Runners
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
Six Cylinder
Hotkey
Avocado
Teeth

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.

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.

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

The team embarks on a run of more successful missions after that last embarrassment, and surveils the meeting between Evelyn North and the CIA head, who both seem to indeed be undercover Black Lodge members. North reports in in a confusing conversational code, but the team gleans a lot of interesting info. They use a super low-tech battery powered, magnetically shielded recorder, hidden and retrieved in the restaurant where the meeting took place a day before/after. Old school gets the goods. The BL seems to also be seeking Bryson Church, and worried about what powers he may have with the dagger. They are also keeping an eye on Tan Robe activities, as well as tarot stuff. They also catch a hint about a BL spy in STV, confirming Schmidt’s suspicions.

The team then makes a recon pass by Church’s motel safehouse after doing some local shadow digging to find out where he might’ve gone. He seems to be turning and controlling shedim who come looking for him from Arlington, as well as providing a source of bodies between motel guests/staff and the large tent city in the parking lot adjacent. They call up Ben Maddox for additional support, and plan an assault. The plan goes pretty well, and they kill Church and retrieve the dagger with no deaths, though many serious injuries, in the team. Maddox proves to be skilled but a bit of a wildcard, though his use of the Crystal Bloodblade (unknown to him) free Jonny from it’s curse. Over in Ethiomalia, deep in a hidden delta lab, he begins his reconstruction.

Church seems to have acquired secret magical abilities to not only summon and control shedim, but also to summon and bind shadow spirits. His death frees the 2 shadow spirits he has bound, who begin causing chaos around DC (and who easily demanifest to escape Kinnie’s grav ray). The team decides to pass the dagger along to Fargus Sol’s contact, who turns out to be the great feathered serpent Arleesh, who has a rep for helping to protect metahumanity from dangerous magic. This improves their loyalty with Fargus, Madeline gets the benefit of controlling the situation without the boon of the dagger, which she doesn’t seem to consider too great of a loss (given her worries about infiltrators at the firm).

However, while they were assaulting Church’s hideout, the Shedim at Arlington staged an attack on the Black Wolf. It seems to have eventually reached some kind of detente, and was heavily covered up. Schmidt wants details. The team digs into it, and determines that the shedim and BL have some sort of peace deal (impossibly) and presumably know who and what they have in Malcolm West by now. They watch the bar and see that the BL has ramped up security significantly. They see some shedim roll up on the quarter moon, and be allowed in- seemingly some sort of power-sharing deal. Worried about what this entails, they decide to tip off Otto Stevens.

He responds quickly, setting off a small EMP locally, and sending in Firewatch sniper teams to clear out the BL exterior guards, as a few large vans dump a bunch of mixed-type bugs into the front of the bar. An FW team follows up with one of the portal disruption devices from Project: Bottleneck, which Maddox ID’s. After this seems to disrupt the ritual, a large box truck rolls up out front, and a Dr. Ellis (the team’s contact person, via Stevens), emerges to oversee the use of some sort of new ARES project: some kind of bug/tech merge that easily eliminates the other mixed bugs as they are chased out of the Black Wolf. ARES clears out, and the team follows, as the BL begins to re-establish a perimeter. Most of the shedim also survived, it seems, and the team knows they’ve only bought a little time- at least a quarter moon, at most a lunar cycle.

The good news is, Schmidt has 2 leads as to who the moles at STV may be, given the fact that two junior associates have been doing a lot of back and forth negotiating, seemingly on behalf of BL and Shedim interests. She wants them checked out to see if/how corrupted they are. The team also does some further experimentation on the Bloodblade, and Kinnie transfers the curse to himself as a test, with only a minimal use, to keep Maddox from taking massive damage every morning. They debate passing it off to Arleesh, but hold off for now. 6 Cyl receives a new 6WT card as a bonus from Sol, and the team examines it and discusses the prophecies again. Some on the team also get some exciting new gear through Sol’s connections to the Ex-Corporate Scientist lab.

Schmidt also wants them to look into an item called the Devil’s Seal, that can supposedly close off portals to metaplanes, and which all 3 factions badly want. The shedim may not be aware of it yet, but the insect mole at STV was looking into before his death. They decide to prioritize the moles, and start digging. One of the woman, Deirdre Green, seems to be a competitor of Schmidt’s within the firm, and likely is representing the shedim as clients, but doesn’t seem to have been compromised. Shane Berkwerth, on the other hand, seems to be fully controlled by the Black Lodge. He seems to have some resentment of his situation but is using encrypted burners to set meets in the woods near Langley, and the team knows the BL has heavily infiltrated the CIA, including it’s head.

They eventually manage to track Berkwerth to one of the meets, using a combo of physical, magic, and drone surveillance, and Holly takes him out afterwards, and grabs his comm, though unfortunately is spotted by a powerful spirit that accompanied whoever he met with. Ben Maddox splits off from the team since they didn’t find a shedim infiltrator for him to target, and returns to working with Loveland on her investigations- she warns the team that he’s getting pretty gung-ho about raiding one of the shedim bases to get some revenge.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, Prot0 has been running some prep missions for the big raid on the Wuxing Frequency factory in Canton, and has recruited and tried out some local talent. He liked a hobgoblin decker named Hotkey, but he was forced to flee HK due to his political agitating for a Mongolian goblinized state. Prot0 recommended that Hotkey head for DeeCee, as he knew the team needed a new decker. Hotkey links up with the crew and makes introductions, he’s also a Conservatory member to they regain access to that resource. In Ethiomalia, Jonny’s extensive rebuild continues.

Back in DeeCee HK helps hack Berkwerths comm, and finds some gnarly IC on there- he nearly gets fried, but gets some comms logs helping prove Berkwerth’s status as a double agent, linked up with the surveillance data the team got, which Schmidt says will be useful if she ever had to justify her actions. Schmidt also reports that Green spotted their surveillance attempts on her and has used it as leverage for an internal power play. In order to keep her position and make peace, Schmidt has had to arrange for Green to have use of the team for an unspecified future job.

They next turn their attention to the Devil’s Seal, and get some info from the Catholics, from 6C’s secret BL knowledge, from Tarantula/000 000 000, and from HK’s matrix digging. They find a list of a half dozen potential properties that it could have wound up at, if it is indeed in DC, and start checking them out. The eccentric billionaire who owned it had diverse interests and holdings so they spend the better part of a day cruising around town before finding the site, and also discover that one of the powerful shadow spirits that they freed by killing Bryson Church has set up a trap house in the blood dust barrens with a bunch of feral ghouls, to feed on misery. There is a still a bounty posted for the spirits, so they debate taking it out, but decide to hold off. They also see that there’s a bounty posted for Holly for her murder of Berkwerth- they don’t have a perfect image, but pixies are very rare in DC.

At the likely site of the Devil’s Seal, they find a strange astral phenomena, as promised: an aspected mana void. It seems to prevent summoning and unravel bindings of spirits. They make contact with a squatter community there, and meet it’s “representative”, a scarred pale man named Cairo, who refuses to confirm they have the Seal but also refuses to hand it over or let the team further into the bank vault they call home. The bank and other nearby businesses seem to be flourishing more so that the surrounding area, though not in a super conspicuous way, and the team does some digging. Apparently Cairo and some others in the community are known to be magic users with strange powers, and have good connections to some local runners. When Guy calls around, he gets ahold of that team, who seem to be hooders, and when HK analyzes their data trails, they seem to be watching the team at the moment. They have a funny exchange where the team agrees to leave, for now, being told by the the hooders that they’d prefer not to shed blood but feel compelled to defend their friends in the bank.

They puzzle it out a bit and do more research before contacting Cairo again, and confirm that he is indeed a free spirit, and it seems like he and some others of his kind who accidentally were set free by their binders bringing the unwittingly into the Devil’s Seal’s range have made a little community there, and seek to free other spirits in their same situation. They also look after the other drifters, runners, shopkeeps and whatnot who make up their community, with magical support and protection. The team makes a complex deal, after 6C and some others insist on not fucking this community over, to get the Seal to Arleesh, in exchange for protection of the community. They get Schmidt on board by having her act as the middleman for the deal- she is upset about not gaining the Seal for the firm, but having a connection to a great dragon and some powerful free spirits is also a win. Schmidt helps get the spirits legal ID’s in jurisdictions that recognize them as entities, and Arleesh makes them her emissaries locally. STV agrees to continue upkeep of the wards and whatnot that the spirits installed in the area as a “charitable venture” funded by a donation from Arleesh.

This increases Fargus Sol’s trust in the team enough that he finally connects them with Emily Llanfrechfa, the Welsh tarot seer who makes large oil paintings of the art on the cards based on her visions. He says that if the team has visual information they need to know from a card they haven’t encountered, he can share what she has seen, which may prove helpful. They also hear back from Loveland that the shedim are worried the BL is close to acquiring, or may have, another artifact called the Sable Blade, or the Sword of Serrin Sol, which supposedly can completely destroy spirits. They do some research and find some descriptive info. Schmidt tracks down an auction where a blade matching the description is being sold, and tells the team to get there asap and acquire it for the Firm- she fears this is why the BL was willing to cooperate with the shedim temporarily after the raid on the Black Wolf- they had an expectation of acquiring this weapon which could totally wreck shedim, seemingly. Schmidt also wants them to track down Camille Rivers, aka Agent X, who has gone missing.

Runners
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Six Cylinder
and introducing:
Holly Dazzle
and Glenn Blandly

6Cyl converses a bit more with Fargus Sol about his knowledge of strange magics, and learns some new techniques for modifying spells. The team makes a fish/algae tank with a hidden compartment to hide the Bloodblade in in the van, and make a cool quickdraw sheath for it. Kinnie and 6 Cyl finally make a few grav grenades too, and Kinnie makes arrangements with the Ex-Corp Scientists to get some more (putting them in touch with Fargus Sol to get use from his experimental magic and Tarot knowledge). Jonny gets a reminder that the Maria Mercurial show that he scored a surprise ticket to is happening that night, and takes OE with him as his +1.

Jonny goes early to hang at the parking lot tailgate, and gets roped into performing with some session musicians he knows from around town. The thrill of the crowd overcomes him, and he reveals himself as Jonny Silver, playing his biggest hit “Gun of Chrome, Heart of Gold”. The crowd loves it but the team gets really worried about the exposure. 6C warns Jonny that there’s an update to the contract against him on Hidden Blades, and OE races over with the van and some weapons to try to intervene.

Some Fear the Dark activists, upset about Frumious (the infected sasquatch who just rejoined Shield Wall, the opening act) and his tolerance and unity message, attack the crowd gathered around Jonny by unleashing feral ghouls. OE starts shooting them while the FTD members return fire, and Jonny steers the crowd away. Jonny crowd surfs to the van, grabs the bloodblade, and charges the ferals. He slays them with OE’s help, and the FTD members flee. Jonny finds that the Bloodblade heals his wounds as he does damage with it and is quite excited. He stashed it back in the van and OE takes off with the weapons before the cops show.

Jonny is ushered inside by event security (members of a local gang collective called the Triples), who thank him for saving the crowd and seem excited to meet the legendary rebel rocker in person. He gets a meeting with Maria and Shield Wall, and they chat a bit. He resists the urge to do a guest solo during Shield Wall’s set, but can’t resist during Maria Mercurial’s. He goes out for 1 ballad, and then again during the encore, despite the team’s warnings, and is shot with a white phospohrous arrow, presumably by Toast. He is then shot again with a monofil arrow while flaming. He manages to give the crowd a last thumbs up as he flatlines and is dragged offstage.

Fortunately, they had a mage onsite who revives him, but not before news goes wide of what happened. Prot0 cuts him off the TacNet and wipes his comm, just in case. The ganger security says they can smuggle him out of town if he wants to fake his own death. He looks really bad since so much of his synthskin melted, so they leak pics of his “corpse” and say they’ll deal with the cops. Jonny agrees, and calls Blitz to arrange some travel and surgery. He decides to decamp via ship for EthioMalia to get some surgical reconstruction in a relatively corp-free zone.

He decides not to tell the team or the lawfirm, fully faking his death this time, and the team mourns him, especially OE who enters a deep depression over not making Jonny leave with him. Guy reports it into the law firm, and Madeline says she’ll try to track them down a new face, and has another weird runner with some useful powers to test out in the meantime. Meanwhile, Jonny wakes up in a secret compartment on a ship with a medic he paid to ride with him, and finds that he is taking a lot of damage every day upon waking up- the medic can’t detect a poison so assumes it it magical in nature- a curse from the Bloodblade?

However, 6 Cyl wakes up and finds he is no longer taking damage every morning, so it seems the curse transfers to new bearers when they first heal from it. He warns the others and they debate what to do with the blade. For now, they decide to go train some of the newer teammates in their favorite small unit tactics down near Fredericksburg near the merc encampments. Aylin skips out (already knowing the SUT’s) to visit her dad and catch up. They meet in LA and give each other updates- her dad has embarked on dangerous quests both on the physical plane and in the astral planes, and warns Aylin about the Brotherhood of Flesh. Aylin tells him about her infection, and funds his medical care and next expedition. He gives her the box that caused her mom to become possessed by a blood shade, and she agrees to take care of it in case something happens to him.

The rest of the team meets up with Holly Dazzle, a pixie mage, who makes a very split impression on the group. Aylin makes fast friends, and a demo of Holly’s pickpocketing skills pulls OE out of his slump a bit. Kinnie’s a bit more on the fence, and 6Cyl and Guy are pretty put off by Holly’s insistence on total honesty, including their constant use of surface level mind reading. The team insists on only consensual mind-reading, which Holly agrees to, but considers strange given their upbringing in the Fey Realms. But they seem potentially useful, especially once they demo their combat spell abilities. So they train together and head back to town a few days later to continue their investigations.

There, they meet up with a strange elf, Glenn Blandly, who is apparently a corp drone by day and a thrillkill runner by night. He has 2 sapphire daggers and seems stoked to get into it with the team. He also seems really slick and charismatic, so they agree to test both him and Holly out on some future runs and report back to Schmidt. They look into Bryson Church a bit more and make plans to seek him out and try to get the dagger. For now, they decide to look into Arlington and the shedim population there for STV and Patricia Loveland.

They head over and scout it out astrally and with drones, and get some good info- it seems like the Army Thaumaturgical Corps is keeping a large astral barrier up, but that some shedim are allowed in and out, seemingly only to go into the Blood Dust Barrens. The cemetery is also under surveillance by FedPol (likely at the behest of the Black Lodge), and by some scrappy teens (likely bug cult recruits). They spot a bunch of potential entrances around the cemetery for the tunnel system they’ve heard rumored exists below. They positively ID 3 of them, but decide not to go further for the moment, fearing the background count and the unknown.

They also meet up with Ben Maddox who seems ready to rock and roll against his new enemies, the shedim. They report in to Loveland first, who trades info with them, and reports that Prot0 identified the Black Lodge mole in the ASPS here so she can operate a bit more safely now. They hook her and Maddox up and Maddox seems stoked to have a task, protecting her. They then report to the law firm and get the approval to continue digging or move on to other tasks. Schmidt suggests some ways forward if they want to proceed, and suggests that what they saw confirms that the Feds are using the shedim to clear the Barrens of bugs/toxins, and that this suggests they have some kind of protection deal with DoD or the administration.

6Cyl initiates with the Catholics, aiming to gain access to the Vigilia Evangelica’s secrets since he’s cut himself off from the BL. He learns some techniques of mystical control and also tries to convince them to be more accepting of vamps, but him and Aylin both have weird ideas of how to do that, so it doesn’t go well. Radha Ran agrees to an interview with the vampire though, which Aylin is stoked about. Holly makes a better impression on the team through this run, proving their worth (though still being a total weirdo). Jonny’s final single is released, and the team mourns in their own ways.

Aylin talks to the Catholics, and they agree to allow her on campus barring any disturbing discoveries about her, but still seem suspicious of vampires overall. They are also circumspect about the radical nature of the Boston Diocese during Lockdown, seeming a bit more aligned with Rome. Holly prepares an epic turkey feast, funded by Guy, and buys everyone personalized gifts for Black Friday, trying to ingratiate with the team. They do some research and pay for some hacking on Evelyn North and the missing Malcolm West, and figure out that the best time to spot North would be during a lunch meeting the next monday, so they focus on West for now.

Guy upgrades Berto again, and starts teaching him some new abilities. The team does a pretty bad job of checking out West’s known address, and gets spotted by the same cop who they had to bribe before outside of the Black Wolf. They agree to pay him off again, but decide to try to set up a more regular contact relationship, after 6 Cyl suggests either doing that or killing him. STV approves, so they get bribe the cop and get some useful info about West, who apparently had also previously bribed the cop not to report it. After doing some further digging, it looks like West was murdered by thrill kill gangers in the True Roman street gang, who “randomly targeted” him after being inspired to by Derrick Stokes or another of Otto Stevens’ henchmen. His body was then grabbed by a loose shedim, and it seems the shedim did not know what they had (at least initially), as they get surveillance footage of the newly possessed West lurching around with his portal key dangling from a necklace.

Schmidt wants the key, and also wants West, or at least to know where he is and what he knows now, so the team is back on the job. Luckily, they’ve finally paid down their Boston debts so they should be making better money from here on.

Runners
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Six Cylinder

Prot0 tells the team he’s gonna stick to a behind the scenes role for the time being, while he pulls data heists for STV and others to raise funds for the Wuxing Frequency raid. He continues doing research for the team’s mission and can send along sprites to hack when needed. He passes the drone controller and surveillance drones off to the them for now, and maintains security on the tacnet remotely. He reports that him and Patricia Loveland, along with Old Crow’s info, are looking into who the Black Lodge has inserted into the local ASPS branch, as well as determining a little bit about MCT’s recent acquisition of Apep Consortium: apparently a large impetus was Apep’s good relationship with shedim, which will allow MCT further metaplanar access and security. He also passes along an invitation to join the Exchange in thanks for sharing CFD cures, and the team agrees.

The team continues on the mission to hunt down Cameron Faulkner, the rival junior partner at STV, and find out who he’s been working with outside of the Firm. Using the contacts they made with some of his disgruntled former assistants, they ID his car and driver, and eventually spot him slipping out of STV. Guy tails him to a meet deeper downtown, at the Ares Logistics building, and Jonny spots him meeting Otto Stevens/Hendricks’ assistant before being ushered in. They set an ambush for his exit, and quickly take out both him and his driver. Jonny debuts the crystal bloodblade in action, and it is terrifyingly effective. It seems like it will heal injuries the bearer has by dealing damage.

They flee successfully, and report to Schmidt. She is worried about leaks, and assumes that since Ares (and thereby at least some of the bugs) had a spy, it’s likely that the Black Lodge and shedim have one or more each as well. She says she will begin an internal investigation (with Iain Decker and Jan St John assisting), while the team tries to spot any potential leaks from the outside, while they continue their investigations. 6 Cyl decides that it’s time to fake his death as well to escape Mr. Woods and the Black Lodge, and sets up a fake hit by Ancients, where Jonny and Aylin in disguise throw him off of a bridge, while Zuri Adamson waits underwater to smuggle him upriver, where Guy picks him up and takes him to the Probe’s surgical suite of the day, and Leanna Octave implants him with cyber-eyes and does some cosmetic alteration, making him into an elf poser, to throw off astral and visual tracking. He gets some tips in counter-surveillance form Schmidt, Jonny and others as well- changing his walk etc. He also ditches his signature duster, and mods his revolver.

While 6C is healing, Schmidt calls and says her suspicions about Faulkner seem correct- someone attacked and largely destroyed Bryson Church’s manor the previous night (after Faulkner’s meeting with Otto), which suggests it was either bugs, or Otto learned from the BL pulling one over on him and sicced the shedim on Church. Rumors suggest Church wasn’t killed, but Schmidt wants them to go look into it. They roll over and do some investigation. It looks like 2 heavy vans rolled up, and left quickly a little lighter, suggesting some casualties in the assault team. There are some destroyed rapid reponse sec drones scattered around the manor lawn, suggesting that the assaulters fled during the first response wave from external security. And astral space clearly shows use of magic and traces of shedim, answering that question, though strangely it seems that there were 3 shedim on 1 side of the brawl and a dozen on the other.

The team gets worried about internecine squabbles between Masters, but then remembers that Church was known to have a powerful item called the Dagger of Hivas Set in his possession, which he supposedly used to bind some spirits to his service. Perhaps these were the 3 shedim on the 1 side. 6C confirms that he has heard of this dagger within BL lore, and provides some description and ideas about it’s use and history. OE confirms that there’s a blood magic vibe near the center of the fighting, which seems to be the display room that Gabriel Ives described where the dagger was kept when Church was home. However, no sign of any combatants besides shedim remains, so they assume Church (and the dagger) escaped unharmed. OE also spots some kind of hermetic mage cleansing astral space of the traces of the fight, and ko’s or kills him before he can spot the rest of the team.

They report to Schmidt, confirming her suspicions and convincing her to double down on the mole hunt. She acknowledges that her and the team have become somewhat tied together and significantly decreases their debt to the Firm. They then get word that Bravo Company successfully extracted Fargus Sol from HeadHunter captivity in the MCZ in Boston, and are bringing him to DC before figuring out next steps. Guy upgrades the van interior, and they plan to use it as a mobile safehouse before finding a permanent spot elsewhere for Sol to lay low. The last contract Woods offered 6C was for capturing or killing Sol, so they warn Bravo about that as well.

They meet up in the fancy (and magically secured) parking lot for the 4 Seasons Skytouch tower, and make the swap from an unmarked Bravo Company sedan and plain-clothes HRT to the van with no trouble. Sol proves to be knowledgeable and voluble, happy to discuss Tarot and other mysteries. Aylin gives him an honest reading telling him not to trust them over himself, and he appreciates the honesty. They mindlink and swap a bunch of Tarot info, and he also gives them the last card in his possession- he says he is primarily interested in knowledge and the deck’s origins, rather than the profits to be made therein. He warns them about the dangers of items summoned with the deck, including the crystal bloodblade, but confirms that many other sets exist, and validates Aylin’s map theories. He says that he has a friend with a secure vault if they find any dangerous items they want kept safe. They agree to continue collaborating, though he seems invested in ensuring their relative morality before considering them “friends.”

He warns Aylin about the elf supremacists at the top of the Atlantean Foundation (though he says the org also does some good), but suggests she consider writing for a more freelance conspiracy rag, and puts her in touch with Ramona Cubbins at the All-Seeing Eye. He is also maybe the 2nd most powerful mage OE has ever seen, an offers to teach them invented spells from his personal grimoire if they stick together. OE calls up Imaginary Annie and arranges to trade some tarot info to her in exchange for her securing a safehouse and secure comms channel for Sol in Seattle. He also agrees to help her look into Prophecy 3, related to the Tower card. She tells them there’s always work in Seattle if they ever get out that way.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
and introducing: Six Cylinder

The team continues investigations for the law firm, contacting Sahara Jones to find out why she fed false info about bug hives to ARES. They help her get blackmail dirt to sway votes her Rep’s way, and then learn that she was magically compelled to do so. It traces back to shedim, and also tips them off to a possible BL hangout: the Black Wolf bar. They get Jones some Grey Mana clothes to protect her from future spells and she gives them a Tarot card in thanks.

Prot0 uploads all his info on the Null Sect and the Tan Robes to the Endless Archive, in exchange for info on both groups and some other stuff. However, the Archive comes under attack from the Null (though they don’t seem able to enter, it is now quite dangerous to access), and the Conservatory is crashed, and one of it’s founders killed. In light of this and the situation in Denver, Perri tells Prot0 he needs to find a new host, so he reaches out to Garmonbozia, and they agree in exchange for some tasks. Prot0 also joins Ta Makrinia through Leanna Octave of the Probe, and tells GB that TM would be easy to manipulate as they seek hidden God AI’s.

Next up, they finally find Patricia Loveland, and trade a ton of shedim info for promising help determine who the BL has infiltrated into the local ASPS. Based on her info, it seems like master shedim are gathering in DC much the same as Bug hives: worrying. They learn about the different types of shedim, and also the 3 main shedim locales in town: the Stoked Hearth club, Downtown, and Arlington Cemetery. They are also paying to amass “body stashes” around town. Zenith is hiring for these jobs, so the team warns him about shedim but he seems non-plussed.

Prot0 spits off to deal with Null-destroyed Conservatory, and gives the last doses of the CFD cure to the local Exchange to fight off the CFD-infected faction. It seems like the Exchange may have sicc’ed the Turing Army of some of the hardcases, as new that the TA took out an Exchange safehouse outside Hamburg and killed ThankYou starts circulating. Prot0 begins rebuilding the Conservatory in Garmonbozia, and starts making some interesting contacts there. He continues doing data jobs for the law firm as well, saving up for the run against the Wuxing Frequency factory in Canton.

The team stakes out the Black Wolf, accompanied by a Rogue Lodge member named 6 Cylinder, who seems like kind of a noob but the lawfirm wants the team to test him out. He seems bummed about having killed someone who challenged him in a gunfight earlier in the day. They do some magical observation, but get chased of by a crooked FedPol officer, who insists on a bribe. They then grab Johnny, after he meets with Cass Wandering Horse, and updates him on the Crying Masks situation. He says he’ll reach out to some folks and try to find out more about the Tan Robes for Jonny.

They do a better job infiltrating socially into the Black Wolf with Jonny along, and make contact with the bartender, a neo-Anarchist named Old Crow who is running his own investigation. They agree to share info, and learn that the enclosed side alley has a convergence of leylines and quarter-moon gatherings of BL members. They share lists of known BL members, and Old Crow says he’ll keep an eye out for the ones they’re looking for. They also get a lot of security info about the bar itself.

The team decides to fake an assassination order from 6C’s BL handler, and give the guy to the law firm, hoping he’ll provide some good info on the BL and the Black Wolf if they save his life. They set up a quality fake hit, with fake DocWagon gear, Slab, and everything. They pull it off, but notice Toast lurking nearby- seemingly Mr. Woods is worried about 6C’s wavering loyalty, though he seems to believe that he’s in the fold for now, and rewards him with a book of the secret history of the connections between BL and the Catholic Church.

Since OE has been training to fight spirits with the Catholics at Georgetown, this puts them a bit at odds, as 6C is very curious about their secrets and lies after reading the book, and seems worryingly interested in staying in touch with the BL to gain further knowledge. The law firm tells them to come in for a debrief with Gabriel Ives, the man they saved, when they have a chance. However, they’ve acquired a bunch of Tarot cards – 1 gifted to Prot0 after a Fractal rave with Garmonbozia members (also the Conservatory is finally back online), 2 from Cass Wandering Horse, related to the FBI task force looking into Group X (the team also gets some info), and they hear that there’s one more in possession of a Bright Star member in Anacostia, which will complete their crystal blade set.

They head out, and use their good Neo-A rep and connections with Ratched to get the card from a suave french elf named Midnight, who charms Jonny. Guy finds out about the artifact watch that Ratched inherited from Adelbern also, and tells Prot0 and Jonny, against Ratched’s wishes. Jonny uses his old ID and rep to pull one more expended card projector from the IOND in Denver, commiserating with Darien Black about PPJ. Using his old ID in this way makes him want to do more Jonny Silver stuff again. They head back to the safehouse and assemble the crystal blade set, summoning the Crystal Bloodblade. They all buy swords and Guy pays from some classes to learn to use them. They also mod the boat to have a smuggling compartment, and help STV extract the 2 surviving members of FBI task force 154 after 2 are killed by Group X.

They also call into Neon Ascension again, as one of the hosts got really into Tarot stuff, and is in hiding. They ask for info and provide a contact dropbox. The 2 hosts they talk to are killed shortly thereafter, but they get a buncha Tarot info from the surviving host, and find out that the Headhunters have a Tarot expert in their custody (if he’s still alive) and get another Tarot card hinting at his survival, when 6C gets a contract to recover or kill him from Mr. Woods. They make contact with Rifleman/Bravo Company and give them the tip about the expert, and he says they’ll look for him with 6C’s info and report back.

Aylin realizes the monolith/stone in the corner of 1 card looks suspiciously similar to the chunk of the Cornerstone that they helped Adelbern steal in Boston, and wonders if the other pictures depict other chunks or something else. Based on Fargus Sol also being depicted on the card, Aylin tips off Rifleman that Sol was likely in Boston recently, is now, or will be soon, to give him a lead where to seek the Headhunters. The team trains and experiments with the Bloodblade a bit, but doesn’t manage to figure out how it works, though it seems like a quality sword.

They decide to investigate the Telestrian card in order to potentially leverage some info about the Compensation Army, and end up preventing Alyse Depore from getting assassinated, unfortunately Aster Telestrian gets a bolt through the head from the troll assassin, 6Cyl manages to take out his getaway driver but he escapes. They Debrief Alyse, who seems not too bummed to be free of the abusive Aster, and gives them a little info, as well as another tarot card. She also calls in a chopper ride from Cara Villiers, and tells them that Cara will do them a favor sometime in thanks. Guy tries to make a friend, but Alyse leaves shortly for Seattle (though she seems to like Berto, after riding him around a while in his moto form).

The team then returns to STV and debriefs Schmidt on some tarot updates (she says that STV has successfully scooped up the 2 Task Force 154 survivors and is expanding their tarot knowledge thereby). They get a useful Q&A in with Gabriel Ives, who tells them all he know about the local Black Lodge in thanks for extracting him. They get useful info on a few jobs they’re working, and make some followup plans. Schmidt also wants them to deal with (in whatever fashion) a rival junior partner, so they start looking into him. They pass along the relevant BL info to Old Crow as promised, and he says he’s skipping town cause he’s worried the BL may be close to making him. He gives them another tarot card and tells them to seek out the Arcane 3 if they ever find themselves in Chicago.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

The team distributes the Null Doc (on paper) to 2 Minds, The Probe, Garmonbozia (in case they’re Boston operatives haven’t been able to get it out), and Master File (The Swamp mod), as well as reporting on the Turing Army connection. They find out that Leanna Octave (and perhaps other Probe-ers) appear to be Singularity Seekers, and view the Null and the rumored return of Deus in Boston as signs of the approaching event. They also get access to The Swamp (finally) and update Erika Knowles. Knowles tells them that she’s covered Guy’s tracks, but that he now has an Interpol Red Notice out for his arrest for shedim assistance (with his old, slightly different aura readings attached), so he should be especially cautious about international travel. She also reports that there is a new alliance between the Ordo Maximus and shedim forces in Prague- one drains bodies, and the other inhabits, so makes sense, but creepy.

The team decides to update their safehouse security and goes further into debt with STV to add some charged wards to protect against spirits. Guy buys a bird to throw through the ward to test if it will kill it, which doesn’t work, and gets everyone worried about his growing psycopathy. Aylin heads to West Virginia to train with some mercs and gain her first Horrorstalker ability, and Ratched heads out to help Equity and Bright Star in the Anacostia Barrens. Prot0 gets an update on the run he funded- the Hong Kong fixer Ratqueen reports that local runners traced the Wuxing production line around the Canton Confederation and found the unlisted offline factory in Guangzhou where the Frequency commlinks are made. Ratqueen also puts Prot0 in touch with a techno-tribe in HK called the Whampoa in case he wants to take more action against this dangerous device, and suggests that the device has put a dent in her (and other fixers’) income, since HK is a huge port and TM’s have traditionally been a big part of the runner scene. The rest of the team preps to raid the data vault, after going over the rest of their available jobs’ status.

OE scouts it out a bit more, and starts following the roving wagemage, hoping to find his home base to KO him before the mission, but gets spotted and then returns to find his body taken over by a shedim. He manages to expel the shedim, but not before it almost kills his body in revenge. Prot0 races his med-tank over and barely saves him in time (thanks TacNet!), and they delay the job another day, though they have good security recon done. They make a plan while Jonny plays another open mic- he’s attracting a local rep, but also some controversy now due to his embrace of 2 Minds, so there are some Purist protestors. He also makes contact anonymously with Ceol Productions to help get 2 Minds signed there, and hears that Blitz is looking for him, not believing his faked death any longer. The team also gets 2 Tarot cards, and does some digging, finding out some behind the scenes drama about the popular sitcom “Coffee Clutch” and getting another clue towards the crystal bloodblade.

They head back to the data vault the next night, timing their approach to the maximum downtime in the astral patrol (newly heightened since OE got spotted), and drop Kinnie on the roof with the Dustoff drone and some looper rounds. He takes out cameras as the team sneaks up under spirit concealment, and the KO the 2 guards and the barghest in the camera dead zone (which they know doesn’t have signal to the inside since the guards were using hand signals on camera to communicate) and then cover the KO’ed security with ghillie blankets equipped with jammers. Prot0 hacks the front door and they enter.

Another barghest smells Kinnie, who isn’t concealed, and lets loose a howl which paralyzes a few team members. They ’re able to pull it together enough to KO another guard patrol and kill the dog. They head through the rest of the facility as an alarm kicks in and the entrance locks down. Guy manages to manipulate concrete to drop out the vault door sealing the central core, and the team finds themselves heavily jammed. However, the final guards appear to be holed up in a security room so they leave them be and focus on the hack. Kinnie makes the terminal accessible, and Prot0 dives in with a sprite, figuring out how to interface with the decade-outdated system as he goes. Kinnie heads back up front to blow the door as gas begins to pour into the hallway the team is in. Guy lockpicks open the room into the coolant chamber with all the hard drives and summons an air spirit to keep the gas off Prot0 while he hacks.

Prot0 gets the data and tries to go back for more, but Guy sends his spirit in to wreck the equipment, so Prot0 flees the matrix and the gas, and the team makes a tight getaway just ahead of the FedPol cops showing up. They detour through the Barrens to loose astral and matrix pursuers, and pass the data off the STV. This gives them 3 more names to investigate: it seems some shedim operatives were using the data vault, and have ID’ed 2 local Black Lodge members, and are interested in another woman as well…

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

The team decides to deal with the Crying Mask assassination attempt first, and looks into it further. They make contact with Master File, the admin of a local shadow VPN, and trade some info for info on the target, as well as making plans to gain longterm access in the near future. MF also wants them to look into the Turing Army, as does The Probe technofetishist gang, who Kinnie and Prot0 go to for some surgery. Guy and Prot0 take Long Haul, and with OE and Jonny as backup, cruise around in the van watching for the convoy.

They day before Halloween, they spot it, get ahead of it, and spot the ambush setup ahead. They manage to clear a bunch of civilians out of the way surreptitiously, and Prot0, Aylin and Jonny collab on a quality press release and con blaming Ghostwalker for the attack., Prot0 hacks a ZDF badge on one of the attackers just for a second, and they flee the scene as a massive gunfight breaks out. The military seems to get the best of the runners, but an arrow hits a target in one of the armored cars (Toast?). However, the con seems to hold, and GW publicly gets the blame.

This leads to a lot of issues as GW retaliates against people mocking and threatening him, FedPol and military police get into a very public squabble, and the Crying Masks try to take credit and fail, but lose a safehouse and many members to GW’s wrath. The team then begins looking into the Compensation Army in the Anacostia Barrens on Ratched’s behalf (Equity is trying to make headway amongst their number with a leftist perspective), and finds that there is suspiciously well-supplied inner circle, who seem to have connections to a tumor spirit- Black Lodge affiliation perhaps!

The team buys a boat to have a sneaky way to investigate the CA further, and sets up a recon base on an island in the Anacostia river, inside the Barrens. They find a way in through an abandoned drainage tunnel from the factory (now the Old Republic CA HQ). They infiltrate the pipe, and Guy and Prot0 levitate up and sneak through an astral ward. Ratched finds the missing Equity member’s corpse. Prot0 hacks into the system through a camera up top, and gets some info: the top floor of the factory is sectioned off, with no surveillance, and the armory has better gear than most of the guards, including equipment similar to the Bone Ninja’s loadout. He also finds a delivery record showing regular resupplies but no payments, but who’s sending them is unclear.

They decide to leave and not push it further, but alert astral security after triggering the ward. A massive tumor spirit traps the team in the tunnel, and almost kills OE and Aylin. Luckily OE and Guy deal massive damage with spells and astral combat, and the spirit retreats to the astral to surveil the team and avoid disruption. They flee, killing 1 and knocking out 5 CA guards on the way. The hire the IOND to help them ditch the tumor spirit and not bring it to the safehouse. Guy sends Berto the car spirit to get Lys to also help.

The dead Equity member was also missing some organs, surgically-removed, which Prot0 spotted in jars. These are likely being used as hosts for more tumor spirits. They confirm this suspicion with Madeline Schmidt, who they sell the info too, after Ratched also reports into Equity and gets the OK. She also makes contact with the local Bright Star chapter, and convinces Equity to allow them to do some basic security work for them at least. Ratched agrees with Bullseye, the local Bright Star, that although they want to live in Equity’s world, it isn’t the one they live in right now and some nastier things sometimes need to be done to get there. Ratched is thinking about leaving the team and these look like some good options.

Lys and Berto show up at the IOND and chat with Guy, Lys is doing much better after getting clear of Boston. He agrees to distract the tumor spirirt while the team gets back to the safehouse to rest up. Aylin takes a few days to recover, while the rest of the team catches up on personal biz. They witness various protests and continuations of the drama they started by blaming GW, and get warned not to look into the archer assassin Toast too publicly due to his handlers being dangerous people. They hear about a concert by the monad synth-country artist(s) Two Minds, and decide to attend, hoping they can scope out some potential Turing Army supports amidst the protestors outside.

OE also does some recon for one of their jobs for STV- scouting a data vault that they need to hit. Looks like low astral security, but well-done. They head to the venue, a dingy roadside blues bar (the previous venue and opener having cancelled due to Purists protests), and make a security plan. Guy and Aylin take the dock and riverside, OE and Ratched take the front entry and parking lot, Prot0 and Kinnie do overwatch from the roof, and Jonny works inside. He also talks his way into an opening slot, semi-on purpose. They eventually spot some TA goons amidst the Purists protestors using a laser designator on the venue, and Guy manages to blow a drone missile out of the sky with an impressive lightning bolt.

The detonation scares off most of the protestors, but Guy manages to capture the rigger missile launcher with an air spirit, and OE and Ratched grab one of the ones up top (though Ratched becomes heavily meme’d and has to change her look significantly). They call into their local Garmonbozia contact, who requests they get some info from the 2 captures and suggests working with The Probe to do so. The team also reports that Aylin read one of the minds of a goon who got away and knows where their safehouse is, and Prot0 reports this. He is is then sent a live feed from a drone missile as it annihilates an apartment just as 2 men walk in fresh from the protests- 1 goon they recognize and 1 they didn’t spot.

They take the 2 captured TA goons to the location provided by The Probe, which turns out to be a medical industry crematorium just south of Bethesda. Leanna Octave awaits them, and says she has prepped various options for them. They decide to use gamma scopolamine combined with Aylin’s mind probe, not wanting to become the monsters they are fighting in resorting to torture. They find out that the recent resurgence of the TA is largely due to them getting matrix support from the Null Sect (though the TA doesn’t seem to know who or what exactly they have made a deal with…). This is disturbing, and the team tries to warn those they can, printing off some more paper copies of the Null Doc to distribute.

Prot0 also pays Guy to start going to therapy, and finds a good, expensive, and VERY discrete therapist to hire. It seems to be helping. Some of the rest of the team wonder why Prot0 isn’t one of the ones seeking some assistance…

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

The team reports back to STV, gets paid, and gives the after action report. Madeline Schmidt gives them their review (kill less teens, be more subtle, good job otherwise basically) and tells them about some followup opportunities: digging into Sahara Jones, following a Shedim expert named Patricia Loveland, and looking further into Otto Stevens’ connections at a lobbyists gala. They decide to do the gala first, as it’s the only scheduled one.

First though, they decide to follow up on the link in Kinnie’s comm, and head to the Dark Side club (which seems to have either relocated or have a DeeCee branch as well), and catch a limo ride over by clicking the icon. They are attacked by some sort of tumor adept, who infects Aylin and Prot0 after Aylin slices him in half with their whip and he bursts all over them. They cut the regrowing tumor tissue out before it can take hold, but are creeped out- is this connected to the cancer spirit that followed OE before?

They head into the club through the magical door-guard, and are told they each get one wish. They also drink and dance. OE gets some on the-DL quality implants, Aylin gets a tarot card, Prot0 gets Kaze Adeki’s private commcode, Guy gets a strange scroll wrapped around an orichalcum rod to help with his astral quest, Jonny learns to play Seelie Court style microtonal music and adapts his guitar, & Kinnie gets tickets and a box for game 6 of the World Series. Kinnie leaves early and is surprised when his friends don’t return for 2 days, though they thought they were only there for an evening.

They race to get ready for the gala, and prep their disguises, fake ID’s, and plan. They roll over, using their arms dealer/lobbyist fake ID’s, and implement the plan- Prot0 and Aylin (in mist form in a briefcase) sneak off from the main group to find the ops center to hack the secure comms node for the event. The rest of the team starts making careful observation of who seems likely to be comm-ing at the same time so they can figure out who’s secretly talking to each other. Jonny also makes an introduction with Sahara Jones to follow up further.

Aylin mists into the ops center after they dodge some guards and plants a data tap. Prot0 hacks the comms log and gets the info but then gets chased off by some guards and has to hide in a bathroom to finish up while Aylin exfiltrates in mist form. The rest of the team eventually makes their exit and they escape. The law firm thanks them for the data, and notes that as an added bonus they’ve ID’ed a data vault they’d like the team to hit as well. The team also gets some sidework offers from Cass Wandering Horse (look into local Crying Masks activities, and looking into the Turing Army and the Exchange for Garmonbozia.

They look into CM activities a bit first, and find out that they’re hiring multiple amoral runner teams locally to assassinate a DoD official named Ronald Despain, known as “Dragonslayer” for doing exactly that. They bribe Zenith for some info, but he won’t give them specifics due to professional pride. Prot0 also passes off the Null Sect document in paper form to Ladybug from the Nexus, as well as receiving delivery of the Wuxing Frequency comm he hired runners to steal. He unwisely turns it out and sees that it’s being tracked, and advises the team to leave the bar. They all saw that PepperJack died in ep 2 of Temple of Terror on the trid but are unable to stay for a commemorative drink due to worrying about what might be coming down.

They return to the safehouse and Prot0 tries to hack the comm but gets ko’ed by the massive sprite he tries to compile and has to get some cyber-organ replacements to survive. He gives up for now. Zenith and OE both report spotting some corpsec looking goons looking around where the comm has been but they don’t seem to have an exact location, so they hope they’re safe for now. Erika Knowles reports back after the team investigates the potential bug hive that Stokes knew the location of, and reports that it is indeed bugs. Knowles reported it to Anne Ravenheart, who told Sticks about it. The team finds Reconstruction footage of someone in an armored chemsuit raiding the church in the Blood Dust Barrens with a FAB-III thrower while some local ghouls run security for him (presumably immune to the Blood Dust, though not the FAB).

This leaves a fovae behind, but the BD barrens are already pretty fucked, so everyone just decides to stay away. Knowles also warns the team about a FedPol investigation into Guy, and says that she made contact with the Ex-Corporate Scientists and has access to their experimental lab if the team needs anything. Kinnie is excited and starts ordering bits to fiddle with. Jonny plays some open mics and starts building a rep for his new weird music under his new SIN. Aylin and Guy try to go to the metaplanes for Guy’s astral quest, Aylin gets past the Dweller but Guy does not (he can’t confront his core trauma honestly).

Aylin gets to the astral crossroads city of Penn Yan on the plane of man, and finds that STV, The Continental, and Tru-13/MCT all have offices there. MCT seems to be buying harvested materials from other planes. Aylin goes into the STV branch and tries to figure out where Guy is , or his spirit lawyer. They can’t help much, but Aylin does hire a beast spirit tracker named Yellowbone to try to find what happened to her mom. Meanwhile, Jonny and Prot0 encourage Guy to just make contact with his spirit lawyer from the material plane.

He does- Bartholomew Barkins shows up, summoned by the burning of an incense containing his true name. Barkins and Guy chat, and Guy finds out that the scroll he got at Dark Side is a contract with a shedim warlord to provide his car spirit’s true name in exchange for getting to use Guy’s body for 1 8-hour period of sleep. Guy instantly agrees. Barkins facilitates the signing and tries to encourage Guy to talk about his experience with the Dweller, but he won’t.

Guy returns to the team, and fills them in. He flies to Paris, has a nice day, and the goes to sleep. He wakes up in Prague with a lot less money, and flies home. Aylin reads his memory, and sees what the shedim did- withdrew funds onto credsticks at a United Bank of Panama branch, purchases a bunch of arms and armor in some woods, trades the guns for some bodies in Prague, and summons shedim to inhabit them. They wear the armor and head out, as the possessor gets to a train station just before Guy gains control. Disturbing, but Guy seems fine overall, though a little shedim-tainted.

He bonds with his ally car spirit, and gains a new connection. Aylin hears back from Yellowbone, and finds out her mom was possessed by a blood shade. Aylin confronts her father about this, and finds out that he has been trying to find a way to bring her back and failing, and didn’t want to tell Aylin because blood shades love to feast on people genetically related to them, and he worried for her safety. Aylin and her dad make peace and agree to keep looking.

RUNNERS
PepperJack

Meanwhile, PPJ has awoken to find himself inside the crystal island, seemingly reshaping itself at will to host the 3rd annual Taco Temple: Temple of Terror competition. There are 36 contenders, down to 35 at the first meeting after a Knights of the Red Branch member tries to strangle and Ancient and is impaled by crystal. The group splits into 6 teams (1 5-person, the rest 6). Everyone is allowed one single item of their choosing. The first test begins: each team enters it’s own door off the meeting room, and finds a central chamber with 5 halls leading off, variously traversible.

It takes different teams different amounts of time, but they all eventually realize that only 5 people of the 6 are leaving, and leave 1 member behind (except for the team with a Centurion, who refuses to believe a sacrifice is necessary and stays behind to look for the 6th way out, and the 5 person team who seems confused by the other teams’ stress). There is a sign telling them to say a series of short phonetic phrases for a language they don’t recognize as they leave. One contestant tries to race through a door without saying the phrase and is speared by crystal. They return to the central chamber and have time to heal and socialize, as well as get a second single item for the second test.

This one puts the teams into pairs of doors, adjacent to another team. There are only four corridors, but some of the teams figure out that they can access the adjacent teams’ chamber and use their exits as well if they eliminate or incapacitate some of that team. So 8 exits total for 10 team members. Unfortunately, PPJ is gunned down and abandoned by his team during this test. Thus culled, the teams return to heal and socialize further, now with some bad blood. Beware of the example on the first day, noone tries anything in the central chamber though.

The next test splits the teams again- there are 3 passages, 2 descending, 1 ascending, each guarded by a cloaked gene-modded basilisk. Some teams work together, some go their own way, but most teams end up fighting the basilisks, remembering some hints from mythology, or bypassing them (though this requires the sacrifice of an appendage to exit). They return to the central chamber and find a few extra people missing. They heal, missing limbs are replaced with cyber, and they prepare for the 4th test, each getting a new item again.

This time it’s a free for all brawl, with only 12 exits for 18 contenders. Some race for the exits, some teams try to work together, some gun others down. The exits seem to activate as contestants are eliminated, but the center of the arena is a bloodbath, and only 10 contestants make it out. As the exit, they are required to recall and recite some strange phrases they’ve been prompted to speak as the passed each previous door. The teams split into pairs based on who survived (only 5 teams remain) for the fifth test.

The teams, 1 at a time, enter a small chamber with a single exit. Most of the teams decide this is it, and race to draw down on their erstwhile friend faster than the other can. However, one team refuses to fight, and both exit successfully. 6 contestants remain for the final test. They all get 1 more item, and a lifetime supply of Taco Temple (limited to 1 meal per day). They find themselves in the midst of a completely smooth crystal floor with 6 lit alcoves along the outside. One contestant races out of the center and chucks a grav-grenade back into the middle.

Most of the other scatter, but 2 remain. 1 of them, a Mystic Crusader, uses his launch skyward to scout the terrain and gun down enemies, taking out the grenade thrower, a Wicked parkourier, and a Roxxx ganger who had all made it this far. A sneaky CFD dwarf makes it to an alcove, and finds a huge platter of tacos, and eats them as quickly as possible, and starts sneaking back to the center, feeling a pull that direction in their belly. The powerful mage Cigam also reaches an alcove and wolfs the tacos, but is spotted by the Mystic Crusader on exit and gunned down.

The MC makes it to an alcove, but is trapped inside after the sneaky dwarf successfully returns to the center and is lowered through the floor. The MC tries to eat but the small chamber fills with tacos and it seems utterly hopeless. The dwarf JT is announced as the winner, earning the million nuyen prize and transport out of Boston! The rest of the contestants are thanked for their participation, and “sent home”, though no reports of them actually being seen are accessible (but hey, it’s Boston so who knows…)

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

The team spends some time tracking down Agent X, following hints to a local runner named Wandering Horse. Him and Jonny have a tense meeting, while OE notices in astral that WH is well-defended by air spirits in case anything goes awry. However, he seems happy to part with his info, once they prove they are “friends” of Maddox’s and not seeking Agent X to harm her. They get some ID info and background- she’s some kind of government hacker who’s gone rogue recently, Firewatch and others are looking for her and there is a bounty out.

Aylin also calls in to the Neon Ascension conspiracy podcast and crafts a subtle hint to try to get Agent X to a meeting, based on the personal info they discover. The shedim keep hassling Prot0 for more info, so he calls STV and asks them to negotiate on the team’s behalf, figuring they can make a better choice of what info to share (or not). Aylin goes solo to the meet, but has the team on standby nearby in case of emergency. Agent X sends a drone but agrees to cooperate, seemingly excited that the team is looking into some of the same things as her.

She warns of a congregation of powerful insect spirits in DC and some sort of unification of the different hives. She has ID’ed 2 prominent figures involved, the sleazy elf Stokes and someone else she merely calls “ARES man.” The team decides to track Stokes down by surveilling the shelter the two teens they killed were from, and also agree to keep an eye out for 2 more missing teens that Agent X/Camille Rivers seems attached to.

They scout the shelter a bit, but don’t see any signs, so they hack into an internal comms log and find records that some employees were concerned about a sleazy elf hanging around nearby and approaching kids as they leave. So the team follows some kids leaving on foot, and spots them entering a dilapidated building (& meeting Stokes?) a short distance away. Jonny tries to sneak around the side but gets spotted by Stokes, who invisibly KO’s him with manabolts, proving to be a reasonably powerful mage. Guy, hanging back, spots some FedPol detectives roll up to the school in an unmarked car, it seems the cops are on this too…

Ptor0 tracks the fleeing Stokes with his drone swarm whilehe & Aylin chase on foot, and OE keeps an eye in astral. Kinnie approaches Jonny to see what he can do and finds that Stokes trapped the body with Jonny’s own foam explosive. Him and Guy manage to verrrrry carefully shape concrete under Jonny while cutting him out of his clothes and lift him off the foam explosive without detonating it, and they bring the van around to where the others have caught up to Stokes. Aylin cuts off one of his legs with the monofil, but he shoots her with a sawed-off in response, so Prot0 KO’s him with Stick’n’Shock. Aylin quickly reads his mind and finds out what he’s been up to.

He was sent to DeeCee to lay some groundwork for a man named Otto Stevens, who is “Ares Man”. Stokes wants to become an insect shaman, and it seems Stevens has been leading him along with promises that he can make this happen (whether or not he actually can). Stokes has been kidnapping and recruiting from various at-risk communities around the sprawl to make friends of all the local insect hives, in preparation for what, he doesn’t know. The team, disgusted by this slimy elf, kills him and sells the remains to a ghoul-run meat shop in Potomac called “Special’s Meats” that they are referred to by STV.

Next, they rest and heal and then research Stevens, who also used to go by Hendricks, it seems. He seems to either be a double or triple agent, working with Ares against bugs, or with bugs against Ares from the inside. They set up a meet, and find that he has an impressive office with a commanding view of downtown. He and Jonny have an intense and somewhat intimidating convo where Stevens claims to be a deep cover Ares operative using his knowledge of and connection to bug hives to turn them against the Black Lodge and Shedim in DeeCee (as well as each other) before destroying them. He offers up his own explanations for the Ford’s Theater debacle, and hints that there is a powerful magical shadow war on the brink of kicking off in DC, so he encourages the team to tell their employers to dig further if they want to maintain the peace.

He gives them one name, a woman he says is responsible for the bad tip about the Ford’s Theater: Sahara Jones. The team prepares to report back to STV, get paid, and see if they want to hire them to keep digging.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Ratched

The team, while healing up at STV’s offices, sells all the varied data they’ve accumulated from the ECSE, as well as some stuff they’ve compiled from the larger Boston area over their stay. They sell Smedley deets on ECSE facility defense and layout, Erika Knowles gets Null Sect info (and an offer to smuggle her out which she accepts, returning the team a bit to her good graces), Prot0 also arranges to meet a Nexus courier in DeeCee in 2 weeks to pass along the info as well (as it wouldn’t be safe online), Jackpoint and Nexus TM’s and hackers pony up to buy the foundation creation/100 data and keep it out of corp hands (for now), they sell Mayor Meghan the MCT torture and experiments info for her to use as a bargaining chip, they pass along the result of the MCT torture to Nexus with the understanding that noone should profit off of that, but that if the info is erased someone will likely do it again, EVO gets the p-soft training CFD “cure” data, SK gets the Project Abyss and PAX info (and quickly Thor strikes an AZT black lab on the 128 corridor), and the team decides to hold onto their info about Lilith for now while they do more digging. Prot0 puts out some tentative feelers on that.

For all of this, they each take home over half a mil and leave a sizable chunk in their team fund and drone repair/replacement fund. They stock up on gear, ammo, etc, and both Kinnie and Jonny fake their own deaths, with a lot more people noticing Jonny doing so (tributes begin pouring in, though the corps consider it another terrorist down). STV gets them all a few new ID’s (plenty of opportunity in Boston), and they don’t tell many people where they’re going. They arrange to smuggle all their forbidden/restricted and obvious gear in a shipping container via the Yakuza to the massive Potomac Yards facility in DC, which is Yakuza controlled. They also pack Liam’s motorcycle and Erika Knowles in there, and arrange to bring Lys with them on the flight out. They introduce Genowefa Gale to Mama, Gale handles the surprise well and begins negotiating to represent the interests of Mama’s Boys during reconstruction, as well as linking up STV’s basement levels to the Catacombs.

With all that business attended to, they finish healing up, put on their “civilian” clothes/armor, and catch a corp chopper out of the QZ from the STV office. They transfer to a regional commuter jet at a merc airfield, and find a bunch of off-duty mercs, engineers, political aides etc aboard for the short hop to DC. They land at Baltimore-Washington Int’l (the least secure airport given KE/Ares making steps towards relocating to Atlanta and in a contract squabble with the Feds), and spend the better part of a day rejoicing in their return to civilization- they get sloppy drunk at the airport bar, spend way too much money on steaks, peruse some cheesy Boston mourning merch, and do a little local research. Kinnie finds out that his husband did make it out, but after 2 years of waiting for any word has moved on, and is now with another Boston survivor he met in a grief group. Kinnie decides this is for the best, as he’s not sure what he’s become or if he would want his husband to see/know him as he is now.

They eventually rally to take the train into town and get into their STV safehouse and pick up their STV van. Aylin gets her first exposure to sunlight since becoming infected and it is awful. They’re glad to have a UV protected full body suit but it still hurts and feels like heavy pressure bearing down on her. They get in to the safehouse and crash. The next day, OE and Guy make runs out to the port to get their gear back to the safehouse, while Kinnie guards the safehouse and gear once delivered. It takes 3 trips but goes smoothly, with OE covering for Guy’s social ineptitude- they’re really not in Boston anymore, noone knows Guy! The rest of the team goes to the meet, Aylin and Prot0 makes minor fools of themselves over a coffee machine but Jonny uses this as a feature- his team is so good at their specialties that they don’t need to all be good at the social side.

They get the rundown: some kind of explosion or other major event occurred 2 days ago at Ford’s Theater, and STV wants details. The team starts digging and finds out that the Theater has been under construction for a long time, seemingly as a front for some sort of odd magic or cult, that it came under attack from some milspec forces wearing Ares Bug Stomper armor, that the FedPol investigation into what happened appears to have stopped almost before it started, that FedPol is still guarding the site, that a massive mana void surrounds it (as if a tunnel in the astral had collapsed), that someone cut local camera feeds before the attack, that a vanm dumpster, 2 suits of armor (+ maybe occupants), and various weapons were burned with thermite out back, that over a dozen people died inside, and that their looks to have been a gate or portal of some kind in the basement, based on the hermetic/Masonic symbols that remain after whatever was detonated here went off. They also detect that a delivery drone flew through the no camera zone during the attack, and decide to track it down. And they notice they are being watched- Madeline Schmidt warned there would be other interested parties…

They send a drone recording of an unidentifiable odor to STV to run through their data vault, and get a report back that it is a compound found most often on the metaplane of ID- so that’s likely where they portal lead. Schmidt tells them to keep digging. They track down the drone courier, and Prot0 geeks out over his custom tech. They end up social manipulating him for the data, convincing him it’s too dangerous for him to even watch, let alone keep, and that they will try to warn others off him. Outside, OE sees that there is now another group following them; as opposed to the first pair who were decked out in camo cloaks, these 2 seem like ratty street teens, but have a slightly skittering astral vibe. Analyzing the drone data they see 2 figures in Bug Stompers leave the theater, one kills the other, and burns the body as well as his own gear in the van and dumpster. The drone gets bad image of him in the bright flare of light- muscled male ork. It also spots a Ford Americar parked nearby and gets the plate.

Prot0 hacks some traffic cams nearby to get into a license registry and finds the name and a photo of the car’s owner- a muscled ork with a military haircut. Time to track him down! They contact Erika Knowles to get info given the possible Ares/Firewatch connection, and then decide to deal with the folks tailing them. They set up an ambush at the edge of the Anacostia Barrens, but only the teens fall for it- the more pro pair tracks them with a blimp drone. They kill one of the teens and ko the other, Aylin reads her mind and tops up on essence before they kill her too. There is a lot of debate about that morality of these actions, but OE’s paranoia (and quick trigger finger) as well as Jonny’s burgeoning cyberpsychosis take the day, for now. They find out that the teens were recruited from a local shelter by a slimy/charismatic elf shaman, who they take to be a bug guy. He was using some sort of group perception spell to see what the teens saw, so he presumably knows some of what went on here.

Guy sends an air spirit up to distract the blimp while the team skedaddles, and they ditch pursuit in time to make some next plans. Prot0 gets a message from someone suggesting that they should share info, and they hear on the local news that there is footage of 2 local teens being killed in an ambush. However, it’s only infrared so not identifiable. The mysterious caller suggests that Jonny cooperate if he doesn’t want the teams ID’s and images getting leaked, and Prot0 tries to reverse hack on the call while Jonny stalls. They caller isn’t interested in his chat, so Jonny agrees to share the drone footage (since they figure they already have a little bit of a headstart there) in exchange for some other info on the bug kids and not releasing their info.

They send the file over, and head north to get the supposedly sole copy of the incriminating images from a courier drone. Prot0 has backtraced the call to a nearby mortuary, and they investigate a bit, finding that all the plants on site are fake, and that there is a faint shedim vibe in the astral but nothing current. They figure a shedim must have possessed one of the corpses inside to make the call and then bailed. Jonny reports into Madeline Schmidt with a progress update, and she says she’s looking forward to the full debriefing. They also hear from Erika Knowles that the FW Ork, Ben Maddox, made contact with an ex-colleague (one of her fellow rebel FW members) and wants to defect (which could be a trap). He’s also known to have a local friend with benefits. They get her name, and call her, suggesting that she should really have her friend call them if she doesn’t want bad things to happen to both of them.

Jonny convinces Maddox to meet up, telling him that they can get him to safety with the rogue FW faction, and they start setting it up with Knowles. She tells them to get him to a secure dropoff at the Draco Foundation HQ and she’ll take it from there. Maddox says he’ll give them the info he wants, but only after he’s safe. He seems paranoid but honest. They arrange to meet on Georgetown campus, feeling that Catholic mages will likely be able to keep the shedim and bugs at bay (hopefully). Guy magically alters the van appearance, while Prot0 conceals them in the matrix. They also use another air spirit with concealment to hide them. Meanwhile, Aylin and OE take the spirit bike and ride around to attract attention and act as both backup and a distraction. OE spots a shedim in astral near the campus, goes to fight it, and is quickly ko’ed. Fearing possession, Aylin races him onto campus and dumps him there, fleeing with the bike as sec drones briefly follow.

Jonny coaxes Maddox (with a bomb vest) into the van, and they carefully drive over to DF HQ without any issues, and pass Maddox off to the rogue FW team there, they exchange the proper passcodes which seems to reassure him. He tells them he stashed a comm with all the info near a market in Kansai Village. OE wakes up on campus to find 2 priests leaned over him, they declare him free from possession but make him pay a fine. After he explains about the shedim thing they try to convert/recruit him, which he rejects. He links up with Aylin, and they head to the market and into the cafe there to get the comm. Aylin spots a terrifying cancer spirit observing/tailing OE n astral, and attacks it, disrupting it before it can see him grab the comm from it’s hiding place.

They sneak back to the safehouse, splitting up again in case of spirits, and examine the data. Apparently Ares has developed some sort of explosive “device” that can disrupt magical portals/astral connections, and their FW teams have been using it to disrupt bug hives globally. Maddox’s team was the North American group, and had recently been ordered to DC. This was their first local gig, and seems to have been based on bad info, or an intentional setup- no bugs onsite, and Maddox was ordered to make sure he was the lone survivor, which he did, but felt awful about. However, when Ares hitmen plus the bug shaman Stokes who the team saw in the teens’ memories tried to kill him at the debrief, he went underground, his loyalty to the corp finally broken. They also get useful project/ops data on a few different Ares secret programs, as well as a hint at where to look next- a local shadowcast called Neon Ascension, and a recent caller named “Agent X.”

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Ratched

The team spends a couple days prepping for the ECSE raid, while Pancake and Adelbern keep an eye on T1’s, who is setting up to go in as well, as the merc forces have reached their former safehouse at Boston Manatech. Guy and Kinnie prepare an escape tunnel, with Guy shaping concrete up to the underside of the secure ECSE facility from Mama’s turf, while Kinnie guides him with radar. They cut into the metal shell around the facility with a thermite bar, but not all the way through, to avoid setting off any sensor alerts, and then Guy seals up the tunnel end to prevent any random discoveries,

The team smuggles stuff into downtown and stages in an open conference room at Stark, Thiessen, and Van der Mar, with an agreement not to bring any heat on them. They sell the CFD gun specs to Aaron Creech at EVO in exchange for some Monad CFD doses, which Adelbern uses to poison 2 members of T1’s team, hopefully comromising them, Erika Knowles is pissed when she finds out and cuts contact with most of the team, though Aylin wants to make it up.

Aylin trains with Ghostwalker’s drake advisors to learn the early stages of becoming a Horrorstalker, though Mama seems to think that this is a riskier path than the Lightbearer/Bringer’s that the Horrorstalker’s look down on. Jonny makes some last calls and he and Prot0 both set up some dead man’s triggers for various sensitive info. They get the word that it’s go time, and head over. Pancake warns them about a sniper but says he’s distracting him in the matrix and the CFD infection seems to be taking over. The team heads into the facility a few minutes after the cybermercs, and Ratched and Adelbern stay up top to keep an exit open as long as possible and distract any reinforcements.

The team finds a dead cybermerc inside, but all the drone and trap security on the ground floor has been disabled. The mercs seem to be using a ton of breaching shields as well as overwhelming force to hit the Zero Zone fast and hard. The team follows, sealing shafts and entries behind them and laying traps for any who follow. They clear the security levels, only having to do minimal trap bypass and finding all defenders either dead or fled. They get into a fight with one cyber-merc on the first lab level and lose their scout drone, but get a bunch of paydata about MCT’s experiments on TM’s/cranial shields, cyberadepts, etc.

They get down to the next lab level and find the cybermercs brawling full on with MCT forces. The team takes this chance to attack the mercs from the rear. This allowed two MCT mages to escape and seal the shaft down behind them, but the team defeats the mercs, though they suffer heavy injuries and almost lose the big drone, Guy is barely able to save it magically. OverEasy also defeats a shedim that followed T1’s team in. They find more info about MCT research programs into the CyTech program and other cyber/Resonance experimentation, as well as security critters.

They break their way down into the next level and find the defenders making their last stand. After a brutal fight, 1/2 the team is dying and all the drones besides the medic drone are down, but the team emerges victorious. They find a bunch of data on the Null, their beliefs, and MCT’s attempted cooperation with them, as well as some thoughts to the Null’s role in spreading CFD (through scaring e-life offline). They gain access to the lowest level using the defenders’ leaders biometrics (he believed himself to be Kaze Adeki’s son but was actually a clone), and also find that MCT had locked down the facility and final level due to paranoia about Project Orion infiltration (Dawkins CFD ghostriders), as well as the return of PAX, who appears to have infiltrated this lab pre-Lockdown as well as Project Vulcan, putting her front and center for the outbreak once again.

In the final lab, they bypass a ton of traps using all the corpses from the fights above, as they hear explosions of some sort of reinforcements coming closer. They discover the 100- Danielle de la Mar’s dirty little secret, the technomancer gestalt dream/nightmare that formed the Foundation, as well as possibly creating or connecting to the Null. They also find out that De la Mar was inspired by the strange semi-matrix of the Seelie Court, and that there are hints to 4th World “technomancers” who worshipped a Passion called “The Seed”, and that more clues and hidden mysteries could perhaps be found in the Fey Realms, which De la Mar plans to visit. This and the Null data seem to fully vindicate Prot0’s belief that magic and Resonance are inherently connected, and he can’t wait to escape and write his paper. He also gets a strong feeling of approval from the archivist.

The team also finds a facility-wide EMP device that PAX seems to have disabled that otherwise could have wiped all the date. They use Kinnie’s near-dead body with Prot0’s comm access to radar scan and look for their prepped exit, and Guy shapes their way out, as everyone except Overeasy passes out from drugs and injuries. Most of the team only survives through some sort of miraculous luck.

Meanwhile, Ratched and Adelbern talk the spirit into transferring over to Adelbern’s fancy bike, and Ratched rigs up a car bomb, and blows a corpsec APC that shows up. They chuck grenades at another one as they race off, but Adelbern gets hit by some return fire, and knowing he’s done for, jumps off the bike to make sure Ratched escapes, after giving Ratched his watch. Pancake helps Ratched get clear and bids him well. Ratched reaches the rendesvouz in the Catacombs and sends OE to fetch some Mama’s Boys while he stabilizes everyone else.

They successfully keep anyone from bleeding out and get smuggled back to the law firm to process and sell the data while they get their new ID’s and flights out figured out. They spend a few days healing up and making ready to leave Boston.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy
Ratched

Ratched rejoins the team, finally out of the hospital from the safehouse getting burned. The team bribes their way into the MCZ past Trip-D border guards, with Prot0 debuting his new drone fleet- a steel lynx with a Valkyrie module, plus a replacement Prot0-drone medic and a well-armored bumblebee. Trip D suggests that unless they come back with some real good salvage they will be unlikely to get back out, however. They decide to establish a safehouse at Kinnie’s old MIT&T lab space, and head that way. They manage to secure it and get some power working to keep their crazy-repeller running while they go out questing.

They decide to tackle OE’s job first, and find out what happened to all the Fomorians who got “recruited” into that Manadyne study. They find the Manadyne office with no trouble, but notice they’re being stalked by a pack of Fenrir wolves. They spot to corpses on the roof, 1 Formorian and 1 possible human or elf. They seem to have double suicided after being trapped by wolves, based on a scrawled note. Jonny and Prot0 + drones stay in the first floor/lobby while the rest of the team rappels down a secret shaft into the lab.

They investigate and determine that the Fomorians were likely being kept here at least semi-involuntarily, and they staged a breakout attempt sometime about a year into the lockdown. However, they tried to escape through the steam tunnels, and some infected critters got in, leading to a massive gunfight between Fomorians, wolves, lab dogs, scientists, and security, ending in everyone dying and some kind of “cleasing” of the lab data. Luckily they recover some headware from one of the techs and some paper records to review.

Jonny and Prot0 come under attack by wolves up top, and the rest of the team decides to take the tunnels back to safehouse, but gets turned around and surrounded. Both groups manage to fight their ways back to the safehouse, but both Prot0 and Guy have to use their doses of Reversers after being bit. However, they make it back and analyze the data- apparently the lab was studying the mana resistance innate to Fomorians and trying to figure out how to implant that trait in others. They had some minor success with some security dogs they sold to Trans-Latvian/Ordo Maximus members, but most of the results seem to have been acquired by the Grey siblings for their Gray Mana-tech.

Kinnie and Ratched decide to hang at the safehouse to work on building up a prototype gatling laser that Kinnie found hidden specs for, in order to have good salvage to trade for their escape from the MCZ. The rest of the team rests and heads North towards the next heist target- the Harvard lab where a chunk of the Cornerstone resides. Luckily the mobile crazy-repeller seems to work well to keep ragers at bay and the huge shambler mobs are relatively easy to avoid.

Less easy to avoid is a series of explosive traps and a sniper left on guard by Blackheart Security, who seem to have gotten to the lab first. The team almost eats it in the ensuing firefight, and one of the fancy new drones is trashed (but alchemically repaired enough to get it to limp home). Luckily Aylin is able to focus enough to bring her monofil whip along with her in mistform and turns the tide. However, the team was only fighting 2 guards and almost died, and can hear boots racing down from above, so they decide to flee. However, Liam seems to have used this attack as a distraction to complete the heist, and tells Jonny to get his team out.

They flee back to the safehouse, trying to lure in infected behind them to delay pursuit, and rest up before heading for the exit. Liam leaves before them with the Cornerstone, but gives them something called the “Pendulum Room manuscript” that he found along with it- apparently something else to do with the Seelie Court. The team puzzles over it but can’t make any headway so they hold onto it.

They bribe Trip-D with the repeating laser prototype, bluffing that they didn’t find specs, and also money, and gets into quarantine. Luckily they end up just ahead of the Blackheart squad, who stare daggers at them the whole time, but the team gets out first, partially due to OE being an ex-merc himself and having some rapport with Trip-D. They hightail it South to ditch Blackheart, and all head to their safehouses to rest up and re-equip before the raid on the ECSE, after which they hope to leave Boston for good.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest

The team hear that Mayor Meghan is receiving external support, seemingly part of Ghostwalker’s anti-corp agenda, and has 2 drake agents assisting her. The team checks on their bounty (which has gone up for Prot0 and Jonny only) confirming some GW interest. They decide to really lay low, after checking in with Smedley, who seems a little cagey. They figure out how to activate the Dragon card, and are connected to Lofwyr through a mirror, surprisingly. Jonny asks him not to Thor strike the infected collection zones since the team has a cure, and Lofwyr tells him to bring cure samples to the SK office downtown. The team agrees.

Kinnie, having the only legit SIN in the group at the moment, heads in with the sample. Sensing their opportunity, SK, negotiates with him (not his strong suit), which ends up with SK in possession of the cure, the scientists, and the knowledge of Salem, and the team with some significant offers of payday and very little control. They feel outmaneuvered but it occurs to them that if they stay on SK’s good side it might be some useful protection.

They get prepped to do the next heist for now, while thinking more of the existential issues. Adelbern and Wynn have done some recon again, and discovered some conflict amongst DIMR higher-ups: Valeria (a Nadja fixer) has come down from NYC to bring the Boston office back into the fold, which Anne Lyne (the local head during the Lockdown) has taken umbrage with. She has put out feelers about acquiring the set of Tarot queens, and has a rep as a bit of a tyrant, locally. The team decides to approach the Nadja, feeling that having more powerful connections outside of Boston will help them more, since they don’t have a dog in this fight.

Valeria gets them a set of fake Queens (meaning she or an associate has seemingly seen the real ones?), and Jonny contact Lyne to tell her they’re on their way in with the requested cards. Wynn tells them that he did some hacking ahead of time and got the item they seek transferred to Lynne’s office for a “review”, so they just need to snag it in the office or en route. Aylin mists into a briefcase which Kinnie carries in (good SIN and all), while Prot0 with sprite assist spoofs the scanners and joins them. Everyone else waits nearby. Wynn tells them he’s averted cameras and sensors out front and in the foyer, but they’ll be on their own after that.

They head into the meeting and find that Lynne is an astral expert and has an astrolabe map of the metaplanes somewhat similar to Guy’s. She sends the item back when it turns up, seemingly annoyed that it showed up, and Aylin mists after it to make sure the team can snag it. Kinnie and Prot0 hand over the cards, and Lynne tries to activate them, but instead of doing what she expected, they open a small rift and suck her through, screaming. They hightail it out of there (having promised Valeria not to mess with anything else), and grab the item and Aylin in mist form. They escape, pass the statue off to Wynn, and begin planning their entrance into the MCZ.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

The team analyzes T1’s data on the ECSE and starts making a plan. They also collate data on the Tan Robes in order to try gain admission to Salem, and sell a bunch of valuable info via JackPoint. They do further tarot analysis as well, and Kinnie activates the Shadow card (semi-accidentally). It seems to grant them admission to an exclusive club in London known for granting favors. They also visit Mama to ask about Tarot and other things, while some of the team goes to meet up with Erika Knowles, and they find out she’s in danger due to going hard against ARES. They check in with Tyreseus and confirm there’s a growing bounty. They also hear rumors that a blood spirit has been assassinating Trans-Latvian execs.

They research Druidic factions to get an idea on how to be in Salem. They get distracted in their planning by a distressed Kostas, who appears in their safehouse and tells them that the “ASPS” facility is under attack. He enlists their help in response to promises of future rewards, and they race to the facility. They manage to save a few employees, including the woman who leads the blood crystal implant surgeries, but can tell that the blood shade is loose in the facility. The woman, Nell, convinces them that she is non-magical, and they agree to take everyone to the IOND for safekeeping. OE projects ahead and converses with Olivier, who fills them in on ties between Trans-Lat/Ordo Maximus/Black Lodge and tells them he will prepare for the potential that some of the “ASPS” members are BL in disguise.

They reach the IOND tower, and Olivier ushers everyone in before springing a trap on Nell, who proves to be a powerful mage. Unfortunately, she mind controls some of the team to attack each other/Olivier, and Kinnie, trying to calm things down, launches a gas grenade, ko-ing both mages. Nell has a cortical bomb as it turns out, and Olivier is killed in the ensuing explosion. The Summoning Master, Bora Elihu, is elevated to chapter master as the school mourns their loss. The team gets some implants and bonds new foci using school resources, and prepares to head North.

The team secures Erika Knowles safety first, ushering her to Messerzahn protection, and Kinnie trades some designs and knowledge with ex-BM/Murai scientists, hiding amongst the Wicked in the Rox. The Wicked seem like one of the only gangs that hasn’t lost out in the syndicate war. They also finally contact the lawyer Genowefa Gale at Stark, Theissen and Van der Mar, and agree to do some work in DeeCee once the Lockdown lifts, in exchange for help with tranist and ID’s. They get some offers of assistance and info from her, and also find out that many metaracists from Boston (as well as Denver and elsehwere globally) are making their way to PWV, Azania, seemingly a new congregation point for those org’s, with some funding that looks to be coming from Brackhaven and others. The team also receives a Tarot card, and Guy gets some astral info and crude map of the metaplanes from a Jackpoint payout.

They head North, and safely reach Salem. They see that Swampscott is fully gone and absorbed by the woods, while Peabody seems to have been conquered by mercs, though signs of recent fighting and explosions suggest that the Neo-A’s and NAN separatists aren’t letting it slide by. They pass along their info on the Tan Robes, and get approved to enter, though everyone keeps hinting that they shouldn’t trust anyone and may or may not be able to leave freely, depending on their actions.

They find the town split between 4 factions, with a central lake. Pro-Damon wiccans have a large slice, and seem to have made a cautious but not complete alliance with the Church of the Dragon, which has the largest population and territory. Anti-Damon wiccans have entered an uneasy alliance with metaracist/anti-dragon militias, and are slightly smaller than the pro-Damon wiccans. The smallest by far is also the hardest-looking- ex-NeoNet employees including Zoh Rothberg (Celedyr’s voice) and some Knights of Rage. They’ve removed all NN insignia and seem only loyal to Celedyr, from what the team can tell. Both the anti-Damon-ists and the KOR offer the team work, but it seems potentially dirty.

Prot0 does some matrix scouting, and almost gets killed by a hugely powerful resonant/dissonant entity (too fast to tell), and realized why noone is running wireless on within the protection of the Mist (which the COTD seems to control). This entity seems to emerge from a school building central to COTD turf, which the team is not allowed in, though Guy makes some progress talking his way towards access. Damon and a number of COTD members also are engaged in a multi-day ritual to cleanse the lake, which the team gets a sample of, and Prot0 thinks seems similar to the powerful entity- perhaps a clue that the lake was the terminal point of “Eliohann’s” flightpath, though it appears “he” has been moved to the school since then.

Jonny starts making in-roads with Aseela, seemingly a Johnson/Fixer for the pro-Damon wiccans, who seems to know the biz but be more cautious in her approach to the team. She wants them to investigate what jobs the other factions want them to do, and report back. Kinnie and OverEasy push really hard to leave and get paid for the info that they’ve gotten, taking a smaller payday to not get further involved, but everyone else is heavily invested in seeking more info. Damon puts the members who stay in town up at his place but says he can’t get involved (in an effort to keep the peace locally), and Guy goes on a divination quest to try to foretell how to succeed on his metaplanar quest.

Overeasy and Kinnie are approached by some Omega Zero Zero Evo mercs, who seem to be the ones occupying Peabody, and offered work- if they can get info on: is the dragon alive, what state is the dragon in, and who will ally with Evo most easily (and how), Evo will pay the team well. OE heads back in while Kinnie waits with the car. He gives the team the info, and they debate which way to go, going back and forth a bunch.

The team allies hard with the COTD, gains all the secret knowledge about what happened with Eliohann/Cerberus/Cereus/Deus during the experiment and early days of the shutdown, as well as what the COTD has done to stabilize the nanite-infested dragon since. Cerberus seems to be in control today and approves the team’s plan to spread word of a potential cure in order to prevent the Thor Strike prophecy from coming true. He also instructs the COTD to help the team harvest some of his nanites to test if they can really undo some of the damage he did in his maddened state, which he seems deeply regretful of. The COTD also gives the team the Dragon tarot card, and the team quickly determines that it represents Lofwyr/SK (in it’s current incarnation).

They also broker an alliance with Evo, in exchange for allowing the COTD continued control of the dragon and his care, Evo will be an early corp presence in the area. Satisfied that they’ve done all they need to do for the time, the team leaves, and get paid by Evo. They also receive a parting gift; a Blackheart Security spy who was watching the team and Salem. The Evo mercs say his partner didn’t survive questioning, but that they knew a good bit about the team and their activities. This is worrying but not surprising. Aylin feasts, and they ditch the body in the woods with a note, warning the NAN separatists and Neo-A’s that Blackheart has some intel and interest.

They return to town, drop Kinnie off at the lab with the dragon nanites (which seem promising for a cure-all but are limited in quantity). They head back to the Nub and hear some bad news: Yaksha was blamed for the Neo-A missile attacks and killed by Omega Dawn. Also, their safehouse was burned, seemingly by a combo of Hater/Rager attack, Shifting Pyre, and Omega Dawn. Mama’s Boyz had to close off the tunnel to keep the danger from spreading. The team meets with Mama, who warns Aylin that she is now “horror-touched” as well as delivering some other info. She arranges for them to all have individual safehouses for the time being, and warns them not to bring in more trouble. They also see merc corps herding shamblers into cleared zones in Southie as well as the MCZ.

They decide to lay low between jobs, and arrange with Genowefa Gale to have their new ID’s ready for travel ASAP. They do one quick job for the Nexus, and track SEARCH/Jack down to the airbase east of the harbor. They manage to communicate with him and find out that he’s CFD infected (along with the rest of the officer corp it seems), but is working on a CFD-cure to sequester the infection in an otherwise functional mind. He passes them his data after they tell him that they are envoys from Perri, and passes along a short message which make them think he might be her dad. They also post an update about this to JackPoint and find out that they just met the legendary Fastjack. They debate trying to get him one of the dragon cures, but Kinnie and the scientists are still perfecting the Reverser level/mix, so they decide to hold off til they’re sure.

Heists for Adelbern next!

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
Guy
Aylin Carewell
Kinnie Zest
OverEasy

Liam Adelbern gets the team to make some deals in preparation for their big run against the ECSE/MCT, Prot0 has done a little research and realized it’s gonna be a whole thing. They make a deal to help Liam get his two items in exchange for him helping them get a tarot card and into the ECSE. Prot0 also plans to talk to SSU211 and Messerzahn about making similar deals for assistance.

Worried about PPJ, and receivng a hint from a mortally wounded Bubbie, they try to surveil the crystal island and come into direct contact with the Tan Robes, who handily read their minds and close the tunnel they came up through. Mama’s Boyz aren’t thrilled, and the team is very worried that the TR’s now know their goals and where their safehouse is, so Jonny goes to Mama to ask for help. She tells them a lot about the TR’s (hopefully helping the team gain access to Salem) and tells them they will be under her protection while underground, but that the powerful shadow spirits who are patrons of the TR’s have unknown motives and that the team will likely be in danger outside the Catacombs. Mama also tasks them with contacting Aleiron in the metaplanes and dealing with a darkness rising in the east in Chicago.

The team also finally deals with the Horizon/Dawkins Group situation, and manages to ID 4 DG members working in the Squares. However, this goes a little sideways for them when AZT uses this info to somehow lead to the fall of the Squares, a populated enclave. Many survivors, but many casualties, and rumors about the team’s involvement are circulating. They try to do a little rep management but get into some major disagreements about how and who to share info with. Jonny also gets word that Micval was killed by a strike team trying to retrieve him from a DG safehouse, but they recovered his drive with all his unreleased tracks, so kind of a win for Jonny and his label?

They pull off a heist against an Atlantean Foundation research lab by causing a series of distractions with the help of an unpleasant squatter/hacker named Pendleton Wynn. They get a tarot card, the first payment from Liam for the next two heists they need to do with him. It is the Major Arcana Shadows, they also get a ton of ATL tarot research from the servers that Prot0 hacks alongside the run.

Guy continues planning his astral trip to the homeplane of his car spirit to gain it as an ally. They also plan to contact Stark, Thiessen, and Van der Mar at some point and see what they want. Jonny takes some time off to deal with team PR and potential fallout from some recent situations, as they also hear of some disturbing developments locally: some large ships have appeared in the harbor, the first in in over 2 years since the Lockdown began. Merc operations are also increasing, so it seems like the cleanup is speeding up, putting some of their jobs on a timeline.

They decide to raid and clear the ARES/KE VR/AR training facility and secret lab where Project Hammer (CFD projectiles) was based, on behalf of Erika Knowles, and to make closer alliance with Messerzahn. Messerzahn, good to their word, has cleared a path to the bottom end of a drain culvert/duct from the lab into the sewers. It has a UV filter and magical barrier so the vamps have been stymied in their efforts to gain access. The team grapples up, destroys the barrier, and gains access, getting into a brutal fight with some headcase fenrir wolves. They emerge victorious but with some serious injuries, some of which require pulsing to try to prevent infection. They leave the UV filter in place just in case the vamps are planning to backstab them while they check the rest of the facility.

They find evidence that T1’s team was here, and gain some Project Hammer prototypes, as well as some cyberware from 2 destroyed cyberzombies. They also piece together what happened early in the Lockdown, when the Black Lodge (according to Olivier) killed the former IOND head as well as a french Gendarme who had assembled a dossier on the BL and was trying to pass it along. It looks like the Gendarmes, some mages, and facility staff fought a holding action but were overwhelmed by a powerful blood spirit, along with other magical attackers.

The cyberzombies seems to be more recent, and were looting the facility for supplies, as well as scouting as a potential base, but were ambushed by the same spirit (now looking even more powerful). 1 of the 3 seems to have escaped, 2 others were separated and killed. It looks like they used the prototypes on the fenrir wolves, who seem to have been part of the original facility defenses or perhaps the BL attack force, leading to their infection (which luckily for the team also muted their usual magical abilities).

The team decides to finish clearing the facility, as the staff seems to have trashed all their sensors and records while defending it. They find a sealed/intact vault, and find the Gendarme inside, thought it quickly turns out that it is the Blood Shade inhabiting her corpse (and with her memories). She nearly TPK’s them, but they manage to rally a defense and defeat her, Aylin’s monofil whip proving especially useful against her spirit form. They find a huge amount of paper records of the project, which Prot0 scans quickly before they destroy them, not wanting this project data to fall into the wrong hands. They go back, let the vamps in, and scout the upstairs a bit.

They find a little data on the ECSE’s defenses as T1’s crew seems to have begun fiddling with the AR/VR trainer before checking the basement, which Prot0 notes down. They then head out and Kinnie analyzes the tech they recovered, and they figure out where to post data and whatnot before selling it all to Erika Knowles. She promises to keep it safe and make sure word gets out, and the team gets her approval to spread word that ARES was developing this weapon without sharing specs. They rest and heal, and look into all the tarot data that Prot0’s sprite got from the ATL-F. There’s a ton of info involving some cards they have seen (or have) and they start deciphering some of Hansu’s prophecies.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
Aylin Carewell
and introducing: Kinnie Zest
also introducing: OverEasy

Jonny convinces Micval to sing with Weekday Eclipse and they put out a single together with a Micval remix of one of Jonny’s tracks. Erika Knowles reminds them to check out Project Hammer at the ARES training facility and they get some leads. Smedley tells them to go to an art opening to meet an “old school” thief who needs a team to help steal some artifacts around town. They find out a bit more about the Null, and Prot0 convinces the team to do a bunch of jobs fast to improve their gear and skills so they can raid the ECSE and get the enormous payday it seems to promise. Jonny is summoned to a meeting with an AZT fixer named Metoataske Cynosige who hints that the blood mages in Swampscott were a bit far afield and out of touch, so no big loss for AZT, so long as the team will deal with a problem for them: Horizon Dawkins Group operatives have been working around town and AZT needs them ID’d, compormised, or eliminated. They will pay a bounty. Jonny agrees, lacking options.

Guy initiates with some of the Urban Tribalists who are cleansing astral space, and hooks them up with the “ASPS” and Kostas. Kostas reminds him to do a few jobs to pay for the crystal eyes he wants, and tells Guy that the ASPS has a runner coming in to assist. He gains the ability to astral travel, and can now communicated with his car spirit. He begins planning an astral quest to retrieve it’s True Name and bond with it. The team decides to give Ax. S. Grant the body of their cyberpsychotic dwarf safehouse guard, worried that someone else might hack him the way Prot0 did. Ratched puts him out quickly with drugs, circumventing the rest of the team’s plan to make an elaborate digital scenario for him. Ax promises the team drone and vehicle use/support during the upcoming Peabody raid, and also tells them team to go to the upcoming art opening Smedley had mentioned to meet up with a contact with some specialty gear for the raid (to deal with Nocebo, to the corrupted AI). 2 jobs, 1 location: great!

Jonny befriends Lil’ D with his and PPJ’s Boston Unity plan. The team meet up with a new runner named Kinnie Zest, who Smedley says is a skilled weapons tech (as well as an MIT&T doctor) who needs to make some cash. He seems useful, so the team brings him along on the next job: rescuing Grimes, who is under house arrest after a new Bishop arrived and took his church at the head of a Blackheart Security merc detachment. Silke tells them that Archangel has an object to trade that they can maybe use to get Grimes free, and they head back to the ghoul base to see about that. They encounter some vampire merc’s, and are told that non-infected aren’t welcome there anymore, but do manage to meet with Dark Angel and get the object: an old bible signed by JFK to the people of Boston. One of the vamps follows the team home in astral and talks to Aylin. He intro’s himself as Alastair, and says the the ghouls are now protected by Messerzahn, who should be a name to be feared. Aylin, being a weirdo, befriends him instead of feeling threatened. So now the team has that info for BBE.

They head up to Stoneham next on a lead from Smedley, and meet up with scholar named Trinity Ellario, who called CFD before it happened, and is holed up with some other civvies being protected by SSU 211, the other merc corp BBE needed info on. SSU is all Monads, stable headcases who don’t want to spread their infection. BBE makes a deal through the team to have SSU raid Malden (rampant nanoapocalypse) in exchange for materiel support and a ride out later, and also makes a similar deal with Messerzahn to clear the Labyrinth. The team gets paid and upgrades their gear quite a bit. They meet up with Kostas’ contact, a mirrorshades runner named BlackJack, and do a quick job with him, paying off a Wuxing employee to retire early and write a letter recommending a certain replacement. They then get a list of three other names to do similar with, and BJ convinces them to help him track another target: a personal mission.

They follow astral traces and rumors of a serial killer and missing people to an abandoned orphanage in Dorcester, where they fight a shadow spirit and a knife-wielding free spirit maniac. BJ dies in the fight, but disapparates, so he was apparently also a spirit. They win, barely, and flee and enraged Purist/Pariah militia, asking that the militia help the various poor souls in the orphanage as they do. Prot0 also accidentally shoots a baby when they shadow spirit uses it as a human shield. Ratched punches him for it (and then heals him). They rest up a bit, then get fancier armored suits etc to go to the art opening. They leave Kinnie watching the gear nearby-ish, and walk into Downtown. They stop by the Taco Temple opening to eat on the way, and PPJ almost signs up before the team convinces him to run against the Temple of Terror instead of participating.

The art opening is happening but Prot0 thinks it’s a little derivative. A drone taps him and a man who calls himself Hamshallow tells Prot0 to take a box the drone is offering up- Prot0 does, just as some kind of no-label corp deathsquad bursts in. They shoot Hamshallow but it turns out he was a hologram, so it just wavers and then vanishes. They seem to want to acquire the package so Prot0 hoofs it, and accepts a grappel assist from the other person they were supposed to meet here: the thief Liam Adelbern. They escape unnoticed while the rest of the team tries to deal with the shooters and get people safely out. They all succeed except PPJ, who stays behind invisibly and fries the drone, in case it had info on it, but unfortunately has some bad luck and gets knocked out and captured. The team tries to figure out how to go back in, but have no gear or real armor with them, and decide to flee and rescue PPJ later.

After looking into it, they find out the group that has him is a pan-corporate (but non-official/maybe fully illegal) rightwing deathsquad called Omega Dawn that targets political agitators, SINless, runners, and “terrorists.” Ax S. Grant, when filled in, accepts the package, and says that he asked a spirit friend to do them a solid- he tells the team it wiped PPJ’s memory back 6 months, so he lost everything since his graduation in Denver, but literally knows nothing (and has a reasonably clean SIN), so maybe he’ll get cut loose? Other contacts are more skeptical and tell the team to watch out for OD but not to expect their friend back. Meanwhile, PPJ wakes up in a room he recognizes from the show: the Initiation Chamber in Temple of Terror Season 3. He is very confused….

Prepping for the Peabody raid, the team needs a few more gunners, and Smedley recommends a local ARA activist/ex-merc named OVerEasy, who seems pretty competent. They also get 3 roto-drones from Ax as as an armored van, and are told there will be an infiltration specialist going along who will use the device they got to deal with Nocebo. The team just needs to make sure the infiltrator can reach the dissonant servers. They also get 2 SSU 211 mercs named Jazz and Cosmos, a sniper team who agreed to help out against some natural enemies. They head north, and get Fennel to watch their spirit van. They rig the armored van with a cowcatcher and a bunch of explosives charges to blow out three sides, and cruise up. The infiltrator, SemPar, and the 2 mercs hop out to do their parts.

The team rams through one of the rager barricades and plows through some shamblers, before dragging to a stop a Y intersection just inside town. They leap out the back after turning on a jammer to attract headcases, and then blow the charges when there’s a big mob of them around. The team makes their way through town, a harsh and destructive slog under constant grenade and sniper fire. Jazz and Cosmos keep their rear clear, though, so they don’t lose anyone. They reach the Dissonant’s base, an old government center, and subject it to a serious assault, beaching through the front doors and the roof. They kill all the TM’s, and fight a bunch more ragers, shamblers, and CFD-infected animals (probably intended for the fighting pits once rigger interfaces are installed), including a massive bear. They emerge victorious, and SemPar completes whatever their task was.

The team walks back to the wilds, taking out a last few shamblers on the way, and meets up with Fennel, who offers them a stay in a Warpath safehouse deep in the woods for the night. They accept, and get paid a bounty for the Dissonants they killed, including a major leader, White Rabbit. They also hang with Grimes, Silke, Wolfgang, and Gibson, who are all holed up up here, and warn them about Omega Dawn. Wolfgang has a long talk with them about the risks to Boston of the current situation: syndicated and corps moving in hard, if not met with resistance, will change everything. But he says there’s still a chance. The team heartily agrees, and then sells the info about clearing Peabody to BBE, who will likely move in and seize it. However, to help the Neo-A cause they buy them a ton of rocket launchers to harry corp supply flights with. They sell some of the other paydata to other contacts, and post a high price file about PAX/Whit Rabbit making deals with both AZT (to research cyberadepts as soldiers) and the Null (to hunt AI’s, TM’s, etc) to Jackpoint. Noone bites (yet) but after sharing a bunch of other info for free, the team gains full membership.

Back in town, they heal up and plan next steps: they have a few more small jobs to complete, and maybe 1 big one, before the ECSE. They scout out the ARES Project Hammer facility and make another deal with Messerzahn to clear a path of any headcases so the team can get in through the Catacombs and deal with whatever’s there (with Messerzahn getting access to whatever’s left in the facility after, and having one less potential threat on their flanks). A lawyer named Genowefa Gale also contacts them on behalf of a firm called Stark, Thiessen an Van der Mar, which is setting up a Boston office, and seems to be the lawyers PPJ was hearing through his crystal spine before he got grabbed. She says she thought the team looked competent and tells them to get in touch if they’re available for more work.

The team gets worried that Dawkins Group might be manipulating Omega Dawn, but has no solid leads, so they decide to deal with Dawkins and wait til they have anything to go on for PPJ. Bubby is distraught and says he won’t rest til he finds PPJ, which worries the team but what can they do… he heads off into the astral to search. Liam Adelbern tells them that he has done some solid recon on the 3 sites he wants to hit (where possible): DIMR and Atlantean Foundation offices, as well as a Harvard lab in the MCZ. OE wants to get into the MCZ to check out a Manadyne lab there as well, but Kinnie warns the team how bad it is, so they decide to do that one last perhaps. The team decides to put together a baseball game to bond and also continue the Boston unity dream that PPJ and Jonny shared, and put out the word about it on shadow channels after securing use of the Centurion’s arena for an afternoon. Guy gets his crystal eyes put in- weird but effective.

A pretty good roster turns out, and gives it a good go- Damon on one team, some skilled Hellriders on the other, plus the lawyer, the mayor, the team, Kostas, a guy with some Null info for Prot0, and various others split between both. The team’s local rep improves significantly, but Jonny gets some bad news from a Horizon reporter who covers it: Micval has backed out and signed with Horizon (maybe under duress). They post the footage to JP and get a very enthusiastic response (especially from one of the mods). They go to do karaoke at the Tipsy Dragon with Liam in tow, and do some good team bonding. Liam tries drunkenly to get Guy an invite into the Hotel Continental (where Liam is staying) but gets turned back, told that they will review Guy’s application. The team rests up, feeling well-accomplished and closer than ever.

Runners
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
Aylin Carewell

The team does a bunch of little job cleanup while practicing and waiting for Jonny’s show. Meanwhile, PPJ gets levitated by the weird lil spirit, and flown way west to near the wall, where he enters a nondescript facility. A nerdy middle-aged woman explains that she had word he was interested in blood crystals, and the his and the team’s actions against AZT impressed her group enough that they are willing to provide him with one for free, and possibly more in the future if the team does more work for them. PPJ tries to suss out who they are, and make sure they aren’t Black Lodge, but it seems like they’re ASPS (or affiliated). They seem not to like AZT, the Tan Robes, or the Atlanteans, and seem neutral on the IOND, so it’s chill. He agrees, and gets a replacement spine, which pulses and protrudes slightly, but makes him faster.

He returns to the team, and the spirit introduces himself as Kostas after wiping PPJ’s memory of the location of the lab. The team agrees in principle to do more work, and Guy plans to get the next reward. They do one job linking up some urban tribes with the ASPS, but Kostas says additional work is needed for the level of crystal Guy wants. They do get one magic bullet each from the master alchemist Maestro in exchange for helping her tribe in their goal of cleansing astral space for the Spirit of the City. Ratched also orders better armor from BBE, and the team plans to work on their batch of open jobs soon. The team also takes delivery of a package from the Murai/BM scientists, who give them each a single dose of reversers, saying that if combined with a pulse spell, this should prevent infection from a single exposure to CFD. They team invests in faraday pockets to keep these nanite syringes secret.

PPJ and Guy head up the IOND to check on some stuff and report in, PPJ seems to be having some success getting them to engage more with Charlease’s help, and Olivier agrees to support plant spirit Wilds and NAN enclave sovereginity in exchange for a rare reagent supply chain, and agrees to lend the illusions instructor, Prof. Thornblossom, out for Jonny’s show in exchange for PPJ making sure IOND sponsorship is clear and putting in a good word with the Mayor. He also pays the team less insultingly this time around.

Prot0 fixes up his drone, and does some digging on some matrix jobs, inquiring with the TM’s at the safehouse about a few things, and finds out that Guy’s contact Ax S. Grant might know something about “Garmonbozia.” They go to his shop and ask, and he locks it down, pumps gas into the room, shoots them with gel rounds, and says he really wishes they hadn’t asked that. He tells them if they just let him erase that name from their memories he can let them go, but they refuse. They kill what they think is him, but it turns out to be a rigged body, as he is an AI. They eventually make a deal to work for him on behalf of GB, promising to keep any info about GB offline (including the Conservatory).

He tells them it is an AI nation on the matrix, looking only to exist peacefully and do their own thing. They know that the corps would never allow this, which is why the extreme secrecy. In exchange, he gives them a bunch of info on the Null (including solving the Jackpoint/Nexus beef), and agrees to assist them against the Dissonants in Peabody, who may have made common cause with the Null as well. Using this info, Prot0 finally makes peace between JP and the Nexus, and the team gets provisional access to the local JP hub, gaining access as well to the old team’s dossiers on Boston biz.

The night of the concert arrives, the three opening acts (Grim, Kombat Karla, and Micval) are a success, and with a stage show combining AR from Prot0 and some TM’s and spellcraft from PPJ and Thornblossom, and a tarot assist from Aylin, Jonny gives one of his best performances, and insures that he’s taken seriously by the local music scene. He also makes progress on recruiting Micval to his label, though Micval says Damon is also interested. PPJ briefly talks to the Mayor and plans to rep the IOND to her during office hours, and Guy gets to ride Wyatt’s bike, with the car spirit inside. Exhausted and happy, the team gets ready to gear up for some difficult and deadly work.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
Aylin Carewell

The team goes over the info from the NeoNET and Murai labs, after Prot0 cracks it all open. Not only do the learn a lot about the truth of what’s going on in Boston, they get a ton of valuable paydata. They decide to look further into some of the other jobs on their list, and head to the Roxx. They witness a duel at the Coliseum foretold on one of their Tarot cards, and wager a small amount. They should have bet more as they double their money and the card goes blank afterwards. PPJ meets a spellcaster with implanted Blood Crystals who agrees to pass his contact info along if he himself is contacted again by the mysterious group who provided them to him.

They make nice with the Centurions, who seem to be ex-spec ops and are protecting a large civilian populace near their arena, although the whole Roman thing is a bit much. They then head further south, and set up some transmitters for the Wicked, in exchange for that gang getting a message to the Murai survivors, who have joined up with ex-Boston Manatech employees to start an anti-corp “free” lab somewhere in southern Boston, hoping to eventually make contact with the Ex-Corporate Scientists.

The Wicked are setting up an ad-hoc comms network in southern Boston and requests the team find high/hard to access points to mount the relays to make it less likely head cases will get to them. They mount 3 at various points, encountering a toxic wolf adept sniper at an otherwise abandoned university but making a deal with him to avoid combat. The Wicked reward the team with a meeting with a Murai scientists, who seems only too happy to fill the team in on Reversers as well as their overall plan, after Jonny butters him up. They make plans to coordinate further, and Prot0 convinces Victor Markwart to join them after they learn the Coriolis stream together under Grimes’ protection.

While in the Roxx, they also visit some Urban Tribes and find many of them claiming to work on behalf of the spirit of the city (which makes the Denver survivors a mite nervous). They recruit Charlease Newman to the IOND at Olivier’s request, after PPJ makes a deal that she can keep brewing potions to help the enclaves down south. PPJ also views her as a potential ally to change the IOND from the inside.

The team then meet with the new Vatican reps they’ve heard are looking for them, and apparently seem like such a low threat that the reps basically pledge to stay out of the team’s biz so long as the team stays out of theirs. They won’t say that they’re “cool” with the team no matter how many times Jonny and Guy ask. They then link up with Tyrese, who has changed his name to Tyreseus, explaining that he voluntarily innoculated himself with a “friendly and stable” CFD strain to protect himself from other potential infections. The team decides that seems ok for now?

They gear up at Uptown Arms and Ax. S. Grant’s mechanic shop, fitting out an SUV with extra seats, armor, and an LMG mount, before heading towards Salem to assassinate 2 AZT hitmen and any guards they have (for money and an in with the Neo-A’s). They bypass some sketchy enclaves on the way, figuring they’ll start in the far north and work their way back to the city, doing jobs as they go. They make a deal with some powerful plant spirits protecting one of the NAN separatist enclaves (due to Aylin’s good spirit rep) to get safe passage in exchange for taking out the AZT team and leaving the NAN and plants alone. Aylin splits off at Nahant to look for Erika Knowles, her missing contact.

The rest of the team, with a gung-ho young plant spirit named Fennel along, recon and assault the AZT position. Jonny goes in undercover as a Hellrider (as they see the gang delivering supplies in exchange for processed BADs), and eventually manages to detonate a huge bomb Ratched made, collapsing the school building they were using as a base. The rest of the team slugs it out with some blood adepts, drones, and other guards, barely surviving and losing the car in the process. Ratched and Guy get it to run one last time, racing to the school and saving Jonny from certain death, while Prot0 pulls out all the stops to slay the final AZT cybersolider (one of the main targets). Unfortunately, Tyreseus is killed. Prot0 doesn’t want to approach too close due to CFD fears, so they leave him where he lies, and find an empty building not filled with drained corpses to rest up for the night.

The next day, PPJ projects down to link up with Aylin at the proposed spot, and discovers that Aylin has found Erika Knowles holed up in a ruined lighthouse, injured and hiding out from the mob of shamblers that she unleashed on the former ARES facility to deal with the bug problem there. They make a plan to rescue both of them and heal up before hoofing it down there on foot. The Hellriders also show up looking for another BAD delivery from their AZT contacts, and Jonny has to do some fancy talking to convince them not to turn on the team. Luckily the Hellriders don’t seem to care who gets them BADs as long as someone does, so they put the in touch with Fennel and the plant spirits and facilitate a deal. The plants are also absorbing Swampscott at a rate of about a block per day.

The team heads south to Nahant and sneaks through town, finding an old wireless-free minivan that Ratched and Guy get running. They rig a zipline to get Erika and Aylin out, and escape the mob of headcases with no injury. Erika gives them a bunch of jobs and asks to be dropped off in the Leather District or Nub. They decide to check out Salem, Marblehead, and Peabody first to get the lay of the land. Peabody seems to have a stange matrix signal and lots of headcases so they steer clear for now. Marblehead has a bunch of signs warning non-ARES personnel not to approach, a large earth spirit in astral space, and they lose their flyspy scouting, so they leave that along for now as well. They try to enter Salem but get trapped in some magical fog an find a druid and his ally spirit guarding the border.

They make a deal to hunt down any Tan Robe/Group X operatives in Boston in exchange for future entrance, and notice another huge matrix signal somehwere north of them, presumably either in Salem or at the wall. They head back south, drop Erika off, and heal up. They also check in with Grimes and find that the church’s replacements have told him he is being summoned back to Rome and replaced as soon as the quarantine lifts. They also hear that the Corp Court has engaged some pro assassins to take out highly placed headcases ahead of the end of quarantine.

Prot0 gets some work from Viktor Markwart helping other TM’s, since Grimes may be losing his sport, and the team upgrades their safehouse to accomodate more survivors and give them some stuff to do. The team also gets paid for the AZT mission, with Neo-A’s providing a bounty for the grunts while a rebuilt Tyreseus (though seemingly nearly all Cereus now) gets them their cut of the main bounty. They are disturbed by his changes but he offers them more wetwork as desired. They also go to Mama to get approval for the TM/safehouse plan, and make a deal. Aylin drops Mama a tarot card and is gifted a Tarot card in response.

PPJ leaves with a strange spirit, thinking it may be related to blood crystals, and misses out on all the expansions. The team does some digging on Peabody, and finds that the arena in the Shipyards is getting deliveries from up there of the riggable CFD-infected people and animals they use in their pit fights. The arena is one of the few safe network zones in Boston as they use jammers and crazy repellers to prevent signals leaving and headcases entering, so there is also a local mesh, which Prot0 loves, and it seems like a hot spot for anonymous info brokers. They buy some intel on a few open jobs, and head North again. They sneak into Peabody, past a bunch of rigged shamblers, but are spotted by some leashed ragers. They do a quick recon, spotting what look like some dissonant TM’s, and Prot0 tries a quick matrix scout before being attacked by a powerful AI (Nocebo) and fleeing. They hightail and escape with some clever distractions.

They head back South and report in to BBE, ordering some more armor and another crazy repeller after getting them the plans. Jonny sets up a concert at Avalon, which the Hellriders will do security for and keep the proceeds from (as well as dealing at) to recoup their losses from the missed BAD shipment. Jonny starts booking acts and training his friends to participate, after Prot0 does a mediocre AR show during an open mic.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
Ratched the Hatchet
Guy
and introducing:
Aylin Carewell

The team enacts a massive con against Frank Incense, smearing his name as an outsider looking to make trouble for the local church, which under Grimes has been quite helpful during the lockdown. They double down on PPJ having done the right thing in warning Grimes (even though he betrayed the Johnson in this case), and Guy trades on his good rep locally to help sell it. Prot0 and Jonny both expend some of their rep trading on big names/connections from their pasts. Silke gets ahold of the team after a few days and tells them she has a plan- she has made contact with a dangerous spirit who hates disorder, and thinks that they can use PPJ to lure Frank into a trap, now that he is seen as a disorderly presence.

The team agrees, and Guy pilots a boat out towards a crystallized island, the team having spread the rumor that PPJ is trying to flee town by running the barricade. PPJ and Silke are both aboard the boat, and the rest of the team posts up nearby to provide cover. Some Knights of the Red Branch members engage the side time, as they were trying to set up a sniper position of their own. Some more KOTRB with Frank are closing in on speedboats, and Frank, Silke, PPJ, and Guy all exchange spells.

The team’s boat is partially disabled and drifts near the island, as the team shoots the KOTRB boats full of holes. Frank walks on water towards them, blasting PPJ and Guy with a dart gun that cuts off their access to magic. As he nears to secure them, a crystal spar shoots out from the island and impales, lifting him up and encasing him. Problem solved? Silke says a thank you to the crystalline entity and suggests the team get far away quickly. They do so.

They decide to handle Mama’s request next, and dig into Franklin Nockai- he seems to be linked to commuter and transient disappearances going back a ways, and their intel says he should be in or near the sub basement labs of the old NN HQ. They find the spot, and find increasing amounts of larger and larger roaches watching them, which seem to have some kind of gestalt consciousness. PPJ also reports astral space feels roachy. They find a massive vault door sealed up but on approach it swings open and 2 humans in dingy white robes (seemingly altered lab coats) greet them and welcome them.

They bring them to a back room where a cyber-samurai named Norbert is plugged into an old NeoNet server, from what Prot0 can tell he is running a constant memory loop program that seems to be serving the function of keeping him sane(ish). He insists they leave all their weapons and armor, and they do. They begin to be initiated into the cult, eating a strange nutrient paste, and noticing occasional disappearances amongst other members. They are told they will meet Nockai soon for a blessing of his protection, but don’t really make a plan of any sort.

Most of them are summoned to Nockai, Jonny tries to follow but is KO’ed by a guard. Meanwhile, Ratched is worried about the team not turning back up after she’s worked on the safehouse for a few days, and convinces Prot0’s drone to take her back there. The rest of the team finds Nockai seemingly trying to summon a roach queen, but something is messing up the ritual, creating a huge flesh monster composed of the missing cultists. There are also some incomplete merges assisting him. Prot0 sneaks off to Norbert’s chamber and edits his memory feed to trut Prot0 and hate bugs, and then blasts open the observation window into the main ritual chamber (a repurposed lab that the team worries might be the original site of the CFD/dragon experiment).

Norbert starts firing on the bugs and fleshmonster, as Nockai and the bugs attack the team below. Ratched and the drone enter from the front and slay some cultists before joining the fray, and then getting boxed in by more merges. It’s a total bloodbath, and Guy and Aleiron are both badly inured and nearly killed. They do emerge victorious, and Prot0 convinces the team to bring Norbert and the NN server back to their safehouse with them, and also save three cult survivors.

They return to the Nub and drop the cult survivors off, 2 join Aleiron’s cult, and 1 is executed by a Mama’s Boy who assenses him and apparently notices something sketchy. Aleiron buys the others a hotel for a bit. They then go tell Mama what happened, and she seems happy- she says she has been interfering in his rituals as best as she can but it is good to have it done with. She offers a boon for their service. Prot0 and Guy had already headed back to the safehouse with Norbert and the server, so they ask for free rent on their behalf. Mama agrees so long as they stay on her good side. Ratched and PPJ unlock some increased abilities, Jonny gets a large local rep boost, and Aleiron asks to travel to the metaplanes. Mama opens a portal to the Fey Realm and Aleiron dives through, barely saying goodbye, just passing her cult off to a child reporter in Seattle and asking Prot0 to make sure to get a badge to Taysacs.

The rest of the team, surprised at Aleiron’s sudden exit, heads back to the safehouse and recovers. Prot0 preps to do a deep dive on the NN server, and PPJ offers to watch his body while the rest of the team starts looking further into Murai/Reversers. They get some initial info from less secure server partitions- it seems Norbert used to be on a team with a cybersoldier named T1, who has been raiding black labs around town to keep himself and his team functional after their secretive employer was shut down by runners. Norbert was abandoned due to cyberpschosis reducing his functionality. But they get a few other leads of spots to look for more info.

Bubby also shows up with a curious magical-oddity investigator in tow. He introduces her as Aylin Carewell and says that she seems useful, curious, and trustworthy. The team grills her a bit and she seems solid and useful, so they agree to bring her along on the first recon as a test. They head to the only official Murai address they have, on the 128 corridor out at the edge of the QZ. They find evidence of a massive gunfight, seemingly between T1’s team and facility security. T1 won, and took over the facility with some scientist hostages. It’s unclear what they were up to there exactly but they seem to have used it as a base for a time, and the team finds a jump drive that escaped destruction to get Prot0 to look at.

Murai itself seems to have been running some kind of intense nanotech experiments with significant security, while on the outside looking like a run of the mill subsidiary or small medtech lab. Interior infection protocol and prevention looks intense though, and T1 and crew seem to have executed and burned most of the non-scientific facility staff, later executing the scientists as well. There is also evidence of torture. The team finds a mysterious button, and Aylin decides to press it. Everyone else leaves after making sure they haven’t missed anything else, and Aylin presses it, triggering the destruction of the facility through a series of humorous circumstances. The team escapes, and heads back to the safehouse to go over their info…