In the aftermath of the spaceport attack, LoneStar has cracked down and consolidated its hold on Mars City security contracts. Insisting that the independent spaceport security force is incapable of preventing attacks such as the one which just occurred, LS has maneuvered itself into a new position of power and prominence. Knight Errant, the Ares subsidiary, is still looking to expand it’s MC operations, however, so LS’s hold might not last long.

Spaceport security, now under LoneStar, has obviously been tightened considerably, and LS has been sending a lot more armored patrols down into the previously off-limits undercity. Needless to say, this hasn’t been popular with the various street gangs and criminal syndicates who have had the run of the undercity streets until now. The bigger crime families are able to pay off the cops, of course, but some of the smaller gangs and groups are struggling. Deimos prison moon is receiving a lot of new inmates, due to LS’s agressive tactics and harsh sentencing.

LS has also put notorious MC terrorist Andoras Hamshallow’s (one of Tobias Cheney’s fake SINS) armored car on display, having captured it during the assault on the spaceport. They are currently analyzing it to determine if it is indeed the same car used in an earlier spaceport attack on an Aztechnology warehouse, as well as a daring midday upper city bank heist and a terrorist attack on a museum, amongst other unsolved crimes. LoneStar detectives are linking together a number of crimes, and previously unassociated criminals, due to this fortuitous capture. They believe that the former NeoNet employee, Harmony Craig Bottow, appears to have been working in concert with Hamshallow, as well as the undercity gangster Ivan the Jackle, a mage using the aliases Kelly Rogers and Carlos Bender (two of “K”’s SINs), and a dwarf using the alias Jeremy Stormaling (an HCB SIN). Bottow was of course arrested after the bank job, and sent to Deimos, where he was killed in a disturbance, according to LoneStar. But they believe they are making good progress in rounding up the other members of his crew.

LoneStar has requested the public’s help in providing any information leading to the capture or death of any of these criminals, as well as an unnamed ork, troll, and two humans, who appear to be working with the fugitives above. LoneStar has also announced that these individuals have been connected with the primitivist terrorist organization Olympus Prime, who appears to have hired some of the mercenaries involved in the brazen shuttle attack at the spaceport, although they were slow in claiming responsibility, as Hamshallow beat them to it. There is speculation on various local news channels that Hamshallow has branched out on his own, away from his former employer’s in OP, but it is unclear as to what his agenda might be. LS has yet to announce any captures, aside from the detention for questioning of Chalt and Jerl, HCB’s former badmates in the Crod Stompaz.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
Others
UltraBoy!
Daedelus
Patrick Henry Hughes
Tamany Clark
Madame Gavral
One Shot Wade
Remus Chandrasekharan
Minkwave

The team has spent some time apart after the spaceport run. Everyone got high quality news SINS, as promised, with the background of their choice. Everyone excpet Tobias opted for varying degress of surgery to mask their identity: iris and fingerprint alterations, skin dyes, etc. Tobias gets most of his fingerprints removed, in a way designed to look like he melted them off in an industrial accident. Tobias spends some time working on an art piece of a giant LoneStar figure crushing smaller figures representing all the undercity gangs, but Minkwave is unimpressed, and Tobias decides to leave it unsigned and donate it to her gallery. Where it now serves as a coatrack. Tobias and HCB desing and spec out the jetpacks they have been talking about for ages, and Tobias welds together a magnet-gripped lance for HCB.

Which HCB needs, of course, for the third round of his Yakuza Combat Biking Trials! This is a jousting round, and he must win four matches to succeed, and be one step closer to owning the bike (and having an additional source of income). Unfortunately, his bad luck causes an epic crash partway into the first match, and he is eliminated. The Yakuza are disappointed, but not in deadly way (yet) so he’ll have to try again next time. HCB and Tobias decide to hold off on the jetpacks until they get some money.

Ivan has been in hiding, in the maintenance room off of the sewers which Daedelus guided him to. He has been working to kick his rampant alcoholism, and has succeeded in reducing it’s effects and severity. He is desparate for guidance, feeling bereft without his car, and still feeling somewhat betrayed by Tobias. When Daedelus gets ahold of him with his new SIN, he chooses to be a mechanic, and goes to work for Tamany in the junkyard. Tamany, recognizing Ivan, hooks him up with a cheap van, which he can work to pay off, and work on in his spare time. Ivan is thrilled. Daedelus also lets Ivan know that it is working on setting up a Mars City Exchange (similar to the Seattle version) and enlists Ivan’s enthusiastic aid. Ivan also gives Daedelus unfettered access to all his sensory data, all the time. Ivan calls Wade, who seems somewhat distant and upset about the crackdown. Ivan tries to get him to help with the Exchange, but Wade seems nonplussed. Ivan is imagining a life beyond the Problem Children-they think too small for his new ambitions….

K has been laying low in Madame Gavral/Arlen Thompson’s company, learning some powerful new spells. He also attends HCB’s failed joust (along with Ivan), and gets some info on metaplanar quests, which he plans to pursue further in the future.

Rolf has been attempting to gain some standing in the Vory MMA matches held in the eastern undercity, with some success. He initially struggled to find the location of the events, but eventually got sent in the right direction, and managed to join in an amateur night bout. He handily defeated his first two opponents, even though it seemed the crowd was firmly against him. Unfortunately, after an epic match, he was ko’d by his (heavily injured) third opponent. Due to their enjoyble performance, both were invited back for future demos, although Rolf may find himself playing the heel, given his poor crowd interaction.

UB! has been trying to cement his position in the gang, and make as rapid a rise through the ranks as possible. He has been taking on as many cleanup jobs as possible in former BS turf, and thus far has evaded capture by the ever more present LoneStar.

Patrick Henry Hughes calls Tobias a few weeks after the spaceport, and lets him know about a new job that Ares is sending his way. Apparently, the Ares subsidiary Knight Errant has been losing a lot of contract bids to LS recently, given LS’s confident and aggressive policing and takeover of the spaceport (and chunks of the undercity). Ares wants this to change. So, PHH proposes that Tobias get the crew together, find a way into an upper city Ares detention center, steal some data about current and pending contracts, upload a virus, trash the place, and not get caught. Tobias is intrigued, and manages to gain a KE contract manager’s contact info for more info about the job, in exchange for a substantial discount on the price of the job. PHH tells T to keep the HERF gun for now.

Tobias sets up a meet with Ivan and HCB, HCB invites K to watch (and smell) through his comm. Rolf hears about the job independently from Sylvain, and of course agrees. Anything for Ares! They meet in the sewer at a point of Ivan’s choosing. Tobias, aware of the new security situation, travels there unarmed, wearing his latest undercity gang fashions. He brings a copy of his pro-Edit program and a fancy bottle of whiskey as a “sorry” gift for Ivan. Ivan accepts the program, but refuses the alcohol, staying on the wagon (for now). HCB, seeing Ivan refuse the drink, pours his shot back into the bottle. Tobias, hating for a good drink to go to waste, downs the two remaining shots, and then gets down to business.

He tells the team about the job from KE, and also tells them that he and UB! have been talking about trying to set themselves up as leaders of a gang in ex-BS turf, either under the Problem Children, or possibly on their own. Tobias floats the idea of taking out Wade (which Ivan might support), or turning him into the cops (which Ivan does not support). Tobias plans to weaken LS enough that KE can pick up some undercity contracts, and then he can manipulate KE through his contact(s) to persecute other gangs while consolidating their own turf.

After some discussion (and after they bring K and Rolf in), they decide to do the KE run for now, and talk about the gang situation after, when they have some money and time to focus on it. They decide to do some preliminary research, and scout it out, with the aim of completing the run within the next 5 days (the timeline PHH provided), hopefully with UB!’s assistance.

To begin gaining some of the popularity they’ll need to pull off making their own gang, they collaborate on a video (edited by Tobias) of them killing Halfman at Longpig’s mansion. HCB performs the music (solo this time, as Chalt and Jerl are still in LS detention). Tobias sets the colors of the team members to match the old colors from April’s run trid’s, so anyone in the know knows who it is. Ivan and HCB hope to build some street cred, and let folks know they are still out there: kind of test the waters for a possible gang of their own, as it were. HCB hires Remus to upload it discretely (for a hefty fee), and it spreads over the matrix, casuing quite a stir. Only time will tell if it has the effect desired!

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!

So the team does some much needed recon on the LoneStar facility that Knight Errant has hired them to infiltrate & assault. They discover that it is hardwired (or has an exclusively local wifi network) since they can’t hack in from the outside. However, Tobias is able to create an admin level backdoor in the main public node that he hopes to use to gain access to the rest of the system later. He also finds a facility map. K can’t find much astrally, and doesn’t want to attract too much attention. Ivan, via the dragonfly, sees that the roof appears to be used by the SWAT team as a kind of clubhouse/shooting range. They decide to split into two teams: Rolf, K, and Tobias (Team Blue) will go in through the SWAT team’s roof hangout, and go for the data (on the 6th floor), while HCB, UB! and Ivan (Team Brown) provide a distraction on the ground level.

But first, they decide to attempt to lure as many cops away from the place as possible. UB! assembles a car bomb, and Ivan remotely drives it to a nearby charity gala. Tobias then phones in a call about multiple carbombs in the area, using his (wanted) Hamshallow SIN. They wait for a bit, and then UB! detonates the bomb. They wait a while longer until they see a number of cop cars and one of the SWAT vans leave the secure LS lot. Then, K levitates himself, Rolf, and Tobias onto the roof. Tobias opens the locked door thru his admin account, and Rolf drops down the ladder inside.

Unfortunately, he drops right into the SWAT ready room, and although he has the element of surprise on his side, is handily outnumbered. Tobias jumps in to lend a hand, and K pokes his head in to gain line of sight. They make short work of the SWAT team, although they take some major damage in the process. Tobias also detonates an EMP grenade, severing comms with the rest of the team, but also preventing the SWAT guys from calling for help right away. Ivan has the dragonfly outside when comms disappear, and brings it back towards the van to provide surveillance.

Team blue exits the SWAT room and scopes out the area. Tobias checks out his map, and finds the main processor room, so they head that way. After breaking through some security doors, they gain access. Sadly, the EMP grenade appears to have wreaked havoc on the computer, but Tobias jacks in and hopes he can still find what he’s looking for. While waiting on Tobias, Rolf and K take fire from a machine gun pod which drops down from the ceiling, but defeat it without much problem.

Meanwhile, when comms go dead, Team Brown decides to provide a distraction on the ground floor, as planned, in the hopes that Team Blue isn’t all dead. HCB and UB! enter, and race through the security checkpoints into the main lobby (there are alarms going off, but they are not especially concerned). HCB strolls out into the lobby casually firing his machine pistol into the air, much to the horror of the receptionists at the far end of the room (luckily, encased in a bulletproof booth). Two turrets drop down from the ceiling and open fire, while HCB hightails it back to the door he came in from. UB! launches an EMP, and their comms go dead as well. One of the turrets drops, and HCB blazes the other one with autofire.

They blow through the door at the far end of the room, and find two humans in paper clothes looking terrified and bewildered. They are both somewhat injured from the grenade, and HCB shoots one, while shouting something horrifying about how he won’t betray him now. UB! launches a breathtaker grenade to take out the other guy (overkill?) before they notice the proerty return window in the corner and determine that these were two detainees who were being released. Slick. One of the receptionists in the booth pulls a switch, and a much louder facility alarm goes off. Ivan calls to the others to get out of there and back to the van, but they ignore him. He goes back out and frantically circles the area, hoping someone will get back online and get in touch.

Upstairs, the second alarm is accompanied by security blast doors closing over all the entrances. K and Rolf hunker down, and start burning through the doors while Tobias keeps working. He is slogging his way up an IC filled corridor, it seems like a lot of the data was corrupted by the EMP grenade. He makes some missteps, alerts the IC to his presence, and comes under attack. Deciding that the job is more important, he focuses on continuing to break the final firewall and get the paydata, while the IC wails on him (fortunately, the IC also seems damaged from the EMP). He finally suceeds, after nearly losing his icon to damage, and manages to whisper ‘help’ just after K and Rolf enter the room. K pulls the plug, and Tobias dumps out.

Rolf begins burning their way out, while K heals everyone. Downstairs, UB! blows through the rear door, as the remaining prisoner succumbs to breathtaker gas. They enter a rear hallway, and come under fire. However, UB! is apparently impervious to damage and makes short work of another turret and two cops, with HCB’s assistance. They invesitagte some other rooms, and execute some cowering office workers, as well as taking out a few more LS officers. They find a holding cell, and open it, telling the prisoners that the Ultradudes have set them free. UB! then blows the backdoor, and they usher the prisoners out into the early evening. They then turn around, and finding some elevators in one of the rooms, decide to try and meet up with Team Blue somewhere higher up.

Team Blue, somewhat healed, leaves the processor room, and heads back towards the SWAT room exit. They come under fire from two dog drones with LMG’s, but Tobias quickly takes them out with the ever-handy HERF gun. K astrally projects to scout out their path, but comes under attack from another astral presence (probably a LS wagemage, given the cowboyish appearance). He flips back out, and lets the team know they have a mage surveilling them. Tobias goes back to the processor and plugs in the virus that PHH gave him. They decide to blow a hole in the wall to escape, and Tobias makes a shaped charge in what he deems is an optimal spot. They head down the corridor a ways to avoid the blast.

Downstairs, UB! and HCB have pried open an elevator, and cut their way trough the ceiling covering to gain access to the the hatch onto the roof. UB! pops it open, and climbs up, reaching down to help HCB ascend. After some initial confusion at the lack of proper lighting, they realize they can both see in the dark, and examine the shaft. It appears to ascend to the top, so UB! takes a grappling hook shot towards the elevator mechanism. He misses, and the monofilament cable comes back down towards them. HCB gets out of the way, but UB! slices himself up a bit while trying to respool it. They decide to climb the cable instead, but UB! gets electrecuted as soon as he grabs hold-and he’s stuck on with his magnet hand! HCB tries to pry him free, but also gets stuck with his magnet hand. UB! passes out from the damage, but HCB manages to pry them free and detach himself from UB!. They abandon the elevator and decide to leave out the back.

They head out the back door only to come under fire from more cops in the lot. They have already made short work of the freed prisoners, a few are still hiding behind nearby cars, but they look like they won’t last long. HCB and UB! open up and waste the cops. Ivan, hearing the gunfire, rams his way into the lot, busting up the van a bit in the process. Team Brown reunites! Upstairs, they trigger the explosion, blowing out a huge chunk of the wall. They then come under fire from another turret, knocking both Rolf and Tobias unconscious. K saves the day again, blasting the turret with magic, and then healing his comrades. They flee.

In the parking lot, having failed to gain access to the remaining SWAT van, HCB shoots a grappling hook up into the hole, where it skitters around until Rolf grabs hold. Everyone can hear sirens and a helicopter approaching at this point, so they feel a bit rushed. Ivan and UB! head across the street to a car rental lot to boost an escape vehicle, while HCB ascends towards the hole. The team’s reconnect and decide to get the fuck out of there. HCB heads down with Tobias hanging onto a levitating K on his back. Rolf climbs up top to try and scout out the incoming vehicles. He gains the edge, and is spun about by a fierce impact. He decides it’s a sniper in the chopper, and dives for the pavement, 6 stories below. He tries to save himself from the brunt of the fall with his grappling gun, but his bad luck kicks in, and it goes flying away from him. He plummets.

HCB attempts to reascend on the grappling gun in order to partially breaks Rolf’s fall, and ends up slamming into him, which does slow him somewhat. He still passes out on impact, but they quickly stabilize him, and K levitates his ko’d body towards the car lot (HCB is pushing/steering Rolf). As they are fleeing, the come under more fire from the sniper. Ivan and Tobias try to provide covering fire, but seem to be at the the limits of their weapons ranges. The sniper ko’s UB! as he rides his Dodge Scoot out of the van towards the SUV that Ivan is busy hotwiring. Ivan gets the car up and running, and swings over to UB!, slapping on a stimpatch and hauling him into the car. Tobias runs up and dives in as well. UB! takes over driving, so Ivan can rig the cat and fire at the heli with the LMG. UB! pulls out into the street and scoops up HCB and Rolf, and then spins it around near the LS lot entrance, letting K in. They are pretty crammed, but in a rush, so they skedaddle.

The chopper has been gaining on them, but now has to avoid their return fire. The sniper has stopped shooting, but the minigun perforates the car’s roof, without doing serious damage. However, Ivan and Tobias keep up a steady steam of lead, and Ivan successfully fries a stabilizer as the chopper spirals off and spins out of control. They flee, as they can see the approaching lights as well as hearing the sirens.

Next up: Can they make good their escape? Will the data be worth anything in its corrupted form?

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!
Others
Daedelus
Romulus Chandrasekharan
Remus Chandrasekharan

The team is in a tight spot! K is barely holding on to consciousness, HCB and Rolf are both out, and Tobias and UB! are both heavily injured. Ivan, fortunately, is doind fairly well. They decide to try to escape in the stolen SUV to the undercity, as they hear and see sirens rapidly converging from multiple directions. UB! floors it while Ivan navigates and lays down covering fire out the backdoor with the cat. Sadly, UB! is too injured to focus on his driving and his pursuers at the same time, and he gets sidewsiped and crashed into the facade of an office building. K flies into the windshield and is ko’d. UB! helmet gets twisted.

6 LoneStar cars and a SWAT van quickly block off the surrounding streets, and LS cops set up to lay down some serious fire on the SUV if the team doesn’t surrender. Ivan and UB! fire while T hauls HCB into the front of the building. Daedelus calls Ivan and tells him to get into the lobby (this constant streaming is paying off), so Ivan has the cat lay down covering fire while him and UB! toss the other team members through the window and dive through themselves. The cat follows, while covering the street. The cops open fire, so the team has to crouch low while heading to the elevator that Daedelus has commissioned for them. A few grenades are tossed in, the cat blocks one, but the other injures K severely, and twists UB!’s helmet around even further. He is unable to get it off, and crawls blindly for the elevator.

Once the team all makes it inside (some smoke grenades go off in the lobby), Daedelus warns them to hang on, and the elevator rapidly ascends, brakes, and descends even more quickly, before crashing and slamming through the basement floor. Fortunately, the safety features kick in and shoot the elevator full of expanding foam, further wedging UB!’s helmet in place. The team claws their way free, and Ivan begins cutting through the door, while T pulls off UB!’s helm, at the cost of one ear. Ouch! They escape, and crawl free into some service tunnels in the plate. Daedelus guides them (and the cat scouts ahead) to a maintenance hatch near one of the ramps from the undercity, where a spaceport taxi awaits them. They pile in, and speed off to Doc Todd’s, in the hopes of healing before they crash from excessive stimpatch use. They almost make it, but Rolf dies in the lobby, while waiting for admittance.

Luckily, they clear up their admin issues and get everyone into surgery/enduced comas/etc. T takes the longest to heal, most of the rest are out within 5 or so days. HCB has Todd take out the mystery box in his head, after id’ing it as a cranial bomb. He holds onto it (in a cheap safe) for now. T gets some of their medical covered by Knight Errant, but their pay gets reduced after he transfers over the semi-corrupted data. Rolf leaves the hospital for only a short time, as he has to come back following his next Vory pitfight match (he wins this time, beating a fighter known as “The Chain”). His pay barely covers his medical, but he’s working his way up. HCB sets us his next combat bike joust attempt, and hears about a job the Yak want him to look into: there is some corrupted info in their simsense rigs at some of their bunraku parlors, which has given some clients lethal biofeedback. HCB also tries to get in touch with some entertainment lawyers (under his fake SIN) to start marketing Crod Stompaz merch.

Tobias and HCB both take out loans to build themselves a jetpack (HCB) and armor mounted thrusters (Tobias). Tobias also spends some time researching nuclear physics, with the aim of eventually home building a mini-nuke. Just to have one, ya know? He’ll sleep better at night. Ivan does a small job for the Exchange, planting explosives under the paneling in a fancy armored car that a cybered ork brings into Tamany’s. He checks the news for prominent explosions, but only finds some stories about the LS raid- “Terror in the Detention Center” and such. The Ultradudes get bad press, due to letting all the prisoners they ‘freed’ get mowed down by cops. There’s also a profile on Hamshallow, and specualtion about his motives and associates (provided by an “inside source”). Apparently, Chalt and Jerl (Crod Stompaz) were both in the station as well, and remain in custody. There is also an appeal from Romulus, looking for any info on the whereabouts of his brother, Remus, who has been missing for over a week now. This is worrying, as the last time the team talked to him, he uploaded the video of them killing Halfman.

Ivan then looks into the skin note job, and finds out that a lot of the East Asian, African, and East European immigrant communities seem to be experiencing the most disappearances. These are all poorer communities with large populations nearer to the core (traditionally one of the poorest areas of the undercity). Ivan gets some info on payment, but it seems conditional on on what is actually going on, so further investigation is warranted. The Johnson from the Deimos job also gets back in touch with HCB and Ivan and offers them some new work, so the team has a few choices for their next job-not that any of these folks are good to say “no” to…...

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!

After some deliberation, the team decides to take up the skin note folks on their offer of a job. They also get a little more info about the other jobs on offer, but Ivan convinces everyone that the skin note mission should come first. He posts a status update on his social networking profiles, since he doesn’t know how to contact them. They get in touch and are pleased that he has accepted. They also talk to One Shot Wade about maybe getting a little slice of turf to manage, and he seems interested.

Essentially, the skin note people like to know what is going on throughout the city in terms of the ‘disappearance’ business, and are perturbed by the endemic levels of missing persons in the sectors near to the core. They ask Ivan to do some research, and report back. Payment will be based on what the job actually entails, but will include medical (which thrills the team).

Ivan hears on the news that a waste management executive and his family (including two young children) were killed in an upper city limo explosion. He discovers some specualtion that it might have been a mafia figure, and that the assassination was part of the ongoing syndicate warring for city contracts and such. He also catches an appeal from Romulus Chandrasekharan that anyone with info on the location of his brother Remus Chandrasekharan get in touch for a reward. Remus has apparently been missing for at least a few days. Which worries the team, as they just paid him to upload the “Halfman/God of Idiots” Crod Stompaz video.

Ivan tries to contract out the job, and hires Jaro and some others to scout out the areas where the disappearances have been most noticeable. These are mostly poor East Asian, African, and East European immigrant communities near to the core, which tend to be fairly insular (and many of the denizens of which are undocumented) so the numbers are probably on the low side. Jaro reports back that not much obvious is occuring, but that as an obvious outsider she got stonewalled a bit. However, there is a church that seems to do a lot of outreach work, so she thinks that might be a good place to start asking questions.

Suspicions aroused, the team researches the church. It is called the “Church of the New Sun”, and is a catholic sect under the leadership of Father Tuva Morinski. There is also a charitable Islamic organization called the “Brothers of Muhammad” that appears to do similar work in Muslim areas. Brother Tariq is the head of this organization. Both organizations do community outreach, provide food, places to sleep, etc. Due to their individual cultural backgrounds and current affiliations, the team decides to approach the catholics first, in the African area (as they have some possible beef with Vory who control the East European areas, since HCB is a Yak for life).

They decide to take minimal armor & weapons, in a pretty non-descript ride, and head out aft ermeeting up in the undercity. K scouts the area astrally while Ivan i-balls it, and everyone heads inside and talks to church volunteers/employees. They don’t pick up any particularly useful info, the church says most of the people they have come in are transient, and they don’t know much other than rumors of disappearances. UB! pushes for going in guns blazing, but caution prevails (especially since they have no indication other than general distrust that the church has anything to hide). Tobias and Ivan hack into the church system and get a tap set up on the comm lines.

Meanwhile, HCB encounters a local who offers to share some info for a price, and follows him to a secret meeting place that he insists on. The rest of the team follows in the car at a distance once they exit the church, but they get blocked off in a tight alley. HCB is lead into an ambush, but flashes his Yak tattoo and talks his way out. He meets the rest of the team part way down the alley, and they charge back in, but the robbers have cleared out. However, T’s tap pays off when he picks up a call from an unknown number to the church that “some outsiders are asking around the area about the disappearances.” The call ends quickly, buy they decide the church bears further investigation. They leave for the time being, though, so as not to alert the church to the presence of the tap….

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!

The team, having confirmed that the church is somehow connected to the disappearances, decides to gear up and return for some recon in force. They recruit Ut-Napishtim to infiltrate the church while wearing surveillance gear, posing as a local homeless man. They will then wait for his report as to what mysteries are occuring within, at which time they will enter guns blazing. Or so the plan says.

K does a bit of research into the aura around the core, and finds a lot of disturbing rumors, but not a lot of known fact. Arlen Thompson warns of a sickening aura in the astral space around the area, and asks K to report back on any info gathered.

Meanwhile, Tobias gets some potentially useful info: according to Elton Massey, the church they are investigating seems suspiciously similar to some of the fronts for the Universal Brotherhood. Massey fills Tobias in: the UB was a charitable front for a conglomeration of insect spirit hives which used soup kitchens and outreach programs as a cover for abducting host bodies for the spirits. After many of these organizations were shut down under governmental suspicion of their activities, Knight Errant was tasked with destroying a large hive in Chicago. Unfortunately, the hive was much larger than initially believed, and when the team set off a tactical nuke, they unleashed untold numbers of insect spirits into the unprepared city, setting off the cordoning off of Chicago. It is now the wasteland known as Bug City.

Massey seems eager to redeem KE’s reputation in this regard, and tells Tobias to call it in if he needs backup, if it does turn out to be insects. T relays this info to the team, and K returns with his news, and they realize that they may be involved in something a lot more serious than they had intially imagined. Still, they need further proof before anyone will act on it, and Ut’s inside, so they head out.

K flies invisibly to a nearby point and waits for the go signal, while everyone else idles nearby in a freshly stolen car. Ivan, still not having conquered his alcoholism, is having trouble resisting Tobias’ offers of drinks, so he gets out and heads down the street, looking for coffee or tea. He finds a little bodega, and can’t resist the proprietor’s offer of a shot of liqour in his tea. This steadies him out, and he slips back into the car.

In the church, Ut eats dinner (well disguised of course), and tries to subtly acquire some useful info, but nothing really turns up. He eventually lays out on a pew when the workers call lights out, and is pretending to sleep when he all of a sudden loses control of his body and sees himself rise, with two others, and head towards the back. They exit through a secret panel in the utility room, and slide down a long, dark tunnel.

The team, seeing Ut’s gps dot move, and suddenly disappear, move in. K flies through a second floor stained glass window (HCB follows on jetpack) while the rest of the team cuts and blows through the front door. The neighborhood comes out to watch, and Ivan threatens them. They keep watching, but keep their distance. The remaining sleeping patrons all stumble to their feet and seem to be trying to prevent the team from gaining access to the back of the church, but K overcomes the mental conrol enacted upon them and sends them out into the street, opening the way.

Using various visual spectrum viewing equipment, they eventually uncovet the hidden tunnel, and slide down (K flies). They notice a disturbing sight on the way: the tunnel appears to be melted, clawed, and chewed straight through the many meter thick walls of the core, as well as the earth beneath. They emerge into a small room with a number if tunnels leading off. Picking up Ut’s signal again, they head in that direction. UB!, overenthusiastic as always, kills the other 2 abductees with a wayward grenade, but they rescue and revive Ut. They then fight off three grotesque mutated forms, humanoid in shape and size, but not at all human in appearance.

Seeing that they are in a dead end, they double back, and head down the rightmost path. Tobias, leading the charge, gets ambushed by two more mutants, taking some damage, but the team makes short work of their stinking, unarmored flesh. Tobias smears some blood on his body armor to cover his scent (since he was both thermally and optically cloaked), but stops when it starts eating through the plate. They continue onward, and reach a descending tunnel, which gives off an unpleasant odor of rot and decay. K is somewhat distraught by the astral vibe here, but doesn’t want to project, to avoid attracting unwanted attention. The team notices that their comm signals are extremely degraded, and imagine they will soon lose wireless connectivity. Tobias takes this opportunity to set up a deadman’s trigger which will call in KE if he should not return.

The team presses on….

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!

The team, still accompanied by Ut-Napishtim, pauses at the descending tunnel to decide what to do. HCB has a stunning realization: the job that the Yak have been asking him to do involving the Bunraku parlors is probably tied to this one! A simstim environment would be perfect for infesting people with bug spirits. He calls in to tell them that he might have info on the job soon.

K calls Arlen Thompson to tell him that he will be out of comms range shortly, and report that it seems like the disappearances (and tunneling) may be the work of bug spirits and their allies. Thompson seems understandably perturbed at this news, and cautions K to be careful and stay in touch if he can. After this, the team descends to the second level.

They explore the twisting, mazelike caverns, encountering many horrors. They fight more mutated humanoids, and discover a series of rooms filled with what seem to be cocoons, containing humans in various stages of mutation/transformation. They destroy them all with fire an explosives. They fight two large beetles who fade away when killed. They also encounter a few mages, one of whom is fairly powerful, and does significant damage to the team with a lightning storm. After they kill him, K finds a stone shelf covered with ritual supplies, that look like they could be used for some sort of summoning or conjuring rite. The mage was also wearing an ankh necklace similar to those the team saw on many temple leaders in Heliopolis. Thinking back, HCB decides that the bugs they fought looked somewhat scarab-like, and the team decides that there may be a Heliopolis connection.

After clearing the second level, they descend yet again. They destroy a few more rooms full of cocoons, and after mapping more of the tunnels, come across a terrifying sight: an enormous three headed, many armed insect, who appears to be laying eggs, which are being tended to by two humanoids and two more beetles. HCB, ever the lunatic, fires up his jetpack and crashes straight into the Queen’s soft underbelly, doing significatn damage to both of them. The mages launch spells at the team while the beetles charge in, keeping them distracted while the Queen smashes HCB. Luckily, his jetpack sends him sailing down the tunnel, barely avoiding imminent death. The Queen, injured, breaks free from her lower half, and chagres the remaining team. She quickly ko’s Tobias, sending him flying back down the tunnel, where only his luck saves him from death.

The rest team up on the Queen, having dispatched all her tenders by now. K casts spells until he goes unconscious, and UB! takes up Tobias’ gauss rifle, while Rolf peppers the Queen’s heads with arrows. They notice that she seems to be almost instantly healing from much of the damage, but the injuries to her heads remain. Ivan and Ut sneak around behind her as she enters the tunnel to wail on UB!. Although he is ko’d, his armor holds up while Ut loads a stachel full of grenades. He chucks it up towards the ceiling, right above the Queen’s head, and Ivan and Rolf simultaneously shoot it, setting off a massive explosion, decapitating the lone remaining head, and sending the tunnel roof crashing down atop the Queen’s writhing corpse. The body begins to dissipate as her energy fades back to the metaplanes.

The team collects themselves, and Ivan discovers a hidden tunnel bored through the rock, that seems to head straight towards Heliopolis, for as long as he can see anyway. Ut collapses the entrance. He gets as many members walking as possible, and hauls eveyone else towards the exit. On the way, they encounter a Kinght Errant Firewatch team, accompanied by Elton Massey, Arlen Thompson, and other members of the Hermetic Order of the Crimson Lands. They help the team reach the surface and provide transport to medical facilities. Thompson tells K that he was worried by his last call, and when he couldn’t sense him astrally or get him on comms, he decided to come in person. Fortunately, Massey had a similar idea in regard to Tobias after seeing some of the early news reports from the church above-the attack, the mind controlled people, etc.

As they approached the church, they were attacked by some local humans and spirits, but fought them off with the help of some non-bug locals, including a large African man with two cyberarms who introduces himself as Thankyou. The skin note people get in touch with Ivan shortly, and he fills them in. They recommend Thankyou, having recently used him for a courier job. They also pay the team a sizable sum for their efforts, and tell them that they now have access to a quality private clinic, where they can purchase deltaware and gene/nano-tech.

Tobias decides to make an art piece of the trid recordings from everyone’s cybereyes of the moments when they lost consciousness, and nearly died. Massey also tells him that he wants the team to further investigate the Heliopolis connection. HCB gets in touch with the Yak and fills them in, and they tell him they will have a hitlist to him shortly of all the prominent and important figures that may have become infected in their bunraku and simstim parlours. Thompson tells K that he wants the team to undertake an astral quest to destory the queen (and whoever else may be behind this outbreak) on the metaplanes. Thompson also tells him that this will allow him to initiate to level 2 in the HOotCL.

The team rests and recuperates in the hospital, while trying to decide how to spend their hard-earned funds. They debate over which job to take next, and hope it doesn’t kill them-they came a little close for comfort this time.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Thankyou
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!

The team collects themselves after the brutal beating they took in the insect hive. They are in the private clinic provided by Ivan’s new friends, a much more upscale, but also secretive and impersonal, place than Doc Todd’s. However, they find that they now have access to gene and nano-tech, as well as deltaware, and some of them take advantage. Ivan, ever mysterious, refuses to reveal the true identity of the skin note group to the team, although he is now an official member. He also has his hands full managing the slice of ex- Black Shadows turf that One Shot Wade gave him.

After leaving the hospital, Tobias and UB! agree to work together, under Ivan, to produce some consistent income for the team by cutting and dealing drugs through his turf. Ivan also has some useful bonuses for the team, now that he has turf. They have free access to street doc healing and a number of safehouses through the gang, as well as being able to call on gang assistance occasionally. Tobias and UB! get some bulk uncut street drugs and set to work. Tobias also brings up the possibility of KE ‘policing’ their turf- they’ll look the other way locally while the PC stir up trouble in LoneStar areas to help KE get more contracts.

HCB pays off some of his jetpack loan, and hears from the Yakuza that their list of possibly infested people to kill is not ready yet. K talks to Madame Gavral and Arlen Thompson, and finds out that he will be able to become a second level initiate after completing the astral quest to destroy the hive on the insect plane, but that they need more time to prepare the ritual. K also purchases a second sustaining focus. So, everyone agrees to do the job for KE/Elton Massey and check out Heliopolis, which seemed to be where the tunnel that Ivan found in the insect hive lead. Disturbingly, Heliopolis went completely offline a few days after the team entered the hopsital, and no-one has been in communication since. Last anyone heard, all was well, and then everything cut out.

So, they want the team to go check it out. They agree, and sally forth, after Thankyou pilfers a van. K, rocking two foci, is invisibly flying above the van with ease. There seems to be some internal drama in the team as both Tobias and HCB attempt to assert a leadership role, now that Ivan is semi-retired from running. Thankyou feels akward amidst the squabbling. He also feels stuck. He got sent here with a one-way ticket and can’t afford the steep fee to get back to Africa, so it looks like he’ll have to cooperate with these lunatics for now.

As they approach Heliopolis, Massey calls Tobias and tells him that there is a drone cordon established around the town, which will let the team pass, but should hopefully prevent anyone exiting without approval. He also gives Tobias some secret info. The van pulls up to the gates, and sees the parking lots mostly empty, the gates flung open, and the guards absent. They enter on foot, cautiously. Innumerable small beetles scatter at their approach. Not seeing any signs of life, HCB follows his nose towards the main drag, where they discover massive corpse bonfires, and signs of street fighting.

They go the Red Delta, the bar attached to the Hathor temple, to look for Kano. They find the door barricaded, and after forcing entrance, find the former inhabitants massacred inside. K guesses that one or more spirits were summoned inside of the barricaded bar, and the people were unable to escape. Tobias and UB! begin raiding the shelves for liquor. As UB! leaves, he is knocked prone by a powerful shot from an unseen sniper. A voice warns over a PA system that this was a warning, and tells the team to come into the open, hands raised. They comply, except Tobias, who is confident that he is well concealed.

The voice is coming from the Meshkhenet temple (the Goddess of Ka, aka fate), and after convincing the people therein that they are not bugs, the team gains access (past some bug sniffing dogs, and a man K id’s as a mage). They get the lowdown: everything was fine in the city up until two days ago, when comms suddenly shut down, and the bugs came out. They killed many of the people of the town, while those that could fled, probably to nearby settlements- most probably assumed it was a civil war again, as the bug’s human allies struck before any spirits manifested. Once the bugs appeared, they established some kind of barrier around the town, which won’t let anyone out, and blocks all communication.

The 4 dozen or so people in this temple, and any survivors still alive in Ra’s temple down the street, are the only non-infested humans left, as far as they know. They’ve been burning corpses, to prevent their takeover or use by the bugs, as the bugs have been seen hauling away bodies (some still alive) to points unknown. However, the bugs seemed to originate from the Thoth temple, so that seems like a good bet. Last night, the Meshkhenet temple was miraculously not attacked, but there were sounds of heavy fighting from Ra’s temple, and the people in Meshkhenet temple are worried that they may have succumbed.

The team decides to do a recon and possible rescue to the Ra temple, before heading over to Thoth. They dash down the street, feeling exposed, and find the door of Ra’s temple blown open from within. HCB smells it, and identifies the explosion as caused by a large fertilizer bomb of some sort. They enter, and find, amidst the debris, evidence that the bugs had tunneled up from inside, and the defenders seem to have set off the bomb to try to close the tunnel. The team heads to the higher levels after warning their new friends down the street about the tunneling. They find drag marks, and bloody clawings in the walls, as if the bugs had been hauling people down the stairs while they struggled against them.

They reach the top level, and find an intact barricade. They establish communication with the dozen survivors within, and HCB convinces them to come out, promising to escort them to safety in the other temple. Meanwhile, downstairs, Tobias notices the light suddenly fade to black outside, and hears skittering approaching down the ruined tunnel, followed by chewing sounds. He relays this info, and the team gets ready for a mad dash….

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Thankyou
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!

Heeding Tobias’ warning, the team heads downstairs, with UB! and HCB squabbling over who gets to guard the survivors (they end up each taking two while K takes the rest). Tobias is overcome by sheer terror when some insect spirits burst from the hole on the ground floor, and flees towards the Meshkhenet temple. Once outside, he sees that the reason it is so dark all of a sudden is a huge cloud of beetles obscuring the sun. Although individually small, the swarm is thick in the air, and he fires wildly to clear space to run.

Rolf races down the stairs on his inlines, sadly only to be overcome by terror himself and join Tobias in headlong flight. The rest of the team comports themselves better, and quickly dispatches two trios of insects that emerge from the newly reopened tunnel. UB! helps close it back up again, for the time being. They prepare to head for the Meshkhenet temple, under cover of UB!‘s flamethrower, but first gun down a number of mutants charging their position from the Thoth temple across the avenue. The team makes it to the Meshkhenet temple as UB!’s gun runs out of fuel, but unfortunately all 4 of UB! and HCB’s survivors are lost in the crossing, to the terrible flesh eating insects that crowd the air. K, having saved all his survivors, is quietly pleased.

After warning the denizens of the temple of the danger of tunneling insects, and getting them started vacating the ground floor, the team decides to head for the Thoth temple, and sort this all out. The Meshkhenet temple folks provide them with another flamethrower, as well as more fuel. Everyone is still a little weirded out by Tobias’ promises of a secret weapon, but they decide to trust him, for now. They head for the temple, using multiple flamethrowers to clear the swarming insects. UB! blows the door, and they are back inside. It is kind of a fond return, as this is where the team first met Rolf. Tobias, recalling that he left himself a backdoor in the system last time they were here, jacks in to the front desk terminal and, fortunately, gains access.

He peruses the camera feeds, and downloads a facility map- they decide to head for the two lower surgical levels (including the blacksite clinic in the subbasement that Tobias discovers on the map), as the cameras are down there, and Tobias only sees mutants everywhere else. Timing their approach to the stairs carefully after watching the cameras, Tobias, gets the team downstairs without encountering any resistance. The surgical level is trashed, with bits of corpses and debris strewn about. They search for the hidden entrance to the lower level, and eventually, using HCB’s advanced smell (and recollection of the odor of insects from the core), find it. Tobias hacks open the floor hatch, and they descend the non-functioning elevator shaft to the lower level.

This floor is less trashed, although HCB distantly recognizes the smell of the Queen. Tobias hacks the computer here (it seems a routine system update at some point in the last few months added his admin account to this closed system) and find a ton of files related to advanced cybermancy techniques, which he quickly downloads. Recognizing some dates on a set of video files as the days of the week following their raid on Long Pig‘s fortress, he streams it to the team. They are disturbed to recognize their former colleague, April O’Mally, who is apparently not as dead as they thought she was. Disturbingly, they recall her saying that a mysterious benefactor originally paid for all of her ’ware, and remember that the last time she was seen, Halfman had just shot down her chopper, and then been out of sight in her vicinity for quite some time. They worry that they may have a new adversary to concern them….

However, for now, they have more pressing concerns. K raids the cabinets, and finds supplies that he believes are tied into blood magic practices, which he decides to bring back for Madame Gavral and Arlen Thompson to peruse. HCB finds a hole chewed through the floor elsewhere, and, following his nose, declares that the bugs are that way. After squeezing through the winding and narrow tunnel for quite a way, the team encounters a horrifying site: a huge underground cavern filled with insect eggs, as well as multiple (although thankfully less mature) Queens. There is a large open slot where it looks like the Queen they fought in the core may have originally been ensconsed. Tobias decides to call in the kill shot, but realizes his comms don’t work. Taking out his newly acquired Ares spraygun, he sees that it has what seems to be a homing beacon built into it. He activates it, and a countdown starts in his HUD: 10, 9:59, 9:58, etc. He decides to hightail it, and chucks the sprayer as far into the room as he can.

The rest of the team follows suit, as UB! and Thankyou lay down covering fire on the approaching guardian insects. UB! blows the end of the tunnel with some pipe bombs, granting the a bit of time to make good their escape. The team flees back to the ground level, and hurries to the Meshkhenet temple. They warn everyone that something big is coming, and advise them to flee. They all head for the gate, but are stopped just short of the van by some sort of invisible wall. Everyone unloads on it, but only K is able to make a noticeable dent, which begins reknitting itself as they watch. Everyone piles thru, although HCB trips and only makes it at the last minute by launching himself thru at ground level with his rocket pack.

Thankyou quickly hotwires three more cars, and him, HCB, UB! and one of the Meshkhenet temple elders drive. They head out across the desert, away from Heliopolis, as the sky begins to hum and glow behind them. Those with quick enough sight see two enormous rods shaft through the clouds and into the earth within the city walls before a massive explosion and rolling cloud of dust obscure everything. Luckily, they don’t crash into each other, although they do decide to park it and wait for pickup. KE quickly arrives via choppers and light aircraft to ferry everyone back to Mars City. The team gets well paid, and has their medical taken care of. HCB, finally learning from his amassed experience, feels he has overcome his streak of bad luck. K gives the reagents to Gavral and Thompson, who are understandably perturbed.

They tell K that it will still take some time to prepare the ritual to send him and the team to the astral plane to combat the Queen there. They believe this is necesary, as she otherwise may simply keep returning each time she is killed. A powerful spirit is a very dangerous enemy to have, indeed. HCB tells the Yak that they are back in town and ready for the hitlist, and the Yak says they will forward it along. But who will be on it?

Dramatis Personae
Runners
“K”
Harmony Craig Bottow
Thankyou
Rolf Soren Ramis
Tobias Cheney
UltraBoy!

The team, newly returned from the destroyed Heliopolis (which the news is claiming was a catastrophic reactor failure), and all healed up, the team awaits instructions. Tobias gets a response from Daedelus to his request for lab time (to manufacture street drugs in mass qunatities). Daedelus tells Tobias that in return for performing a job for the nascent Exchange, they will allow Tobias to use their labs for an unspecified amount of time. The job is to attack the front of a NeoNet corp facility north of downtown, fire upon any LoneStar first responders, and then flee unnoticed. Tobias agrees, but fails to convice the entire team of the job’s necessity/benefits, so only he UB! and Thankyou end up on the job.

Meanwhile, HCB has received a call from the Hikage Iinkai with the first name on the hit list. Kaz Hito-Ishi is a former manager at the bunraku parlor where many of the deaths occurred, and the Yak believes he may have useful info about any involvement of bug spirits. So, they want him alive, unless he can’t be captured, in which case dead will have to suffice. However, Kaz has defected to the Kuro-Mori Nakama, the opposing upper city Yak faction, and is holed up in a safe house on their turf. However, the HI worry he will be moved again soon, as the guy they had following him thinks he might have got noticed. So, the team needs to get there before dark.

Since both jobs need to occur in the same afternoon, the team decides to split up initially and then rendevouz at the kidnapping. Tobias, UB! and Thankyou take on NeoNet, while K scouts the Yak safehouse. TY steals three decent looking cars, and UB! rigs one with an insane amount of explosives (and gas for a fireball). Tobias infiltrates to a tower adjacent to the NN facility and sets up a sniper nest. UB! drives his explosive rigged car to the location, while TY brings up the getaway car. TY has to bribe the guard to let him through from the undercity, as it seems like his SIN is flagged. UB! cons his way through using his bodybuilder SIN.

TY parks around a corner 1 1/2 blocks away, and UB! parks out front, near the entrance. He gets out, and begins walking away, making it across the street from the NN facility before a CorpSec guard comes out shouting “Sir! You can’t park there!”. UB! cons him into approaching, shocks him unconscious, and turns to flee to the getaway car. Some more guards emerge and shoot him in the back (being in disguise, he is barely armored) and he blows the trap car to cover his escape. The explosion kicks up a massive cloud of dust, debris, and shrapnel, as well as the blinding flash and deafening roar. UB1 shuffles to the car, and gets TY to drive him to an undercity hospital after the skin note people refuse to admit him (saying he is being tracked). Ivan the Jackle gives them a streetdoc recommendation, and he gets dropped there. He asks them to dye him a different color, but they seem in a rush to get him under anaethesia, as he is bleeding heavily from his wounds.

TY, feeling superstitious and a bit paranoid, leaves, swapping cars three times on the way to Slot to meet Rolf and HCB. Meanwhile, Tobias ignores the DocWagon first responders, and successfully shoots down an LS chopper as it approaches the scene. He then flees, taking some damage from some of the extreme jumps he makes, and heads towards the HI turf for the next job. TY, watching the news in the undercity, sees that they have ID’d UB! (under hsi fake SIN) based on vid and biometric scans that they conducted on him. There is also specualtion that Hamshallow may have been involved- which makes sense, as he is known to have an ork companion. HCB & TY, fearing for UB!‘s safety, contact Ivan, and find out that the streetdoc’s office was annihilated by some sort of black ops corp hit team, but fortunately Ivan had already extracted UB! (and the doc) after correctly deducing that he had been tagged with tracking round by CorpSec at NN.

UB! wakes up in a Problem Children safehouse, surrounded by gangers, including his crush Jaro. She gives him a ride back to the skin note clinic after he calls and sets up an appointment for major genetech- he needs to make himself into a different person. He buys a bunch of kegs for the PC to celebrate in his absence, though. The rest of the team heads up to rendevouz with K in the third stolen car. Tobias arrives a little early, and sets up a sniper post across the street. K, assensing the house at Rolf’s request, picks up an illusion spell on the property, and decides to dispell that as the team approaches-with them entering immediately thereafter. He does so as TY rams through the fence surrounding the property. It seems the illusion was merely to make the house not stand out, as well as being a minor glamer, so they proceed. T blasts the front door with his gauss rifle, and HCB and Rolf approach while TY covers from the car.

They come under fire from a series of Yak goons, but handily dispatch them. K is attacked by 4 bug spirits, but fends them off with T’s help (using the last of his power pack). They start clearing the house, only to hear a car screech out in the alley behind. HCB rockets over the house, and shoots the driver, injuring him. TY comes around the corner, and frags the car, blowing two tires, while HCB shoots out another. K flies over, and T tries to join, but falls just short on a jump, and smacks the side of the building. Inside, Rolf finds some more reagents and a ritual circle on the floor, but no more goons (or the target, who must be in the car). As the team collectively blasts the car, their target blows out the windshield and flies through- a mage! HCB chases him with rocket pack, while TY shoots him in the leg, slowing him. HCB catches him, grapples him in midair, and then deploys a chute to slow them. K flies up a delivers powerufl knockout to Kaz, and they return to the ground, prisoner in hand.

The team returns to the undercity after delivering the hostage, and hopes they don’t need UB! for anything for the next month or so, as he is going to be in the hopsital for a while….