Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
Aylin
6 Cylinder

After resting from the fight with the Renraku black bag team, the team decides to hoof it across the great astral sea, bypassing any potential entanglements on their way to the Seelie Court. They successfully avoid some fovae, mana voids, and slavers from ID, but run into a trap set by some maddened rift creatures near the Shattered Lands while cutting around Zecorporatum. They emerge victorious, though some of the team is poisoned. They pause to heal again, are approached by a spirit on muleback (they wonder if the mule is also a spirit). it’s Lys from Boston! He offers to pay off his debt to Guy by guiding them safely to the Seelie Court, saying he needs to visit his friend Aleiron now that he’s caught up with his family for a bit. He seems much happier, though still laconic.

They accept, and he gets them close before they are surrounded by the Wild Hunt. Chalcis, The Great Hunter, seizes their weapons, or peace-bonds them, but agrees to take them in to petition the Court for a longer stay since he saw their fight from a distance and approves of them clearing out dangerous maddened spirits in the wilds. They arrive after a short period of travel, and find themselves just in time for the Morning Hearing. They spend a while admiring the architecture, especially the Dawnseeker’s Arch, before heading in. They converse a bit, and get their request to petition the Queen approved.

They witness some impenetrable Court drama and appeals and then make their case. The Queen seems inclined to let them embark on their investigation, though some courtiers seems opposed. A fey man named Catondarez agrees to sponsor them for 1 day, and then to see where things are at after that. The Queen is then attacked by an assassin who snuck up during this, but the assassin is quickly felled by some sort of entropic field that surrouns the Queen. Aylin and 6 Cyl have some thoughts as to what that might be but aren’t sure- they notice what seems to be a human magical battery and have some weird memories from their time absent of an endless city.

Court is wrapped up as the Queen’s retinue leave the Great Hall, and Hotkey and Test are surprised to see that their does seem to be some kind of resonant field present, though not a matrix as such. Tattooed individuals, some with linked tats, in various nobles and courtiers’ retinues seem to be the main source. Catondarez approaches them and tells them to come with him for a talk. Kinnie also recognizes Old Crow from DC, who spoke with Catondarez briefly. They head for the Everhall and have a lengthy wander while Catondarez answers their initial questions.

He then takes his leave, and tells them to attend the Exile’s Return ball of that evening, and to explore and get lunch til then. They try to find the location of Hawin’s Cloak for Aylin, but end up dead-ended in a noble’s manor wing, so Aylin posts a note, and they grab lunch in the Grand Hall. Aylin decides to look for her mom in the smoky orbs over the fireplaces, and spots here- but her mom sees her back, and looks around the room as if trying to ID where they are. Aylin gets freaked and shuts it down, but her mom looks hungry.

They eat, and get slipped a note with some cryptic images. One of the Queen’s handmaidens, Fogharail ke-Coille approaches and sings a beautiful song for the Hall, and then provides the team a guide, Tivta Farspoken, who seems to have been assigned the duty as a punishment. She answers the teams questions but is quite sarcastic and droll. The team makes a list of things to investigate, and plan the rest of their afternoon around that. Avocado gets a few good hints towards healing his poison.

The bulk of the team begins exploring the Castle’s libraries, trying to get a grasp on what’s going on. Avocado continues learning to read as he’s finding it an extra struggle in the low-tech Court not being able to do so. He finds some talkative busts of deceased Croki scholars that seem quite gossipy but somewhat helpful. Aylin also agrees to take Tivta along to meet Thisbe the next day to discuss blood/mom stuff. They all learn a good bit before they are summoned to the Exile’s Return to try make a good impression with their sponsor. 6 Cyl and Kinnie find out about a bunch of mystical arms and armor, and 6 Cyl also get s a list of valuable “lost texts” as well as rumors of a “Library of Leng”.

Meanwhile, Tivta takes Hotkey and Test to the Castle’s newest room, “Geocache”, which turns out to be a strange wireframe 2050’s matrix-style space. It seems to run off of Resonance, somehow, and looks to have been the focus of NeoNET’s sole Court project- establishing a local mesh which they haven’t had time to expand before their collapse. 6 Cyl leaves some margin notes hinting at his experiences, hoping to attract some useful attention.

They are both very excited to be on a network of any sort again, and are even more excited when they realize they can hack the 8 huge floating icons, seemingly representing the 2050’s Corp Court members. They target the weakest “host” for an off the cuff Foundation dive, and barely make their way through the orchestral paradigm, to find the Null Node and do some skimming. They find a document suggesting that the origins of Resonance lie in something known as “The Seed”, which the unidentified writer compares to the magical origin point referred to as the “Prime Passion.” More research required, but it seems they are approaching an important payday from IOND!

At the feast that evening, they are approached by various beings and entities, who want all sorts of mysterious things (and some more obvious) from the team. A spirit called Rooster, who they’d heard of on Jackpoint, tells them he wants stories and also hints at criminal connections. Kami Aneki, seemingly the surviving spirit of Inazo Aneki, the CEO for Life of Renraku, speaks with the team and subtly warns them that they best have a conversation soon. Tivta makes a good impression on Aylin and they share some Tarot knowledge, and Aylin agrees to bring Tivta a little further in. They meet a Wuxing geomancer named Bjorn Salamatu, who is very interested in the Cornerstone.

Avocado gets some good gossip and info about the alchemists who can help with his poison so he doesn’t go in blind, and the team finds out some of the info about what their sponsor Catondarez might want in trade, as well as what it would take for his faction to provide longer term support. He hints at the goals and interests of his sponsor, and gives them, an initial task to test them before introducing them up the line. He also secures them a luxury Courtsman’s Suite, so everyone will have their own private chamber off a central trio of rooms. They head back there, and find it quite nice, and seemingly detailed by the Castlekeeper to try to match what seems to be either a strange joke or a humorous misunderstanding of what the material plane residents might want in temporary lodging.

After noticing a disturbing painting and removing it, the room feels much better (having heeded warnings about attempts by some at Court to mess with newcomers feng shui), they all get a solid night’s rest and prepare for their second Morning Hearing. Aside from Avocado’s poison, they are finally all healed from the previous few days’ fights.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
WLOG/Beanie
and the return of Aylin and 6 Cylinder

The team moves from the lower level of Terminal to Nanuli’s safehouse in Jersey City in order to lay low for a while while they craft a plan. They organize a thorough PR campaign/con to make Renraku look good on the aftermath, in order to try to reduce heat on them. They spend a week on it, and then launch it upon re-emerging. It is fairly successful, and they return to Manhattan, though don’t feel safe in Terminal so right the safehouse and gear there off as a loss (including Aylin’s Mom’s bloodbox). They call all the contacts Arthur had made to warn them of potential compromise, and decide to tackle a couple lowkey jobs while they wait for 6 Cyl and Aylin’s return date.

They help discover that MCT is the corp trying to map the Underground and Terminal, trying to regain their MDC seat by pulling some kind of massive security operation. They spread word about this widely, gaining some rep but no pay. They also help the Rat Pack take over the Night Markets, and make them more robust and remote, using a repaired pneumatic tube system that Kinnie has spotted throughout the Underground. Kinnie gets some grav grenades in payment, and the team gets some more rep. Beanie decide to say his goodbyes for now, and heads off of HK’s deck to a Garmonbozia digital safe zone.

The rest of the surviving team spends some time investigating and debating the 3 obvious paths to the metaplanes to retrieve their long-absent friends. 1 is runners that Arthur made contact with, but they worry that Renraku will also know about these, and decide against it (though Kinnie makes some useful JP contacts with those named). They also decide against STV, who offers the quickest/most direct transit, but at the greatest price: an unknown spirit pact. They decide to go with Teeth’s heavily advocated for IOND, who offer to assist the team in reaching their goal in exchange for them performing some work in the Seelie Plane in the aftermath.

They team gears up with the various things they think they might need, and heads to the IOND HQ. They get bused in multiple vehicles out to a rural site, and are told they are at an auspicious crossing of leylines near the astral city of Penn Yan. They dose up on shade and guts, and the ritual begins. Their consciousnesses and bodies are forced into the astral, and they all (barely) manage to catch onto some horrifying train/fire/buffalo combo that seems to be laying and pulling up track as it travels, while screaming. It also seems to consume as fuel any unwary entities or wayward passengers it comes across.

The team gets a quick and strange tor of the astral planes along a winding path. and manages to hop off without injury in the plane of Id. They avoid some local spirit patrols that seems to be capturing and enslaving other spirits, and reach the mountain pass outside of Kadath. They set up a surveillance, and spot 2 gunslingers waiting nearby. After an unknown amount of time, 6Cyl and Aylin do indeed emerge from Kadath, very confused and quite changed in their absence.

The 2 gunslingers challenge 6 Cyl, and he nearly kills the first one before the 2nd nearly kills him. They call it good for duels, and the team makes some new contacts. The 2nd gunner also warns them that a nearby Renraku team will be on them soon, so the team heals 6C and sets up an ambush. They also tell Aylin about her dad’s capture, and she nearly bails before realizing that her and 6C are linked and that the Renraku team might have answers. Aylin baits the trap, and lures the team in. They fall for it, and the team handily defeats them, though taking some hard hits.

Aylin manages to mind probe 1 of them before killing them, and finds out that her dad is alive, but similar to Test in now a test subject with a completely erased memory/personality/past. She finds out he’s been moved to another facility and hopes to rescue him eventually, but the team has Arthur’s leads on next steps in looking into how to save Aylin’s mom, so she has another path to pursue as well. She mourns as best she can in the moment, and the team head out on foot to make the crossing to the Seelie Court, and from there return to Earth post-mission, before more Renraku agents show up.

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
Arthur Carewell
WLOG/Beanie

The team continues their investigation of Test’s mysterious background and rescue, and it’s crossover with Kinnie’s side job for Plan 9/10. They do some further surveillance of the corp team picking up live bounties from The Pit, and confirm that it’s a Renraku team, ID-ing the guard and driver as internal security contractors, and confirming that a Renraku subsid rents the lower levels of the Midtown former HQ of NeoNET. Avocado and Beanie perfect disguises and impersonations of the guard and driver based on their surveillance footage, and them watches them for a few days to familiarize themselves with schedules and routes. Avocado and Teeth both take a day off to initiate, gaining expanded magical powers. Avocado also founds his own magical society, of which he is currently the sole member.

They check in with Sojourner and are told that the 10 packages they are to bring into the lab are prepped. They tell Sojourner to deliver them into the Pit to the bounty warehouse, and make a plan to meet them there and take over the Renraku truck. They stock up on other gear they feel they might need, and get the rest of the job details. They are to bring the 10 packages into the lab, plug them into a secure offline server in the lowest level and then take them back out again. Test also wants some revenge, so he buys a squirt gun and upgrades it to spray acid. They also buy some explosives, in case they need to blow their way out (as the Axemen rescue team did with Test).

They head into the Pit disguised as bounty hunters, and convince/bribe/intimidate the other bounty hunters hanging around that day to clear out. Avocado then lures the Renraku truck in with a con and commanding voice combo, they bribe the Winter Systems border guards further to allow it. The team has loaded Sojourner’s packages (10 body sized hardcases) onto rolling carts in the warehouse, ready to slide into the Renraku truck. The truck backs smoothly in, and they get ready to KO the guards. Unfortunately, Test gets spotted sneaking up to the vehicle, and the guard on the outside shoots him. They quickly KO that guard, and Beanie starts impersonating him to keep the nearby bounty hunters from getting involved.

The driver starts accelerating out of the building again and drops some flashbangs out of the truck. Test and Hotkey manage to hack the vehicle and shut it down, and then start taking over the drivers’ comm. Luckily they’re in a matrix dead zone so they’re having to hack via mesh but the driver isn’t able to get a signal out. He tries to pull down shades to conceal himself in the cab, but Teeth glues his hand to one of the shades and then starts engulfing him with an earth spirit. Avocado demands he open the door and gets a text response of “please don’t kill me i have children” as the door opens. Teeth doesn’t care, and the earth spirit crushes the guard til he pops, exploding all over the cab of the truck.

They get it backed up into the warehouse, clean it up as best they can (Avocado runs out for some Cleaner Cleaner), and they get everything loaded in. They also load in the one bounty they bought from legit hunters- an unconscious man who isn’t magical. They aren’t able to confirm anything else about him. They plan to free him eventually, but decide it’s easiest to bring him with for now to avoid questions and complications. They cut off the KO’ed guards head- after a long convo about how noone brought a knife, Teeth interjects with “maybe THIS will help!” and draws his monosword, easily performing the decapitation- and glue it under a seat in the cab so they can easily access the implanted comm (the driver’s was destroyed). They prepare to roll out, and hope that Kinnie and Arthur are ready to get picked up, as they need some additional brains for the rest of this mission to hopefully go better…

They do some hacking prep on the truck and guards’ comm, and head out, with Arthur and Kinnie jumping in the back at the last minute. Kinnie has restocked on some of his various scifi weaponry in preparation and Arthur gets a bullwhip. They gain access to the Renraku subsid through the secret entrance Kinnie spotted, and Avocado and Beanie sell their cover ID’s. Unfortunately, Beanie trips a bunch of alarms when he starts a firefight with the guard detail who comes out to grab the deliveries. The team easily takes out the guards and gets the scientists ID, but they struggle to overcome some security features that are auto-activated in the room.

Most of the team takes some damage from some CS gas before Hotkey and Test reopen the exit and close the dispersal vents, and Kinnie has to use a grav grenade to keep a mechanical security shutter from closing off the door to the interior. Beanie swims through the grav field with magic assist from Teeth, and cracks the door lock. They get in a rolling firefight with 8 more sec guards and manage to handle them with decent tactics, but it seems like the guards are fighting a delaying action, retreating as the team closes in. Test mutilates and possibly kills the scientist with acid, in revenge for the tests run on him in this facility. Kinnie is not down with this.

The team finds a first aid and eyewash station, and cleans themselves up of the gas’s effects, takes a minute to patch up, and continues on into the facility. They push further in, and find some creepy holding cells right next to a cafeteria and staff lounge. They come under assault from a Red Samurai detail, and Kinnie quickly goes down. Beanie and Avocado bypass some traps and find another lab area, full of dead test subjects and poison. Beanine gets a little info from a secret note one has. They find another room full of servers with some kind of enormous processing core.

Hotkey retreats towards them, firing at the Red Sams, and is also ko’ed. Teeth, Arthur, and Test fall back towards the entrance, taking out 1 Red Sam, and injuring more, but Arthur and Teeth are both ko’ed. Test escapes in a huge smoke grenade cloud, grabbing the control tablet and bringing the biodrones with him. GC makes contact with him and guides him through some air ducts, along with a Monad named Magnus Jam- the bounty from before, who Test frees on his way back out.

Beanie rigs up a trap for the Red Sams and he and Avocado lure them towards the server room, where they barricade and hole up. 1 more Sam down. but they start blowing through the door. They also put shock/magecuffs on all the downed runners for later interrogation. Test pops out of the ducts behind the Sams, and gets Magnus to go back from fallen teammates. He gets HK and Kinnie, and then starts shooting back at Sam with the laser rifle. They also send up a biodrone with acid sprayer, who douses the Sams before getting annihilated. Avocado tricks one more with his Commanding Voice into getting killed in another trap.

The Sams break through the server door, destroy Beanie’s body completely, and KO Avocado. Beanie finds his consciousness loaded into “Marry Me…”, and finds GC’s avatar, a Paladin on a winged steed, ready to give him a ride- he tells Beanie they need to reach the top of the nearby tower but will have to hurry. They fly up and GC uses some special items to crack the top open. Meanwhile, irl, they send 2 more biodrones with Kinnie’s grav grenades charging towards the surviving Red Sams as they emerge from the room- the resulting mix of 2 grav fields carves out a huge negative space from all the material surrounding it.

Test gets the surviving biodrones up to the lab and hooked in, with Magnus’ help, and sees a potential way out at the bottom- into the underground? Magnus has now gotten Teeth as well but reports more guards incoming- they need to go! In Marry Me, Beanie and GC dive into a strange tunnel at the top of the tower, and find themselves rocketed through the resonant realms along the channel Test has opened. They struggle to hold onto themselves before slamming into… something unfamiliar. IRL, The biodrones all stand up (except 1, which Test has to remote control- hmmm) and everyone drops through the hole.

They find 2 Rat Pack smugglers waiting, one of who EMP’s the whole team (to be safe, as requested, she says), as the other seals the hole above them with foam grenades. They hustle out of there, and get back to the lower levels of Terminal, to the Monad street doc they know there. They get patched up as GC uploads off the bodies onto the matrix, and find that the mysterious 7th body contains Beanie. He asks to move over to HK’s deck for a while, hating the meat body, and does so.

They get an upgraded TacNet as thanks from Beanie, get paid by Sojourner, and get their gear and selves repaired. They are told they best lay low for a while, as Renraku is on the warpath. Apparently “GC” was the controller AI for Grand Central Arcology and transit hub, and chaos ensued when he shut down unexpectedly, resulting in deaths and injuries. Renraku also captured Arthur and presumably knows the teams names, faces, safehouse, etc. They decide to lay low in Jersey with Nanuli again for a while while the heat dies down and plan a con to spin they public story away from them, allowing Renraku to save face in some way and hopefully abandon the pursuit.

They decide to look into the IOND investigation next, as it’s the only job they have in the Outer Burroughs, and they’ve been warned to stay off Manhattan for a bit. HK gets a message to his family and warns them to lay low for a while too. Enkaa agrees. GC tells Test he discovered a bit about Test’s past- he tells him his personality was fully overwritten and erased using CFD nanites in a carefully managed infusion, so whoever he is now is whoever he is going to be. Test and he agree to celebrate it as a fresh start for both of them, as GC says he was only awoken by Test’s connection to the Resonance in the middle of a UV node test that GC was curiously monitoring without his programmers knowledge.

The connection to the strange Kingdom of Velkar in Marry Me has been a lifeline, but now they can play from anywhere :). The team heads to Jersey and hides out, hoping Arthur isn’t getting too brutalized and wondering what they’re gonna tell Aylin. Beanie also announces his plans to retire from the physical world for a time, being short on funds for another fancy body, and work on developing a Shinto-esque cult of AI worship centered on AI-run spaces (such as Grand Central).

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
Arthur Carewell
WLOG/Beanie

Hotkey decides to sit this one out and chill with his family for a bit. Kinnie is pretty on the fence and agrees to do it only under certain conditions (minimum number of victims, specific targets) vs Avocado and Test’s advocacy for true randomness. They run some plans by STV to make sure they stay within job parameters, and get approval to include the assumed original perpetrator as one of the victims (seemingly his family wants to clear the scandal around their name but isn’t overly attached to the young sociopath).

They find a racist Yankees fan living in a trailer park stack out in Long Island, and break in, narcoject him, and imitate the serial killer’s style as instructed. They almost exfiltrate successfully, but get spotted by some other tenants and chased out. Luckily Test had already hacked their rental car and was spoofing it’s location and records from a fake SIN, so they ditch it and get skimmer smuggled back to Terminal.

For number 2, Beanie impersonates a prison guard who STV gave them a file on, and uniform/badge for. He calls the guard who seems to be being blackmailed, and says he’ll take an second lunch, allowing Beanie to take over for him. He takes the ferry to the secure Roosevelt Island, and his ID and impersonation passes muster, even fooling some other guards easily. He sneaks into the wing where the serial killer is detained in isolation, and is distressed to find it is the CFD ward, newly added on. This may explain why the family doesn’t want him back (and possibly also the killings, if they are a response to the new persona(s), though it’s hard to know).

Beanie overcomes his fears, reminding himself that he’s a unique individual, and heads into the cell. He easily drugs and strangles the young man, but has to stomp his head repeatedly as the nanites return him to life. Worried that he may have been infected, he extracts himself as fast as he can, and calls to warn the team. They seem worried and not overly sympathetic, so he turns to Sojourner instead, who sends a drone with some kind of data chip and nanite cleaner combo, which it tells Beanie to slot and run. Beanie does, and ditches the uniform and ID. Seemingly clear, he buys a nanoscanner to make sure, and tells the team to maybe do the same.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team heads up to Washington Heights to kill the final victim, after some further social media research to find a real piece of shit. They use the same tricks as in Long Island, Test using the same fake SIN and hacks. Avocado poses as a fellow asshole and gets drunk alongside the target at a bar. He lures him back into the rented van, filled with the team posing as fellow passengers in a ride share. They easily kill him and ditch the van.

They report into STV, get paid, and make a new contact in their NYC office. They get a few more job offers from Sully (a heist and a matrix mystery), and do some more digging on Beanie’s next job, which ends up linking up with the job Kinnie has been doing for Plan 9/10 as well as Test’s background. Test is gratified to learn some more facts, and finds that the gang that rescued him was the Axemen, and that they were hired through Paul Jones and had a mysterious offsite matrix support running ops on the job, who the team ID’s as likely being the AI Orior, who some of them had interacted with in DeeCee (and heard that Jonny and others had talked to in Denver and before). So it seems that Garmonbozia wanted Test free for some reason…

Runners
Kinnie Zest
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test
and introducing: Arthur Carewell and WLOG/Beanie

The team (reduced in number) messages Fargus Sol and then disappears into the NJ safehouse until the 1st. They rest, heal up, and debrief, and do what limited research they can with no matrix access. Teeth tries to read the book twice and injures himself badly, almost dying. They emerge into 2079 seemingly free of pursuit after Nanuli clears them. They pay Nichols to smuggle them back to Terminal, and get back to their safehouse, which happily seems undisturbed. Test splits off to go check on GC at his bolthole while the rest of the team responds to messages.

Test gets the word from GC that they have found a contact through Marry Me who’s willing to trade a run for some intel on getting into The Towers. He makes initial contact and is very awkward but arranges to meet “Beanie” shortly, and gives them team a heads up. He games with GC for hours and then heads back to Terminal. Hotkey heads off to visit his fam in Queens, and his wife Enkaa says she has a job through her contacts at Sierra Corp to take out a toxic shaman named T. Crapper who used to be deniable asset for them (pre-toxic, they say). HK runs it by the team, and they agree- DIMR has a live capture bounty out publically, but Sierra wants him dead before anyone else can grab him.

Meanwhile, the team has gotten paid (well) by Fargus, including a link to some fresh SINs, and pass off the book to Man of Many Names and some other runners who show up to get it to Arleesh’s vault. Fargus confers with them and tells them that the other 2 surviving books likely also contain 3 “true” engravings each, and that 1 is held by the Catholics. The other is lost in a series of runs/losses/acquisitions amongst the mystic orgs of the world- Black Lodge, IOND, Big D stuff, and Atlanteans being the best bets. He says he will pay well if they come across it, or rumors of it.

They also take a paycut with him to get tarot info from Emily Llanfrechfa, to try to track down Aylin and 6 Cyl. They also link up with Aylin’s dad, Arthur, who has come to town looking for Aylin to report on his latest findings in the Seelie Court. He needs to put together some funds for his next expedition, so he asks the team if he can run with them while they look for his daughter on the side. With his help, they do some metaplanar and tarot research and determine that the set of Aces likely hint that Aylin and 6C will next appear at the Gate of Kadath that links to the mountain pass down from Id, in 40 days time. Whether this is 40 days of Gaia time or metaplanar time, they don’t know, but decide to get at least a small greeting party there in early february in case their friends appear.

They gear up a bit at Tiger Leer’s shop in Terminal, and meet up with Beanie, who offers them a truck heist job, in exchange for Towers help. He seems extensively implanted and kind of weird, but very helpful, which matches his local rep from what HK can find. They start researching the truck job, since it also pays a bit and has a timeline, and begin to make a plan for how to find, seize, and alter the truck’s path without getting caught or noticed. They execute the plan without too many hitches, managing to stage a traffic slowdown on a bridge and get aboard concealed by spirits, while hacking the transponder, autopilot, and guards biomonitors.

They divert the truck manually to the Bronx, bribing some border crossing guards on the jurisdictional transition from Queens. They deliver it unexamined, but decide to try to take one quick look in the back- looks like something alive there, but some kind of dense lead sheathing prevents further detection via radar or astral. They get paid and take off, and WLOG’s handler tells him there will be more work soon. They get down to business- figuring out what to do about WLOG in general since they discovered his AI nature mid-mission. He gives them enough of his backstory and whatnot to justify himself to them, and some of the team seems very onboard with e-life while others are still skeptical (or just ignorant).

They start looking further into T. Crapper, and debating whether to to kill him for Sierra Corp, or cash him in for the alive bounty with DIMR. They also do a little digging on the followup mission from WLOG’s handler- they need to find a secret lab and infiltrate it, bring some specialty equipment with, and get something out. Surprisingly, this seems to be the same lab Test was rescued from, as the recon footage they are given is the footage of his rescue. The plot thickens…. Meanwhile, Kinnie decides to look into acquiring more grav particles, and takes off for a bit.

They decide to tackle assassinating the toxic shaman T. Crapper first, since there’s a public capture bounty and the team wants to make sure to get paid. They begin doing some astral and matrix research, and pull some strings through Enkaa (Hotkey’s wife) to get some intel from Sierra Corp. They manage to ID 2 likely targets who might be next on Crapper’s kill list, and also ID a Newark-based gang he may be working with. They do some favors and funding assistance for the Ghoul Liberation League in exchange for Vasuda Mueller getting them access to The Rotten Apple (the local shadow VPN) as well as getting the number of a semi-corruptable KE detective, Emmanuel Theta.

Avocado calls Theta, and tells him to answer the next time he gets a call from this number for a hot tip that will benefit KE, and then turns his burner off so it can’t be traced. They plan to make sure KE can take credit for the job so they don’t get tied to Sierra (worried about New York’s scene pegging them as corp types) and that Sierra doesn’t get tied to whacking one of their former deniable assets (bad for their rep). They also make contact with another Newark gang, the Rahway Blades, who have beef with the Toxic Marauders (the gang likely helping Crapper).

They get the Blades to watch the 2 likely targets, and get a report back a few days later of Toxics watching the less secure of the 2. The team heads to Jersey via skimmer smuggling, and picks up a van the Blades stole for them. They then find the Toxics, hack their comms, and examine their auras, and trace both matrix and astral paths back to a local superfund site: the old waste treatment facility that failed during Crash 2.0, killing and poisoning many in the area. Teeth and Arthur go up against a toxic spirit, followed by T. Crapper himself, and are both felled. Luckily the team is able to revive them via the med drone, and Teeth spends some time suffusing both of them with healing energy before they head back, as well as summoning a powerful spirit of his own.

Meanwhile, Avocado convinces the Blades to delay the 2 cars full of Toxics to keep them away, and race towards the site. Test, HK, and WLOG manage to hack the security barrier around the site, and WLOG transfers his consciousness to an aerial surveillance drone, which he barely levels out before it crashes after his takeover. Teeth and Arthur manage to significantly wound Crapper, but he sprung a trap on them and KO’s both again. WLOG spots him with the drone, and HK and Test quickly upload a program and some TM threading to overclock it, and WLOG dive-bombs it into the wounded Crapper as he makes a digital escape back to his usual body.

The team hears a whump and explosion, and has the drone feed, so they assume they got him, and call it in to Theta as they flee. Theta seems happy enough to take credit based on the subsequent news conference, and the team hopes they have a new contact. They also see some news reports that go a bit into Crapper’s tragic backstory, which they didn’t really find out much about ahead of time. They ditch the van, get paid (and increase Enkaa’s standing with Sierra, thereby), and get smuggled back to the safehouse. WLOG buys HK and family a fancy pizza dinner, so HK heads off to do that.

Meanwhile, Kinnie gets some work done a side job, looking into who’s kidnapping Monads and TM’s and the like around town. He finds some corp teams doing pickup from Barrens bounty hunters, and traces them back to a secret entrance into an underground facility hidden in a parking ramp. Kinnie gets some payment of more Grav Particles from Plan 9/10 in return, and the promise of more for more work. The team gets another job offer from the local STV office: they need to do some very specific but seemingly randomly targeted murders. They agree due to a large payout, and then realize (once given more details) that they will be helping a wealthy serial killer attempt to escape punishment for his crimes. Thus begins a moral debate about what the right move is here, especially since they already accepted the job…

Runners
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
Six Cylinder
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test

Aylin talks to her dad and hears about some promising leads with healing her mom. He’s headed to the Seelie Court to seek out someone called the Ebon Queen who is rumored to have skills or info relevant to the task, so Aylin says she’ll expect to hear from him on his return, whenever that is. She also contacts the Horrorstalkers and trains some new abilities with them, through a “Free Seattle” messageboard, an issue which seems to be heating up heading into the new year. Aylin decides to join the infiltration team and try to sneak into the next 9 Gates event. The team also signs on for another job with Schmidt/STV to help an extreme sports giant named Thor Thunder infiltrate and BASE jump off of one of The Towers, which the team thinks will be a perfect cover mission for their difficult job for Jackpoint.

The team does some recon and intel gathering and starts laying the groundwork for that gig, and then gets back to the Temple. The recon team gets some quality fake Shiawase uniforms from Sully, and get his Albanian contacts to paint the van to match, after the Duelists mod the van out to the team’s specs. They head up to Inwood through the Bronx to hit as few checkpoints as possible, and manage to clear the sensors with some hacking help. Hotkey finds some local NIMBY messageboards about road maintenance and finds a pothole near the gated community where Sunita Taki’s mansion is located. They manufacture an issue by using an earth spirit to tunnel over and rupture some nearby utility pipes, and then talk their way into the enclave after “fixing” them and hacking to shut down their flow valves at their junction inside. They also do some drone and astral recon between drone and astral sec patrols, and get some details on layout and security.

They do some prelim hacking and surveillance from inside, get a data tap installed, and intimidate the night watchman into making sure that he’ll let them back in to continue their work the next night. Teeth is badly electrocuted and uses this a pretense for the intimidation. They turn everything back on, and Hotkey is impressed by Test’s cool TM abilities, which he is seeing in action for the first time. They start scheming on teamwork hacking tricks they can try. They also notice another hacker creating a script loop to overwrite the guest register for the next night, and assume that must be when the event will be.

The infil team head into the Pit through the Underground, and manage to avoid getting entangled in any local side quests. It seems like there are some ongoing paracritter problems, and like Omnistar has been sending in Shadowriders to start trouble as an excuse for a future crackdown. The district seems realtviely safe but does seems to be gentrifying. They both make contact with different sketchy sorts at the Orchard Street Bazaar, Aylin gets ripped off on some reagent jewelry, and then finds a ghoul who sells blood in exchange for a safe place to use for the bloodbags. She then gets housing (also expensive) through the talismongers, who she tells she wants more stuff tomorrow.

Avocado and Six Cyl make a little bit of asses of themselves, but finally finds someone who seems down to sell their desperation to someone looking for their kind- mages who have lost power and want more. They get put up in a sketchy safehouse and wait for morning, both sleeping surprisingly well on a shared couch. They awake the next morning and embark on a long, strange journey- the dealer they made a deal with brings them a semi-intact subway entrance with a ladder down to it nearby, and they find 2 cloaked figures waiting. Both are wearing masks with some kind of voice changer, and tell them to board the nearby train car. They hop aboard and are surprised to find themselves propelled rapidly along the long-abandoned line, heading North up the island, as best they can tell from the broken and empty stops they pass. The travel seems magical in some way, by 6 Cyl’s assessment.

After a lengthy journey, they emerge at a semi-intact station and are given robes and masks of their own, though dingier and cheaper. They are told to leave their clothes behind in a pile of shoes and rags but are not forced to or searched. They ascend a ladder, reaching a building basement that seems better kept than the station below. They take a rickety, old, but functional private elevator up to the roof, where they have 1 brief moment of matrix access to send a message to their friends before boarding a small chopper. The cloaked figures tell them they have no need of their old friends any longer. The chopper flies them north and a little west, and they land on the river-side lawn of a fancy mansion, finding more robed figures waiting for them.

As 6 of the figures in fancier cloaks encircle them, they find themselves in combat with 2 more figures dressed like themselves. Luckily 6 Cyl had prepared some emergency spells and Avocado is a capable fighter and has some adept trickier, so they emerge victorious, though the figures watching seem suspicious of their teamwork. They are told to rest up for the festivities planned for the evening, and each given a small private chamber to do so. The mansion seems quite fancy but has some faint moldering quality or something that seems just slightly off.

Meanwhile, the recon team has received the message, and heads back up North to follow up on their previous nights’ shenanigans. Test and HK upload a script into the cul-de-sac’s cameras to forward to them and then delete the footage sent, so they can see who comes and goes. They see a steady stream of cars arriving, from small electrics to large limos, none of which leave. They head over to get in place, and insert some water-proofed fly spy’s into the sewer line, sending them up towards the house. They have to create a LOS relay to bypass the jamming on the property, but manage to infiltrate the carriage house, where the various drivers and bodyguards are waiting and carousing. Kinnie gets the drones outdoors to do a more thorough exterior recon.

Teeth checks it out further astrally, and with some investigation determines that the strange statues scattered around the property are likely inhabited by imps, a sort of spiritual cousin to shedim. With this info, the team gets the go ahead for a more active approach from Arleesh, and are told to destroy or capture the imp statues, and report back with more info, They start figuring out how to go in, and arrange to have a skimmer wait nearby for potential water extraction.

Back inside, Avocado and 6 Cyl wake up to find their doors locked, and told to ready themselves for the evening, wearing nothing under their robes. There are various oils and creams to anoint themselves as they see fit. They eventually get an announcement from their socialite host, and head down to the kitchen. Them and the other acolytes eat at a large rough table, while the higher order members eat in a grand dining room. They notice that the servers appear to be moving without their own control, and look quite similar to the people they fought on the lawn earlier. They also notice that it is getting harder and harder to tell who’s who under the robes and masks, perhaps in some magical or drug way. 6 Cyl stacks a hefty portion, being fast, and Avocado tries to command him to pass it over, but fails. There is plenty of food but everyone is gorging themselves on the best bits as fast as they can.

When the feast ends, the host summons them to the ballroom for the orgy. The hallway they travel to get there seems longer than should be possible for the size of the mansion. The engage with various degrees of enthusiasm in the orgy, until with one collective climax everyone it spent at once, and all are told to re-robe, and follow them 2 figures in the fanciest cloaks and masks downstairs. 6 Cyl misplaces his robe, in which he had hidden a knife, and fails to find any good replacement weapons. They descend a surprisingly long rough stone staircase, and emerge into a damp stone hallway, with water running in thin rivulets between the large blocks and flagons. They once again travel further than they estimate they should be able to, and wonder if they are somewhere under the river.

They eventually emerge into a circular domed room, with a large open well or pit in the center. The circle of stones surrounding it imply the room was built around the hole, rather than vice versa. There is one other hall branching off, and 7 other stone gates applied to the walls, but with intact wall behind them- perhaps this is the Temple? 2 cloaked figures come down the others hall, herding the 3 servers from before, and line them up along the edge of the well. After some ritual speak, one of the other novice acolytes quickly gets behind them and boots one in. They fall in silence with a look of terror in their eyes, and quickly pass out of sight, though there is no splash or sound of impact.

Avocado and 6 Cyl, unable to converse or tell which of them is which, both also sacrifice one each of the ragged servers, and shortly after the 3rd one falls, one of the highest order members holds aloft what looks like an Ace Tarot card and intones some more ritual. 6 Cyl tries to figure out how to siphon some of it off for himself. Both are feeling disconnected from their mentor spirits. The stone walls behind one of the faux portal splits open and stabilizes into another dark passage. Most of the cultists seem thrilled, but the 2 highest order members seems vaguely disappointed, as if they had hoped for some different outcome.

They ask for volunteers amongst the novice acolytes, and both Avocado and 6 Cyl go through, Avo signals to 6C that it his him by giving one of his trademark leadership speeches. They pass through a long tunnel which shifts in size, keeping one hand on the wall, and one on each others’ shoulders. After a longish walk, they emerge into an unfamiliar starscape, and find themselves in a strange ruined city. The gate still looms behind them, and they can see hints of other gates, as well as strange twisted statues, plinths where others once stood, and winding alleys and stairs scattered about seemingly at random. They feel if they left the small courtyard they’re in they would soon be lost.

6C guesses they may be in Kadath, a metaplane about which little is known. They see a pulsing star that seems closer than the rest but manage to avoid going closer to investigate. They also notice that some of the statues seem to be moving. They decide they got enough info, and head back. As they emerge back into the Temple, 6C feels a new weight in his sleeve, and finds another Ace Tarot card- a voice tells him this is his reward for asking for power, and now he has to take what else he can. Unable to communicate this to Avo, they head back to their rooms to rest after debriefing the head cultists on what they saw.

Meanwhile, Aylin has also awoken in the Pit, and goes through the same thing at the others, though alone. She kicks the first person into the well, but doesn’t proceed through the passage as she is distracted by noticing that not only does the head cultist have another Ace card, there seems to be a 3rd held by the other head cultist. They rest for the night. The team outside scouts around the house interior via the plumbing using drones on autopilot, and manages to make contact with Aylin eventually, and tell her that there will be a once every 8 hours comm window, due to a hack that Teeth and Test sneak up and install on one of the jammers. Unfortunately, they get spotted sneaking away, and the team has to flee the neighborhood under fire, while broadcasting Shiawase ID’s and claiming the trespassing was an accident.

They head back to the Wash Heights safehouse and wait for contact, and get some rest. Meanwhile, the next day, the team inside is told that today they will begin to study the sacred texts. The acolytes are all brought back to the ballroom, now cleared out, and find a shrouded tome on a pedestal. 3 of them rush forward, and 6 Cyl gets there first- he assenses it but doesn’t open it. Aylin arrives second, and knocks on the book while touching the tarot card in her pocket- she gets a hint that both cult leaders and the person next to her have the other 3 Aces, and hears a voice in her head telling her that the strongest should collect all 4 for a reward. 6 Cyl had the same dream, strangely. The 3rd acolyte opens the book, and is instantly blinded by the indescribable image within. 6C takes a good amount of damage as well, but centers himself, recognizing some part of Lightbringer in the image.

2 cultists lead the blinded acolyte away towards the basement, telling them to quit their mewling as their pain will be over soon. Avocado hangs back from the remaining acolytes while they flip through the book (partially since he can’t read). 1/3rd of the engravings have the horrifying effect, burning and disintegrating 2 more acolytes, while the remaining 6 images seem disturbing but mundane. They seem to lay out some sort of ritual for contacting the devil, which seem to have some commonalities with the Tarot. Aylin decides to confront the head cultists in her own way, and walk up holding out both hands and asking them to give her their cards. For her insolence, she is ordered killed, and cultists surround her to haul her to the well. Howver Avocado noticed that one of the head cultists seemed surprised to hear that the other one had a card, and gets the cultists all riled up about the fact.

The surprised head cultist stabs the other one, and goes through her pocket, finding another Ace. The remaining head calls for Aylin to be instead brought to the library for a conversation. 6C, the only acolyte to survive viewing the whole book, says he also knows of the Tarot, and is summoned as well. They head to a new part of the mansion- a grand staircase in a foyer, and a small library. Meanwhile, Avocado is recruited to help desecrate and dismember the body of the “traitor” head cultist, who turns out to be the socialite Sunita Taki, once unmasked. Avo gets an upgraded mask and robe, and learns the way out to the water where they throw all the pieces. He gets a message out to the team with a brief update.

In the library, Aylin and 6 Cyl make a possibly disastrous decision at the same time to attack the cult head, assuming this must be Aletheia (and wanting the cards). Aylin’s first whip attack almost bounces off her spell shield, which disturbs both of them, but 6 Cyl throws her off with some counterspelling and a massive manaball. However, Aylin is almost slain by her response spell before they kill her, one of the highest force spells they’ve ever encountered. Aylin goes somewhat blood rage and slashes apart the body and room extensively before 6C calms her down. They search the body for the cards, and find both Aces and a 9, though Aylin’s whipping destroyed what seems to be the fading remains of another 9.

As 6 Cyl holds the 4 Aces (having pickpocketed Aylin while she was distracted), he feels them pulling together, and a gateway rips open ahead of them. The voice they’ve both been hearing tells them that only the strongest may enter, and both pull out all the stops, competing to get through- and both step in at the same moment as the rift snaps shut. Avocado, along with the other cultists, comes back in and starts searching for the missing acolytes and leader, and combat ensues after Aletheia is found dead. Avo is choked out by a muscular cultist, but sees his assailant felled by a spell as he loses consciousness.

The team outside heads back to the area ahead of the next 8 hour comms window, expecting a message. When none comes, they fear something is wrong and prepare to go in. They contact Fargus Sol who says he will move some support resources to the area, and also get a boat extraction set up with Nichols, who will bring them to a temp safehouse in NJ to lay low afterwards, if the extraction is hot. Teeth intimidates the cul de sac guard to let them in again, and Test and Hotkey fry the guard in matrix to make sure he doesn’t cause trouble. They then reformat the community security system to make response times slower. They send the van off on autopilot as a distraction, and head in on foot.

They notice the imps that are bound to the twisted gargoyles seem to move when they aren’t looking, so they try to move strategically. Test shuts down the jamming field, and they pick up a weak signal from Avo’s burner. They head in, planning to gas all the guards and drivers, but find them dead from some sort of maddened fight- guns, knives, fists, and spells. Those few who escaped the guardhouse look to have been shredded on the lawn, and the stone chips in the wounds suggest them imps are there to keep anyone from fleeing. They head further in and find that the strange extended architecture of the house seems to have collapsed with disastrous effects. They also find a ton of bodies, as well as numerous missing rooms, based on their drone scouting.

They find Avo and wake him up and stabilize him. He seems to be the only survivor- they search for the others but Avo tells them what he knows and they think that they are not there, and likely passed through a portal. Teeth finds the tome clutched by one dead cultist, but the rest of the library seems either fake or destroyed. The door to the basement, which Avo suggests as an exit, seems to have collapsed on itself also, in a way that Teeth thinks could only be caused by the abrupt closure of a metaplanar portal. Sol tells them to try to lure the imps in and then get well clear, so they set a series of explosives to make the imps think they are trying to leave through one blown open hole while they instead use another. Teeth watches in astral to track imp movement.

The team legs it for Nichols’ boat, but Avo and Test fall behind- luckily Teeth tasks his spirit with using it’s remaining powers to give them the movement assistance they need, and they make the boat ahead of the pursuing imps, disturbing to watch as the gargoyles are obviously not meant to move the way that they are. Nichols guns it as the team sees something drop out of the sky, Kinnie ID’s it as a fuel-air bomb, but it seems to have a second canister, which Teeth ID’s as FAB III as it devastatingly goes off, destroying the mansion, as well as the local manasphere. They get dropped in NJ at a safehouse run by a strict safehouse master named Nanuli who tells them they will be locked in til the New Years for their own safety. He offers to take out one message, which they begin to compose, while they wonder what happened to their friends…

Runners
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
Six Cylinder
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
Test

The team decides to take some downtime to get situated locally and make some more contacts before taking on more work, as well as upgrading some gear, cyber, and magic with their (somewhat reduced) payday from the last job. Aylin’s proposal of all the new team members for Jackpoint provisional membership nets them one job, but it seems near impossible, so they’re not sure if they’ll tackle it. HK spends some time in the Mongolian expat community in Queens, and gets in some qt with his family there. He also gets a contact at Sierra Corp through some fellow exiled freedom fighters who can get good fake SINs for goblinized folks, and get Test set up with some ID’s, finally. HK, still feeling burned from the Johnson on the last job dicking them around, leaks a lot of info about it to The Conservatory, earning some rep there but going against the team’s decision to play it “pro”. HK was specifically set off by seeing positive PR (sp)interviews with “Doug Quinn” that seem to have gotten Citigroup off the hot seat in the MDC reshuffle coming up.

Kinnie decides to try to re-up his grav particle stash, and heads down to the Protozoan shop in the lower levels of Terminal, where he makes a deal with Tiger Leer to deal with an NYPD Inc threat to the Night Markets in exchange for some gravtech. Leer also suggests other trades possible, for rare materials/blueprints/etc, and hints at having access to strange tech. Kinnie reports back to the team, and works on tuning up his new drone fleet, replaced after losing alot in DC. Kinnie also makes a Jackpoint sub called “Rate My Johnson” as part of the “pro” response to the last mission, encouraging runners and teams to post about Johnson’s reliability. It is quickly revealed on this board that someone leaked info about their last job, and HK owns up, leading to a lengthy team argument about the group norms, ending with everyone signing on and HK basically having the same deal with the Conservatory that Prot0 had.

Aylin heads off for a bit to seek out food sources and make contact with some Horrorstalkers, through a “Free Seattle” messageboard.

6 Cylinder makes a few new contacts, 1 anti-corp hedge witch in SoHo, who tries to help him initiate, but it doesn’t work. Taylor Anacleto offers to work with 6C for the next lunar cycle to prep himself to try again, doing graffiti and small vandalism against corp fronts in the tourist-y district. 6C also makes contact with some local Catholics to seek out the Vigilia Evangelica, and eventually tracks down a Father Darren Dolf, who offers him some work in exchange for info, and cautiously feels him out about what he knows. Dolf wants the team to investigate a local IOND higher up from Seattle who apparently fled some trouble there, which Teeth said shouldn’t be a problem for him.

Test tries to look into his mysterious background a bit, but Paul Jones won’t tell him much, in the name of professionalism. He says he makes a point not to know details, but seems a little sad he can’t do more. Test kinda writes him off for this. He then return to his bolthole, and starts working with some Ratpack smugglers to increase his skills to be able to navigate there himself. He communes with his friend GC through the conduit in the wall and gets some info about their mission for Arleesh, investigating the Temple of the 9 Gates. He also gets a little info on his time in the lab, which is still hazy.

Teeth makes contact with the local IOND and fills them in on events in DC a bit, as well as the team he’s working with now. He also gets ahold of Sully and arranges for a rental vehicle for use in upcoming jobs. His contacts don’t know much about the Temple of 9 Gates, but he does a little research on them and Black Lodge locally.

Avocado spends some time riling up his local community against gentrification in order to try to achieve symbiosis, and uses his social magic to lead to a work stoppage on a local mafia-affiliated high rise upmarketing, by running a clever con. The hackers assist. He brags about this to the person who asked if he was down to do more outside of a previous community meeting, who uses the knowledge of the work stoppage to do a more explosive structure hit, and tells Avocado to let them know when he’s ready for more, claiming to be part of the group Shatter Wave.

Avocado also does some digging into the Temple of 9 Gates using local contacts and makes a deal with Vasuda Mueller to help keep the corps out of the Underground and Terminal in exchange for some details. They find out that a rich benefactor hosts events for them at her mansion in Inwood, and that they recruit for these events in the Pit. They also claim to be able to boost or restore magical abilities, along with some general mystic/Luciferian/gnostic/lefthand path stuff. The team makes a plan: 6 Cyl and Avocado will sneak into the Pit, posing as would be acolytes, and try to get into one of the parties, while the other team, using their good SINs to pose as a Shiawase “public” works crew will use the newly rented painter’s van to get nearby, do recon, and act as backup. They wait for Aylin to return before heading out.

Runners
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
Six Cylinder
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth
and Introducing Test

The team, with help from Teeth and Avocado’s NYC contacts and some research from Hotkey, decide what kinda fake passes and ID’s to spring for to be able to operate in Manhattan as needed, and decide on a safehouse in Terminal with a secret access to the Underground. They pay a month upfront and catch a private plane up. They meet a Skimmer smuggler named Nichols at a waterway near the airport, and then link up with him again at the rotted docks in Terminal, hauling their unlicensable gear to the new safehouse (the big guns and armor, basically). It seems like unaffiliated teams are super useful in Manhattan, given how corporatized even the runner scene is there. So they feel like they should have as much work as they want to.

For now, they decide to finish off their work for STV, and get clear of the dangerously charming Deirdre Green. They go to a hip VR dance bar and have a slightly weird digital meet with a Johnson, coming to terms on an assassination. HK does some research on the Johnson, and the team finds out that the Johnson seems to also be the target, confusingly. He has a recent scandal at work, and the money to pay them came from a deniable assets fund that he and 2 others have access to. They are feeling super wary and spooked, but plan to continue to at least prep for the mission until they get info that something is fucked.

They make a branching 3-stage plan for the hit, and figure it’s the best they can do for now. They ready themselves for a meet with Paul Jones, who has a rep as not wanting to know what or why he’s smuggling stuff into corps, but has a rep for having contacts at most of the AA/AAA local branches, and the ability to get most things in. Hotkey splits off for Queens to visit his family, the Mongolian community there, and continue investigating the Johnson. Avocado and 6Cyl meet up with some nano-forgers in the lower levels of Terminal station, who seem able to fabricate rare/illegal gear relatively quickly to get a few specialty items for the job.

The meet with Jones goes well- Aylin gets a lead on a food source that meets her needs, and Kinnie and the team get the necessary heavy weaponry and B&E gear they need to him to smuggle into the building ahead of the job tomorrow. He has uniforms for them, but the one hitch is that the forged ID’s are still with the courier, who apparently was unable to get to the meet on time due to some kind of minor snag, and will be accompanying the team on the job to make sure everything goes smoothly.

They hire an underground smuggler from the Ratpack who Teeth vouches for, and get brought to a strange, secluded bolt-hole under Grand Central, where they find a disheveled and seemingly much experimented-on ork technomancer. He is the smallest adult ork any of them have ever seen, and seems quite strange and paranoid. They convince him of their ability to pay for his services, at least, and he comes along via the underground back to their Terminal safehouse. Aylin reads Test’s mind a bit (consensually) after he reveals that he has no strong memories more than 3 days old, and is able to fill in a few details on the last 3 years of his being experimented on in a lab, as well as his rescue 3 days ago, but nothing earlier. The team is fascinated by the mystery.

They stage the bike and VTOL near the MDC building before the run for emergency getaways, and Test pays a Ratpack smuggler to wait nearby also. As they head in, they find the building is being aggressively picketed and protested by some Neo-A’s and community members, and spot a lot of fresh political graffiti around the area. They head in, their ID’s pass muster, and 3 of them head upstairs while the other 3 get pulled off to scan for explosives. Avocado, Teeth, and Test spend the next while smelling delicious catering they can’t eat while scanning for bombs, and Avocado finds one- a klaxon goes off, and the ballroom/meeting area is quickly evacuated. However, this signals trouble for the team upstairs, who doesn’t quite get a drop on the target’s guard.

She almost kills 6C at the same time that he kills her, and a powerful earth spirit manifests and almost does in Kinnie before they are able to eliminate it. Aylin busts down the door, and Kinnie takes out Dough Quinn, the target. They grab his comm, and document everything, still feeling paranoid. They skedaddle, but almost get into another dustup with 2 more exec protection types escorting a nervous woman out of the building. As they exit the staircase back to the ground floor, Neo-A’s breach the front of the building with explosive shields and push into the lobby in a wedge as building security tries to rally to hold them back. A jammer was set up after the explosive was discovered to prevent remote detonation while bomb techs disarmed it, so perhaps this was the backup plan. The team uses the chaos to slip out the back of the building, but Avocado sees two camouflaged figures slip out the back of the Neo-A wedge and head for the stairs going up…

Them team, seeing NYPD Inc. cops brawling with protestors at both ends of the back street they emerge onto, all split off from each other and try to slip through the scrums, shedding their decoy uniforms as they do so for the street clothes underneath. After a few dicey moments, they make it out, and all manage to get back to the safehouse unharmed. 6C decides to spend some time learning a little Sperethiel to improve his elf posing, after he and Avocado have a run-in with some Ancients that he almost biffs. The rest of the team pursues payment, and finds that the escrow account at Brokerage X is frozen, as “Doug Quinn” is still alive- there is attached footage of an interview with a scorched but living Quinn saying he just barely survived an assassination attempt by Neo-A “terrorists” dressed as cops. The team assumes this is who Avocado saw slipping upstairs: the second Quinn.

They get Schmidt involved, who says she had a feeling Green might pull some shenanigans with them around payment, and manages to get them half pay by providing all the teams documentation to Brokerage X, who approves a partial payout, since the team did kill someone, who certainly appears to also be a Doug Quinn. They don’t get a lot more answers to this mystery though, as the comm they grabbed has almost no info on it- a security data bomb was set off just before “Quinn’s” death. However, they got paid, have no immediately pressing jobs, and are relatively safe in a new city, so they decide to take a little downtime to get better established,

They

Runners
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
Six Cylinder
Holly Dazzle
Hotkey

and introducing Avocado and Teeth

Holly attempts to take the Executioner out with spellcraft, but is felled themselves by a powerful air spirit. Guy’s air spirit takes out the Black Lodge spirit enveloping Holly, and Kinnie dives out the window to catch Holly before she crashes into the ground, and then spirits him back to the safehouse to do some emergency medical interventions. 6C fires on the Exec from cover upstairs, while doing his best to dodge the return fire/spells, giving Hotkey time to do some desperate remote hacking on the terminals that possessed Agent X was trying to access.

It looks like the shedim got part of the way into the hardwired system, but haven’t disarmed the data bombs yet, so HK does some quick work and gets 2 out of 3 files before the system is destroyed in the spell battle and he gets dumpshocked. He starts sifting through data while the rest of the team exfiltrates. 6C with a spirit using its movement power on him is able to outrun the Exec on foot as a distraction while the rest slip out the back. The Exec wrecks their van though, so Guy dips into his savings to get an even beefier one for their next showdown.

6C heads straight for STV, not wanting the Exec to be able to track him via the mark back to the safehouse, and helps fend off the tail end of a shedim attack. Schmidt has lost an eye in the melee, and it seems like a number of STV employees were injured or killed- the shedim seem to have used suicide Hoppers to breach the exterior defenses, in search of artifacts that weren’t actually there- apparently the BL got one over on them. While the rest of the team examines the data at the safehouse, Aylin heads to Georgetown to check on them, and finds the tail end of a bug assault on their hidden vaults- she is too injured to get involved, as is the rest of the team, and records from hiding while some FedPol shock troops kill the last bugs, as well as the magical Catholics, with some FABIII sprayers, and make off with some artifacts, after grenading the civilians that Radha Ran was trying to protect.

Back at the safehouse they find the BL’s ultimate plan: they’re going to use some power site downtown as a trap, and lure both bugs and shedim there. The Exec will kill as many as possible while a BL ritual circle channels that energy into a massive sacrifice ritual allowing them to take full control over the Spirit of the City of DC, giving the BL full magical supremacy there. The team is obviously worried about this possibility, and makes plans to escape town after trying to stop it, no matter which way it goes. They make a deal with Schmidt to sell her the info exclusively for now and release it after, as per Agent X’s wishes, and to only share public safety relevant portions ahead of time. They also give Fargus Sol Aylin’s vid from Georgetown, and some of the info.

He helps them set up a deal with the IOND to safely siphon off some of the magical energy from the BL ritual, only possible if the team can kill the Exec, preferably with his own blade (as he will be the focal point). Sol warns that the IOND will surely turn this to their advantage locally, but they’re definitely a less evil option. The team also gets a video from Ben Maddox of him launching a suicide attack on a convoy carrying President Colloton’s head of security, Evan Corcoran, who Maddox is sure is a shedim. He uses a FABIII grenade that causes some permanent astral scarring on a block of downtown. The team makes a plan, gears up, and hires some backup: the free spirits from the bank vault will help provide some additional counterspelling support, and a new-in-town Face with a decent rep, named Avocado, helps them get some more money out of Schmidt, and agrees to run leadership over the TacNet for the upcoming battle.

They get word that it will take place at the Washington Monument, on the National Mall, using a disgruntled STV employee as a lure- it seems the BL had a second mole inside. He is rumored to be carrying the Devil’s Seal, which the team knows is secure with Arleesh, so they’re sure this is the trap that X warned of. They also make plans to give the 2 blades to Arleesh, if they can get them. They take Guy’s new SWAT tank on the road, and Avocado bluffs their way past the cordons enforcing the military curfew around Downtown and the Capitol. Hotkey hacks their vehicle ID into the shedim forces IFF system and they sneak up through their lines, creeped out by the fact that the ritual that the BL is doing, using the Washington Monument as a focal point, appears to have created an astral shallow opening onto some bizarre metaplane.

Kinnie, using drones, spots the Executioner slaying foes, and Guy sends up a spirit along with Aylin to kill his ally spirit. They succeed but Aylin is badly injured and Guy’s spirit is destroyed. They race up in the tank, dodging spellcraft and missiles, and the mages on the team dispell his sustained magic armor. Kinnie tries to pin him with a grav grenade, and manages to snag a lot of bugs and shedim, but the Executioner escapes and nearly slays Kinnie. Aylin and Holly are both killed in the ensuing battle, though Avocado manages to slap some trauma patches on Aylin in time to save her. Holly vanishes however. The tank is destroyed by spells and explosives, but due to sustained fire, dispelling, and offensive magic, they finally take the Executioner down, which helps break the BL line and send the ritual out of control as the bugs and shedim overwhelm them. The surviving team members hunker down under layered alchemical barriers and barely ride out the ensuing magical explosion, which levels the monument, as well as much of the battlefield, and seems to close the astral shallow as well.

Some of the energy is safely channeled off, and they manage to get the 2 swords safely to Arleesh in the ensuing confusion and chaos, getting 2 Tarot cards in reward. Trading and selling info they gained in the process of this lengthy investigation, they also get some updates over the next few days as they rearm, heal, and get some new magic and implants sorted. The Black Lodge seems to have lost a lot of their local leaders due to the psychic feedback of the ritual’s disruption, but they likely still have local infiltrators throughout government and corporate structures. The Keyholders (the 3 not lost to the Shedim anyway) have apparently relocated to St Louis, prompting some curiosity about what sort of things the BL might have smuggled in while helping construct the Archology there, using metaplanar materials.

Reports of more Project: Apex strikes throughout DC and a lot of MeFeeds of urbex types wandering around in abandoned hives and dens suggest that the bugs seem to have moved on as well- or been forced to. Is ARES actually living up to their word? Meanwhile, the shedim seem to have cleared out en masse where possible, due to losing some of their high level government connections. They presumably still have military ties, and reports circulate of newly unkillable guards showing up in MCT Zero Zones, due to their merger with Apep Consortium, which the team now knows has deep shedim ties. They also hear of gatherings of shedim in Yakut near the Tunguska crater and outside Kinshasa, in the Congo.

Meanwhile, the corps are using the recent instability and “major terrorist event” resulting in the destruction of the Washington monument as proof that President Colloton is out of touch and that citizens would be wise to turn to the corps for protection. The embattled president is looking less and less likely to be able to get her chosen successor to victory in the upcoming election. And the IOND seem to emerge the big winners, although with a lot on their plate: the local manasphere is somewhat shattered and the Spirit of the City is reported to be damaged from the attempt at binding it to the BL’s will. However, local leylines have already shifted in some ways advantageous to the IOND, and they have taken possession of a strange mana pool at the site of the failed ritual, with reports of healing “miracles” already appearing in the local press.

The team decides it’s time to clear out, and Fargus Sol gives them another job from Arleesh to tackle in NYC, as well as the final job they owe to STV. Schmidt also says she’ll be in touch with future needs, as the team has proven their worth. Sol introduces them to an IOND-affiliated mage named Teeth, an older man who was called to town to help with their ritual subversion. He is NYC based and has some useful contacts there, so he and the team agree to cooperate for now. They prepare to head north, and put DC comfortably in the rearview, happy to see the end of it. Unfortunately, Guy pulls a vanishing act just before they’re all about to leave, with the following letter:

Hey y’all,
It’s been real. I’m done. I’m going somewhere far away now. I’m looking forward to some time with just Berto and me, and I’m going to get closer to Akavish and my spirituality. I’ve already bought myself out of this last mission with Madeline, so you’re all good there. Also I’m leaving you my fucking bad ass Suzuki Mirage which is worth like 40 grand, and here’s my pull from the last job for group funds, so hopefully that softens the blow a bit. Although if running has taught me anything, nuyen ain’t got shit on rep, so <shrugging>.
I’ve had a very good run with this crew, but I’m tired of losing friends, you know?
Plus now I won’t have to worry about those fucking rules anymore.
Stay golden, Chummers.
Guy

Runners
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Six Cylinder
Holly Dazzle
Hotkey

The team does some recon on the auction site, with some good face-ing by OE and some matrix and drone support by Kinnie and HK. They get a floorplan and security details for the auction, as well as a list of region codes where the invites went out to. They do some further digging and manage to amass a list of likely candidates for auction invitees based on flight plans cross-referenced with local fixers looking for bodyguards, locations of corp HQ’s, etc. They bribe Zenith to swap out a team he put on bodyguard duty with them, promising their “side” job won’t interfere with their duties to his client.

They meet up with a giant named Eric Talbert, who seems to be some kind of military/govt fixer, and likely a Denver survivor. 6Cyl is going in with him as the lone up close guard (Blackheart Security has tight security around the auction itself) while the rest of the team waits in the van in a secure underground lot near the freight elevator. They maintain comms using code phrases in case they’re being monitored. 6C reports back on various other auction attendants buying things on behalf of MCT, AZT, SpinRad, UniOmni, and others, and makes note of who buys the sword (as well as a tarot card).

The team starts making plans to follow the buyer via different means, when some other runners burst in just at the close of the auction: it’s the other team that got dropped off the job when they bribed Zenith! They blow their way in and fly in using spellcraft and spirit powers. They take out many of the less-armored BH guards on the auction floor but get overwhelmed by reinforcements from the floor below and don’t manage to steal any items. Holly and 6C get back to the auction room to try to secure the sword but a powerful milspec-armored bodyguard (who they guess is Black Lodge based on who he was with) gets it first and fights his way out.

Aylin gets a look at his aura as he flees and it is the first time her Horror-sense has activated- he has some sort of unnatural magic on him. He uses his auction attendant as a human shield to block a grenade shot from Kinnie, and dives off on a wing suit. OE follows in astral, but gets rebuffed by a tumor spirit waiting at the drop zone. The team extracts Talbert with his purchases, and Holly manages to steal some strange reagents from a half-naga who seems to work for DIMR, who is quite upset to find one of their acquisitions missing.

The team gets out of there and safely delivers Talbert with his purchases, before noticing that they’re being pursued. They ditch the pursuers with spellcraft, but almost get KO’ed by a tumor spirit that manifests in the van before Aylin takes it out with the enchanted whip. Everyone gets safely back to the safehouse, but they notice that 6C has a mark on his forehead from the BL guard pommel striking him with sword and worry what that might entail. They report in to Schmidt and she tells them to keep trying to track the sword as she’s worried the BL may be about to make their move. She also tells them to find Agent X asap as she seems to have had some relevant before disappearing. She says a figure known as “The Executioner” has already made multiple assassinations since the auction against BL foes, so they assume this is the guard.

The team spends some time tracking down Agent X, as well as healing up and researching how to counter the tracking ability of the sable blade. They find X’s first safehouse burnt, and do some CSI- it seems like a magical attack, and evidence suggests shedim may have been involved. The team calls in some favors/rep around town and manages to find the 2nd safehouse that X moved to, as well as getting some info she had stored in a floor safe in the first safehouse. They stake out safehouse 2 and see some figures inside, and decide to rush in. OE stays in the van to provide astral support, and gets taken out by some powerful shedim who possess his body as the rest of the team kills the 3 shedim hosts inside, including a possessed Agent X.

Shedim OE grabs the crystal bloodblade and steps out of the van. Holly launches some combat spells, and does some damage as the folks inside patch up from the shootout and try to link Hotkey in to hack the terminal that “X” was using. Holly is shocked to see a massive air spirit drop the Executioner, who glides down and easily slices OE in half, destroying the shedim possessing him, and also coming into possession of the crystal bloodblade himself. He looks up at the wreckage of the safehouse as the team debates what to do: fight or flight? They try to call in backup from STV and Georgetown, but it seems both the Catholics and the Firm are under attack as well- they’re on their own.