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….