focus and reflect the blast and ensure total destruction, but only in a very localized area. The team notices that the AZT sec team that came with all appear to be disgraced, so this seems a little suicide mission-y, but Juan assures the team that though the AZT team is potentially sacrificial, he hopes the runners will survive. Atzi has a chem sprayer with some new formulation in it, that Juan explains is an old AZT pheromonal experiment, that should make people sprayed with it undetectable to the bugs for around 5 minutes.

They send in the disgraced AZT team first to clear the way. They make it most of the way to the building before encountering another organic wall, which they manage to break through, but not without alerting some spirits to their presence. They fight further in but are overwhelmed, and all killed except one, though the only feed the team is getting is a weak bio-monitor signal. Tenoch passes the explosives to TT, and Aradia explains that given the terrible background count in the tunnel, she’ll guard the exit from inside the van.

The team heads in, after getting sprayed with the pheromones. They do seem to work, as they bypass multiple worker spirits with no issue. They find the lone AZT survivor getting walled up and begging to be killed, but manage to ignore his pleas and keep going- good thing they all took Guts beforehand. They emerge into a central chamber and find a termite Queen actively holding open a portal to Vhortas and pulling more spirits through to inhabit various prepared hosts: neighborhood denizens, the AZT work crew, staff and patients from the old folks home.

TT sneaks forward, counting on the pheromones, and sets the charge, with a short timer. The team starts hustling back to the exit but finds the way out walled over. Creature manages to sneak through but Kit gets stuck, and the rest of the team has to bash through the wall while holding off alerted worker spirits. As they race for the nearby exit, they get in a gun battle with some true form termites that manifest, and then luckily manage to all get out just ahead of the massive explosion, which levels the building and send some light debris flying for blocks.

Juan congratulates them and gives them the extra pay agreed upon. He also lets them keep the KE-V anti-bug ammo (another AZT experiment) that they didn’t use in the fight, but warns them against experimenting on it. Carol almost immediately wants to send some to ARES but decides not to, for now, though he sends a description of the KEV ammo and the pheromones. The team decides to drink and party a bit, getting some Hurlg (Avocado has a hard time as a vampire wishing to drink and ends up getting a little taste from some of Kit’s blood but then almost can’t stop himself drinking too much). They read some touching “in memorium” posts on the Rate My Johnsons channel about those already lost the bugs, and review some files that Sam uploaded there from the Endless Archive, where she seems to now reside as an e-ghost.

The files suggest a few thing: Tate seems to have been convinced or mind controlled by the dragon, rather than possessed by a bug. Also, he seems to work a lot more directly for Horizon that anyone had suspected. Also also, Horizon seems to have recently signed on for some kind of big PR push on behalf of ARES (specifics unknown) but was encouraging Tate to further his bug research and knowledge in order to better be able to deal with ARES stuff “if their plans go sideways.” Meanwhile, Carol has an upsetting convo with Candace and Dr. Ellis, where they share some info and theories. The worry is that the dragon that was being prepped for a Queen host may have gotten taken over by someone/something else, possibly the evil contender for the Spirit of the City, V’golkotl. This could imply some kind of master entity making moves behind the scenes, coordinating the bug alliance, etc. Candace tells Carol to accelerate his portion of the Latvian Gambit plan in response, and gives him access to a corporate credit line for the purpose.

The team then writes up another dossier about all of what they just found and put together, and uploads it to the Shadow Chapters for some good rep and meager pay, Carol is once again a little frustrated with the vote going that way. They get a call from Juan, who says that if they do another job for him, involving some internal AZT corp intrigue, he will join the Chapters as well, and that he is continuing to develop/bring out of mothballs all of AZT’s bug-fighting tech and experiments from the bad old days, so he will be able to share more the pheromones, KEV ammo, etc to the Chapters as well, once he’s a member. This job sounds a little shady to some on the team, but Juan’s resources are too valuable to ignore, so they agree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The team, worried that this shelter is another Universal Brotherhood deal, get ready to raid the shelter and try to rescue whoever they can! Aradia mind probes one of the dwarf woman, which seemingly alerts all of them to her as a threat. The rest of the team fights off syringe-wielding nurses while Carol makes a break for it and runs inside. Pretty horror show in there, he spots a bunch of neighborhood people on disturbingly thick IV’s, which he yanks out of as many as he can after questioning one newer arrival who says “noone ever comes back from the basement.”

He dashes around, finds the basement, and manages to shoot another nurse just before she kills Old Crow. He takes out the last nurse as well as the rest of the team mops up upstairs and starts trying to stabilize people, unhook IV’s, etc. Quantum Princess was killed before Carol could get there but they manage to save Sarah Silverleaf as well. Aradia uses a crucial detox spell to get her and OC back to semi-functional, and they call Simon to get medial onsite to make sure everyone else there doesn’t just get taken advantage of. They decide to pause and wait for medical to arrive to make sure, which takes about 10 minutes.

Next, they race for the old Truman Tower- the tallest building in Chicago. Doing some recon, they see that the now quite heavy winter storm that has blown in seems centered around the tower, obscuring it’s upper levels (which already often sit above the clouds). They debate ways to enter, and knowing about the swirling mass of gangers that usually occupy the building decide for an unconventional entry. Kit zips everyone up the 300th floor one at a time with the VTOL, after Aradia did some astral recon and reported that the 50 floors above are all warded. TT calls Wingman to arrange extraction, as Spire Enterprises is nearby, and manages to convince WM that the team weren’t the traitors at that meeting.

Avocado goes up first and gets dogpiled by a bunch of mixed-faction gangers, all wearing the Fraternitas Insectorum masks. Carol, TT, and Creature follow in quick succession, with Kit doing some stellar rigging to get reinforcements up fast. They finish off the gangers in time for Kit and Aradia to arrive safely, with Aradia calling a fire spirit to keep them warm during the rest of their ascent in the partially ruined and largely exposed skyraker. Kit manages to use nanites to override the old elevator security, and TT gets WM to hit the ward with a few missiles, after Aradia’s attempt to sneak them through fails. They get in a nasty close quarters fight with a wasp spirit that forces itself into the elevator, but manage to prevail, though Avo is badly hurt again.

They reach the penthouse and empty out into a nightmare scene, with the elevator breaking and falling behind them after Kit overclocked it to rush. There is a massive multi-story ant mound, and a shaman appears to be attempting another Queen ritual, this time with Maggie Goldberg, as caretaker spirits prepare to sacrifice Nick Ryder, Red, and Lothan, all encased in cocoons, but still cogent. Ryder yells to the team to save the others, as does Red, while Lothan tells them to save him! Also, some soldier spirits charge.

Figuring that the strategy worked well the last time, the team goes hard on the shaman right off the bat, while Kit rushes over to try to save hostages. Kit manages to take a hit that would have killed Red, and Carol manages to blast the spirit that was about to kill Lothan, but they’re unable to save Ryder, who is decapitated, further powering the ritual. TT and Creature manage to take out the shaman (and Maggie, sadly) after the shaman plunges a dagger into her chest, channeling the sacrifice energy from Ryder. The explosion from Creature’s grenade sends the knife flying who knows where but also disrupts the ritual, causing some bad psychic feedback that hurts the team and momentarily disorients the ant spirits.

The team takes advantage to finish off the fighters, with Creature finally making good use of xyr garrote, and then quickly free Lothan and Red, who help Aradia get the team warmed up and levitating in order to escape the wave of ants that is approaching up the side of the building. They fly away as quick as they can, getting buffeted about by the storm, but manage to hold together long enough for Wingman to do a heroic rotorcraft rescue just below the chop. They get paid from Simon, receive thanks for the various people and communities they helped, and rest and recuperate. There will surely be more work soon, since the bugs are definitively back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Keg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Keg

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

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

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

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

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

Runners
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Keg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Keg

Tate needs the team to get over to his office post-haste: a medical alert has just activated which was last assigned to Melissa Truman, the missing heir from a few jobs back, who has been outh of site for the last 2 decades, and he needs the team to find her (or at least the alert bracelet) and figure what’s going on. They agree and head to his office. He gives them the rundown and they negotiate pay, but as they’re heading out they realize that his receptionist has been eaves-dropping, and after some fast hacking from HK see that 2 messages were sent- 1 to a local fixer named Anastacia and 1 to Sarah Silverleaf. Silverleaf sent back payment as well, which Carol reports to Tate. He says he will deal with his disloyal receptionist, and encourages the team to hurry.

Not wanting to lose any slight edge they might have and/or let someone else get there first again, they don’t do any shopping and head straight to the last ping from the bracelet, near Truman Tower, now Spire Enterprises. On the way they decide to put their good rep and networking to use and call up a bunch of local gangers and hackers to make some light mayhem for any other teams trying to reach the job site, hoping this will slow any adversaries. They also receive calls from Silverleaf and Candice Phillips offering higher pay for a last minute job, but they shut them down, having already made an agreement with Tate.

They reach Spire, and drop Avocado off as a faux street doc to seek info from what seems to be the remains of a large firefight. The rest of the team heads to the last ping location and starts looking for tracks. Avocado has good luck, meeting a friendly ganger named Staci who helps him get vid footage, showing a young woman running away during the battle. Staci confirms this woman always wore an old weird bracelet, and offers to help Avocado find her, after sussing out some of what he’s up to- however they both seem to have her best interest at heart and agree to team up.

The rest of the team does find some tracks and they converge on the Haymarket Nation community, which has declined from it’s heyday as a smuggler’s hub but still has decent numbers. Avo and Staci head in and find the missing woman (Katy) absent and her residence trashed. Luckily, a hidden escape tunnel wasn’t found, and they follow it out, to avoid anyone watching. As they prepare to join the rest of the team, a surveillance drone tries to suicide bomb then, but Carol spots it and snipes it. HK also upgrades their tracker’s capacity and they get another ping. They also get an alert from some of their hacker and ganger hire-ons that another team is approaching, and HK recognizes them as the ex-NeoNet team that they’ve run into a few times. He manages to convince them to back off in exchange for partial pay and the info the team has so far, so they can offer up a convincing “sorry we failed” excuse to their Johnson.

They head North, into the Shattergraves, and encounter the third pursuit team, the Ares mercs that Carol had previously met, trying to subdue Katy with non-lethals. They succeed as the team approaches, and the team rushes in – Kit wants to keep things non-lethal also, but Staci doesn’t seem so inclined, and Creature notices a mother’s protective instinct at play, and begins to suspect that Staci might be Melissa Truman. The team downs the Ares mage first, which unfortunately ends the spell he was performing to keep a huge mosquito spirit at bay- it rises from the earth and pulls the mage down before attacking both teams.

Creature lobs in a lube grenade to add some chaos, and with Avo’s help gets their team out of the effect field while the Ares team is still trapped in it fighting the bug. Taking pity, they help deal with the bug, which flees below ground before disruption, and leave the Ares team to get off the lube slick, having lost half their number in this encounter. Carol gets a stern rebuke from Candice, and feels he has lost some ground there. HK manages to spot a tracker on their car as they head to Tate’s, and they fry it. They get paid, and Melissa tells them some of her story. Tate seems surprised that she’s been undercover all these years, and she advertises the quality of the face-changers at Lincoln Park. She agrees to a potential interview on Kit’s shadowcast in the future, once she gets a chance to get her and Katy settled back into the family.

The team heads back to Ahabitat to take some well-earned RNR, with no jobs on the immediate horizon for the first time in a while!

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Keg

Tate rushes Avocado into treatment to try to stave off HMHVV type 1- using advanced medicines + some potions (as well as additional potions the team gets from Patty C and Lothan the Wise). The team/Avo owes Lothan a favor for his help. Avo almost beats it, but eventually succumbs. He enters a coma and begins transforming while members of the interior Desolation Angels magical order guides his astral form through an initiation, during which he bonds to a new mentor spirit: Peacemaker, having gone through some major changes since 6Cyl’s death. Creature, Kit and Carole head to the Bugstomp rave at Midway, and have some fun dancing and socializing, while also getting some tourist-y t-shirts. It seems to be a medical supplies fundraiser for the ABC, and Carol searches around in vain for hidden corp sponsors.

They head back to the Bolthole, wanting more team members’ approval before introducing Creature to the group norms and Ahabitat. The next morning the team drives a still comatose Avo out to Long Pig Farms, where Aylin has called Red in to help oversee the transofrmation. They meet some of the ghouls who work there, and get Avo set up in a locked bunker basement out in the middle of a field, with a nearby chained up human to feed on when he wakes up. The team is assured this person was “ethically sourced” and decides not to inquire further.

Kit is uncomfortable with this whole situation, so stays behind at the Bolthole to tinker. Hotkey heads out to O’Hare to hang with his fam and fix up his deck from it’s near-bricking, and Keg (after he wakes up in Tate’s clinic and gets updated) has a brief freakout over his melted fashion armor and heads up to the Maker’s Collective to patch it back together. So Carol and Creature oversee Avo’s final turn to Banshee, with the option to kill him quickly if he goes feral. Luckily he comes through intact, with some assistance from Peacemaker, and feeds off the present captive to regain his senses. He decides to finish the captive off to get his essence maxed (for now), which Peacemaker doesn’t push back on too hard so it seems like this guy must have done something bad.

The team all joins back up and debrief on all the wild shit that just went down. Kit still seems uncomfortable with Avo’s new needs, but they all agree to continue working together. HK finds some local vamp fetish forums for Avo to find willing bloodbags on, to seek out a more sustainable longterm fix. Red also offers assistance if Avo wants to follow the “friendly vamp” path. For now, rent is coming up on both safehouses, so they decide to try to make some money. Looking to get some new and upgraded SINs, they decide to do another job through Mrs Clean, to boost her standing with Sierra Corp in exchange. They meet up with Juan Xiuhuitl at a Taco Temple in O’Hare (this is Creature’s first time outside the CZ since arriving from Denver a year ago).

They get the rundown on the job: AZT has lost comms from a lab hidden under the newly (re)opened/rebranded Omnistar hospital in the southern Zone, and Juan wants it cleaned out and all data retrieved. He doesn’t want anything left for other teams to find in the future, so the team decides to get some explosives and the like. They head to Ammo Jim’s first to restock on some key supplies, and then back into the Zone, where they roll up to the Atomizer. They spot Byom, who helps them get set up with what they need (EMP’s, some incendiaries, and some shaped charges), as well as a colorful cast of other characters, including what looks like some Mars survivors. Kit also learns a little bit about demo.

While on their way there, Avo got a call from Maggie Goldberg, offering them either: more pay to do the job for her with slightly different specifics, or: additional pay to share the data they find with her as well. Avo very politely refuses, wanting to remain pro, and Maggie seems to understand. However, they both acknowledge that this means she will likely put other runners on the job. They get more worried about this mystery opposition the longer they spend stocking up on the way to the job, and decided to head straight there without any recon. They park nearby in a concealed area, and plan to steal an ambulance on the way out and ditch it at that spot to swap to an un-ID’ed vehicle.

They sneak in to the hospital and infiltrate down to the morgue without being spotted. They KO the morgue tech with drone sneak attack, and HK squelches his comm to prevent alerts. They cut the lights in the morgue to minimize chances of onsite sec spotting anything, and use the hidden switches Juan told them about to open the secret door. They scout the hallway they find and debate setting traps, but decide to head in quickly in case anyone comes to check on the tech. They close the secret door behind them, and descend, finding a heavy security door, that seems to seal off both matrix and magical senses. Carol can barely hear some bellowing and crashing sounds from the other side, and a bright warning light is silently flashing above it. Carol confidently enters the code Juan gave them, but this time it doesn’t work.

HK hacks the lock, no trouble, but it looks like someone recently changed the code- did the other runners beat them here? As the door swing open, a bizarro slimline cyberzombie charges Carol, who barely avoids a slice from it’s claws. Another CZ down the hall opens up with an arm cannon, and Keg is quickly killed. Creature once again proves xyr worth, teaming up with HK to take down the farther CZ while the closer one is felled by the rest of the team. They EMP and incendiary grenade the bodies, as HK has detected active nanite colonies trying to repair them, and worries about CFD. HK also comes under matrix attack- disturbingly it seems like Dissonant energy, but the TacNet provides solid defenses, though his deck is once again badly damaged. They prepare to head further in to the facility.

The TacNet comes under attack from the same Dissonant entity, and HK tells everyone to go wireless off. He and Carol advance up the hall and take cover near an open door, hearing movement. Avocado steps into the doorway and catches a full burst in the chest (luckily his new banshee strength preserves him), and Creature, Carol, and HK get into a melee fight with another Dissonant CZ while Kit starts healing Keg. Creature zaps the CZ with another EMP and also hits Carol, frying his antennas, and then they manage to take it down, setting another incendiary off on it after to halt it’s regen ability. They then demo blast open the lone sealed door in the facility, and find four cowering scientists. Rushing in a with breach and clear move, Avocado and HK kill one scientist and badly wound another. Kit dashes in to heal the injured woman, as Keg murder another scientists for talking back, and then continues pummeling the corpse until Kit intervenes.

Avocado threatens/questions the remaining scientist, who quickly caves and helps HK get the data they are after. However, Carol has been investigating the rest of the facility and discovered that there is a missing secret backup server that also seems to have been taken by whoever beat them here. The team convinces Kit that they have to kill the 2 surviving scientists as part of the job, and that they can give them a more peaceful death than what AZT would offer for their failures. Kit doesn’t agree morally, but mixes up a lethal cocktail. Avo lies to both that they will knock them out and smuggle them out, 1 scientists believes them and the other doesn’t, she also insists on injecting herself, wanting some element of control over her death.

After, they plant the charges and some more incendiaries throughout the facility and head out. Carol realizes that whoever beat them there may have left some surprises for their way out so they tread cautiously. They call in a bomb threat to the hospital and hear that someone already called in a active shooter, so they decide to split up and try to get out. Kit detonates the basement and shuts the secret door, and then poses as a doctor using one of the dead scientists lab coats while probing Keg’s wounds to get him to perform better as a patient. Avocado wears another lab coat and social sneaks out. The remainder of the team heads out through the garage as planned, using fleeing civvies as cover and setting off some more grenades away from the crowd to cause chaos and confusion but no injuries.

They all rendezvous at the team car and skedaddle, heading back to the O’Hare Taco Temple to drop off the data and the samples that Kit took from the CZ’s with Juan Xiuhuitl. They also report that someone else likely has the data, but don’t give up Maggie Goldberg’s involvement, not wanting to burn that relationship. Juan is disappointed but Avo con’s well so he doesn’t seem overly suspicious that they do in fact know, and they get paid. Avo and Maggie exchange some winking texts and agree to work together again where possible. The team heads back to Ahabitat, introducing Creature to the safe house. Carol collects rent from everyone as well. Keg, living up to his name, buys a couple kegs and brings them down, and most of the team parties together, alongside Big Meat, only missing HK who has gone back to stay with his fam and fix his deck.

They decide to tackle the final job on offer from Mrs. Clean (for now), and arrange a meet with Shiro Seto from Shiawase, after taking a day off to rest and heal. They meet up at a sake bar in O’Hare and get the rundown: Seto wants the corpse of a Goblin and as many live ghouls as the team can get from one particular ghoul community in the Zone. The team briefly confers and does some research, finding out that the community is likely not feral, so they refuse the job, but Kit and Avo make an effort to be as polite as possible, in order to maintain the relationship for future work. Unfortunately, this requires Kit to drink, and they slip a bit deeper into addiction. The team gets in touch with Red as part of their inquiries, and he arranges to pay them and boost their rep in order to get their help moving the ghouls and smuggling the Goblin out of town to Terasca’s Goblin-safe community in NOLA, before Seto can hire another team.

They decide to set some non-lethal traps for the followup team, and Carol disguises himself as a ghoul, with Keg on a bike nearby for the getaway. HK, Kit, and Creature rig up traps while Avo convinces the community holdouts to leave. Most of the team takes the Goblin in the trunk over to Freaktown, to smuggle to NOLA via their drug sub, and strike a deal. Carol leads the next runners to show up into the traps- non-lethal stuff in the mazelike underground warren the ghouls were living in, and collapses his escape path behind him. He and Kit race off, and everyone links back up and gets paid. They get some rep boosts and are just thinking about what to do next when they get an urgent message from Dr. Tate!

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Keg
Goodbye (for now) to: Aylin
and introducing: Creature

The team heads down to Ahabitat via sub, with both Keg and Kit trying to play it cool but pretty surprised. They see 6Cyl’s remains ensconsed in coral, slowly being consumed by lake life. Upon arrival, Patty C is slightly sad to see that 6C has already been replaced, though she understands. Avocado, feeling some conflict with his mentor, decides to abandon the Children of the Beak for now, and takes the handwritten sign off the door. This allows both new members to have a room without needing to clean out 6C’s stuff, which noone is really ready for yet. They all chat and bond a bit, and then Keg goes into his room and shuts the door and has a loud freakout. The team inquires, but he seems disinclined to explain further.

They rest up for a few days, and talk about next steps, reviewing the few remaining jobs they have on offer. Aylin announces that she will be mostly focusing on solving the Black Lodge/Book problem for the time being, but will still be around and may require some assistance from the team. Avocado is feeling increasingly attracted to Kit’s more peaceable philosophy, and is wondering about maybe finding a better magical connection through a different path.

They head back to the surface to get some drinks and hang, and Kit takes delivery of a massive new shield, which he says is for protecting them while doing medical in combat scenarios, but Kit requests noone attack from behind it. They head to the dingy ammo-trade bar Pog mo Thoin, delighted by the grody atmosphere. They catch up with some other runners and shadowcasters, and overall have a nice bonding time. Returning to Ahabitat to crash, they awake the next morning to some messages in their queue.

Apparently the Devil’s Revolver has now slain the free spirit gunslinger Thornhill as well, though Thornhill may have survived in some form due to a secretive ritual they had performed with their True Name. Aylin announces that she will be leaving the team’s day to day ops in order to focus on the Black Lodge heist with her mom and Old Crow. Aylin says she will likely need assistance from the team to pull the actual job, but will be in touch. For now, her and Patty C will still be using the safehouse. Tate also reminds them to come by for another job, so the team heads his way, after making some upgrade plans for the safehouse with the new teammates.

They arrive at Tate’s and find an even larger Freedom Network/Popular Will protest than last time, and a much more agitated crowd. Avocado almost instigates a fight with Keg’s backing, but the rest of the crew talk them out of it, and Avo once again feels some conflict with his mentor, with another voice calling to him, showing him a different path. The Desolation Angels help them sneak in the back way, and Tate tells them there’s a killer paracritter he needs captured alive. He introduces them to a local runner named Creature who is good with animals and toxins, who should prove useful for this gig.

The team reviews the evidence, and heads out, and decide to look into the FN/PW more: the PW militia seems to have much nicer gear and better matrix defenses than the team expected, which seems interesting. They drive over to Greektown, and meet Tate’s informants. They spend some time talking with various encampment in the dangerous locale, and get some good intel. With drone surveillance assistance, they spot a storm drain that seems like the best spot to start tracking, and head there. Quantum Princess contacts them on the way and asks them to retrieve an old pre-CZ data storage device from the area, since they’re going in anyway. She also helps them navigate around an ASPS team which is cordoning off a large area around the Shattergraves due to strange alchera activity.

The team heads into the sewers, and Carol does some impressive tracking using his new nasal implants, with Creature providing valuable assistance. Carol does puke again from the smell, for good measure. They get attacked by some ghouls lead by a Dzoo no qua, which bites Avocado and possibly infects him. However, the team performs well and slays most of the feral pack, driving off the rest. They find QP’s old data store, and a few members are badly injured by a trap- it seems like the lone survivor of this cell tried to hold up and ride out the start of Bug City, not knowing they’d be trapped here, and starved to death. They do find an intact 2050’s deck with data storage module, however, so mission accomplished, yay.

They follow the tracks a bit further, and find the Talis Cat’s lair. Unfortunately, it’s made a friend- a large sludge spirit, which attacks them as soon as they enter. The cat tries to flee but Creature manages to KO it and grab it with xyr tail. The rest of the team barely defeats the sludge spirit, taking some heavy damage, and Hotkey almost gets geeked by a stray Jormungandr virus fragment that apparently survived in the local mesh net of devices down here. The team returns the cat to Tate, gets paid, and agrees to keep working with Creature for now as xe seem quite handy. Onward!

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Aylin
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Keg

Avocado and Kit have a good “getting to know you” interview on Kit’s shadowcast show, though Avo deflects and fronts a bit. The team, high off their previous night’s successful mission, decide to check some smaller jobs off the list. Carol heads in to get some cyberware put in by Tate, and Aylin heads off with her mom to start working on luring the Black Lodge to town with the book they need. Avocado heads out a little early and makes a large donation (with a small contribution from Kit) to the Desolation Angels for their outreach work, and meets Blue, the DA seemingly in charge of that wing. It looks like the teenage gunner from the opening fight, Fidget, has been recruited already as well. Avo notcies 6C’s bike is still at the Vault, and seems to have morphed into an impromptu memorial site- single bullets stacked atop it, and some weedy Zone bouquets scattered around.

The team hears some rumors from astral contacts of some kind of astral assassin taking out community leaders and defenders in the deep metaplanes, and based on the fact that this figure is being called “The Devil’s Revolver”, assume that 6C’s gun/spirit are likely involved. The 4 available team members all link up at Midway Airport to follow up on some leads and figure out next steps. They chat with Old Crow a bit, who confirms it is likely 6C, in some form, being called to serve after his death, and OC says he needs to get with Aylin ASAP to sort this out. They also find Jazz and get the intro spiel about the Shadow Chapters- she agrees to an interview on Kit’s show and the team seems potentially interested in learning more. Blue from the DA’s also was excited about the Shadow Chapters, which is putting Avo a little more in favor of joining.

The team meets up with Lycus and checks in on the progress of his SIN registration project. They arrange a meeting after some careful negotiation between him and Sierra Corp, which will hopefully benefit both. They also discover some background on Lycus- he used to be a fixer for Gov. Presbitero before he ascended to the governorship, and disappeared amidst some sort of scandal just before the election. Lycus then emerged some months later, with a very different philosophy. The team gives Mrs. Clean this info in case it can help Sierra Corp in their negotiation, and she seems stoked about their work. They also warn Lycus that the info is out there, and he says he needs to rescrub his data trail, but doesn’t give them anything further.

They also head over to train at the onsite facility, and find two of their bounty targets: Anne Ravenheart and Li Wei. They decide to feel it out, and start getting the 2 newbs trained on the team’s common maneuvers. Both Ravenheart and Wei seem very skilled, and also pretty cool based on HK’s quick research. Ravenheart specifically is somewhat of a local hero, one of the few (former) Ares employees who’s seen in a positive light. Their unit at the training facility all has modded Ares armor with the branding stripped off and new “Freewatch” logo applied, perhaps explaining why Ares wants into on them. The team decided to shelve that for now and discuss further down the road.

They take a job with Sid Gambetti to do a little sabotage, and take a side job from Tate to throw an extra element into the mix, which with some investigation looks like it will have the effect of framing Simon Andrews, or at least sending suspicion his way. They head to the Wind Transit Terminal and port warehouse, which has been taken over by a squatter community since Winterknight was kicked out a few years ago. They find the container they need to access, but they notice the community is about to come under attack from some protection racket enforcers from the Horde, and intervene. Using some slick driving and nonlethal weapons, as well as aided by the communities 3 defenders who they warned, they drive off the attackers with no casualties and minimal damage to the team’s car.

Avocado arranges for the DA’s to start protecting this community, and uses this as a bargaining chip to allow access to the container they need amidst the tent city. They get in and find the decades old Shiawase chemical tank they needed as part 1 of the job. They load it in the truck with help from Spills, the troll defender, and head to Goober’s to get a few repairs and upgrades before they drive south a ways out of town to the agricultural facility they need to poison. They also upgrade Kit and Keg’s fake SINs to make sure they pass muster, and since they used team funds for this they insist both also sign onto the group norms, and say they will explain some of the obscure ones later. The assumption being that both Kit and Keg are joining up for the foreeable. Aylin and Carol come link up with the team at Goober’s while the repairs are happening, and they convo out of town.

They bribe their way through a checkpoint, and head south to the farm, doing a little research on the way. To Carol’s distress they find out it’s an Ares facility, but they assuage themselves with the info that it’s a fancy test farm, so the poison they deliver shouldn’t get distributed to vulnerable populaces, at least, and likely won’t go out at all. They seem to be intended to disrupt an upcoming bidding process, so they tip off the McCaskill mafia to allow them to make some money off that knowledge, in order to make peace there. They arrive at the rural site, and come up with a quick plan. Kit drone rigs a flyspy with a data tap into the guard shack, and HK uses the remote access to add the team car as a “scheduled part delivery”.

Avo talks them past the semi-skeptical guards, with HK, Carol, and a misted Aylin hiding in the trunk. Keg hangs back a ways with the 2 bikes to cause a distraction or come to the rescue as needed. They get up the loading dock, and using some clever tactics get HK up close enough to hack a rail drone to deliver the poison tank to the main water distro spot, and loop some cameras to help Carol sneak up to hook it up. Aylin sneaks off to plant the sample of lizard skin they were given. Avo and Kit spend quite a while faking car problems and flirting with guards to delay their exit, while Carol does an impressive infiltration. Unfortunately, he oversold his mechanical abilities and really struggles to hook the poison up. The team is forced to exit the lot, but luckily Keg finds a promising distraction in the form of an anti-corp-agriculture protest nearby that he lures in their direction.

Avo convinces the guards at the exit to allow the team to wait there in their car til the protest passes (the guards seem creepily excited about the prospect of getting to bust heads, though), and Carol, with some coaching from HK, finally gets the poison going. He then almost gets out unseen, but gets spotted by a patrol, and starts getting tagged with gel rounds. He hides amidst the livestock, correctly assuming they’re too valuable to shoot, and it seems like the guards think he’s connected to the protest. He shoots his way through a dome wall and races for the car. Finally blowing their cover, Kit slams it through the boom barricade, and smoothly sweeps Carol up with a tight turn. They smash through a fence and race off.

Meanwhile, HK has done some sneaky hacking to make it look like these intrusions were protest-related, and the onsite spider has gone after the protest’s deckers. WIth Knight Errant reinforcements on their way, everyone scatters, and the team has to take backroads back to town. They ditch the cops and make it back, just in time to get some drinks with Sid and Matt Wrath after his latest victory. Sid pays up, and they check in with Tate, giving him the sparest details as requested. He tells them to rest up and return when they’re ready for more work.

They head out and prepare to introduce Keg and Kit fully into the team lifestyle.

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Aylin
Carol Turpentine
adios to: Test
a sad goodbye for: 6 Cylinder
and introducing: Kitten Caboodle aka Kit and Keg

The next day, 6Cyl preps for his fight with a visit to Ahabitat, where Patty C asks if he really wants to do it at all. He has a bit of a crisis of intent, and realizes he’s just following Avocado’s desires, and Patty C offers to counsel him more later. Seeing Patty C with Otoko after their popcorn and trid binge also makes Aylin sad since she wasn’t around for Alyin’s teen years. Hotkey heads out to spend the day with his family, and Test announces that he is leaving the team. He says it’s time for him to focus full time on technomancer and e-life struggles, and is headed for Cairo, where there is a large TM community sheltered by the Coptic church who are working with Masaru on the new Library of Alexandria. He stops in at The Hangman on his way out of town to put GC in touch with Quantum Princess and get them talking about using the local NooseNet mesh as a potential Garmonbozia safehaven, and plans to continue this work during his travels. He signs off the team TacNet and goes on his way.

Avo, meanwhile, cruises around the Zone doing last minute promo for 6C’s fight, and stops at the Vault to double check all the prep there. He meets a Desolation Angel named Praxis who has a real hate on for bugs, and offers her (and the gangs) services should the team encounter any. Becky is absent, trying to round up some new recruits to replace the massive losses they suffered fighting the Ancients and shedim. Sid and Matt Wrath satisfy Avo’s questions about the prep for the evening though so he focuses on getting the green room “just so.” Carol hears from Candice Phillips at Ares about some new leads on the Taco Temple info he sold them, she seems to be gradually coming around to his usefulness. Hotkey takes his family out to Chicago’s Own Pizzaria, and spots some ghouls from Long Pig Farms delivering whole hogs out back. Using some sensors and TacNet programs he scopes out the ingredients and sees that they must be making good use of the onsite, well-protected greenhouse, given the amount of fresh components to their meal.

He also sees an adjacent table where the Monad gunslinger Twofer is eating with his retinue, including a local guide, another Monad named Kit, who seems to be a tech and medic, and has a cyberarm and some scrolling nanotats. HK does a tiny bit of recon for the team and buys the Monads a round, and also buys a dessert surprise for Test’s date here later, in case he still shows for that before leaving for Cairo. Avo also buys Test a fancy hour at a love hotel by O’Hare as a goodbye gift, and Carol pays back part of the massive loan he still owes to Test. HK and fam head back to their apartment, the location of which he’s decided to keep private for now. Meanwhile, eveyone else heads for the fight. They all get back into the green room as 6C’s entourage, and see that there is a large and rowdy crowd already in attendance.

The first fight is between 2 surly teens who remind 6C of himself, not too long ago, and who both seem a bit in awe of him. He tries to offer encouragement of a sort, in his usual bumbling way. The second fight is between a very unpleasant toxic ganger with an acid sprayer who says he “likes to makes them scream” and a new-in-town total fashion cyberpunk named Keg. He’s got a classic 2060’s trid quality getup, but seems to really know his gear. Carol and Avo are thrilled to meet him and he seems really confident in his abilities until he realizes his kit may get damaged by acid. The third fight is the big draw between Twofer and 6C, they spot Twofer and Kit tinkering on a weird Marstech gun that looks to be alterable in form and chip it’s ammo off of a feedblock. And the final bout is a deathmatch between a Rambler and a Demolisher- it’s apparently a tradition amongst some of the gangs here to settle certain disputes in the ring so they don’t turn into turf wars.

The first fight kicks off and the teen who looked more enamored by 6C fumbles the draw out of his new holster under his new coat, and his opponent teen draws her gun from an unholstered waistband carry and shoot his in the stomach. He falls to the mat crying and is hauled off by medics onhand from Tate’s clinic. The “winner” stumbles out of the ring in shock and pukes in a corner as Matt Wrath and Matt Rat commentate/chirp. 6C once again offers some words of his encouragement, but too quietly and far away for the teen to hear. Avocado wins some money.

The second fight begins, and the team watches in shock as Keg strips out of his nice duds, saying it will be easier to fix acid damage to his skin. He pulls out all the stops and speed draws, killing the toxic ganger in one amazing shot which also pierces their acid tank, and melts their corpse and part of the ring. Avo once again wins some money. Matt Wrath announces a brief recess while the ring is repaired, with Kit’s assistance. The third fight is called, and 6C and Twofer enter the ring to a lot of hype. Avocado places a massive bet, and everyone is shocked when Twofer outdraws 6C- but 6C easily dodges the shot and gets a solid hit in on Twofer in response, though it looks like Twofer is so cybered-up it seems to not do much damage. 6C only brought 6 bullets to the fight and he hopes it’s enough….

Twofer responds and blasts the gun out of 6C’s hand and the crowd goes wild, but 6C rolls and grabs it and knocks Twofer down, and the crowd goes wilder. Having gotten a little worried about his opponents skill, 6C has switched from trick shots to max damage, and it seems like Twofer is in the same boat- he unleashes a targeted burst and catches 6C right in the face. There is a shocked silence in the crowd as he falls to the mat, and Kit rushes in with a medkit. As he is declared dead and flatlines on the TacNet, the team notices his gun vanishes. Aylin seizes and almost dies as well from their bond, but instead waked up to Kit, Keg, and Carol hovering over her and is disturbed to find that she has lost her magical ability. She feels that breaking the bond with 6C broke their bargain with Tohu Wa Bohu, their mentor, and she won’t regain her magic until she abases herself before It. However, she plans to continue with their plan to sever their tie, and hopefully save whatever remains of 6C as well…

A CrashCart team rushes in, confirms 6C’s death, and takes his medalert bracelet. The crowd filters out, and Matt Wrath announces that the two gangers from the final deathmatch decided to settle it non-lethally, mano a mano outside. Twofer and entourage take off quietly, not wanting to gloat on a rough victory, but leaves a contact with a hint that he has good Evo ties. Kit sticks around to keep an eye on Aylin, and they all drink together. Everyone bleeds a little into a shot glass for Aylin, including Kit, who reveals they are a Monad., and HK, who moto’s down for the occasion (to some eyerolls from his wife). Keg also joins in, and offers his services, since he’s new in town, and obviously they need a new shooter. They agree and drunkely call Mrs. Clean to take a milk run job to test out these two potential new team-mates. They get the info for the meet the next morning and arrange to all meet there.

Keg and Kit head off together on Keg’s moto, and Kit gives an all-nighter tour of Zone hot spots to the new arrival. HK heads back to his fam, and the rest of the team heads to Ahabitat to break the news to Patty C, and figure out what to do with 6C’s remains. When they arrive, they find Patty waiting with celebratory brownies and have a pretty heart-breaking convo with her. They all eat the brownies together in grief, and share some alchemical moonshine Patty has brewed up. Otoko, as usual seemingly not super phased by death, summons Big Meat, and they all agree to bury 6C in the coral reef alongide the Merrow community’s dead. As 6C requested, they bury his Red Samurai blade with him so as not to get anyone in trouble for having it. He wanted his gun destroyed as well, but it seems magically absent so they’re not sure what to do.

The team travels down in an air bubble from a summoned spirit, and watches one of the Merrow shape coral in the reef growing out of the wrecked third hab area around 6C’s body, as Big Meat places him within and places his arms over the sword- a proper warrior’s burial. They all head back to the hab, have one final toast, and crash. Blearily rising for the meet the next morning, the crew head to what seems like a Yakuza bar to meet Maggie Goldberg. HK, less wrecked, has prepped a dossier on her for Avo to use a negotiating tool, but he’s off his game, feeling that he needs to break with his mentor and find a new guide since Raven was a big impetus towards him manipulating 6C to his death, as Avo sees it.

Maggie is semi-on the DL a fixer for MCT, seemingly a cutout for their shadow ops. She seems very friendly and upfront, and has a good rep, but HK thinks she is likely more loyal to her patron than her corp, if that ever proves useful. They arrange for a regular level of pay and are tasked with retrieving a prototype camera hacking soft projectile developed by 3D (their landlord at the Bolthole) and Byom, a Russian explosives expert. They figure this will be a cakewalk since they know 3D and Maggie seems open to paying for it, so they call him but it goes straight to voicemail, very unusual for him. They head to Hoodville and find his office trashed, but carefully covered so the damage isn’t obvious from outside. Using CSI skills they determine that the kidnappers are some mafioso types, and calling in one of their favors with Ryder, he ID’s them as MacCaskill mafia bruisers, and gives them an address they’re likely at- a safehouse adjacent to the Chicago Market.

They head over and do some quick recon. Two guards out front, 3 more inside, plus an interrogator, and the two captives. They send the drones in through a high window, who sneak attack with their narcoject. Aylin mists in and frees the captives. Byom takes one of the kidnappers ponytails as revenge, and Aylin figues “why not” and feeds on him a bit too, just topping off. Carol and Keg take out the guards out front with stick and shock, and the team quickly gets out of there with no casualties on either side, which Kit is thrilled about. Kit tries driving and almost crashes, but swears they’re usually good at it. Avo convinces 3D and Byom to sell the tech to MCT (though they seem to plan to leak it to the shadows as well) to get people off of their tail, and they agree. The team gets paid, and Maggie seems quite happy with their work, and says she’ll be in touch with more opportunities. Plus the 2 newbs worked out well, so that’s good.

Kit also tells the team about a “downtime” shadowcast that they do, and requests to interview them, to get more perspectives on the Chicago shadows. Avocado is the first to agree.

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team puts together their counter-offer to Fringe, and he accepts. Aylin and 6Cyl arrange to ally with his spirit and some members of the Vigilia Evangelica to secure the 3rd Book of 9 Gates and hopefully free themsevles from Tohu Wa Bohu. Hotkey and Carol gets more money, Test gets contacts with the Egyptian Coptic Church which apparently shelters a lot of TM’s who are working with the great dragon Masaru on a new library of Alexandria. Avocado gets a quickened strength-boosting spell on him, provided by Fringe. They need a few days to heal and then it’s off to the metaplanes to end this particular threat once and for all. They find out that Patty C, Otoko and Big Meat have been doing movie and popcorn nights at Ahabitat.

In the meantime, Avo promotes 6C’s upcoming fight at the Vault, and notices that “Popular Will” militias and propaganda are starting to crop up around the CZ. Doing some research, they find that this is the street arm of the Freedom Network, a militant anti-magic/anti-TM group, like a more extreme Purists from Boston (without the hate for implants). They seem to be cross-race and meta-, but have strong paramilitary vibes. Test also gets and invite from GC to help connect Garmonbozia with different mesh net building subversive groups globally, to ensure they have some safe harbors when the new Matrix launches, and in exchange they will help Test with his Null problem. Hotkey hangs with his fam, who arrive and get settled in their Sierra Crop provided apartment. He hears that the mesh net in NYC that he helped start in Queens is a big hit, and seems to be safe from the Null. Also apparently the Rat Pack has gone partially toxic and the Underground has gotten a lot less safe.

6C and Aylin head down to Midway airport to meet with Old Crow, newly arrived in town from the metaplanes. They also meet up with Lycus, Vonny, Angoka, and some other neo-A’s, and get some offers of work and assistance for some of the team’s various interests, as well as introduction to a runners union called The Shadow Chapters from a Muslim ork woman named Jazz. There is also a pro training facility on site, which Avo is excited about for learning new maneuvers. They also notice Midway has an impressive drone security array. Chessick wanders over and he and Aylin have a good chat about Boston and fringe reporting, and agree to collab in future. OC finally lands, and schemes a bit with Aylin and 6C about going up against the BL. They find out about the BL’s infiltration of the “Free City STL” movement, which HK’s wife is also interested in, and also find out that the BL has infiltrated the highest levels of Chicago/Illinois government, and has an unknown level of control over Gov. Presbitero, the mean in charge of Operation: Takeback. They plan to try to use all this as a way to get the Book they need to a less secure location than the seeming BL North America HQ that St. Louis has become.

With everyone rested and ready to roll, they head back to the church, and find that Fringe has fully cleaned it and arranged an elaborate maze on the floor. His angel spirit still guards the door, and says she will present interference from both sides. Fringe pays up and grants their various boons, and then walks the maze and cuts himself into the Jade Cup at the center. He tells the team to follow, and they do, seemingly crossing the astral boundary as they do so. They walk for what feels like hours, and then say the angel again and are told they have completed their task. Luckily they quickly spot this as a trick, and recognize a Nightmare spirit posing as the angel. It seems amused to be spotted and says it will get them next time.

They head through a glowing portal, and emerge into what looks to be a truly haunted realm. A narrow mile-long causeway with long falls into a perhaps never-ending chasm on either side approaches a dark and moldering castle in the distance. A rotting dragon flies overhead. Seeing no way to sneak, they attack the dragon, and are surprised and delighted to find that it has a matrix presence. Luckily they manage to take it down between those 2 modes of attack before it can reach them and it plummets into the abyss. They head up the causeway.

Carol spots a narrow path down the side of the castle to what looks like a dungeon entrance, and they take that route. The door has a maglock (surprising, again, and also once again MCT brand). They enter and find 6 chained Catholics from various points in the last few decades, who all seem very tortured and confused. They free them and tell them to make their way to the exit and announce themselves to the spirit there. They head upstairs with drones scouting ahead, and find a creepy courtyard with a massive bone garden and gargoyles. The skulls and gargoyles seems to follow them, and seem to be cameras with watcher spirits bound to them. Seeing no way to sneak once again, they head further and find 2 rotting knights guarding a massive burned black set of doors. They blast apart the knights who seem bound to their post, and approach,

The doors blow open as they near, and they see Auslander on a tendrilled throne, he mocks them and tells 12 more knights to attack. They get in a brutal brawl with the possessed corpse knights, and find their life energy being slowly drained by the throne. Luckily the throne seems to be the host device for all the castles tech, and HK and Test manage to brick it, shutting down it’s powers. Auslander seems weakened in it’s absence, and they managed to finally take him out after defeating his guards, without permanently losing anyone on the team, despite some close calls.

Fearing that they may be approaching the deadline of the ritual after a lengthy exploration of this plane, they race back towards the exit! Suffering through some drug crashes, many almost tumble into the abyss off of the narrow causeway, but with assistance from the medical drone and some lucky catches from some quick on their feet members, the team manages to safely cross and re-enter the astral maze before it closes. Completing their journey, they find the angelic spirit waiting, luckily Hotkey spots that it is once again a Nightmare spirit trying to trick them, which cackles when spotted and flits off. They double back out of the dead end it was trying to lure them into, and actually emerge in the church.

6 piles of ash on the floor imply that the prisoners they free were burned by the spirit, who claims they were “unclean” but won’t elaborate further. The team worries they may have sent some long suffering Catholics to a firey death but…. maybe they were possessed or something? They find a note on Fringe’s remains saying goodbye and telling them to keep fighting the good fight- he has sensed a sickness at the core of the Spirit of the City of Chicago, and suggests they continue their investigations. The Jade Cup is fully destroyed, as promised, and the angelic spirit leaves after vowing to return to help 6Cyl and Aylin fight the Black Lodge.

The team heads back to the bolthole to rest and heal, all very exhausted from their ordeal.

Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine
and goodbye to: Dr. Kinnie Zest

The team drops their newly purloined Ancients street bikes off with Goober to get them repainted and fixed up, so they don’t get into trouble riding them. They then crash at the Bolthole after a hard night, while a few team members head back to Ahabitat to rest up there. They awake the next morning to find Kinnie Zest gone, the Tower Tarot card missing, and a note saying “Gone to Seattle, Don’t Follow”. Kinnie has also replaced the drones they lost on the last mission, and finished the second round of repairs on the sub. They reconfigure the TacNet and other team structures for good infosec, and discuss why Kinnie left: presumably to pursue his revenge on Richard Villiers. They hope the Tower card isn’t destroyed in the process and hope to hear from Kinnie again.

The team spends a few days finishing acclimating to the Zone’s overall mana sphere, and Avocado finds himself attuned to their safehouse a bit better as well. Patty C presents the team with some protective potions she has made to keep them safe, and seems excited to discuss some other theoretical advancements in the field with 6C when he has some free time. Otoko and Big Meat are having a fish feast with her, though they seem a lot more comfortable with the raw seafood diet than she does. They make some calls and call in some favors, with 6C getting the ball rolling with Old Crow to seize the Black Lodge’s copy of the Book of 9 Gates for his cleansing ritual.

6C also contacts Fr. Darren Dolf in NYC and reports on the Altar Boy issue. Dolf seems disturbed and tells the team that 2 Catholic operatives (likely Sylvestrines) have gone missing in the Zone in the last few weeks while looking into some mysterious new Bishop who has been operating out of some Church properties near the Cermak Crater.Dolf puts them in touch with Fringe, a strange disgraced changeling priest with angelic qualities. They agree to team up, and Fringe confirms that they are hunting a powerful master shedim (or 2), as well as an artifact that Fringe thinks might allow the shedim to open another stable rift to their homeplane.

Test and Hotkey, in the Bolthole, get a tip from some Desolation Angels about some Ancients embroiled in a firefight nearby and decide to go scope it out, hoping to get some useful intel about where the remaining Anients are holed up. They sneak up, but hang back, seeing the corp team from the Skeleton Key mission engaged in a brutal gun battle with a larger group of Ancients who seem to have tried to lure them into a trap. Both sides had a spellcaster but both are down, and the Ancients seem to have been trying to leave with the body of what looks like the leader of the corp team. HK tells the DA’s to hang back and trail any Ancients trying to leave.

At the last minute, HK lays down some suppressing fire to save the lone corp goon remaining on their feet and introduces himself. THe corp type recognizes him from the SK job and says they’re glad for the assist but that HK and Test should clear out before their backup gets their since the team killed a few members of the corp team the last time they met. However, she thanks HK for the assist, and tells hi, he’s welcome to the body the Ancients were trying to take: the Johnson for this job. She explains that the corp team are ex-NeoNet operators working freelance locally. HK and Test grab the Johnson, who’s been beheaded, and find that the beheading perfectly severed his biomonitor, preventing his cortical bomb from blowing.

They dip out of sight as the corp squad rescue vehicles arrive (it looks like a few other members survived due to HK’s intervention), and do some quick hacking. The Johnson is a bagman and Technomancer hunter who has worked locally for Shiawase: he’s the guy who originally kidnapped Sam for their clone experiments back in the day, and has been seeking her (and another escaped clone) ever since runners breached their facility and handed the remains over to Saeder Krupp. He recently got some leads that Sam and clone where both up for sale from some flesh peddlers, the Ancients, and made a deal. He hired the corp team as backup but it was a trap. HK and Test manage to also get the remaining funds on his expense account for the job.

The team reunites and tracks the Ancients back to the are outside the Cermak crater- they determine a likely Church to check out based on some good assensing and tracking, but lose the trail through the irradiated Crater and can’t confirm for sure. They also hear from Fringe that based on his research he has ID’ed the person most likely possessed by the Master who is calling himself “the Bishop”. They get a home address (more Church property- he is a groundskeeper hired recently to start rehabbing the properties during Operation:Takeback). The team decides to check out the house first, then the Church. They call in the DA’s to make a perimeter again to keep anyone from fleeing, and call in backup from Ryder.

After checking out the home amidst a heavy rainstorm, and both spotting and being spotted by some shedi guards in Ancients bods, the team decides to storm it. They hit up Becky 99 and tell the DA’s to close in around the church address while they call in Ryder to back them up. Remo (the sprite) is urging Test to hurry, as he can’t contact S@m. They defeat a few shedim guards, who seem to have stayed behind just to slow the team down, and make a chaotic entry into the house through series of poorly targeted grenades. They find evidence that the possessed church employee had gone toxic pre-possession, and was possessed during a summoning ritual, implying there is a free toxic spirit hanging around somewhere…. fun.

They also find evidence of the 2 missing Sylvestrines, as well as semi-concealed basement door. They head down and find the secure case for the Jade Cup, empty, bearing strange signs of both toxic and green magic, so it seems the shedim only gained it recently as their death aura hasn’t taken over. They also find a locked room containing 1 Sylvestrine, who seems to have been driven mad, and the remains of the other, who was apparently reanimated repeatedly by a low force shedim to force the survivor to butcher and consume him. They call in Ryder to get the survivor out, and he does, and they call in Fringe to arrange for him to get back to the Catholic Church’s care. Fringe also agrees to meet them at the church here to bring an end to this.

They find a tunnel in the floor which looks to lead to the church, and luckily Carol had prepared because he manages to FAB another waiting shedim as they open the hatch. The effects of the FAB III are terrible to witness, even on an enemy, and they decide to travel overland to their destination, assuming that the FAB will keep anyone from trying to escape through the tunnel. The DA’s call and say they have the church surrounded but that there’s some kind of gnarly ritual going on inside. The team races over, having to do some on the fly drug adjustments to stay conscious and functional for some, and breach the church.

6Cyl once again manages to blast the sacrificial knife out of Altar Boy’s hand, and almost trick shots the knife out of Auslander’s hand as well, but Auslander still manages to stab his victim- it looks like both S@m and SM-501 have been drugged and tied to the altar, and 6C isn’t sure which one he saved. 2 dozen mind-controlled Ancients and locals turn to charge the team, alongside AB, the toxic free spirit, and the possessed cyber-solider from Tate’s clinic. The team calls in the DA’s who go toe to toe with the enemy gangers as the team takes on the big bads. Fringe is outside cleansing the local space to allow the team to not suffer horrible background counts, and also interfering with Auslander’s ritual. Fringe’s angelic spirit is watching the exits to burn with holy fire any foes who try to flee.

Alyin manages to take out AB before he can deal any damage with his sword, and his teen face shows a look of great surprise as he slides in half from the monofil whip slice. Auslander keeps going after 6C with spells but Aylin keeps taking his damage and regenerating it, so the toxie comes after Aylin. Test starts hacking the cybersolider while Hotkey returns fire, and Carol makes a hail mary run with the FAB thrower to get to Auslander. Before long, HK, 6C, and Carol are all KO-ed, though Carol manages to shoot off the FAB cloud near Auslander just as he goes down.

Avocado steps up to the plate as Aylin and the hacked cybersoldier duel- the soldier is faster but doesn’t have regen, and with Test and Remo’s hacking support Aylin finally brings him down, just as Avocado uses a miraculous commanding voice to trick Auslander into staying put while the FAB III surrounds and envelopes him- they hear more twisted, horrible screaming as he is driven from this plane. A CrashCart team shows up and whisks 6C away to a hospital in the O’Hare sprawl while the rest of the team settles up. The DA’s on site were mostly wiped out with the exception of Becky, and Fringe looks drained from his efforts. Remo and Ryder and thrilled to find that S@m was saved, though the shedim seem to have stripped her of her TM abilities as part of the ritual. SM-501 bled out from the off target stab wound during the fight, unfortunately.

The team gets some local rep boosts, make some new and improved contacts, and gets paid from the Catholics as well as some local fundraising done to support their good deeds. They head back to the safehouses to rest up, and hear from Fringe that there is one more job available: a perilous mission to use the Jade Cup to travel to Auslander’s castle to defeat him once and for all and end his incursion attempts. This will destroy the Cup, and kill Fringe in the process, so they’ll get one shot at it. The team says they need a few days to rest up, and Fringe agrees. Avo also sets up a fight at the Vault for 6C, finally, and starts making some teaser ads to build hype.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

Otoko emerges briefly to say hello and rub her bleary eyes before heading back to her den to continue bingeing trids. Patty C helps 6Cyl with some alchemical projects, and he finally learns the art of the alchemical bullet, a long goal of his. Test hears from Mrs. Clean that his new ID got burned again, and decides to start looking into what’s going on. He has a lead – a Foundation-obsessed decker at a bar called “The Hangman” in the Noose, but he can’t find him on the matrix- IRL visit it is. They also get word from Ryder that no useful ID’s have been made from the photos from the body pit but that they were printed in an old-school darkroom, so the chemicals needed might be way to track down who printed them, though Zone records are not exactly great.

Most of the team head to the bar to back up Test, and end up meeting with Quantum Princess, an old-school decker who helped set up NooseNet. She checks their reps, getting a bad vibe off Test, but after he explains himself and everyone else looks solid, she brings them into a backroom and shows them 4 comatose deckers, including the man Test sought. She tells them they were all early Foundation divers, and are now all that remains of the Midwest Pirate’s Guild. They all got obsessed with skimming the Null node, giving them access to lost info only usually accessible to TM’s, but said that they all eventually noticed something following them around the matrix (and after that, IRL) afterwards. Test, having skimmed the Null node in the Seelie Court, confirms the few steps he’s been through of this, and is worried about what’s next for him.

QP tells him that the MPG had figured out that they needed to perform some sort of ritual of obeisance to allow the Null node to “pwn” them in some way, but were unable to find their back to the necessary areas to perform it in time. They also debrief a bit about the Null Sect in general, and speculate about their involvement here. Test agrees to share any info he gets with QP, and the team takes a box of mesh repeaters to put up around town to expand NooseNet further, especially as DelaMar’s New Matrix expands into the Zone with the rebuilding. Test also confers with GC, who verifies that the New Matrix is much, much harder for AI’s and Garmonbozia specifically to stay concealed in, and agrees to see if GB wants to coop with Test vs the Null Sect longterm.

The team then gets a call from Becky 99, who says that she has a building with some creepy rumors around it she wants the team to check out. The Desolation Angels have a meeting with one of the few gangs they’re friendly with nearby, so they can meet up after and debrief on next steps tracking down their missing people. She can’t pay much, so they negotiate for future favors instead and agree to terms. They also hear that Ares was successful in rescuing Moonberry from and MCT Zero Zone, but it seems like someone warned MCT they were coming and the Ares team took heavy casulaties. Weirdly, the Ares team is wearing full armor, seems t be able survive what should be lethal wounds, and took all their casualties with them, according the footage leaked online. Based on the resilience of some of the MCT guards, it is speculated that they also have something up their sleeve, possibly confirming rumors that they are providing a safe home for some shedim in exchange for protection duties.

The team head to the building for B99, a former Fuchi dev center, and find it abandoned and looking kinda haunted. They sweep it with drones and, seeing no threats, head in. It looks like someone used breaching charges to enter the building a long while back and then boarded over it, but some of the boards have been pried or weathered down since. They check out the first floor, and find it totally trashed, but find some Universal Brotherhood recruitment material moldering in a break room. They spot a pack of devil and demon rats upstairs, but decide to steer clear for now. They head down to the basement, where the background count gets even worse. Weirdly, there is also a strong dissonance pool in the building. The building was built with some wireless blockers that are badly interfering with their comms as well.

They check out the basement and find 3 large chambers, the first a server room that is totally trashed. They find a journal from some employees who considered themselves loyalists but seem to have been overrun after barricading themselves here. In the next room they find the source of the awful odor and background count: a massive pile of twisted skeletons, some cocoon/pods that are husked and dried out, and a massive cloud of FAB III. The awakened team members flee while the rest continue to investigate. The pile of bodies looks to be the right amount for the entire staff of the facility, confirming rumors that this was the only Fuchi location in town that noone made it out of. The FAB canisters and other expended ordinance are all Ares brand from the appropriate era, suggesting this was one of the sites they hit where a hive was located. The pods look to be filled with the mutated remains of the “loyal” employees or perhaps other neighborhood strays, midway through their infestation.

The third room contains a destroyed decontamination chamber with a collapsed tunnel filled with more twisted skeletons, as well as more UB propaganda, suggesting that this office was infiltrated by bugs before the walls went up, and heavily enough that they took over and prevented anyone leaving. It seems to have been a roach nest. However, noone has been done here since, it seems, so the team figures it’s good paydata but not relevant to the current job. Carol grapples up the 2nd floor to investigate the sole semi-intact room the drones found, and avoid the rats, and finds what looks like a “brains-in-jars” experiment that feels related to The 100 experiment from Boston. Notes about “electrokinetics” on a whiteboard suggest that the brains likely belonged to Technomancers, explaining the dissonance well also. They find a scrap with the name “Halberstram” on it, but it looks to have been abandoned since the early 2070’s, so they figure again, good data but not currently relevant. The demon rat sneaks up on Carol and melts some of his armor but he escapes out the window, and see B99 and some other DA’s getting chased by a large mob of Ramblers.

The team sets up an ambush to help out, and gets some good hits in. Luckily they managed to avoid killing anyone, and end up convincing Griller, the Rambler head, to take a payout and an apology after they sort out what is going on. B99 apparently went on a rampage after the last mission, thinking the Ramblers were responsible for her missing people, based on what seems like a mediocre quality frame job. Griller affirms that they weren’t and threatens her further if she moves on them even the tiniest bit again, but takes off. B99 and the team debrief a bit and the DA’s head for a nearby safehouse to patch up and rest- it seems like she hasn’t slept for days. She gets them to go to the gang meeting at the nearby cemetery on her behalf. When they arrive, they find that the Crypt Keepers, the gang there, have all been massacred. They were a pacifist ghoul gang that offered burial services in exchange for food, and kept the bodies from being useful to shedim. With some clever hacking, they retrieve some data, and find that once again, someone did a frame-up attack on these guys, dressed in DA colors but obviously not the DA. However, they are skilled riders with both physical attacks and magic available.

The team does some digging on local gangs, and can’t figure out who it is, unless one of the syndicates sent in some muscle to fuck with the DA’s, since the DA’s interfere with human trafficking often, but this seems like a weird way to go about it. They call up Goober to see if anyone has been buying a ton of weird bikes and stuff recently, and find out (after convincing him this is a major community issue) that a creepy kid named Altar Boy has been. The team assumes he is likely a shedim, based on his appearing and all of this kicking off shortly after the major shedim presence in DeeCee got shut down. Reviewing footage, they also find a circle of dead flowers and weeds at the cemetery, further confirming. They get 2 leads fro B99 on where to look into Tasha more, and see if the team can figure out where she got spotted and photographed initially, to try to find more leads.

Tracking down the 2 leads to Brother’s Scrap Yard and the Maker’s Collective, they make some interesting contacts at both spots. They also link up with STV’s local liaison through Madeline Schmidt and agree to some future cooperation. Using some complex mixes of perceptions they manage to locate where the surveillance shots of Tasha and Misa Sanchez (the young dwarf TM from the DA safehouse) were taken, and confirm that Altar Boy was at one site with a fancy street bike, and an elf in slightly concealed Ancients colors was at the other. 6C is thrilled to finally get to go after his nemeses. They ask around a bit and find out about an Ancients clubhouse in an old S-Mart near the Cermak crater. They do some drone recon and gear up to go in heavy.

They confirm Ancients are onsite, due to the 12 fancy bikes parked out front. The drones don’t see any guards and proceed inside. They hear chanting from deeper in, and the team sends the drones deeper but loses comms and they don’t return, so the team rushes over to get in there, worried about a ritual. They call in backup from Becky and Nick Ryder (who’s drunk but gets a ride), but they will take some time to arrive so the team launches some grenades in ahead of their entry and rolls in. They spot some Watcher spirits observing them while others zip off, presumably to warn someone. They find the dead drones inside, near an expelled charged ward, which seems to have zapped them. They notice there is a large area in the center of the warehouse where astral space has been cleaned, and some sort of ritual is occurring,

They head in, with Avocado hanging back to lead from the rear, and Ryder and the DA’s finally arriving. The DA’s start trashing bikes outside, while Ryder dashes up to join the team, wearing some cobbled together and ill-fitting bulletproofs. They enter the center area and see Altar Boy about to plunge a knife into Misa Sanchez’ chest on top of an improvised altar, with a ring of 12 dead-eyed Ancients circled around, chanting. AB delivers a villain line, and Carol shoots him in the chest, but the rounds just bounce off, only slightly staggering AB. 6Cyl jumps in and pulls an amazing trick shot, shooting the knife out of his hands. AB declares the team the great heroes and says they can have the girl, and then flees, slipping into the shadows and moving unnaturally quickly, implying the use of some spirit powers.

Strangely, the Ancients don’t seem to be shedim-possessed, just mind-controlled, but 6Cyl revels in cutting them down, especially once the team notices they’ve all been implanted with cortical bombs, and a few of them detonate, almost taking out Aylin (who luckily regenerates). They kill all the Ancients, and looking down 6C notices that they are all very young, and realizes he saw a look of terror behind their eyes as they charged, and finally lets go off his childhood fear/hatred of them- he’s (almost) their height now, and obviously more powerful. 6C frees Misa and she asks if the others are safe, so the team races for the back of the store. They spot the area where AB warped through the wall to escape, and also find a busted walk-in full of bodies- each with a stab wound through the heart.

They find Tasha and the other TM’s they were seeking from the flower shop abattoir photos, except for SM-501, who is absent. It looks like they’ve been killed one at a time, once per day. Based on what AB said as he was fleeing, they know he has a Master and that they are apparently seeking some way to inhabit TM’s, based on the new revelations about the connections between Resonance and magic that the team has been involved in discovering/releasing. Becky takes Misa in quickly, wrapping her in an oversized gang cut and promising to keep her safe. She, Ryder and the team all vow to continue this investigation and get revenge/end this threat, and Ryder promises them get out of jail free favors from him (for something “reasonable”), and they head their separate ways to regroup.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

They head over to the bar to meet Ryder, grabbing HK on the way, and get the rundown. Another Johnson is also present, Martin Tate, a doctor with clinics throughout the Zone. Him and Ryder both are invested in the missing persons case, and give the team a few specific ones from the last few days to follow up on. They arrange payment, including some ’ware and surgery from Tate, and both hint they will be good people to know in future. Ryder also tells them to expect a call from a contact of his named S@m, who sends her sprite Remo to tell them to look for a missing TM named SM-501 as well, who 3D has also reported as missing to HK: the investigations overlap!

The team heads out to the first locale, 2 families that missed a neighborhood watch meeting the previous night. The area seems well defended and very clean for the Zone, centered around the split level house that the 2 families share on a fenced and defended triple yard. The team teaches some local patrolling teens some better tactics to ensure they are welcome here and explain their presence as investigators. This seems to work and they receive a warning about the house being trapped, and spot some trip wires, sensors, and pressure pads. Aylin also spots a lot of dead fowl in the detached shed, and from the maggots they think they could potentially determine time of death, which might hint to time of disappearance, but Avocado narrows it down to “sometime yesterday”. The house also has a suspiciously well-defended matrix host, styled to look like a high-end but not suspicious home security system, which raises the team’s hackers’ eyebrows.

Seeing that the converted garage door drawbridge is lowered over the lot’s moat, they think that’s probably the best way in, and prepare to enter. After they stress for a while, Carol walks across and with no problems, the car follows. Carol spots some dirtbike tracks behind the chicken shed that noone else had noticed that seem to be from around the time of disappearance, and in a place not visible by the house’s cameras. He also pukes, hard, after opening the shack. The team carefully heads in, wary of traps, and manages to avoid triggering any. They use a maglock to backdoor into the well-defended system, and Test uses TM powers to obscure them while HK recovers cam footage and some log data. Reviewing it, they see one of the dad’s of the families go out to check out the shed after a sensor activation around when the bike was there, and then return into view about 1/2 an hour later, seeming both stronger and lighter on his feet somehow. The team assumes some sort of spirit possession.

About another 1/2 hour later, both families pile into their 2 cars, lower the drawbridge, and drive off. HK, being a family man familiar with having a go-bag and a quick exit plan, takes a look around and confirms that the families left in an orderly hurry. There also seems to be a surprising lack of electronics in the kids’ rooms, implying they were possibly TM’s themselves. Carol finds a hidden room in the basement, with evidence which implies that the parents have been in the Zone since around when it went up, searching for “Melissa”, who they assume is Melissa Truman, the famous missing heiress to the corporate fortune. They gather all the evidence and head out to the next site. As they leave, they spot some Desolation Angels watching them from a distance, but lose them quickly.

Rolling up to Tate’s recovery house, they find 4 unmarked but corpsec-looking guards on 2 entrances. They don’t give the team any trouble once they confirm they are from Tate, and take off. The team gets the power back on inside, seeing that something seems to have punched a hold in the panel and bypassing it, decides not to loot the medical supplies onsite since Tate didn’t give them those passcodes, and get more security camera footage. With some impressive analysis, Test is able to spot another dirtbike’s shadow just out of frame. Shortly after, 2 children (who they recognize as the missing kids from the previous house) run up to the door screaming, and the guard and nurse let them in. Ushering them into the back, them and the kids are all KO’ed by 4 smoking canisters the kids pop open. A blurry figure then enters through the front door and everything is lost in a cloud of smoke for a short moment before the power cuts. They assume this figure was either camo’ed or moving super fast but can’t get a good image.

They also get a list from Tate of what implants the recovering patient had, and find out he was getting super kitted out with deltaware. They also do some digging on his name, and find out that he is an employee of Truman Technologies (now a Horizon subsid), in their “special projects” wing. They wonder if the previous house’s occupants gave up the location to this clinic, given the Truman ties, or what is going on. Carol also spots a disconnected and dusty LoneStar emergency button, and sends a pic and some anonymized details to Candice, for her campaign against them. The team heads to the 3rd site, and runs into more Desolation Angels. The address they were given as a last known for SM-501 looks to be a bombed-out ruin, and the DA’s are digging for bodies.

Aylin approaches Becky 99 in astral, and they agree to chat in meatspace. The team heads in, and a few get details from Becky while HK uses his computer skills to help located bodies by seeking active devices. Apparently this was a DA safehouse for people who needed a safe and secret location to get away from dangerous men or organizations of whatever sort, so noone else should have known it was here. Test recovers some info from a smashed comm that HK digs up, and it seems like someone set off a gas leak to blow the building and also had set up a jammer to keep those inside from communicating out. Disturbingly, there are only half as many bodies as there should be, and although a lot are badly dismembered, noone finds any pieces of the missing 4. Carol once again spots some dirtbike tracks.

Becky gives them images and names: a human and dwarf woman, SM-501, and Tasha, the DA’s young TM mascot. Becky seems distraught and offers the team a bonus for sharing their findings, making clear she wants revenge as well as wanting them found. Test has a bright idea, and coordinates with HK, a skilled profiler, using the 3 sites they’ve interacted with to triangulate a potential locus to focus on. Sending out drones to do recon, they find an abandoned flower shop pretty much dead center, with 3 dirtbikes and one of the family station wagons parked out back under an awning, all unlocked and with keys in them, seemingly either ready to go or waiting to get stolen. Avo calls Holmes and gets confirmation that none of their missing people overlap with the folks recruited into Fey bargains, with HK adding a ton of random names to their list to try not to give Holmes too much info.

The DA’s agree to help the team secure the area around the flower shop, and prevent attempts at escape by the kidnappers. 6Cyl sends in a spirit that warns of a terrible background count, and doesn’t want to go further. It also warns them of multiple magical signatures but no auras on the first floor, but Avo gets impatient and flips the lightswitch just inside the front door. This sets off a fireball spell, which torches the shop, but is quickly put out by some sprinklers. Carol steps in and is instantly almost killed by some DMSO/Slab solution in the sprinkler spray. They haul him out with a grapple and 6C cleans him with a water spirit, before they heal him up a bit. They head in more carefully after the sprinklers die off, and find the shop looking long-term abandoned, but the freezer room in back still operational. Locating a hatch in the floor, Carol opens it and pukes, hard, again at the terrible odor from within, and falls in the hatch getting stuck.

They haul him out, and see that the larger team members are going to have to strip their armor off to fit down the narrow, old-looking tunnel. This is also where the background count gets especially bad and Death-aspected, so they assume this must be shedim and not bugs. A few of them head down, with Carol stripping off his armor to fit, and Test slips in the gore and gets some in his mouth. They seem like old bootleggers tunnels, and given the collapses visible, not very stable. Carol enters an abattoir chamber ahead where it dead ends (ha) and finds bits of a few of the missing people, but none of the TM’s, and finds creepy surveillance photos crossed out of all the TM’s they had ID’ed plus a few others. Unfortunately, he doesn’t see the mistform vamps who slip in through a crack in the wall and they get the drop on him, nearly killing him and beginning to feed.

The team frantically shuffles around in the tunnel to try to get in to help, and 6Cyl manages to take one vamp down, with Aylin chasing the other in mist form back the way it came. She emerges into a city utility tunnel filled with Fear the Dark graff and manages to catch and kill the 2nd vamp. She starts to find her way back, following the death aura, and based on the lack of vamp bites on any of the body pieces, assumes that the vamps had likely done the same and were not the original killers. The bodies in the chamber are fully torn apart, and look chewed on. The team quickly grabs the photos off the wall and the few non-disgusting bits of evidence they can find as the chamber begins to collapse from the gunfight damage.

Aylin mists through the debris and rejoins them as they reascend, and Kinnie confirms that 2 of the side tunnel collapses look recent and planned, so someone likely came down here, escaped via one or both smuggler’s tunnels, and closed them behind themselves. They debrief Becky 99 up top, and confirm that a few more of the depicted individuals are missing TM’s. B99 says she wants her people rescued and/or wants revenge, and that she’ll be in touch. The team keeps one of the kidnappers dirt bikes (after checking for traps) and the Desolation Angels take the rest of the vehicles.

The team heads to the bolthole in Hoodville to patch up and do some research, and confirm between talking to 3D and checking missing persons boards that the rest of the photos also depict missing people, all of whom are known or suspected TM’s. They also some do some more digging into the “Melissa” angle and find some more hints but everything seems out of date. This doesn’t explain why Truman Tech was sending in a fresh operative though… They arrange to meet up with Tate and Ryder, and head to Tate’s newest clinic, being built out and guarded by a tribe of Neil the Ork Barbarian cosplayers. They give Ryder the intel first, and he pays up, saying that he hopes the team will keep looking into this as well. He seems confused that one of the pics they found was of S@m, and suggests that one of her clones must have survived after all, and gotten free (and then snatched up again). Tate dismisses him, but he takes the pics to run some tests.

They then debrief Tate, who agrees to get them some discout ’ware as promised, and seems very interested in the Melissa Truman intel, and says he will likely have more work for them soon. They head back to Ahabitat to rest up for a few days and figure out next steps.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team’s been up for over 24 hours at this point, and decide to head home to rest. Goober gives them a discount for making sure people know he’s the mechanic who helped save the ghoul kids, and they get their car back. Test decides to set up a bolt hole in the CZ to have a land (and matrix-connected) option. Using Opti’s rep they secure team invites to NooseNet, the local shadowboard, and Test makes contact withe 3D, the admin of the Hoodville community in the Noose. 3D verifies that the team aren’t affiliated with the Horde (although he doesn’t elaborate as to why) and agrees to set up the spot Test has envisioned. The team drops Test off there, so he can reconnect with GC via Marry Me. He also invites the hostess Molly from the bar, and gets her to agree to an IRL date in a few weeks as well. GC verifies that Garmonbozia will be in touch with Skeleton Key to see if it wants assistance or shelter. Ominously, 3D also wants some help clearing digital vines from some old hosts in the area, so it seems like Null problems are here as well.

The rest of the team heads back to Ahabitat via sub, and rests up. They fix up their fuel system using some more of the repair supplies they bought from Ares (to appease the Sea Dragon) and Mako pays a visit, confirming that the SD has extended her protection to the Zone community known as “Freaktown”, as she apparently has an affinity for changelings. The awakened team members finally feel somewhat adjusted to the local manasphere, also. They get a message from Allan Clay, the nervous TM johnson from the bar, and 6C plans to follow up. Aylin’s mom also says she has something for Aylin and 6C. 6C gets dropped off at ATF to buy a camo cloak, and the team grabs Test from his gaming fest at the bolthole and picks 6C back up.

They do some matrix sleuthing on Festival Foods, and find that they are providing product to a soup kitchen in the northern Noose, so they head there. They spot some Volk on headed that way as well, but Carol sees some other figures laying an ambush, so they lay back and use the gunfire as a distraction to sneak into the Feeding UCAS building. It seems like a totally legit soup kitchen (no bug magic), but they get spotted by a Neo-Anarchist decker named Gamze Seidel. After they assure her they’re just looking into Festival Foods, she backs off but keeps an eye on them. The team that ambushed the Volk come in shortly after, and seem to be more Neo-A’s.

A combat decker named Angoka is giving them the stink eye, but they make friends with the seeming “leader”, Lycus, and get some info about the SIN drive they are running out of this and some other spots (what the Volk were targeting seemingly). They are using old pre-Crash records to get Zone denizens started on their paperwork to get official ID’s. Gamze and Angoka have managed to retrofit some old city govt terminals that they are apparently able to pull data off of. Hotkey thinks this will be good info to pass on to Mrs. Clean/Sierra Corp, but Lycus and the others seem very suspicious of corp involvement. The team heads out and 6C is delighted to see a dwarf woman in home-welded knight armor ride up on a bike armored up to look like horse.

They converse a bit, and she reveals herself to be one Lassie Landsknecht, and offers her services as a chevalier if 6C or other weaklings find themselves in need of saving. 6C leaves a note after she bikes off to try to get in touch with her again, somewhat besotted. They also spot the Neo-A tagger Vonny seemingly commemorating the site of the nearby Volk massacre, using drones to quickly throw a huge piece up, but they leave him be. They head to their next lead, the Vault, where a fixer made the deal to get the soup kitchen Festival Foods for cheap. Arriving, they find a well-defended building surrounded with bollards and guarded by Desolation Angels, housing the fighting bar as well as a medical clinic.

Aylin makes friends with the DA’s, especially a young TM named Tasha who seems fascinated by Aylin’s monowhip, and gets approval from Becky 99, the leader, to get one. After a while Matt Wrath comes out to get Matt Rat some fresh air, and Kinnie and Test converse with him a bit, getting recognition as fellow Jackpointers. MR agrees to introduce them to Sid as a favor to some newcomers, and offers his skills as a guide and fighter if needed. They head in and meet Sid, who’s a bit greasy but seems cannier than he looks. Avocado feeds him a whole line, but he just seems excited about making a connection with a new team and is happy to help. He sets up a meet with Danny Dankwallow, his connection at Festival Foods, and Carol hopes to also use the meet to get intel useful to Ares. They plan to link up a public location near O’Hare, minimizing both parties risk.

At Carol’s suggestion, they do a deep dive into the related Tarot, in order to maximize their negotiating position, and find some info on where Moonberry likely is being held captive, as well as determining some of the answers to Hansu Prophecies 6, 7 and 8. They head to the meet, and carefully negotiate in Courtly rhyme with Dankwallow, to subvert his guards’ surveillance. They discover that he’s working for Hanged Man, and the guards seem to be from AZT. Which is weird, since Festival Foods is a Renraku subsid. Dankwallow offers to put them in touch with his boss in HM, and seems amenable to switching sides as needed if it helps free his wife, which is the only reason he got involved. He confirms that the strange additive to the food was his idea, inspired by the team’s discoveries about Taco Temple at Court, and doen in order to magically track and approach people who are in dire economic or social straits for potential voluntary Pa bargains and servitude at Court.

The team decides to do further research and calling around, and goes for a drive, trying to resolve Prophecy 8. 6C calls up Fargus Sol and he helps them determine that there is likely some kind of 4th World treasure near the Iran/Turkmenistan border, near Aden’s turf. They also sell Prophecy 6 info to Ares, where Candice Phillips seems excited to be dealing with Avocado who she obviously respects more than Carol. They arrange for Ares to rescue Moonberry as well, in exchange for a positive intro at Court, where they currently lack standing. They also sell Prophecy 7 info and Moonberry into (related) to SpinRad via Miranda King, who seems excited to get the info, as she seems like she’s still finding her footing in the corp after jumping off the sinking ship of NeoNET recently.

Sol also gets the Catholics to finally return 6C’s calls, and he arranges with Darren Dolf (who seems likely to be a cutout for the Vigilia Evangelica) to bring their Book of 9 Gates and help with the ritual to free Aylin and 6C. However, there’s a cost: the VE requires that the team retrieve the 3rd Book from the Black Lodge (or whoever stole/bought it from them after they stole it from the Catholics), both for the ritual to work and as pay for them at the end. Dolf agrees that Arleesh will keep her Book, as they trust her to keep it safe, or so they say. 6C starts scheming on how to make this happen.

The team contacts Dankwallow using the burner comm they slipped him at the meet, and set up the deal with Ares. He says he will have his boss pop over to Earth and contact them, and a short while later they get a call from Rooster, who explains that the whole thing is an elaborate smear campaign on behalf of AZT, in revenge for the team’s actions to help Renraku at Court. Rooster agrees to share the smear info with the team’s employers if they wait a week to hype them. They plan to play up the “disappearances” of poor people who ate Festival Foods and hint at the bug cult/Chicago history to put people off of it. Holmes agrees, and Rooster and Holmes both seem delighted that Ares has decided to rescue Moonberry from MCT’s well-defended TRU-13 unit, which will likely be a deadly mission, which they now don’t need to undertake while still receiving the benefits.

The team gets paid out, and agrees to potentially do more jobs for Hanged Man in the future to disrupt Court stagnation. They head to the hotel where Aylin’s mom is staying in order to get the present she has for 6C and Aylin, and she requests they all call her “Patty C” for now. 6C does some real awkward stuff trying to participate in her and Aylin’s fam dynamic and she tries to welcome it. She gives them both potions, and explains that she is a skilled alchemist, though her magical ability has been depleted by her possession. They decide to invite her to the safehouse, where she can work on potions to make a living and also collab with 6C.

They drop HK off at the Bolthole, where he has a lengthy hang with his fam, gets updates on the situation in NYC, and talks about their plans to maybe come to Chicago, Aanka has been getting involved in some “Free CIty” campaigns on the matrix, in St Louis and Seattle specifically, and the community mesh network HK helped set up in their corner of Queens seems to be working well to keep both the Null Sect and the DelaMar sec upgrades at bay, useful for refugees and freedom fighters. HK also hangs with 3D for a bit and gets some deets on a few things: the missing technomancers (suspicious, and seemingly different than previous cases of corp kidnap or hate crimes), and the local phenomena of metaracist combat tourism. HK agrees to help with both, but decides to talk the team into looking into missing persons first, and gets a lead.

The rest of the team rests up at Ahabitat, and at Test’s demand, Patty C starts involving herself in providing some “real world” lessons to Otoko. Kinnie finishes the first major sub repair, and they try to contact Allan Clay, the nervous TM Johnson, but get a dead line. Worried that this may be connected, they head back to town and finally call Red back about his missing persons job as well, figuring they can roll two jobs into one again. Red puts them in touch with an alcoholic Omnistar detective, Nick Ryder, who sets up a meet shortly thereafter at a Zone dive bar.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team spends the next day hungover from the bday party and working on fixing up the Hab, now named AHABitat. They name the sub the “Shadowrudder.” Otoko has only been emerging for food occasionally while bingeing all the new sims Test bought her. Kinnie and Hotkey, in charge of repairs, make a list of needed supplies, and the team also makes a list of necessary upgrades and purchases to pick up. Carol, Avocado, and Aylin head to town in the sub to get all that stuff while Test, HK and Kinnie finetune the air recycler and fix the chemical toilets. 6Cyl does alchemy all day to begin stocking up their new Vault of Ages.

In town, the team splits up their purchases to not give any one supplier too much info about what they’re up to. Goober gets them sub upgrades and a water safe comms drone (also stealthed). They get enviro tech and filters from Sierra Corp to stay on the Sea Dragon’s good side by not polluting, and get all the other fittings and equipment needed from Ares. They then head into town further to meet with Red, and get some local vamp tips. Aylin makes fast friends with the ethical vamp, and gets good local info. He seems down to trade more info and favors for hooder runs.

They then head to Camp Lincoln, to try to rendezvous with the Fleshmongers, who purchase trapped bodies there to sell to local infected or part out. They successfully find them and make an ammo trade deal to get Aylin fed, and Aylin gets a dead drop to call for future needs. She feels bad about the scenario though and hopes to seek out more ethical feeding. The team then heads back to the sub and the hab, with their delivered purchases in tow.

The next day, the team gets the comms drone working and receives some messages. GC is trying to get ahold of Test, and Aylin’s mom has come to town, a surprisingly fast return from intense trauma therapy. The team contacts Mrs. Clean to get a rough idea of the payout on all her jobs, and chooses one to follow through on first. Avocado buys a car with a cowcatcher from Goober, and they head to the O’Hare Sprawl and meet a Johnson, who turns out to be ex-NN, in a poser/Zone tourist bar. Test makes a friend of one of the hostesses by mocking it all.

They agree to a price, but are a little uncomfortable that it involves handing over a shadowcaster named Opti, along with some data he apparently stole. With some background research, they figure out that their Johnson has lost some sort of “special project” that he salvaged from collapsing NN and was planning to use as a means to another job. He seems a bit down on his luck and desperate, but the pay is good. Test pays the hostess for any tips on odd happenings she spots.

They then get into a brief scuffle with 2 poser gangs in the parking lot, but easily scare them off. They then head towards the airport, and Aylin and 6Cyl meet with her mom while the rest meet with a young drake and a hugely charismatic woman named Mako. Aylin’s mom tells them she met these entities on Celephais, and helped Mako raise the drake along with 7 others from infancy- weirdly, again, for the relative time passed. This confirms that Celephais has some weird time shit, similar to the Seelie Court. Also strangely, Aylin’s mom only appears slightly older than Aylin remembers her from when she disappeared- only her eyes show all that she’s been through since then.

Aylin reveals that she is a vampire, and her mom tells her it was a vamp who gave her the Blood Box all those years ago. They bond and reconnect a bit, touchingly, and make plans to continue. Aylin tries to give her way too much money, and 6C very awkwardly declares himself part of the family too. They then head down and Aylin’s mom meet the team and they all chat a bit. Meanwhile, the team has met with the drake and Mako, who are here on behalf of the Sea Dragon to cement the agreement made with the merrow.

The team sends them to Carol, who lacks a good SIN other than his real one, and stayed with the sub. They get there surprisingly quickly, and he frantically gets some tips on piloting from Goober. They head down and he makes the intro to Otoko, who takes them down to meet Big Meat and Ryujin. Carol heads back to the surface and plans to meet with the team at Club Clusterfunk, their first lead on where to look for Opti. They all link up, and Carol borrows some money from his brother to get Seirra Corp to upgrade his SIN. Spending a while surveilling the bar they can’t find any obvious leads, so Avocado tries to casually ask one of the servers, who pleads ignorance. Kinnie heads back to the docks to work on the sub some more.

However, the mention of Opti attracts some attention from a bar patron, the shadowcaster Static, who seems to be a rival. She gets some money from them for an address for Opti, and they head out. Strangely, the square block around Opti’s hideout is one of the nicest parts of the CZ that they’ve seen, especially impressive given that it’s in the Noose. The team is starting to feel a little more iffy about handing this runner over to a corp Johnson given that he seems to be doing some good hooding work. For now, they continue, with Carol’s suggestion to contact him voted down. Half the team stays in the car to keep it running and do matrix support with Aylin floating up to the 3rd floor in mist form. The rest of the team uses spirit concealment to sneak through a thai restaurant to a shared courtyard with a door leading up to Opti’s.

HK luckily spots a secondary security measure, and him and Test bypass with some sprite assistance, opening the door. 6C notices astral markings in the narrow stairwell, but verifies it is a powerful astral ward, so he doesn’t think he can bypass it without alerting the caster anyway so they just walk in. They find a collection of shadowcasting gear, various bits of tech, and a lot of collectible ephermera, including a lot of Crow/Raven themed gear and a signed Jonny Silver guitar. Test gets an urgent message from GC and is told to make sure he grabs the beeping device inside and make sure it broadcasts. He tells them team but does so- it contains a fragment of the code string the Johnson gave them to recognize his program. It also pings 3 other map locations when activated- it looks like Opti disabled the antennae on the comm but Test bypasses that with his touchlink ability,

They are starting to poke around a bit more when 6C spots a spirit watching them in astral and the room starts slowly filling with acid fog, doing some armor damage to everyone. A 3-minute countdown also begins. Test stays til the last second, getting some info off the terminal before diving out the window, ko-ing in the impact. The room explodes behind him, but seems intended only to destroy the insides and barely damages the rest of the building. This plus the countdown implies this was more a security measure than a trap, as Opti seems to have not wanted to kill anyone. GC messages again when Test wakes up to tell him to track down the other 3 locations, and tells Test doing so won’t violate their team norms.

Test and HK then receive a call from an unknown number, offering info on Opti- they agree to meet and head to Jindrich’s, a small fancy bar near O’Hare. They meet a woman named Vox, who is on a list of allies/peers they pulled from Opti’s terminal. She asks them to go a quick task in exchange for the info and they agree. They head for a literal hole in the Wall bar called the Civil Libation Tea Room and Avocado distracts the chatty proprietor while Carol and 6C steal a datachip out of the safe, with Aylin and HK providing remote support. They return to Jindrich’s and hand it over. Strangely, one of the 3 map pins shows as being there as well. Vox accepts the info, seems to receive a message, and then looking slightly confused, hands the team her burner comm and tells them “this is what they need.” Having scanned the datachip, they know it’s a list of Seattle high society B and C-listers, and she offers to reconnect if they find themselves in that city.

Taking the burner comm to the car, Test connects both at GC’s instruction, and the code seems to copy it’s opposite instance to both. They now seem to have half of the code string. Following another map pin, they head to the Chicago Market area as the pin finally stops moving around. They find a huge music festival occurring and all buy tickets, it is a benefit for a “Save our Ghoul Youth” foundation, and seems to have some corp support from Evo and Horizon. There are some classic rockers playing, as well as a local opener and mid-tier shadowband member, Vendetta Violent, doing a solo set. She seems to be the target. Aylin and Avo buy VIP passes to get backstage, and Avo poses as a pusher while Aylin mists to bypass security to get into the musicians’ green room.

VV and another man inside, Monday Trip, ID him as a runner right away, though they don’t initially spot misty Aylin. They have a slightly tense negotiation of figuring out what he wants but seem basically chill, and agree to sell him the partitioned data package off Trip’s comm that has been giving them trouble. However, before the transfer can go through, the racist/metaracist Volk gang kidnaps a bus full of ghoul children, and VV and Trip tell Avo to get his team and save the bus, and they’ll give him the data for free plus a bonus. Aylin manifests and they seem a bit surprised, but all agree to the deal, and the team starts after the bus, which is speeding off trying to run over anyone it can as the children scream and try to escape from inside. Aylin hangs back to keep an eye on the payday.

They chase down the bus, with Kinnie joining just in time to pull the car around. Avocado uses commanding voice to get the rest of the team into the backstage area and 6C summons a spirit to boost his speed on foot. Hotkey and Test manage to tagteam a hack and dump the Volk hacker out of the bus system, while Kinnie pulls the car up next to the bus and Carol uses a grapple to jump up on top. 6C catches up to the Volk car on foot and blasts one of them who was trying to get a rocket launcher set up, and then mana balls the car, finishing off the dumpshocked decker and 2 others.

The remaining passenger shoots 6C but he dodges, Then, the driver clips him with the car, sending him flying into a building, killing him. His CrashCart bracelet activates, and the team sees an ambulance racing in from the concert (where Evo had a major presence). They finish off one more of the Volk and then focus on slowing the bus down as the Volk car speeds off. Unfortunately, Kinnie crashes the car, not being a great driver, and almost totals it. The limp back to the concert area, with Carol heroically riding atop the bus after poking his head in to calm the children, and deciding not to climb down in and risk a bite.

Test gets a hashtag started to boost the team’s local rep, and they get the data for free from VV. Aylin is also told she can get food for life (at a reasonable rate) from Long Pig Farm in thanks. The team sees the data combine with the previous packets once again when Test links them, and head to Goober’s to swap cars while theirs is repaired. They then head for the final geotag, also in the Zone. They find a fortified warehouse with a mishmash of senors and drones protecting it. Using some excellent surveillance, spirit support, recon, and hacking they manage to infiltrate the facility with no alerts and find the onsite decker Numitor (from Opti’s enemy list) engaged in a matrix fight with some sort of digital entity.

They make their way through a few floors of traps fighting over a dozen drones who are creepily all dressed up like local runners, fixers, and Johnsons, some of whom the team recognizes. It looks like Numitors uses them for target practice, and they do some research and find he in a former Otaku who faded instead of emerging, and has become spiteful and hateful. They find his hardened safe room, and manage to blow their way in, with Carol and 6C teaming up to just barely prevent him from detonating a suicide vest before they can grab the cyberdeck they seek.

It has the antenna disabled, once again, and they jam it while Test links it up with the other fragments. They all copy to the deck, and the team finally seems to have the full file Mr. Johnson wanted. Now they just need to find Opti…. They leave the area and receive a message from Opti telling them to meet them where they first got the job so he can talk to them and their Johnson and sort things out. They don’t have a way to respond so they call the Johnson and head that way. Montgomery is nervous when they arrive and frustrated that they won’t give him the data right away. They eventually assure themselves there isn’t an obvious trap, and also no sign of Opti, so they pass him the data.

He jacks into the deck and seems relieved to find it all there, just before the bar’s auto turrets deploy and blow him to pieces. A voice over the PA announces that it is the now recompiled AI known as “Skeleton Key”, a sort of protosapient matrix B&E expert program. Opti comes out from the back and seems just as surprised as the team that his “tech guy” was in fact an AI, who just murdered the Johnson (with cause, but still). Just as Opti is negotiating to pay out the team and go about their separate ways, a heavy duty corp strike team rolls in and fans out into the bar. The turrets retarget and there’s a brief pause while the corp team tries to convince the team to come over to their side for pay.

In the parking lot, 6Cyl sees another runner team sneak up on the corp troops and get them in a crossfire. They tell the corp troops to stand down and everyone can walk away, but then the turrets kick in. A brief gunfight ensues but the corp troops quickly retreat, outflanked and overpowered. The second team explains they came to back up Opti, and the team finishes negotiating, gets paid, and gets a local rep boost and a promise of a shoutout on Opti’s next ’cast. They try to track the corp teams to figure out who they were working for but lose signal on the tracer 6C placed while heading out of town to the North.

Meanwhile, Carol has passed out in the trunk from too much stim, and the Tan Robes pay him another visit in his dream state. This time they read his mind, find out what happened in Fauth-Doshgoi, and tell him that when the team goes to space, they will kill a man named Fentin Walls, and agent of GOD, in order to square themselves with the TR. Otherwise, trouble and pain. Carol is annoyed, but so injured he is unable to effectively resist.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team stocks up at ATF, and Test and Carol call their local contacts, getting a brief on what the broad situation in Chicago is currently. Feeling a little more grounded, they locate a secure coffin motel on the Westside with a good rep and a price to match. They head there, clean up, stash some gear, and then head to Horde territory to find a smuggler to drive them into the CZ to their meet. They end up hiring a Skraacha member after Kinnie helps him tune up his van and he gives Carol some shit about not knowing Or’zet. They reach the Purple Pig without trouble, and find 3 other teams also interviewing. They play it cool and 6 Cyl makes friends with 2 laconic street sams.

They meet with Sarah Silverleaf, who flirts aggressively with the more charismatic team members, which only Test rejects. They banter for quite a while, with 6C offering an extensive breakdown on his pseudo-relationship with Zeha Cadgris. They head back outside while the 4th team interviews, and then get the job- some of the other teams seems annoyed but only the Silver Vixens are at all aggro. The team shakes it off and heads into the back to get the job deets. They then head down to Goober’s dock near the Calumet port to stock up on water gear and meet their sub pilot.

He sells them some last minute gear, and they head out. They reach the former Yamatetsu facility without incident, though the sub creaks and groans a lot. One of the 3 modules is completely wrecked, and the connecting shaft between the other 2 is damaged. Luckily, the moon pool in the top module is intact, so they head up through there without getting wet. They check out the module, which seems long abanonded, though repairable, aside from a scattering of small, well-tended plants. They get some air flowing again to clear out the rotted fish smell, and investigate, finding nothing of note until they stumble across a teenage girl sleeping amidst a pile of tech devices in a storage closet.

They grab her to keep her from fleeing, and question her, not getting a ton of info. However, once they agree to repair her “busted” tech, which turns out to just be a case of drained batteries, and repair the saltwater osmosis generator for her to keep recharging stuff, she becomes much friendlier, and goes to fetch a massive man who seems to run security for whatever community is here. He agrees to bring them down to meet 2 others who he say know more about what they seek. A few team members stay back with Goober and the sub, but most head down, squeezing through the busted elevator shaft and then swimming a short distance to the other module, where they find a small crowd of humans of various ages waiting.

Conversing with an elderly man named Ryujin, Avocado and Alyin make their purpose semi-clear, and are ushered back to meet Dr. Urashima. He gives them the data core they seek in return for 3 things: a ride to the surface, help finding him an appropriate new place, and help finding an appropriate non-corporate sponsor for the uplifted merrow community living here. He explains a bit of his work, but they are interrupted by news of another sub approaching. They encourage Ryujin to use illusion spells to make the habs look more damaged and uninhabitable, while Big Meat preps for a fight. BM and Otoko help get the data core and Urashima up to the sub, and the team leaves a broadcasting RFID saying that they have the data core and sabotaged the structure behind them. They race back towards the docks.

Using his newly improved Fresnel coat, Test is able to spot and quick hack an incoming torpedo just before it impacts them, allowing them to reach Goober’s dock safely. Silverleaf greets them there and takes possession of the data core. She pries for more info, but the team plays it cool and she seems satisfied. They then bring Urashima to their motel, and make next plans. Evo seems like the best fit for him still, so they contact Holmes, the local Evo fixer, who seems to have been the one pursuing them in the other sub as well. They hope this will help them remain neutral between the corps in Chicago for now. Mrs. Clean also tips the team off to some other work opportunities in town, and Carol gets some more Tarot and investigative work from Ares.

They accept a job from Holmes and pass off Urashima succcessfully, and also purchase the sub from Goober. They make a deal with Ryujin, Big Meat, and Otoko to use the upper module as their safehouse, with a promise to bring no trouble, in exchange for contacting the Sea Dragon on their behalf to ensure the protection of their communities independence. 6Cyl meets with a local toxic shaman/anti-corp activist named Catharsis who seems affiliated, and shortly thereafter the Sea Dragon publicly announces her protection for the “free merrow” and other water-life in Lake Michigan, much to the consternation of some. Fargus Sol and Arleesh seem well-pleased by the team’s moved though, and happy to report that with help from the Unseelie they have begun devising a ritual to free Aylin and 6 Cyl from Tohu-Wa-Bohu’s patronage. However, this will require the presence of all 3 Books of 9 Gates, of which they only have 1. 1 more was at least once held by the Catholics, and the other is long lost.

The team grabs all their gear and some repair supplies from town and heads down to the new safehose, spending a couple days cleaning and repairing it, first getting the air exchanger working again. Kinnie plans to continue Goober’s tinkering with the sub, getting it back to spec (or above), and he and Hotkey begin scheming how to get away from using fuel oil for the generator in order to stay on the Sea Dragon’s good side. Avocado also picks an arbitrary date for 6C’s birthday and they celebrate wildly until everyone crashes.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

Hotkey visits his family, gets some Chicago updates and contacts, and makes plans to visit while they remain in Queens for the time, though they may move to Chicago if it ends up being a long term base of ops. HK also helps Test research the strange events occurring to him, and finds out that he is being targeted by something called “The Dox” and that he needs to return to a Null Node and skim it again and admit to “being pwned” in order to clear it up, which Test refuses to do. He changes his ID again with the help of Sierra Corp, and they get some more leads to dig into this further in Chicago. They aren’t sure if this is the Null Sect or not so it seems worrying. Test figures he can talk to GC from anywhere, so he’s ready to go.

Avocado considers calling some contacts and decides against it, not having very good loyalty. Aylin also doesn’t really have anyone to get in touch with here, and instead makes plans to get ahold of Red once they get to Chicago. Kinnie restocks some gear, and Test, Carol and 6Cyl get some surgical upgrades from Gogni Warznyeck in Terminal, seeing that it once again mostly looks nano-fabbed. 6 Cyl recognizes some rEVOlution Arms gear lying around too, similar to what the Zhigul Makers had imported. They start debating how to parcel out the pay data and make some money and contacts.

Test writes up the history of the coimediai and posts it to Jackpoint under Kinnie’s sponsorship, gaining admission for himself. The rest of the team decides to sell/trade the group info elsewhere instead of aiming for JP membership. They sell the info about Horrors and big magical threats to Arleesh, and decide to ask for Tarot cards plus some money. They get the last 5 they hadn’t seen, revealing a baseball/Chicago-related puzzle that Kinnie fixates on, so now they need to track down the 2 missing 5’s again. They sell a bunch of info about Corps at Court and how to behave there/threats/etc to Ares, who hasn’t made much progress in gaining a foothold there.

Instead of taking cash for this they decide via a close vote to get credit for a future AreSpace flight to the moon, to continue their investigations for Al’Farabi and Eclipse. They also get some decent armored spacesuits included as rentals. Carol also reports in to his dad/brother at Ares Arms and gives them a ton of Taco Temple, Carcean, Horrors, and Tarot info, none of which is Ares’ area of specialty. The team then decides to sell them a little more Tarot info as well. Ares is interested in this stuff and pays Carol out a little bit to help him get established in Chicago, and says they’ll likely have some work for him.

With all their NYC biz settled they call the commcode that Kami Aneki provided and get ahold of an ostentatiously “sexy” elf, Sarah Silverleaf, who tells them to come interview for a job in Chicago. She secures them space on a Renraku cargo flight so they can bring their gear without dealing with smugglers. They rent a van and round everybody up and head out to the airport, where they meet the plane and load up. The pilots provide them some exterior views from sensors on their screens while they fly over the interior. They see a lot of depopulated rural space and towns, with massive drone fleets and combine harvesters managing fenced and guarded farm complexes, policed by private security. Carol tells the team this is because of New Revolution attacks, supposedly based out of St Louis, and backed by Ghostwalker, or the CAS, or someone else depending which conspiracy you believe (he knows Ares sells to all sides but keeps that quiet).

They are nearing Chicago when they are targeted and hit by a missile, and lose 1 wing. The plane starts spinning wildly and going down, but Kinnie manages to stabilize it (upside down) by grabbing his grav gun and doing some engineering mental math. Carol spots the truck, which seems to be a New Rev technical. He scrambles over and grabs his sniper rifle while Hotkey starts manipulating some plane systems to get the cargo door down. Test sends a sprite after the launcher and interferes for long enough for Carol to core the engine block on the truck. The pilots report that they’re still going down and tell everyone to brace.

They spot more technicals racing in via their dust plumes, and starting to lick off shots with their bed mounted machine guns, so most of the team decides to parachute out of the open cargo door and take their chances, while Aylin escapes in mist form, channeling any damage 6C takes to herself, and 6C and Avo brace and ride it out in the plane. Kinnie and Carol land well with the chutes, but HK has a lot of trouble, opening too late and then getting his chute holed by gunfire- Test barely manages to crash into him and prevent a catastrophic plummet, but they both take some damage. The plane crashes pretty dramatically, with 6C’s bike flying out and being destroyed in the process, but avo and 6C are mostly fine (the pilots not so much, what with it being upside down and nose in…)

The team prepares to fend off the attack amidst the extended crash site! Carol takes up a sniper position and makes some amazing shots, taking out one gunner and wounding another. 6 Cyl manages to conjure a spirit and make himself able to run as fast as the trucks and takes out another gunner while Test and HK manage to get untangled and fuck up the New Rev comms/IFF system. Kinnie is ko’ed by machine gun fire, and Avo and Carol are injured, but the team survives as the NR retreats. However, the plane explodes, taking some of their gear with it, and they don’t have a ride. Aylin finally reaches ground in mist form. Carol calls in an Ares favor, and gets a ride on an an auto-hauler on the nearby I-80. They get dropped off on the southside of the sprawl, and make their way to ATF to restock on gear and ammo.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team returns to Gwyn with their list of demands/requests for payment for the jail break. Gwyn bascially agrees and they receive various payments: Avocado gets a Blood Charm to store edge, Aylin gets help for her mom + protection + some Tarot, Hotkey gets money to clear his debts, Test gets the final secrets of the Coimediai and the ritual ties to the Jewel of Memory, 6 Cyl gets cash, Kinnie gets info on Richard Villiers’ safehouse to seek revenge for Boston, Carol gets some tips of continuing the Taco Temple investigation. They also buy a bunch of gear for the Fauth-Doshgoi raid. Gwyn tells them to make sure to have a distraction which will keep Alachia from visiting FD that day, so they head to the dungeons to ask Harlequin for ideas. 6 Cyl stays behind to rest from some massive drain damage.

Cadgris is very disappointed that 6C is absent, but provided with a letter and promised a future visit agrees to let the team visit Harly. They head in and he coaxes the Ashen Mirror deets out of them, but seems to have his own plan for the Ebon Queen which doesn’t mesh with Gwyn’s. But he agrees to create an appropriate distraction and jumps into the toilet void, seemingly having planned his escape ahead of time. Cadgris is PISSED at the team’s involvement/presence during his disappearance, and says she will give them the night but will have to present their involvement at the next Morning’s Hearing.

The team gets quickly dressed for the Eclipse Ball, and heads to Hakari Marama, where they socialize and try not to drop any hints that they will be leaving. Hotkey arranges to continue working with Eclipse whenever he is back on Earth, specifically Al’Farabi’s exploration of strange mana sightings on Earth’s moon. They rest up in their suites and leave a goodbye note for Eclipse, and head out early the next morning, before the day’s Hearing, meeting Gwyn in disguise outside the Castle. Also along are Aylin’s mom and Chloe Glowworm, who Gwyn seems to have blackmailed into assisting. They head out through Broceliande through some linked Passage Graves that Gwyn seems to know well.

Emerging back into the Astral Sea, they find their equipment and appearances returning to their usual paradigm. They swing by Celephais without issue and drop off Chloe and Aylin’s mom with Gwyn’s contacts. Gwyn says she will be delivered back to Aylin once it is safe to do so. They head further along, and all drink a vial of Aylin’s mom’s blood that Gwyn mixes with some reagents. He says this will help them penetrate FD’s border defenses. They approach a misty crystal mountain, and are all briefly overwhelmed by sadness and despair. Most of the them shake it off, but Test is badly effected.

They begin scaling the narrow crystal stairs to the plateau top, and come across a bunch of moaning severed heads on spikes and hanging from gnarled trees. As they beg for the freedom of death, Avocado begins punching all of them to bits, setting off an alarm. They get into a battle with two powerful shadow spirits, and defeat them, but get bogged down into a debate about whether to smash all the heads for a bit. After reaching the top of the stairs, they come under fire from a large group of mages inside a sphere of shadow. They manage to take them all out, but almost lose 2 of the team in the process. They quickly patch up and slam some potions before continuing.

They fight some Unbreakable shedim guards (using bodies minus the heads they previously encountered), and have to destroy the bodies completely to keep them from regenerating. They then find the cells themsevles, and free Aina Dupree, the Ebon Queen, who insists they also rescue the other prisoners, a point of debate within the team. They free the lesser dragon/Horrorstalker Kulkulkan, in human form, as well as Anne Lyne, the former DF head in Boston who Kinnie and Aylin helped trap using a false Tarot set on behalf of Valeria, the Nadja Fixer, and also Dr. Dyna Mite, the missing head of the Gateway Project from Boston. Meanwhile, Gwyn fights the Shadow Got, which has finally arrived (and appears to be winning), and 6 Cyl and some others on the team duel with some higher powered Tan Robes who have arrived.

6C is almost killed twice, but Aylin uses her magical and vampiric abilities to absorb his damage and then regen it. They defeat the Tan Robes, and Kinnie figures out how to use the Awakened World card using Niall’s instructions to open a portal. Gwyn, losing the fight vs the Got, communes mentally with Aina and throws his Tarot card to Aylin, as per the deal, before opening a Void Door, which consumes him, the Got, and Fauth-Doshgoi itself as the team frantically flees through the portal. They emerge in the idyllic TNN countryside and find Dan the Fomorain waiting for them with snacks and a roaring fire in his cottage.

They put up warning signs around the portal, which now opens directly onto the Void that FD has become, and will last for a year and a day, according to Aina. Lyne recognizes the team that trapped her, finally, and storms off in a huff after they refuse to ID their hirer. Kulkulkan also leaves, but gives them his contact if they wish to collab in future against dark forces, or need help in Aztlan. Dyna Mite trades them a bunch of info and offers future astral travel help in exchange for a ride back to the UCAS, and they debrief extensively with Aina, who has a uniquely similar past to the situation that Aylin and 6C are in.

They learn a lot about the 4th World, Tarot, and Horrors, and Aina offers future assistance, but says she must return quickly to the Fey Realms in order to take charge of the Guide role for the Unseelie. The team also hears what happened at Court from “Frosty” Jane Foster, who shows up to confer with Aina, and recognizes Kinnie from Jackpoint. Apparently Harlequin escaped through the Country of Kaol, where he fought a monster in a bizarre pyramid and also defeated a slaver crew from the plane of Id, who are perhaps the buyers for the prisoners Zeha Cadgris sells. Jane met him there and accompanied him back to Broceliande, where they also tracked down his dark shadow, Gwynplaine, who has been murdering and selling slumbering fey (to/for someone?), and used Gwyn and Harly’s rivalry as a massive distraction to the Morning Hearing. Alachia intervened, violently, and both have been banished, perhaps permanently, from the Court.

Aina seems saddened to have to further postpone her reunion with Harly, and gives Jane a message to pass to him, encouraging him to seek help reintegrating GP into him to stop his rampaging. Jane leaves, and the team finally rests and heals. The next day, Aina is gone, and Dan takes them via cart to the coast, where an Irish expat smuggler is waiting with a zodiac to take them out of the magical borders of Tir na nOg to the shipping lanes and get them on a cargo hauler to NYC. He uses some alchemical devices to obscure them as they boat through dense fog, but Hotkey is almost lured off the boat by what he thinks are his families shouts and cries. They restrain him and reach the cargo ship. Some Albanians smuggle them aboard, exchanging some mysterious cargo to the smuggler. They are locked into an isotainer with survival supplies, and spend 3 days in there before arriving at port.

They get let out, and sneak out of the port facility, catching up on about a week’s worth of lost time and messages etc. They find out the Towers was job was done without them, by a different team, with multiple arrests and casualties. They prepare to collect their few belongings in town, make contact with anyone they need to, and head to Chicago, where they have some job offers. Test also finds out he is even more fucked, reputationally, than he thought…. better figure that out!

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team heads to the Morning Hearing and is contacted by Kendra dos Santos, Arleesh’s voice, about potential collabs. She proffers a Tarot card in good faith, and implies that Arleesh has teamed up with Schwartzkopf to work together against risks to metahumanity, and could use the team’s assistance. Ashokasundarai Rai asks for info to help her close her investigation into the Nightwatch Phantom. There was also another mysterious death involving an item called the Circle Sword. The Children of the Dragon show up looking for info on Ghostwalker’s origins, and get a few days approval to do research and seek assistance, but dragons seem to be ill thought of in general here. And Jonny Silver is announced to be the target of the Wild Hunt for a year and a day for his disruptive Faithe Faillan performance.

The team begins prepping for the Geocache raid, and spots some Hermit members keeping an eye on them. Test compiles a massive sprite, and shunts the damage to Aylin, who regenerates it quickly. Test remains in Geocache with 6 Cyl and Carol guarding to keep the sprite registered, and the rest of the team gets some cyber and gear upgrades from the Zhigul makers to use the next day. They rest up again and Test gets his mind read by Nuada the Dreamer, the slumbering ancient head of Hermit faction. He seems to get, essentially, everything while giving Test a weird dream. Carol decides to try to make peace, and reaches out- Nuada contacts him and they make a deal that the team will leave Hermit alone, damage another Earth faction on their mission, and then leave the Court soon.

The rest of the team heads to the Morning Hearing again, and Xoc announces another faction, revealing another Tarot card: Karma. The team has a feeling this reveal was rushed by something, possibly their having been mind-probed, but Avocado is unsure how. They also see a presentation of further Tarot cards, which strangely vanish out of his hands. The Executioner petitions for more capital crimes and is denied. Eclipse faction petitions for some special dispensations given the Dawnseeker’s Arch showing a rare eclipse today. They plan to host a ball that evening at Hakari Marama, and the team will be expected to attend as affiliates. There are also rumors of strange green vines appearing near Void Doors and elsewhere in rarely traveled areas of the astral sea. The team is worried about a Null connection…

Aylin checks on her mom, all good so far, and they all meet up in Geocache. The raid goes amazingly well, with Test, Hotkey and the sprite changing off taking lead while Kinnie supports using his newly installed skillwires. Avocado gives leadership where possible, and Aylin soaks Tests’ damage. They place an anchor in the easier to access Fuchi/NN structure, and then hack into the AZT temple, and make another anchor. They figure out the paradigm, and manage to retrieve the Ashen Mirror just as the system notices them. They get out, sacrificing the sprite to hold off the pursuers, and exit through the connected anchors, barely escaping the NN node before that also turns on them. Kinnie’s first time in the Foundation! Wild. The team also finds the 3 Tarot cards from the Morning Hearing in their pockets when they exit the Foundation. They return to their suite and look into the Mirror. They spot the Ebon Queen, imprisoned on the blood/shadow crossing plane of Fauth-Doshgoi by none other than Alachia.

They debate who to contact about the Mirror and decide to go with Old Crow. They meet again in the Labyrinth, and also find Niall O’Connor and “Lord” Gwyn in attendance. Niall makes a deal to trade help for Aylin’s mom, a settling of the team’s debts, and a Tarot card to use for transit back to the material plane for the Mirror, and then leaves, after giving them some tips for using the card. Old Crow intro’s Gwyn, and he explains that he is the Eiolai or Guide of the Unseelie Court, and is dying. Having read the Tarot he knows that the Ebon Queen, who he ID’s as Aina Dupree (explaining a lot re: Harlequin), is to be his successor, but he needs the team’s help in rescuing her. He will be going along, and he and OC suggest talking to Harly about potential distractions for Alachia for when they plan their prison break, and aim to go soon to prevent Alachia getting tipped (given the Hermit mind-reading, etc). They also suggest using vials of Aylin’s mom’s blood to try to bypass or confuse some of the security systems of the prison, since her mom was residing on the plane before coming to the Seelie Court.

The team pushes for a big payday, and Gwyn agrees- he offers knowledge, contacts, power, artifacts, money, whatever. They retreat to their suite to discuss terms, but are told time is of the essence and also have to attend the Eclipse Ball that evening.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team wakes up and heads to the Morning Hearing. The Aleph Society shows up, looking for Shadow plane texts and offering to help keep an eye out for future issues such as the Blood Shade. Higher Power sponsors and they’re approved. Some Ejerians petition for sanctuary while they seek a new homeplane and are temporarily granted it on the Queen’s mercy. The Court Historian warns of another secret faction, Vigilante, and rumors around the Court spread about their plan for something called “The Vigilance” which the team takes as some sort of reckoning centuries in the making.

The team heads to a lunch meeting with Aneki to debrief, and give him all of the Blood mom info, and he offers them further work on the material plane, satisfied with their performance. He tells them they shouldn’t associate further here for the time being, to avoid attracting suspicion. Some of the rest of the team runs more Taco Temple tests with Glasseater and confirms that HMHVV infection seems incompatible with retaining the strange reagent traces from Carcean. GE wants more info still. The team tries to find ways to High Priestess’ secret mountain chapel, but doesn’t make much headway and eventually just goes to talk to Xoc directly.

They have a fruitful exchange of info, with Test learning a lot more about coimeadiai creation, and who knows how to do the ritual, and the rest of the team getting a lot of 4th World and Horror info. They agree to do a job for her and head to the dungeons. 6 Cyl finally gets to have a weird torture date with Zeha, and she agrees to let them see Sacre Floot, who she is apparently holding onto for Hermit, though she doesn’t seem especially loyal to that faction. Floot agrees to let them read her mind and then wipe her memory with a massively over-powered Laes concoction that 6 Cyl brews up based on Thisbe Sorrel’s description.

Aylin finds most of the info they’re seeking- the Ashen Mirror was taken by Floot and hidden in the AZT temple in Geocache, where as far as she knows it still remains. They don’t find her motives but she seems relatively hopeless and also allows Aylin to mostly drain her to blunt the traumatic effects of the mind reading and erasure potion. They start prepping for an epic Foundation raid on Geocache- their most challenging hack yet! They are also warned off further fucking with Hermit, as they apparently have the ability to projects dreams (amongst other powers).

The team makes plans and preps for an epic Foundation dive for the next day, and heads to their Suite to sleep.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team wakes up ready for Morning Hearing, and drugs Aylin’s mom again to keep her chill during. They see scenes from last night’s Ball displayed on the Great Hall’s shifting tapestries. They also overhear gossip that Hermit has stabilized Aesha Viltharion, the young nighttime explorer and Executioner’s niece, due to Castle alchemists being thus far unable to cure her poisoning. Woops. The Executioner himself leaps up and butts in line to petition the Court to ban Earthlings as they are obviously unsafe, given their poisoned food- he publicly aligns himself with Hermit’s goals, and also requests all the Tarot cards in the Taco Temple set. This seems to go over poorly, and Avocado sees his chance.

He butts in next, and present the Bracelet of Whispers to the Queen, mocking Viltharion for his outburst while doing so. The Queen seems amused, and suggests that all Earthlings should learn this level of appropriate decorum. Eclipse seems pleased. The hearings continue, with a man pleading for help finding his missing wife, Tzuri Group archaeologists finding Higher Power sponsors for their proposed dig in the Wilds. And Gary Cline, the CEO of Horizon, petitions for a joint plane travel agency, he seems to be playing up his Cali Bro vibes, which some at the Court love and some hate. He makes some sort of bargain with the Queen for provisional approval for a year and a day.

Test messages Cline and requests a meeting, not expecting him to show. Aylin messages Chloe Glowworm, of Magician, to help with her mom. And the rest of the team lines up meetings with Xoc and Glasseater. Glowworm takes over magical care of Aylin’s mom, helping to soothe her (she seems to recall everything), and suggests seeking a skilled dream mage to help her process. Test and Hotkey also verify that a UV node could potentially work for that too, with an AI or dedicated therapist. Test actually meets with Cline, who tells him that orks have to stick together. They head to the Hall of Whispers, which seems like a good meet spot, and Cline and Test share some info. Test isn’t super impressed by him but recognizes a potentially useful and/or dangerous connection.

The rest of the team meets with Xoc, and trades more info. She seems cautious an well-informed, but interested in future collabs. They decide to confer amongst themselves but likely ally- she seems to have a lot of Tarot and other knowledge, and has managed to operate in secret for a while at Court. They head to Glasseater’s lab and get some Taco Temple tests run- they all have the trace elements from Carcean except for Aylin, and Glasseater confirms that HMHVV infection appears to clear it from the system- strange. Glasseater requests future collabs should they find anything else weird. The team then heads to some libraries to start looking for the Ashen Mirror for Harlequin.

They find info on the Chapels of the Castle, and search them to no avail. They decide that High Priestess’ hidden mountain Chapel or the AZT temple in Geocache seem likeliest next options.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team, as well as the other courtiers, are surprised by Lady Brane Deigh’s announcement that there will be only 1 petition today- from another new faction for official recognition, the “High Priestess”. They also announce the existence of another mysterious cult faction called “Threshold”, who wear two-tone robes, though not much else is known (or announced, anyway). The session is quickly called, and the team is surprised to find Aleiron seemingly working with HP, and she passes them an invite to the evening’s Greylight Gathering- it seems their next encounter with Aylin’s mom is on track. Lady Xoc, head of the HP faction, will be making her social debut there.

Aleiron also gives them some Tarot cards, as a show of good faith. They head out and find a delivery from Zhigul Makers- some comms from the real world, as well as the Taco Temple they ordered, in order to poison. Test gets confirmation from the IOND of “job well done”, and he gets approved for provisional membership, though they tell him he will have to clear up some kind of confusion around him online with his references- he fears the Dox may be coming after him. HK hears from his family, and is stoked to report to the team that not much time has passed on the Material Plane.

They poison the food, and 6 Cyl forges a note to redirect blame to AZT if anyone looks into it. They leave it near the servant’s quarters where they hope it will be found and delivered to Viltharion. Some of the team heads to the libraries to do some more research, looking into the Dungeonkeeper and TT. Test meets with Rooster, and trades him some info about himself (what people are saying about him on JP) and agrees to deliver a reply, in exchange for an explanation of the coimediai, which Rooster thoroughly provides.

6 Cyl gets pulled off of their Dungeon planning to help Court alchemists try to find an antidote: the Executioner’s niece has been poisoned! 6 Cyl plays it cool and doesn’t let it slip that the team is the one who did the poison. Strangely, there is also another odd substance ID’ed by Glasseater as a non-digestible fragment from the toxic plane of Carcean, which they body wouldn’t either digest or pass, though it is far too small a quantity to be harmful. 6 Cyl conceals his interest as best he can, and returns to the team after they make the best antidote they can.

They head into the Dungeon again, and cut a deal with Cadgris. They fill her in on the details of how ultraviolet nodes and BTL’s can be used as torture/interrogation techniques, and give her a heads up that the Geocache has a similar quality to it. She is excited and agrees to give them a short time with the 2 prisoners they requested- one AZT soldier (cleverly ID’ed by Carol), and Harlequin (requested as a longshot by Avocado). 6 Cyl and Cadgris continue their flirtation, making the team somewhat uncomfortable due to it’s violent nature.

They question the AZT guy first, smuggling Aylin in in mist form, who successfully mind reads him and finds that he was part of an AZT black ops team that was investigating global power sites, with a seeming focus on volcanoes. They encountered a secret Sioux Nation facility under Yellowstone, guarded by some powerful shamans, and engaged in a firefight in which the other team members were killed and he was sucked through a rift, and imprisoned in the Court. This seems to have been right around the same time that the rift opened (and the last big runner crew came through the Court, also). They send this info off to Aneki hoping it will be enough, in concert with the TT poisoning, to get the payday they need by tonight.

Aylin mists back into the briefcase and they go have a dangerously informative chat with Harlequin. He recruits them into seeking the Ebon Queen on his behalf, and tells them to seek the Ashen Mirror in a temple somewhere in the Castle. 6 Cyl asks one more question and unleashes a whole problem- Harlequin is horrified to hear about 6C and Aylin’s new mentor, their travels through Kadath, and the 9 Gates being opened. He tells them this is very bad as it means the coming of the Scourge is accelerating. Properly spooked, they head out and begin dressing for the night’s Ball, figuring they best deal with the immediate problem of Blood Mom before stressing about next steps.

Aneki delivers, seemingly satisfied, and Test decides to disguise himself as a mockery of Hermit’s petition to defend the slumbering fey, to continue his insult comic vibe. This will allow him to bring in Aylin’s dad in the bio-pod he was delivered in as part of the costume. Everyone else dresses pretty well, mostly fairly subtly or minimally to avoid attention where possible. 6Cyl and Aylin get the ritual details from Thisbe Sorrel and link back up with the team as they head to the Ball.

They arrive and are ushered to the 2nd least desirable tier of the Hall of Night by the host, a dark elf named Sylana. Test manages to make a noticeable negative impact on Hermit and other isolationists. They watch as Lady Xoc and other higher members of High Priestess are introduced, and the HP members begin circulating. Aleiron approaches the team and explodes in a cloud of blood, as Aylin’s mom emerges. She says she thought it was time for her debut as well as Courtiers flee that tier and the Queen’s Guard seal off the stairs. The team initiates their trap, with some opening the biodpod and Aylin conning her mom to get her to attack her dad.

Aylin’s mom, vengeful, falls for it, but not before making 6Cyl shoot Carol in the neck, nearly killing him. Aylin’s mom kills Aylin’s dad, as Aylin opens the Blood Box, pulling the shade (along with Aylin’s dad) into it, leaving only the mortal part of her mother behind. They barely manage to slam the box shut as Avocado is ko’ed and others injured by the energies within. Thisbe Sorrel arrives and takes custody of the box, saying she will destroy it. Purlie Tallow also blags his way up, wanting to take a look as a conouisser of blood. The Ball ends early, though the Queen never acknowledges what occurred, publicly. The team heads back to quarters after ko-ing her mom, who is in a deep panic/trauma response. They plan to seek therapy or magical help for her on the morrow.

On their way out, they are approached by Sister Verda of HP, who requests they visit Lady Xoc the next day to make up for their faction’s infiltration by such a dangerous entity, and also as they believe they may have common cause. The team agrees and calls it a night, relieved to finally be free of this one threat, at least.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

The team wakes and heads to the Morning Hearing, and is surprised to find everyone not abuzz about the murder, but instead about the large Tourmaline obelisk hanging from somewhere above the canopy ceiling down into the Hall. There is an alphabet interface below that Courtiers are using to question it, and it seems the speculation is that this an arrival from the Shadow faction. The most shocking assertion is when the Obelisk asserts that most Shadow members came from Dragon, Death and Hanged Man factions. This leads to much speculation and recrimination, and hints that some sort of quiet purge may be beginning behind the scenes. Shortly thereafter, the Queen and retinue enters, and commands everyone to ignore the Obelisk during the hearing.

Catondarez announces the murder and asserts that Eclipse has determined that the meaning of the symbols is to not try to reveal the secrets of the Labyrinth, without blaming the minotaurs for the death. A rep for the UTA gets approval, sponsored by Magician, to arrange for reagent trades, and a few other Court concerns are addressed before the Queen calls it a day, as everyone is pretty distracted by the Obelisk. The team arranges some meetings for the rest of the day with Glasseater the Alchemist, Secundus the Magician, and Kestia Darkbane, and then plans to check in after and see what’s what.

Glasseater provides some potions to help the team stabilize their relative time experience here, and gives them some more info about the previous team here, some Fey history, some 4th World History, and some potential allies on Earth. He also wants a look at any odd texts, artifacts, or labs they encounter. They also do some research on how to sabotage both AZT and Taco Temple here, and find some interesting leads. Some of them split off to the libraries and find out a lot about 4th World history of both Earth and Seelie, as well as some of the story of the Unseelie and the Sundering.

When they meet with Secundus, Aylin and 6 Cyl drink another potion to help with their initiations, and also give her a lot of details about what they can remember about their missing time: something about “Dis”, which greatly interests Secundus, who asks them to give her anything else they remember and any encounters they have with something called the “Desolation Codex”, amongst other arcane oddities. They agree and head to their next meeting, having a very adversarial encounter with Kestia Darkbane. She seems to love hunting and killing the infected, and collecting their artifacts, which she tosses about her mansion casually.

Aylin makes a tentative deal to betray a significant number of “her kind” in exchange for the Cloak of Hawin, but they all dislike her enough that they plan to try to just steal it, or kill her and take a bunch of her stuff. She doesn’t seem unaware of this, and also hints that they shouldn’t wait too long to turn in other infected, as Aylin has now come to her attention and she’ll come for her sometime, sooner or later. The team heads on another night-time jaunt after meeting up and conferring at their suite. Tivta gives some tips and advice, and some of the team heads to the exterior again to seek Aleiron, but instead encounter Ashokasundari Rai, the investigator, who is looking into the murder.

They share info, and clear up another matter for Eclipse, while also explaining some things for Rai. They also get some warnings about some other risks in the Castle. They go looking for Aleiron, but only find the mysterious silent Knight. He makes a warding motion at their weapons, and they peacefully sit around his fire all night, which passes surprisingly quickly, and hear the bells for the Morning Hearing before long. Some team members also spot a child who bears a striking resemblance to the Executioner exploring the Castle, seemingly in possession of a chunk of the Cornerstone.

The other chunk of the team heads to the Dungeons to try to start looking into the AZT-connected prisoner there. Test mouths off and gets chucked in a cell for the night. 6 Cyl falls for Zeha Cadgris the dungeonkeeper a bit, appreciating her casual brutality. They feel it out a bit but don’t make a ton of progress and plan to return the next day with a better plan. Test gets some info over the evening though- there is another domain connected to this one, through the toilets and possibly other portals, which is some sort of dark pyramid structure with an unknown threat inside.

He emerges in the morning to find Tivta waiting to escort him to the Morning Hearing, where he meets up with the rest of the team.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
Carol Turpentine

After the terrifying events of the previous evening, the team decides to only ever split into 2 groups at most. Kinnine, HK, and 6 Cyl stay in the suite to fix up arms and armor, while the rest head to the morning hearing. The big news of the day is the conclusion of the trial of Duke Flowerpot- he was found not guilty of the murder, but was judged guilty of a lesser charge, and as penance is announced as the new Court Jester. Garbh Filiochta is elevated to one of the Queen’s Courtesans, out of that role. Flowerpot doesn’t seem thrilled, but even less thrilled is the Royal Executioner Donal Viltharion, who longingly strokes his axe blade, and who originally levelled the accusation. Carol tells the team that Viltharion is fixated on trying every item on the Taco Temple menu.

In bigger, more scandalous news, as part of the trial the Shadow Faction is acknowledged to exist, which elevates Chambray Cliff, who had been warning of them for some time. The team also notes many Courtiers copying Avo’s style invention from the day previous, and hear gossip about a gory scene discovered outside the Labyrinth (woops). Tivta gets some hints of what happened, but not the full story, and Carol sends Serania, his patron, a barebones version of the info- she tells him to stick with the team and help in their investigation, for now. The rest of the team cancels or delays their afternoon plans to focus on the 2 they deem most important: meeting with Thisbe to try to get some blood magic protection, and getting a meeting with Kami Aneki to make peace with Renraku and see if they can be of any help (since they have both the Blood Box artifact and Aylin’s dad in their possession). The Hearing concludes, and they disperse.

Avo, Aylin and 6 Cyl head to Thisbe Sorrel’s and are ushered in by Edselia and find Walks Through Tall Grass overseeing a small child in the foyer, who bears a striking resemblance to Armando Salazar. The child is playing with a set of blocks that seem to be rearranging the manor around the foyer. 6 Cyl gives them a comic book, which WTTG grabs and says he’ll save for tomorrow. They enter the study and find Thisbe waiting for them in an open robe, having seemingly just emerged from a literal blood bath and daubed in various strange symbols. She is obviously no longer pregnant, which Aylin finds odd.

She offers them 2 options: ward their suite powerfully, or ward them all individually more weakly. They go for the individual option, to keep Aylin’s mom’s sight off of them while they are out and about. 6 Cyl agrees to return and trade info about his and Aylin’s travels for forbidden knowledge, but is told he needs to learn an ancient language called Theran first. He plans to spend some time in the libraries soon. They head out to link up with the rest of the team and ward them as well. Meanwhile, the others have a lunch meeting with Kami Aneki (he doesn’t eat), and get into how to make peace with Renraku.

Test gives some assurances that GC won’t be a problem for Renraku going forward, which Aneki seems to believe (for now), and they move onto Blood Shade problems. Aneki gives them 2 options of potential assistance, both with catches. They meet with the others, get warded, and debate which option to take: help Renraku trap Aylin’s mom, and Renraku keeps her, and Aylin gets her (mind-wiped) dad back, or the team does some jobs for Renraku at Court, and gets the box and dad back, and only has to give Renraku the data about what happens. Kinnie also rejoins, after spending the afternoon crafting with the Zhigul Makers, and tells 6 Cyl they have some access to exotic materials now. He also saw a huge, well-stocked vault and some dwarves far older than any he’s seen before.

Kinnie and 6 Cyl head back to the ZM vault to do some crafting, and 6 Cyl ID’s it as likely being a Kaer- a tool for surviving the Scourge at the end of the 4th World. The rest of the team heads back to Aneki’s office for tea, and makes the deal to do local work for Renraku and get the box and dad back, planning to use both to try to free/save Aylin’s mom. Aneki tells them they need to sabotage the Court efforts of both AZT and Taco Temple, and gives the team some ideas of where to start. The team also sends some data to Serania (Carol’s patron) to request full sponsorship from Eclipse, and gets approved, which also removes all the Peace Bonds from their weapons.

They split into 2 groups again, Test and Hotkey head to Geocache to attempt to send out the IOND data, with Tivta and Carol watching their backs. Hotkey gets distracted on the way and they stumble onto a revel at Hakari Marama, where they converse with the Court Astronomer Al’Farabi about potential mana sightings on Earth’s moon, and plan to potentially work together in future. They resist the party and drugs, and get back to the task. They once again enter the Fuchi node, and find a bizarre tea party-esque paradigm. They avoid a trap and spot the true layout, and make their way to the Null Node. Test realizes his powers are quite effective here, though potentially trouble causing if anyone spots him.

They successfully push the data out using a Resonance Channel, but Test once again feels something noticing him. They escape before getting spotted, just barely, and make their way back to the suite. Meanwhile, the rest of the group has been watching Aylin and 6Cyl’s backs while they set up a ritual to foretell the future. They decide to enquire where they will next encounter Aylin’s mom, and 6 Cyl acquires lodge materials from the ZM. They spend quite some time setting up the lodge, and the matrix team returns just as they finish. Everyone takes up defensive positions as the ritualists work.

Aylin powers through and feels she gets an accurate read on the visions. Comparing notes with Carol, she ID’s the location as the Hall of Night, and the event as an upcoming Ball in the cycle. Feeling a bit more prepped now, they decide to go on another night wander to see what adventures unfold. The goal is to get some berries from the Dawnseekers Arch and use them as part of their TT sabotage, so they head that way. Hearing a scream, they look around a bit outside the Castle, and spot a naked elf splayed out in a glade in the Broceliande woods. He is very dead, though not obvious as to how, and has a labyrinth carved into his chest (no blood visible) and a strange bracelet on his wrist.

They see a strange warrior and someone who looks like Aleiron walk up and spot them through the woods and then nod and back off. 6 Cyl takes the bracelet, and after some experimenting, ID’s it as the Bracelet of Whispers, which makes the wearer’s voice barely audible. They head back, get the berries, and return to their suite. They send a note about the body and their speculations about the meaning to Eclipse and head to bed.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder
and introducing Carol Turpentine

After Avocado notices a distinct lack of death by poison, they head for the Morning Hearing and begin sending meetings requests about. They receive and a few and get a few accepted. Aylin rejects one from the vampire hunter Kestia Darkbane, who possesses the Cloak of Hawin, and who Aylin revealed her condition to unwittingly. The hearing begins, and the team spots a familiar figure: Armando Salazar, the AZT operative who outbid them on a Tarot card in DC, and who seems to be the head of many of their mystical secret projects. He is here with the Coatepetl faction, which seems to be an AZT front or affiliate. They seem to be aiming for alignment with the more freedom-seeking factions.

After a few other its of Court business, and the team being unable to figure out how to access the balconies in a dignified fashion, Harlequin appears and challenges the Queen to a duel, on behalf of his lady love. The team stands back a bit in the peanut gallery to stay out of the way, as the Queen gestures her champion Serrin Sol to stand down, allowing her advisor Alachia to fight on her behalf. Sol seems annoyed. Alachia wins the very intense duel, severing one of H’s ears, which the Queen says will be an excellent addition to her arcana. H is imprisoned in the dungeons, as agreed in the terms of the duel.

After this excitement, the trial of Duke Flowerpot is again delayed, and the Court disperses to lunch. Test heads straight to the libraries with Hotkey, and discover the 2nd World origins of the Seed and the Prime Passion- they get a few more terms to research further, but seem to have confirmed the connection to a level to satisfy the IOND. Test decides to attempt to pass a message through the Resonance Realms via reverse-engineering the skimming process by accessing another Null Node.

Teeth and Avocado head to a mid-tier luncheon focused on magical prowess, and Avo manages to secure some invites to Banquets for the team for the evening, but Teeth bungles the social end. Aylin heads to the Labyrinth to follow up on the the mysterious note from the day before, and following the hints, meets with the Neo-Anarchist Old Crow, who dispenses with Court customs for a clear discussion but says they can’t meet in public. He needs a team to help with a jailbreak and to investigate the BL’s attempts to gain a foothold at Court. The rest of the team does some Library digging on Factions, and finds out a lot.

6 Cyl and Kinnie head down to Gilik’s for lunch, and find the dwarven crime boss’ spot with humbling entrance, as advertised. After crawling in through the low door, they ascend the levels, and eventually are summoned to a meeting with Gilik himself, who seems excited to have some foreign criminals to use for some various tasks. He removes 6 Cyl’s peace bonds in exchange for a Munera debt, and gives them a task list. The team then splits off to the various teas they’ve arranged. Test remains at the Library, deep in his research.

Aylin meets with Thisbe Sorrel, and sees Salazar leaving as she arrives. Thisbe seems to be rapidly progressing through a pregnancy as they converse, and shares some quite lovely blood that Salazar brought with Aylin. They discuss the issue of Aylin’s mom while Aylin tries to do some subtle digging into what Thisbe is up to, overall (as promised to Tivta, who seems to also have a history here). Thisbe seems to know a lot about most things, and they arrange to meet again soon for a ritual, once Aylin finds a sizable amount of blood.

The rest of the team goes to a tea with Secundus Gabriella di Rosario and her daughters, the leaders of the Magician faction. In exchange for info and light mind-reading about the 9 Gates book from 6 Cyl, Secundus brews a potion to cure Avo’s poison. She also agrees to meet further with 6 Cyl, seemingly excited to find a fellow obsessive alchemist. The team reconvenes and debriefs, before splitting off into solo and group expeditions to all 4 of the Banquets to which they’ve received invitations.

Hotkey attends a Feast of the Fallen, and finds out some Court mysteries and histories, and makes the acquaintance of Lord Serrin Sol. He gets prodded a little bit about what the team’s up to, and gets a not so subtle warning to not hack the Coimediai, but also gets some info on that network. Kinnie goes to an Ember Banquet at Gilik’s, and makes contact with the Zhigul Makers, making a deal to do some craft work for them in exchange for workspace and materials. 6 Cyl heads back to the suite after a library visit focussed on upping his alchemical knowledge after the meeting with Secundus.

Aylin and Test attend a Trickster’s Ball, and makes some connections with some Court agitators, and Test also impresses Rooster by instigating a dance off between Rooster and the Court Jester (on behalf of Alachia, who seemed to be attending aggressively as a comment on her victory in the morning’s duel). Aylin learns a bit about Tarot and other prophesy stuff from a spirit named Portent. Teeth and Avocado attend the Silk Truffles, with Avo accidentally inventing, and then claiming credit for, a new fashion trend- dressing well alongside a poorly dressed companion, to accentuate one’s own fashion. He sells this idea to Riva Dhillon, seemingly a Court influencer. They also make the acquaintance of Ashokasunari Rai, a Court detective under Serrin Sol, who also seems interested in the activities of the Emperor Hak Jin, who the team is meant to investigate for Catondarez.

They meet up afterwards and debrief about all they found out, and decide based on Aylin’s fortune of danger closing in to try to find blood for Lady Thisbe’s ritual. They head to the labyrinth to see if there’s any fresh bodies stacked outside, and find the gristly remains of Teeth! The person who they thought was Teeth bursts open in a blood explosion, revealing Aylin’s mom, Patricia, the Blood Shade. They get in a pretty brutal fight before she sends them all fleeing in fear, but before she can start picking them off, a traveller named Carol Turpentine steps around the corner and blasts her in the back. Wounded, she flees into the Labyrinth with a final taunt to Aylin.

The team gathers up Teeth’s blood as best they can, and delivers it to Thisbe’s daughter Edselia, who was told to expect it. They then head back to the suite, and try to figure out who this Carol person is and if they can trust him. They figure out that they are both sponsored by individuals within the Eclipse faction, but that Carol is better connected, and more adept at crossing to and fro. They agree to work together for the time, since blood shades are notoriously vengeful, and Carol has likely attracted her ire with his actions. They decide not to travel alone any longer, as they assume Teeth must have gotten replaced during one of his many solo jaunts to the libraries.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder

After resting from the fight with the Renraku black bag team, the team decides to hoof it across the great astral sea, bypassing any potential entanglements on their way to the Seelie Court. They successfully avoid some fovae, mana voids, and slavers from ID, but run into a trap set by some maddened rift creatures near the Shattered Lands while cutting around Zecorporatum. They emerge victorious, though some of the team is poisoned. They pause to heal again, are approached by a spirit on muleback (they wonder if the mule is also a spirit). it’s Lys from Boston! He offers to pay off his debt to Guy by guiding them safely to the Seelie Court, saying he needs to visit his friend Aleiron now that he’s caught up with his family for a bit. He seems much happier, though still laconic.

They accept, and he gets them close before they are surrounded by the Wild Hunt. Chalcis, The Great Hunter, seizes their weapons, or peace-bonds them, but agrees to take them in to petition the Court for a longer stay since he saw their fight from a distance and approves of them clearing out dangerous maddened spirits in the wilds. They arrive after a short period of travel, and find themselves just in time for the Morning Hearing. They spend a while admiring the architecture, especially the Dawnseeker’s Arch, before heading in. They converse a bit, and get their request to petition the Queen approved.

They witness some impenetrable Court drama and appeals and then make their case. The Queen seems inclined to let them embark on their investigation, though some courtiers seems opposed. A fey man named Catondarez agrees to sponsor them for 1 day, and then to see where things are at after that. The Queen is then attacked by an assassin who snuck up during this, but the assassin is quickly felled by some sort of entropic field that surrouns the Queen. Aylin and 6 Cyl have some thoughts as to what that might be but aren’t sure- they notice what seems to be a human magical battery and have some weird memories from their time absent of an endless city.

Court is wrapped up as the Queen’s retinue leave the Great Hall, and Hotkey and Test are surprised to see that their does seem to be some kind of resonant field present, though not a matrix as such. Tattooed individuals, some with linked tats, in various nobles and courtiers’ retinues seem to be the main source. Catondarez approaches them and tells them to come with him for a talk. Kinnie also recognizes Old Crow from DC, who spoke with Catondarez briefly. They head for the Everhall and have a lengthy wander while Catondarez answers their initial questions.

He then takes his leave, and tells them to attend the Exile’s Return ball of that evening, and to explore and get lunch til then. They try to find the location of Hawin’s Cloak for Aylin, but end up dead-ended in a noble’s manor wing, so Aylin posts a note, and they grab lunch in the Grand Hall. Aylin decides to look for her mom in the smoky orbs over the fireplaces, and spots here- but her mom sees her back, and looks around the room as if trying to ID where they are. Aylin gets freaked and shuts it down, but her mom looks hungry.

They eat, and get slipped a note with some cryptic images. One of the Queen’s handmaidens, Fogharail ke-Coille approaches and sings a beautiful song for the Hall, and then provides the team a guide, Tivta Farspoken, who seems to have been assigned the duty as a punishment. She answers the teams questions but is quite sarcastic and droll. The team makes a list of things to investigate, and plan the rest of their afternoon around that. Avocado gets a few good hints towards healing his poison.

The bulk of the team begins exploring the Castle’s libraries, trying to get a grasp on what’s going on. Avocado continues learning to read as he’s finding it an extra struggle in the low-tech Court not being able to do so. He finds some talkative busts of deceased Croki scholars that seem quite gossipy but somewhat helpful. Aylin also agrees to take Tivta along to meet Thisbe the next day to discuss blood/mom stuff. They all learn a good bit before they are summoned to the Exile’s Return to try make a good impression with their sponsor. 6 Cyl and Kinnie find out about a bunch of mystical arms and armor, and 6 Cyl also get s a list of valuable “lost texts” as well as rumors of a “Library of Leng”.

Meanwhile, Tivta takes Hotkey and Test to the Castle’s newest room, “Geocache”, which turns out to be a strange wireframe 2050’s matrix-style space. It seems to run off of Resonance, somehow, and looks to have been the focus of NeoNET’s sole Court project- establishing a local mesh which they haven’t had time to expand before their collapse. 6 Cyl leaves some margin notes hinting at his experiences, hoping to attract some useful attention.

They are both very excited to be on a network of any sort again, and are even more excited when they realize they can hack the 8 huge floating icons, seemingly representing the 2050’s Corp Court members. They target the weakest “host” for an off the cuff Foundation dive, and barely make their way through the orchestral paradigm, to find the Null Node and do some skimming. They find a document suggesting that the origins of Resonance lie in something known as “The Seed”, which the unidentified writer compares to the magical origin point referred to as the “Prime Passion.” More research required, but it seems they are approaching an important payday from IOND!

At the feast that evening, they are approached by various beings and entities, who want all sorts of mysterious things (and some more obvious) from the team. A spirit called Rooster, who they’d heard of on Jackpoint, tells them he wants stories and also hints at criminal connections. Kami Aneki, seemingly the surviving spirit of Inazo Aneki, the CEO for Life of Renraku, speaks with the team and subtly warns them that they best have a conversation soon. Tivta makes a good impression on Aylin and they share some Tarot knowledge, and Aylin agrees to bring Tivta a little further in. They meet a Wuxing geomancer named Bjorn Salamatu, who is very interested in the Cornerstone.

Avocado gets some good gossip and info about the alchemists who can help with his poison so he doesn’t go in blind, and the team finds out some of the info about what their sponsor Catondarez might want in trade, as well as what it would take for his faction to provide longer term support. He hints at the goals and interests of his sponsor, and gives them, an initial task to test them before introducing them up the line. He also secures them a luxury Courtsman’s Suite, so everyone will have their own private chamber off a central trio of rooms. They head back there, and find it quite nice, and seemingly detailed by the Castlekeeper to try to match what seems to be either a strange joke or a humorous misunderstanding of what the material plane residents might want in temporary lodging.

After noticing a disturbing painting and removing it, the room feels much better (having heeded warnings about attempts by some at Court to mess with newcomers feng shui), they all get a solid night’s rest and prepare for their second Morning Hearing. Aside from Avocado’s poison, they are finally all healed from the previous few days’ fights.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
WLOG/Beanie
and the return of Aylin and 6 Cylinder

The team moves from the lower level of Terminal to Nanuli’s safehouse in Jersey City in order to lay low for a while while they craft a plan. They organize a thorough PR campaign/con to make Renraku look good on the aftermath, in order to try to reduce heat on them. They spend a week on it, and then launch it upon re-emerging. It is fairly successful, and they return to Manhattan, though don’t feel safe in Terminal so right the safehouse and gear there off as a loss (including Aylin’s Mom’s bloodbox). They call all the contacts Arthur had made to warn them of potential compromise, and decide to tackle a couple lowkey jobs while they wait for 6 Cyl and Aylin’s return date.

They help discover that MCT is the corp trying to map the Underground and Terminal, trying to regain their MDC seat by pulling some kind of massive security operation. They spread word about this widely, gaining some rep but no pay. They also help the Rat Pack take over the Night Markets, and make them more robust and remote, using a repaired pneumatic tube system that Kinnie has spotted throughout the Underground. Kinnie gets some grav grenades in payment, and the team gets some more rep. Beanie decide to say his goodbyes for now, and heads off of HK’s deck to a Garmonbozia digital safe zone.

The rest of the surviving team spends some time investigating and debating the 3 obvious paths to the metaplanes to retrieve their long-absent friends. 1 is runners that Arthur made contact with, but they worry that Renraku will also know about these, and decide against it (though Kinnie makes some useful JP contacts with those named). They also decide against STV, who offers the quickest/most direct transit, but at the greatest price: an unknown spirit pact. They decide to go with Teeth’s heavily advocated for IOND, who offer to assist the team in reaching their goal in exchange for them performing some work in the Seelie Plane in the aftermath.

They team gears up with the various things they think they might need, and heads to the IOND HQ. They get bused in multiple vehicles out to a rural site, and are told they are at an auspicious crossing of leylines near the astral city of Penn Yan. They dose up on shade and guts, and the ritual begins. Their consciousnesses and bodies are forced into the astral, and they all (barely) manage to catch onto some horrifying train/fire/buffalo combo that seems to be laying and pulling up track as it travels, while screaming. It also seems to consume as fuel any unwary entities or wayward passengers it comes across.

The team gets a quick and strange tor of the astral planes along a winding path. and manages to hop off without injury in the plane of Id. They avoid some local spirit patrols that seems to be capturing and enslaving other spirits, and reach the mountain pass outside of Kadath. They set up a surveillance, and spot 2 gunslingers waiting nearby. After an unknown amount of time, 6Cyl and Aylin do indeed emerge from Kadath, very confused and quite changed in their absence.

The 2 gunslingers challenge 6 Cyl, and he nearly kills the first one before the 2nd nearly kills him. They call it good for duels, and the team makes some new contacts. The 2nd gunner also warns them that a nearby Renraku team will be on them soon, so the team heals 6C and sets up an ambush. They also tell Aylin about her dad’s capture, and she nearly bails before realizing that her and 6C are linked and that the Renraku team might have answers. Aylin baits the trap, and lures the team in. They fall for it, and the team handily defeats them, though taking some hard hits.

Aylin manages to mind probe 1 of them before killing them, and finds out that her dad is alive, but similar to Test in now a test subject with a completely erased memory/personality/past. She finds out he’s been moved to another facility and