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

The team restocks and trains new skills in the BBE supply depot/camp, before heading into the QZ with Frank Incense. The take a gunship and drop PPJ and Aleiron off near the MCZ in order to make contact with the local IOND branch. They succeed and Aleiron gains a new follower in the form of a depressed spirit of man named Lys. PPJ meets the local branch head and strongly dislikes him- not the new father figure he was seeking. Bubby shows up and PPJ sends him on some astral recon around town.

The rest of the team (including Tyrese) drop into the Leather District, and make contact with their driver/guide Guy, and local fixer Smedley Pembrenton. They arrange a dead drop for messages and a storage locker in one of Smedley’s places, and then head underground to find a safehouse. They meet some merchants and survivors in the Nub, get the lay of the land, and make a deal with Mama’s Boyz to clear out a catacombs site for a satellite community in order to be able to use part of it as their safehouse.

PPJ and Aleiron, with a long IOND quest list, catch a ride down to Fort Point with some Vory gangsters, passing a weird crystallized island on the way. They rejoin the rest of the team and they head out into the tunnels to clear some room. They find an old storm overflow chamber with a train car incongruously crashed in the middle of the sloping floor. They fight off and burn a bunch of shamblers, but 2 haters escape. Scouting the area, they find a map of “suspicious technomancer activity” areas that the haters had compiled, and Prot0 wants to dig further.

They climb up to where the train fell from, and find another car still up there but off the tracks. They decide this could be a perfect safehouse, and set explosive traps and a watch for the night. A rager swarm (possibly sent by the haters) attacks and detonates the trap before any team members get exposed, blowing out another chunk of the train tunnel into the chamber below. This leaves the remaining car with holes on either side, but seemingly stable atop an arch- even better safehouse. Ratched heads back to the Nub to get assigned some survivors and get supplies and start building it up.

The rest of the team starts working their first few jobs. They track down some info about missing persons via the Sprawl Scouts and Skraacha in the Leather District, and Mama’s Boyz in the Nub. They find a True Communion sanctuary deep in the Catacombs to the west, and meet their leader Dark Angel, who vows that they aren’t infecting anyone against their will, but are helping the desperate and possibly infected. They also seem to view themselves as in good standing with the local Catholic church under Grimes, though they take their version of communion in their sanctuary. They don’t know who’s behind the disappearances but suggest that there may be a nexus of activity originating under the old NeoNET HQ.

The team, satisfied with that info, heads out, but are approached by an Asamandan ghoul named Klana who asks if they’d like some work: infecting a few particular individuals with HMHVV and convincing them to take Asamando up on a citizenship offer once the lockdown ends. They decline, feeling this is a bridge too far. Klana seems very pro and polite. They head back and are summoned to meet Mama, after Aleiron sees a vision summoning her to The Deep during one of her Blood Eclipse dreams.

They pass through some Mama’z Boyz checkpoints (the inner circle all seem to be ghouls), and Guy decides to hang back. The rest of them head down a cable car through what looks like some kind of massive unfinished dig site, to a huge cylindrical pit. They climb partway down the inside on a rung ladder bolted into the wall, and find a small platform on which they perch, somewhat terrified, as a huge booming voice echoes up from below. The voice sounds grinding and is hard to understand, so the team quickly accepts an offer to switch to telepathy.

They receive some visions of Mama’s history, going back a loooooong way, and very slowly being uncovered, gaining followers, and rising in power. Aleiron is the only one who gets a full understanding, the rest of the group gets fragments. Mama tasks them with tracking down and destroying a man she believes responsible for the disappearances, and who has holed up in some exposed labs beneath the old NeoNET HQ. She says they may become her children if they wish once this task is complete. Aleiron drops a pamphlet into the pit, and Mama says she has learned much from things people have dropped to her. Prot0 can’t find a resonance connection but vows to keep trying.

They link up with Ratched, finish setting up the safehouse with an escape route, protein printer, some security and entertainment, and a small garage with access to the old MBTA yard/repair center, which looks pretty shot up and is overrun with headcases, so they spend some time clearing a secure route in and out of the train tunnel. Guy pulls a car in and they head out to do a little digging at Grimes’ church. They cross paths with some Hellriders on the way, and PPJ takes the chance to look into one of the IOND jobs. They find out that the leader, Wyatt’s, bike has some sort of astral signature (which Aleiron speculates may be a Parliament of Cars-esque spirit), and they arrange for the go-gang to provide security and party favors for Jonny’s next show, hoping to get more info then.

They reach the church, meet Grimes and various other Catholics and survivors, and also some Neo-A’s and a very chill technomancer named Viktor Markwart who Prot0 wanted to find anyway- they make fast friends and plan to collab in the future. Jonny gets in with the Neo-A’s, who are impressed by his stories of taking on Ghostwalker. They find out from Grimes (and ghouls in the basement) that the church has been actively protecting HMHVV-infected and technomancers, as well as a variety of unaffiliated individuals who got stranded downtown when the QZ went up. Grimes actually seems pretty rad, but this also confirms a lot of the suspicions Frank Incense/Rome wanted investigated. Prot0 and Grimes notice that they are both TM’s, also, and plan to communicate further.

They head back to the Leather District, get a message from Frank, and head to South Boston to the address he provided as a meet point. They find a corny but well-kept house with a “welcome” mat and a mana barrier around it. They are allowed through, and enter, finding Frank peeling off some bleach covered gloves and apron which still doesn’t quite mask the smell of blood. They see the kitchen is full murder-room: plastic taped up over everything etc. They are instantly a bit creeped out. He says that he had a rough initial contact with the Knights of the Red Branch, but that they’ve sorted everything out.

As usual, they have a hard time reading him, and he seems to be able to easily see through their attempts at deception. They pass along info and location about the True Communion-ists, and also what they learned at the church downtown, though they stress that Grimes seems to be doing a good job. Frank doesn’t seem interested in their opinions. He says that he may have more work for them in the future but that he considers this satisfactory payment, and Prot0 takes a quick poll about whether the team should kill him. He seems to catch the vibe and readies himself. Guy and Ratched leave, not wanting any part of this.

The rest of the team also exits, slowly, though Aleiron and PPJ especially are pretty pissed. They head back to the safehouse, and PPJ astrally projects to the church to warn Grimes, and ends up telling his bodyguard Silke all about Frank Incense and where he is/what he’s up to. He tells the team, and Jonny and Guy (especially) are piiiiiissed- selling out a Johnson is majorly unprofessional, especially as they are new in town and Guy has made extreme efforts to be cool with everyone, in order to be able to get around. They all planned to warn Grimes but giving away Frank’s info was too far. They team decides to take a vote to determine if PPJ can remain in the crew or not, and Prot0 launches a massive PR campaign, pulling on all of his street cred to do it, to smear Frank’s rep in town before he finds out and burns them.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack
and introducing:
Kayra
Ratched the Hatchet

Before they head to meet, Prot0 gets a load of investigative jobs from Perri, who wants the team to look into some cybermercs Bennett was using called Zero Day, as well as continue investigating the Null Sect, and another assassin/group called Synapse. Someone has been installing cranial shields into kidnapped TM’s, as well as persecuting and framing AI’s, e-ghosts, and TM’s, and Perri wants to know who. She also thinks one or more of these entities may be behind the Nexus’ beef with Jackpoint. And finally, she wants any info the team can get on De la Mars’ plan for a matrix security overhaul, which she is apparently planning to roll out in GW’s “New Denver.”

The team also hears reports of mass casualties and detainment centers in the AZT district, grudging cooperation from the PCC and Sioux, and lots of bluster and big talk from the UCAS/CAS, but not substantive action. The troll street preachers and militias have increased their activities, and ZDF troops have continued to let Warrens gangs roam free anywhere except the Hub, while the respective districts slowly dissolved and evacuate in preparation for GW’s seemingly inevitable takeover.

The cold calculation of the dragon only becomes clear in retrospect, as it has come out that the same day he made his demand and shut off the Denver matrix, the Corporate Court stripped NeoNet of it’s AAA and announced significant damages against it, as well as banning Richard Villiers from any CEO position for life, in response to their findings of fault for Boston. They also finally gave Spin Industries it’s long-sought third “A”, proving that Johnny Spinrad’s machinations and campaigns of the last few years were successful. The CC also possessed NN’s new home, the St Louis Archology, leaving them baseless. Reports of desperate new SINless former NN citizens flooding the streets (and shadows) have emerged globally.

Amidst this, the team is hired to look into what has been causing these reality rips that have been troubling the town. They get a bit of info from Darien Black, and some more on the Nexus, as well as some from their Johnson, including a dossier on where to start looking, before a rip opens at the meet, and they have to hustle the Johnson out, bringing another group of runners and THEIR Johnson along in the chopper. This other group is quite grateful and offers their services if needed, and the Johnson says that if they find any more tarot, SK is very interested.

PPJ captured one of the strange cartoon-ish creatures that emerged from the rip, and hands it over to Darien (and the team gets to witness some of their very unhealthy dynamic). Darien promises to share the IOND’s findings asap, and the team heads back to the safehouse to start digging. They decide to start their investigations in the warrens, at the first site picked out by the Johnson.

Using astral observation, matrix research, and social skills, they home in on an abandoned and run down mansion that seems to be the epicenter of local reality rips. They infiltrate through a disheviled garage and find it heavily armored and reinforced on the inside. They destroy some cameras, but maybe not in time. They also find a ton of small aerial drones and vats full of chemicals, with a system to load the chems into the drones. Ratched ID’s the liquid as a catalyst that will trigger a genetic sequence that Paladin clinics have been implanting in metahumans throughout the sprawl. They disable the system and rig some grenades to destroy as much as they can, and then find a hidden elevator into a tunnel to the house’s basement.

They get into a major firefight with a cybered-up goon and a decker, as well as two powerful spirits. They take them out, and Ratched steals the goon’s legs. Prot0 manages to get some data from the decker/spider’s setup, but loses some of the data to security measures. They also find a magical lodge, and determine that this is a Black Lodge chantry. PPJ gathers what he can, but all the mana being slung about during the fight opened up some reality rips and they have to flee further into the basement from the things that come through after them.

They fight off 2 terrifying biowaredogs that seem possessed, and find a hidden passage into what looks like an old mine shaft, and another huge ritual chamber ringed with orichalcum. They interrupt the lodgemaster and her 2 acolytes, and get into a brutal brawl. They manage to defeat the lodge members, with Aleiron in wolf form using her vengeance tarot card to chase down and kill the leader as she tries to flee further into the mine. This reminds the team that they had heard rumors of an old mineshaft under the nearby Paladin clinic, which was used as body disposal. They decide to flee that way, and eventually make their way out another exit in the south Warrens.

PPJ, thinking about what they saw, realizes that the ritual was in its early stages, and likely many more BL members would have been there had they gone later. They also hear reports of a large explosion in the Warrens, seemingly having destroyed the house they just left while the were underground. There go their dreams of orichalcum riches…. They report into the Johnson, and heal up for a bit before starting the next leg of the investigation. PPJ splits off to go over all the Lodge material at the IOND.

The team heads to the CAS sector next, and finds it a shitshow. As the evacuation deadline comes up, there are miles long traffic jams, and CAS/LoneStar checkpoints everywhere, with ZDF “observers” aggressively keeping an eye on it all but not helping. They make their way to Doorkickers to try to find out what happened to the last operative Mr. Johnson sent here, and continue his digging. They manage to find and defuse a tense standoff, mostly due to Jonny Silver being so cool. It seems the shops owner has been hiring runners on behalf of a CAS general (secretly) and one of the teams took some heavy hits on a job and came back looking for revenge.

Jonny talks them into taking product instead, and gets info on the General from the proprietor in exchange for helping save his life (though he had enough explosives to go out on his own terms). The team then buys a map from a street dealer to sneak through back alleys to the amusement park where the CAS military evacuation of the sector is based. Jonny leaves the dealer a MeFeed review, which later gets the dealer killed. Woops. The team successfully makes their way to the park with no major trouble, thanks to the map, and starts looking for a way in.

They decide to take out a small motor pool squad that is ditching civilian cars in a mall parking lot after the civvies get sorted in the tent city in the park to await air evacuation. The team’s ambush goes quite sideways, but they do eventually succeed, and get uniforms and badges for everyone. They are aided by the chaos of the situation, and the last minute/impromptu nature of the camp. They also meet a real urban survivor ork child who is holed up in a Stuffer Shack who comes out to loot the military dudes while they’re ko’ed (or dead, for a few).

The team bluffs their way onto the base, and Ratched heads to the med tent to maintain their cover, restock the medkit, and find an escape vehicle. The rest of the team heads to the command post to find the General. However, someone got there first- all of the command staff is dead, and some kind of deck has been plugged into the main comms terminal. They race upstairs to find more bodies, and the General dying from a bad sword cut, having only gotten a few shots off. The assassin leaps out the window as Kayra enters, leaving a beast Jaguar spirit to cover her retreat, she seems to be an elf woman and looks like probably the same person who followed the team on motorcycle before an AZT assault previously.

The Jaguar heavily injures Prot0 and Kayra and chases off the others, before also exiting. The team flees the building, barely escaping before it is levelled by some missiles launched from some mysterious jets that do a supersonic flyover. They flee in a medical jeep that Ratched steals, and head back to the mall, where they swap for a civilian mini van and head back to the safehouse to heal up. They rest for a day and a half while Jonny makes a very popular guest appearance at a Front Range benefit concert to cover medical costs for people injured in the recent troubles and “heal Denver.” Jonny advocates for the poor and downtrodden, and gets the crowd riled and invested.

The team then heads to the Sioux sector, via Rhinegold’s smuggling services, to look for a smuggler who may have some intel. They hit up a bar he supposedly frequents, and manage to successfully navigate the subtle nuances of Sioux culture well enough to get some info. Some local runners try to drink them under the table, but also tell them where the smuggler’s mechanic shop is, and warn them that he’s been real paranoid and recently came into some big paydays. Sounds like they found their guy…. The team heads out to check it out. They eventually discover him dead amidst a bunch of disabled or tripped traps, and find his place trashed- looks like someone beat them there.

They find a shipping manifest, and find out he’s been bringing in rare reagents and powerful ritual supplies, and track the deliveries to Horse Trot Ranch. They infiltrate (with an incredibly brazen distraction, when PPJ intentionally causes a rift, gets captured and interrogated, and has his memory erased), and find a powerful circle of Sioux shamans, aspected towards multiple mentors, and some impressively clean mana/astral space. The shamans explain that they are trying to keep the city from falling apart, and keep the rips from spreading towards Yellowstone, and are prepared to sacrifice themsevles if needed. They hint that Aztlan might be behind the various deaths and conspiracies, and coordinating against GW. They then KO the team, and they wake up again back in the smuggler’s lair. They escape the Sioux sector and lay low to heal up.

Heading for the last job segment, they interview some rift watchers in the PCC and then get into a gunfight with an AZT strike team hiding out seemingly keeping an eye on a large arena which may contain a ritual. In over their heads, they call in the ZDF, and Prot0 uses his last use of the 404 tarot card to help them escape. They meet the Johnson who’s a bit disappointed with the final leg of the mission, and pressures the team to do one more thing for a little more money- they agree, and he opens a rift and sends them to a metaplane.

They work their way through multiple lairs, detonating small packages the Johnson gave them, which seem to sever the lairs as they go (and based on their clown theme suggest that Harlequin is either behind this or someone wants it to seem so). After traveling to the peak and surviving an ambush, they find a strange tower filled with arcane mysteries, and verify that they have been traveling through the metaplanes GW assembled to bring Zebulon back. However, they have to hurry as the plane and mountain seem to be coming apart under them. They find a fight between GW and Harlequin happening on the tower’s peak, and agree to help Harlequin destroy Zebulon to save Denver, and do so.

GW and Harlequin, both injured, survive the fight and the tower’s collapse, as does the team, but Zebulon is destroyed. Harlequin opens a portal back to Denver and suggests the team join him, but Kayra decides to take a chance at her revenge and shoots GW, to no effect, and is swiftly eaten. PPJ, seeing this, keeps his anger in check and the team flees. They emerge in the Warrens, and Harlequin suggests they get out of town ASAP, and then splits.

The team contacts Frank Incense, their Catholic contact, and make arrangements to leave via BBE merc corp, who has fake ID’s and whatnot prepared to get them out of town. They bail fast as GW’s deadline comes, and the Denver borders and matrix get locked down. They land outside Boston in what looks to be staging area BBE is setting up to run support for other merc’s pushing back into the city sometime soon, and start gearing up to head in and lay low for a while, as they hear GW is looking for them…

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Three Card
Yanko Lazer
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack

The runners meet a Johnson about a high-paying smuggling job, but something seems a little off. As best they can tell, he’s receiving live instruction on how to respond to them, but they pay’s quite good and they can’t find anything obviously fishy so they agree. They hear shortly after that the remote junkyard that was the site of the meet exploded spectacularly shortly after their visit there, and are they glad that they narrowly dodged…. something?

They meet up with Michael Wind-Rider, a risky but respected local t-bird smuggler, who is recently back in the air after getting shot down on a border crossing a few months back. He tells them to prepare for a few days travel and they take off. First they fly to another junkyard outside Reno, this one looking like old US military from the teens, and meet a dwarf rigger, who passes over the package, a sealed and warded crate. They load up and head north through the PCC, dodging patrols. At a refueling stop, they almost lose a fight with some snakes.

They then cross into SIoux terrirtory (Prot0’s TM abilities proving quite useful!), and make another fuel stop at a smuggler’s alliance depot, but find it overrun by Prairie Igasho, obnoxious “lost cause” nomad survivalist types. PPJ successfully negotiates with them for fuel, but then Jonny insists on getting involved and blows the whole thing (they aren’t fans, as it turns out), and 3 Card ends up killing a teenager and feeling rather bad about it (though he was attacking her). They escape with the fuel, and Michael launches a missile into the half-built terminal the Igasho were using for shelter, as revenge for killing his friends who previously ran the place. The team speculates that this may have killed as many as a few dozen people, mostly children.

They fly on, crossing into UCAS territory, after setting down to wait for an ideal time and covering the craft with ruthenium tarps. They make it to a remote private terminal at Stapleton Airport/Base and call for a pickup, but quickly come under attack. A blood adept that the team recognizes from the Los Espejos base nearly kills Jonny, and an invisible blood mage badly injures Yanko and a few others. A sniper kills Michael and almost takes out other team members before sneaking away (and seemingly leaving no blood magic traces). An ork with a military look shows up from the Johnson and gives the team a van to leave with, saying he’ll clean up at the airfield. He gives them Wind-Rider’s share as well.

The Johnson also provides a hotel safehouse in the UCAS sector. Prot0 upgrades his medical drone, which keeps watch over Jonny and Yanko while the rest of the team scouts and attempts another job for the same Johnson: a quick snatch and grab at a local brothel. They have a pretty enjoyable time scouting, exploring various new areas of their respective sexualities, as well as getting a lot of useful info on their target and the house’s security. However, when they come back for the grab, with a lot of specialty tools, they find they’ve been set up. One of the targets bodyguards (who turn out to all be secret service) have killed him and the other guards, and badly wounded his companion for the evening.

The team manages to stabilize the injured woman, but the guard’s head explodes from an implanted bomb before they can capture- he briefly registers a look of hate and disappointment before they detonation, seemingly knowing what’s coming. They flee the house, not encountering anyone else as they are funneled to the street. KE shows up suspiciously quick, and the team is debating a blaze of glory ending when Prot0 gets a message signed with a rabbit mark that says “surrender and trust me”, so they do.

They get interrogated by some bruisers and kicked around a good bit, until “a fed” shows up to take over their case- apparently the man they are believed to have killed is none other than UCAS rep Iain Lesker, and they are being implicated in the bombing at his office as well. However, the fed is none other than Puck, who says that if they agree to help him he will get them clear of this. They do. He gets them out and to a safehouse in the warrens, where they catch up on the news of an eventful few days- Lesker wasn’t the only government or corp type to get hit (or vanish), and there have been some major infrastructure hits in the various sectors as well as mercs massing on the Aztlan sector border, seemingly under ZDF command.

Meanwhile, Yanko and Jonny barely survive a hit attempt at their hotel “safehouse”, and manage to make it out, make contact with Puck, and also get to the safehouse. They noticed some large explosions at a UCAS military base nearby and a power substation, so something is kicking off. Puck suggests it’s GW making a move of some sort, and say he wants to find out what, and also get back at the team’s traitorous Johnson, GW’s special ops/intelligence cleaner, an elf named Bennett.

The team agrees, and they pull a wild data heist at the ZDF command center in the Hub, which Puck has been preparing for. He and Prot0 get the data (barely) while the rest of the team holds off the guards and gets them out of there (also barely). They heal up for a few hours at the safehouse until Puck insists they head out, seeming very distraught- the ZDF know one of the Nexus’ new locations and are going to hit it shortly. The team must help! They reluctantly agree when promised money and other rewards.

They race to a rundown area near the CAS border and warn Perri and the other admins who are there, who start calling in favors and evacuating people- this is where most of the sick, young, and injured from the last attack washed up, as well as being a major data center, so they have some work to do. Meanwhile, a broadcast comes out from GW giving a very short deadline for anyone not loyal to him and him alone to leave Denver, and promising hellfire for Aztlaners. Then the matrix shuts down.

The team starts helping to organize a desperate defense, giving the defenseless people and the data time to get clear via secret escape tunnels that the ZDF seems unaware of. An eclectic mix of runners, mercs, hackers, dealers, bikers, gangers, smugglers, Sons of Sauron and Diamond Eyes band together into impromptu squads and divy up the armaments onhand. They demo a few nearby buildings to create more bottlenecks and slow the ZDF’s approach, and the team splits off to attempt a possibly suicidal alpha strike on the ZDF’s rear command post, where Bennet will be. Prot0 activates a tarot card he was sent by Zany Zuni (the rabbit mark entity- apparently connected to the Denver Exchange.)

They successfully make their approach, hearing the whole time over shortwave that the defenders are taking heavy losses, but slowing the ZDF to a crawl as the evacuation continues. Yanko engages a milspec armored ork (the one with the van from before), using a power granted to him by a tarot card gifted him by an elderly Russian sniper at the Nexus. He channels pure electricity through himself, obliterating the ork as well as himself in the process, and creating one of the “reality rips” the team has been hearing about. Prot0 uses the tarot power, a rose icon on his comm, to brick 2 devices, saving the last use for an emergency.

The rest of the team, shocked, takes out other ZDF guards and drones as 3 Card makes her way to the command trailer. Bennett emerges in more milspec to take them on, but is engaged by some sort of pure electrical spirit in Yanko’s shape that emerges through the rift, before pulling them both back through as it stitches closed. 3 Card slipped through the door as Bennet exited, and in her chemsuit, drops 2 7-Seven grenades into the mass of deckers and riggers, who all quickly jack out, presumably spotting their peril on camera. They rush 3 Card with hand weapons and small arms, but she is an expert of 52 blocks, and she keeps them from the door til they all die.

This gives the Nexus folks just enough time to finish the evacuation and blow the building just at the final ZDF wave arrives- 12 troops in full milspec, who finished off the last of the defenders. The team hustles to the rally point, finding only Puck and Perri waiting. They get brought back to the Warren’s safehouse, paid well, and proclaimed heroes for saving the Nexus (they are also made members). One of the Diamond Eyes had told them to expect a call as “their boss was interested in the team”, and sure enough, a mysterious new Johnson calls to set up a meet, though as far as they can tell it isn’t Harlequin himself.

After restocking, healing, and mourning their dead, they agree to a meet. Sadly, their team is down a few members: 3 Card, finally having earned enough for a near-perfect fake SIN, says her goodbyes and flies back to Seattle after some cyber-alterations, to start a new life with Gina, completing her goal of :get good, get out, and get the girl", though she pays a price in nightly PTSD flashbacks to the things she did and saw to get there. Yanko’s name is inscribed in the memorial wall at the original Nexus site, a pilgrimage spot for hackers and TM’s, alongside those who died fighting the wyrm Jormungandr during the 2nd Crash, and the defenders who died during the ZDF’s last assault.

Aleiron, distraught at the loss of exit of her 2 longterm companions, retreats to Frantic’s bar, where Frantic opens a portal to the astral crossroads city of Yann Ti. She finds another tarot card on her pillow on her 2nd night, seemingly offering a path to revenge on her enemies, and she debated returning to the team. Puck has brought in a new runner in town, a Neo-A medic from Chicago named Ratched, and they team also hires an extra gunhand named Kayra through Darien Black. Off to the meet they go!

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Three Card
Yanko Lazer
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack

Yanko goes on a (sober) bender while the rest of the team digs into the newly acquired set of Tarot cards. Prot0 goes on his first Resonance dive in modern matrix and finds his way to the Endless Archive, seemingly the home realm of his Paragon The Archivist. To get there he has to pass the Event Horizon and overcome the Cipher’s test, which involves showing Prot0 what effect “helping” Caribou actually had on both Caribou himself and the other residents of the Warrens. Prot0 resolves not to act without full info again in the future, and Cipher accepts this as a lesson learned.

Prot0 trades some info he has acquired that has never been digitized before in trade with the strange librarian sprites at the Archive in exchange for secret info, mostly on the 6th World Tarot. He finds hints at what powers the cards might have, how one might use them, some theories about possible origins, and a number of groups interested in the cards for various reasons. He also confirms the team’s interpretation of the cards- predicting the return of a figure from Hopi legend, which could be a big shakeup in the power structure in Denver during the ongoing Treaty re-negotiations.

Meanwhile, PPJ takes a thorough astral look at the cards, and does some digging at the IOND’s libraries (or at least the sections he’s been admitted to), and finds some further info, about rituals and the like involving the cards, as well as about Hopi magical traditions. The team has a long back and forth on what to do, and makes some calls to get some price options. Their Mona Lisa program has also returned some results from faces visible on the cards they have, and one of them seems to be a A-rated corp CEO from Azania named Joseph Mnguni, and unwisely calls him with no research (breaking his recent promise to Cipher and himself).

PPJ is able to tell that the cards are magically connected in some way, and that the Matrix card has a fire-y aspect, so they head into the Warrens to meet up with Frantic and enlist her help. Jonny is doing a club appearance for his label, but tells them to call in a pinch. They get to Frantic’s bar, and she says the card is actually electrical not fire, and suggests they consult Sam at the gadget shop next door. Prot0 gets a call back from Mnguni, who threatens him a bit, and Prot0 hangs up and does some research- apparently he’s known for taking excessive revenge against adversaries and is currently being courted by none other than Johnny Spinrad for a potential merger. Prot0 vows to actually stick to his earlier vow from now on.

They head to Sam’s shop, run a current through the card after some study, and debate what to do- Sam says it seems like it wants to discharge into something and shouldn’t be harmful, so Prot0 touches it and gains some additional TM powers, though they feel fleeting. The card is also destroyed in the process. PPJ takes off to get an offer for the set from the IOND before any more cards get wrecked, and shortly after the team comes under attack from a bar patron at Frantic’s who seems possessed.

Frantic asks them to leave so she can clean up the other dead patrons in her bar, which they do, taking up a defensive position outside til Grog arrives with his cab to drive them to the exit. Unfortunately, he also is possessed and crashes the car and attacks them. They manage to fend him off and hoof it to the exit, where Jonny is waiting with a van and some smooth-talking to get them through.

They agree they need to get the cards sold ASAP, and get prices from a Hopi rep and from the IOND. The IOND pays a little more, and seems to plan to pass the cards on to the Hopi to gain influence with them, so the team sells to them (over Aleiron’s objections, who wants to give the cards to the Hopi nation as the rightful recipients of the prophecy). They get the IOND to promise to share research info on the cards. Jonny and 3C use their big payday to upgrade some ’ware, while PPJ takes a major hit on his cut to make the deal happen.

The next day, they finally meet up with the Papal Delegation, and arrange to make introductions to Lupus’ clinic in the Warrens. The Catholics want to fund and expand it, but need to move quietly. The team thinks this will likely be both a major medical improvement for Warrens denizens and also a front for Catholic spies, whatever they’re up to here. The Bishop also hints that the Church would be interested in hiring the team to escort a Vatican investigator into Boston to look into reports that the Archdiocese there has gone a bit far afield.

The team is terrified, but the promise of secure transport out of Denver, a big payday, and the possibility of tracking down the Reverser Nanites for a potential CFD cure all seems quite appealing. They agree to think on it. PPJ and Jonny head into the Hub in disguise, to deliver the package they received from Los Espejos, as they got a message saying delivery should be done that day. They find the address, the offices of the UCAS Council rep, and decide that in case this package is sketchy they should use a cutout. They hire a courier, but sketch the first guy out too much, so they hire another courier from a different company and send the package. Shortly thereafter, there is a report of an alchemical explosion at the office, and they hear some screaming in the distance. They quickly exit the Hub, and switch SINs and disguises, worried about what they just did (though it seems they missed the UCAS rep, if that was the target).

They head back to the hotel to hole up for a bit, and the team gets a reminder that they have a smuggling job on the table, which is coming up- they accept, and get the details for the meet.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Three Card
Yanko Lazer
Prot0
Jonny Silver
PepperJack

The team, including the various new members, takes on another wetwork job, this time killing 3 associates of Brackhaven/the Human Nation’s, who were revealed by Prot0’s successful hack at the Paladin clinic. They carefully research and plot, and manage to do all 3 really pro, impressing the unknown Johnson (a blank humanoid matrix avatar who sounds like old money). They fake an allergic reaction with 1 PR hack who looks to have been coordinating with Aztlaner elements, stage an accidental OD with a member of the Diversity Council who’s a secret metaracist, and brutally murder a Corporate Council advisor from Brackahven Investments on july 4th at a celebratory Miracle Shooter fest. They get paid, well, and told they’ll be contacted for future work as needed.

They soon get an inquiry about looking into the death of the unofficial Aztlan sector’s Mayor, the official story says heart attack but the Nexus says arrow… They also come across a number more tarot cards, and contact Annie about them, as well as upgrade their fake SINs via Sierra Corp again. Annie tells them Wat is back in Seattle but seems “off”. They worry, but what can you do?

They get hired by the same mysterious matrix contact to look into the AZT Mayor, and do some research on how to cross that border. They eventually make contact with an old man at the Conservatory in the CAS sector, which seems like a hub for AZT spycraft (GW’s ban be damned!) and get a map to a location in the abandoned tunnels under Denver. They make their way there and encounter an AZT spec ops team, with a frighteningly powerful spirit. They are all magical, and seem connected slightly to blood magic, which PPJ is not pumped about, but manages to deal with for the moment.

They agree to the strike team’s terms: the runners will be allowed into the Aztlan sector, but will be guided throughout and will be expected to draw a certain conclusion (basically that GW is behind it), though they are free to examine “all the evidence” (or so the strike team says). The team, lacking alt options, agrees, and heads in. They find it very clean and orderly, but with a heavy military presence, and the obvious refuse of some heavy fighting against CAS and LoneStar elements. Also, most of the CAS-imported businesses seem to have been looted or destroyed.

They do a bunch of digging in the morgue, the Mayor’s office, and the assassin’s perch, as well as examining her commlink contents, and are also given a video file of GW’s voice meeting with Tir Tairngire reps shortly before the assassination, and draw the conclusion that the strike team seems to want them to: this is the work of the legendary elven assassin Toast, and likely GW who hired him. Prot0 reports that to the Johnson shortly after ignoring another message from a sprite asking him to contact a commcode before completing their mission. They also report that the Aztlaners seemed to want the team to reach this conclusion, but figure the Johnson will do what he wants with that.

They get paid, and the Johnson says, again, that he’s satisfied and will be in touch. They also get 2 more tarot cards, and piece together a puzzle predicting the return of Pahana, a figure from Hopi legend that could (if true) prove a major upset in the local power balance. They do a lot of research, but hold off on selling the info for now. They are also contacted by a new Johnson about running security on a smuggling gig in a few days time.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Butter
Eion Smash
Three Card
Watt Tinbo
Yanko Lazer
Grackle

The team engages in an aerial firefight with some Great Hunt Tir border patrol militia, but manage to barely squeak by. Limping into the UCAS sector of the FRFZ, their pilot Blackhawk tells them to put on diamond insignia and makeup, just to help clear security. The team, lacking other info, complies. They land, leave the military area of the base/airport combo, and remove their disguises in the bathrooms before clearing customs. It seems Sierra Corp did good work with their new SINs, as they get through without much trouble.

They notice an unusually large percentage of orks and trolls, as well as a fair amount of troll COTD street preachers. The UCAS sector also seems exceptionally tense, with a well-armed citizenry. The team splits into 3 groups- Butter, Aleiron and 3 Card head to the Hub to try to make some local contacts, Grackle splits off to fix up his armor and deck from the last run, and Eion, Yanko, and Wat head into the Aurora Warrens with Ada on the motorcycle and sidecar, aiming to have a look around before the meet with the Johnson later tonight.

The Hub team makes contact with an anti-corp magic user named Digger, who hangs out at a multi-tier club called Tower of Babel. He gives them some local intel, and they also meet an older elf technomancer named Prot0 who offers his assistance as a local guide and matrix expert (he’s looking into the team on behalf of the Nexus). They hang around for a while and wait for the meet to get a little closer before heading into the Hub. Meanwhile, the Warrens team has hit a rough patch. They get in just fine, but the guards are pretty clear that people generally aren’t let back out. They also don’t see many vehicles inside. And they have a lot of decently expensive equipment and are obviously not from there, instantly marking them as targets.

The team sees signs everywhere that a gang called the Zombies seems to have taken over all of the turf in the Warrens, tagging over other gangs signs and posting lookouts all around. The lookouts seem to be reporting on the team’s movements, so they they decide to force a confrontation. Some gangers on beat up bikes arrive for a classic shakedown, which Wat almost successfully negotiates before Eion starts a fight. The team wins, but are pretty shredded (Wat and Ada especially), and more gangers incoming.

They head for a local street doc that Butter gets contact info for, and they race to the Smoky Hill Bazaar in the south Warrens. They meet the Doc, a sketchy transhumanist named Lupus Doubek who says she can only save either Wat or Ada. Eion and Yanko choose Wat, and approve Lupus’ plan to use some of Ada’s parts to “improve” him. The Zombie gangers quickly show up outside the clinic, and their leader, and ex-Yakuza troll named Ohnee, challenges Eion to single combat, which Eion accepts.

Eion gets a couple good hits in, and Yanko is starting to think it might go his way, when Eion has a bad dodge and gets decapitated by Ohnee’s combat chainsaw. Grackle quickly makes a meme of the footage and shares it widely. So not a very subtle arrival in Denver overall. However, this seems to placate the Zombie gang, and some of Eions Infected blood splatters some of the gangers so it seems likely some of him may live on…

Lupus is fascinated with the Evo mods that Wat has, and Yanko puts her in touch with Squeamish, and she arranges some experiments, sending Ada and Eion’s brains to Seattle. Wat, upon waking, is horrified by this whole sequence of events, and leaves the team, making a withdrawal from team funds to cover bribes and transit, and seemingly bound for Seattle, claiming he needs to prevent anything else from happening to Ada. 3 Card is pretty distraught, having lost her 2 closest team-mates. Butter warns Squeamish that Wat may be inbound and looking for trouble.

The remaining team heads to the meet with the Johnson, and get the lowdown on the job- a local clinic that provides cheap and free medical care to the Warrens poor is possibly engaged in some sketchy activity and they want the team to investigate. Prot0 suggests getting another local runner involved, a rocker face named Jonny Silver. They make contact and meet him at his concert that night. He agrees to help, and asks around about rumors about the clinic, and finds that they seems to be sterilizing metahumans using “existing injuries” as a cover.

The team does a casual infiltration of the hospital, minus Grackle, who has gotten in good with the Zombie gang, and is mostly hanging with them. Mostly, it goes well, and Aleiron and Prot0 manage to get the data they need from the basement with an escape assist from Jonny Silver. However, 3 Card’s plan for being on scene goes sideways, and she ends up getting sterilized. Extra angry and sad now, she’s in a dark place, and is ignoring Gina’s calls or responding with terse texts. They meet the Johnson again, who is quickly assassinated by human supremacists.

The team succeeds in surviving after a tough fight, taking out the human goons in the bar, but allowing the 2 more skilled assassins to escape. However, they capture one of their silenced pistols, which has an ornate engraving of a Flaming Sword on it. They also capture their roto-drone with a mounted assault rifle. Butter and Prot0 start fixing it up. Meanwhile, the Johnson’s friend introduces himself as Parker James, and says he’s the money behind the job and he wants the team to keep at it. He asks them to rescue a street doc named Hippocrates who’s gotten himself in some sort of trouble. Most of the team takes a cab over to his clinic, while Butter decides to walk.

The clinic is in a strip mall renamed “Paradise Lost” that some ex-runners retired to, opening up 7 businesses adjacent to each other, surrounding his clinic, he being their longtime favorite local street doc. Pretty much a one stop shop for runners. They don’t have much time to investigate, however, as the clinic looks to have sustained some battle damage. They hurry in, neglecting to warn Butter of the glowing eyed dogs their cabby warned them of on the way. Butter, walking over, finds himself stalked by said dogs, and after failing to take some border guards into helping him, he gets caught and killed by them. Tyrese leaves the team to run to a would-be rescue, but is too late, though he manages to drive off the dogs before Butter’s body is too badly damaged.

The rest of the team finds a total slaughter in the clinic, it looks like some human supremacist goons got into with the clientele, leading to multiple casualties, and Jonny finds a group of more goons waiting nearby. He lures them out but they give chase heavily and the team ends up in a rolling firefight. The team members inside find a man hiding in back who says he’s an employee who hid during the slaughter, and doesn’t know where Hippocrates went, and seems surprised when they team suggests he has a safe room onsite. They find it, and open it up, finding the Doc, but the man they found reveals himself as an assassin and tries to take out the Doc.

3 Card throws herself in front of the shot and is nearly ko’ed, and the team gets into a hard fight with the cybered-up madman. Tyrese rushes in at the last minute and saves the day with a machine-gun burst and then dives on the man’s suicide grenade. The protection spell from the Parliament of Cars reassembles Tyrese from his exploded components, shocking the team. Yanko takes the Doc to the provided safehouse until James can get him out of town, while the rest of the team retrieves Butter.

They bring him back to Lupus’ clinic, and scrap him for parts. A lot of his softer bits have gotten eaten by urban critters, so they sell off his ‘ware, except for his control rig, which they give to Tyrese (upon his request). They forget to do anything with his remains otherwise, just leaving them in a corner at Lupus’. They get drunk at a local bar before heading to the safehouse. They hang there for a few days while the Doc heals them up, before he’s picked up and spirited out of town.

James gives them another job- tracking down local victims of the clinic, getting their stories, and finding out specifically which Doctors were involved. He needs this to happen fast, in order to assassinate those doctors, before other members of his group (the Sons of Sauron) follow through on their plan to bomb the clinic. The team interviews a number of locals, meeting some real characters, as well as finding a vamp gang called Nocturna, who provide safe haven to people on their turf in exchange for non-lethal amounta of blood. They also meet and IOND mage named PepperJack who seems to be investigating the same issue, although in his case it is because the clinic appears to be doing the same sketchy business with awakened individuals as well as metas.

The team is also offered some side jobs of finding info on who is funding/behind the clinic, as well as finding more proof of their experiments on the awakened. They agree to do them if they can, and make a list of 11 clinic staff, doctors, etc to kill. They make a plan to get everyone in, and implement. Proto provides matrix support from outside while Jonny riles up the crowd of protesters assembled after James leaked the info the team had gathered thus far, and Yanko keeps an eye on the exits to make sure the team can get out.

3 Card and Aleiron, in disguise as the clinic’s outreach doctors (who they have killed) head in and split up, while PPJ enters from the CAS side (as he possesses a legal SIN). PPJ takes out 2 admins and gets a data tap on their system, where Prot0 is able to salvage some data that they were trying to delete, and finds a secret back passage to a financial holdings company that they’re in touch with, implying Brackhaven involvement.

3C takes out 5 more of the targets as the clinic enters lockdown, while Aleiron slays the remaining 2 in wolf form. The team broadcasts the kills, which Jonny uses to rile up the crowd further, and James uses to prevent the bombing. Aleiron manages to sneak out the Warrens side with Yanko’s help just before they fully lock down, while 3 Card has to sneak and fight through the facility to the far side, where she escapes with magical assistance from PPJ. The team reunites and collects a massive payday.

They use some of their money to fund Lupus’ clinic to provide free care to the Warrens for 2 weeks, since the clinic shuts down. They also get some more offers of work- one of the side job Johnsons wants them to assassinate some human supremacist figures revealed from the data they stole, and Jonny’s manager wants their help aggressively recruiting some talent away from Horizon. However, they are forced to hole up for a few days while a massive manastorm rolls through town. Aleiron gets into some romantic hangs with a free spirit named Frantic who runs a bar in Paradise Lost while the rest of the team tries to bond a bit. Tyrese is thrilled to be able to carry his gun all the time, and excited to find that people in the Warrens will pay him to shoot people. The team decides to keep a little distance from Tyrese.

After the manastorm, news comes in that Aztlan has managed to use that, and the distraction to the ZDF caused by citywide protests against the Paladin clinic chain, to retake some of their old turf in the CAS sector. No response from Ghostwalker as yet, but things are tense. There are also report of street brawls between the Diamond Eyes gang and citizens militias led by troll street preachers. The team decides to do the recruiting job first, heading to the Wonderland club in the Hub. The proprietor Alyss doesn’t take kindly to illusion use in her club, as Yanko and PPJ quickly discover.

Jonny and Aleiron, disguised as caterers, dose a round of shots with Tracker RFIDs, and 3Card and Yanko initiate a fake brawl to ID which members of the Horizon star’s entourage might be undercover security. Prot0, on lookout, ID’s 3 of them, and 3C spots another keeping an eye on things from a distance. They get everyone to drink the shots, and Prot0 sends the relevant tracker signals to the Johnson, who pays up. They exit the club, and come under fire from a concealed sniper, who wrecks Prot0’s “assistant” drone, and nearly kills most of the team, before they injure them enough that they flee, just ahead of the ZDF’s arrival.

The ZDF confiscates the drone’s gun and disables it’s hidden weapon mount, but otherwise clears the team, as they were attacked, and defended themselves pretty responsibly. Jonny and Aleiron sneak off unnoticed. Prot0 manages to give a false ID using a resonance trick, but the rest of the team is on the ZDF’s radar now, though the predominantly ork and troll squad take kindly to Yanko and 3C’s Sierra Corp ID’s. The team heads back to the CAS sector to their hotel “safehouse”, which also houses a Papal Delegation. They get a message requesting a meeting from the Catholics, and also hear the news that the impromptu “governor” of the new AZT sector has been assassinated by an archer.

Runners:
Mango Chutney
Linnie Han
Stellani Beams
Klamm Birdshot
Blue

Imaginary Annie Goldsmith puts together a team to deal with some dangling threads left by the main crew when they fled to Denver. For starters, they need to break Tommy Vermont out of Knight Errant protective custody in a precinct in Redmond, where he is being kept for treatment of some sort of unknown condition after solving the Chainsaw Murders case. Only Annie knows it’s CFD though some on the team are suspicious…

They make an elaborate plan to recon the precinct, with Mango posing as a lawyer and bluffing her way in to see a “client”. They arrange a mafia driver extraction, and pick a spot to pass Vermont off to the street doc Riot, who knows a more connected doc who has some experimental treatments she wants to try.

Blue provides matrix and sniper overwatch, Klamm heads in the front door posing as a reporter, and the main team sneaks in the back. Some cops spot them, and they get in a rolling firefight, but with surprise on their side, 2 angles of attack, and sniper support they manage to extract Vermont and get free with no casualties.

They get paid and head back to their various safehouses, agreeing to stay in touch about future jobs…

Unfortunately the next job (acquiring various paracritters for a Fort Lewis parazoologist) goes sideways when they try to steal security hellhounds from a corp blacksite in the Barrens. Most of the team is KO’ed and barely limps away in a busted van, while their new hire Hemtex is killed outright, and pulled by some magical force into the facility. They still owed the parazoologist some animals (or else their rep is gonna suffer) so they regoup to figure out next steps.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Butter
Eion Smash
Three Card
Watt Tinbo
Yanko Lazer
Grackle
Blue

The team does some digging on who’s after them and finds that Jenny has been tortured and/or BTL’ed to death, seemingly having been swept up by the folks looking for them and sold at an illicit auction, which they heard rumors of but did not investigate. Butter mourns, but decides to feed her remains to Eion, who has transformed into a gnawer after getting tons of ghoul blood in his radiation wounds. Squeamish guided his transformation (and ran some experiments) to maintain his sentience. However, Eion is now terrifyingly strong and seems crazier than normal. A problem…

Conferring with Annie, the team decides to flee the city for a while (Annie thinks things should clear up after the election a bit), and do some work in Denver, where Annie says they can strike back at some of Brackhaven’s allies, as both the Human Nation and Flaming Sword are very active, and it seems like FS elements within the Metroplex Guard are likely behind the assassination attempts on the team. Another hit squad almost takes out 3 Card while the team splits up an flees the safehouse, but Blue doubles back and saves her, before going into hiding with the Reality Hackers.

They warn Riot and Hans Yolo about potential repurcussions, and pay up front to keep the safehouse for a bit while they’re out of town. They decide to fake their own deaths to throw Brackhaven off their trail, and arrange to smuggle out to Denver with a small-time T-bird operation run by Blackhawk and Osprey. They get a connection to a meta/eco friendly AA corp called Sierra Corp through Jamaal Quigley, and the corp seems to like the team due to their beef with Brackhaven, and agrees to generate new SINs for the team to travel under. They transfer payment and arrange delivery via a data courier named Mango Chutney.

To generate the funds, they arrange a sale of their tarot 8’s info, bringing Annie in to not piss her off, with an AI named Orior, who seems to be the entity that has been hiring Grackle for odd jobs, as well as monitoring Tyrese and Blue (who had their contact from MotherFather). Orior also offers to help with their escape from Seattle, and says they have contacts in Denver that could be helpful if the team proves cooperative. The team arranges to extract some data (and gather up some wimp clones to use for their fake deaths) from an EVO facility in Snohomish, after which Squeamish will use bio-matter from the team to camouflage the wimps as them.

They call in their favor with Dana Oaks to get her to collect and verify ID on the bodies after they stage the incident. They arrange to steal a boat from one of Trailblazer’s subordinates (who she wants to punish slightly), and plan to stuff it with explosives and “die” in a massive explosion following a shootout with EVO security. After they get this all lined up, they plan the run itself. Checking ShadowSEA, they find some sidejobs and accept a few, including one that will help them access the facility. A disgruntled scientist who has ethical concerns about the data she can see, and wants someone to dig further and get info out.

Orior says they also want access to the facility, and will help with the matrix end of things, distracting the onsite spider while the team does their biz. The team gets an ID card from the scientist (of a colleague on vacation that she doesn’t like), and manages to sneakily plant Orior (or an instance of them at least) on the scientist’s commlink, to get them into the facility secretly. The team plans an entry, and hijacks and EVO supply truck, ko’ing the guards and hiding them in a supply crate.

They get to the facility and Orior seems to be doing their job, as their truck and disguises pass scrutiny and all the cameras seem to be ignoring them. They KO a few more guards, and smuggle Eion and Yanko into the lower levels inside a crate full of meatfeed. Aleiron and Butter start a distraction outside by freeing a cage full of test primates, but come under attack from security warforms. Grackle keeps and eye on the truck and exfil route. 3 Card and Wat get into the first floor lab and bluff their way into getting the 2/3rds of the info they owe Squeamish.

Wat and 3C run into some trouble and try to sneak further down, but get ko’ed by a gas attack (after 3C breaks protocol by killing 2 scientists). Aleiron and Butter disguise Butter as a manager (who they KO) to get past the now active onsite security, who are fighting the primate outbreak, and gain access to the medical facilities on a lower level. However, they are shunted down to the sub-basement after they find the basement in lockdown.

Eion and Yanko pop out of their meat crate once they feel themselves stop moving, and find themselves in a grotesque subbasement lab. 2 armored guards with shockprods attack them and they quickly kill them, also breaking protocol. They then fight/survive 2 grenades, 2 auto-turrets, and 8 experimental warforms, which seeming to be terrifying human/primate merges amped up with implant tech. Butter and Aleiron arrive to assist, and the whole team is heavily inured or KO’ed during the fight.

Meanwhile, 3C and Wat wake up strapped to tables in a clean basement lab. A researcher named Suheyl Alfredo chides them for slaying his interns but says they look like promising test subjects. 3C desperately negotiates to save their lives, and manages to convince Alfredo they’re more useful alive. Alfredo says he’s going to implant them with an experiment based on Monad work from Mars, and that they will provide monthly updates. He makes them heat and cold resistant, but says there will likely be some unexpected morphogenic consequences.

He also says he needs them to descend a level and kill or permanently damage his colleague, who is blocking his promotion. They agree, and he overrides the level lockdown to send them down. They emerge and help the rest of the team clean up the warforms, and then break into the secure office and kill the lab manager as requested. They also find the 3rd piece of data they need for Squeamish. They grab some medical supplies and find the wimps and head back upstairs. They get into a brutal gun and grenade fight with a guard on the way to the truck, and are in trouble til Grackle sneaks up and saves the day.

They get to the truck but some of the wimps are damaged and the team is crashing bad from drugs. Yanko and Grackle drive while Aleiron tries to stabilize everyone in the back. Wat and Eion both flatline before they can reach a medic, but Trickster’s Daughter manages to stabilize them in time to prevent death, though Eion’s brief braindeath makes him a bit more pliable (TD refuses to allow a gnawer into her clinic, so he goes with Squid from the 162’s). Wat is permanently deaf, hearing a blood roar from kamikaze overdose forever. He’s sad he can’t hear ADA bark.

The rest of the team heals up while Aleiron and Grackle help Squeamish set up the fake death. They sell him the 3 undamaged wimps to pay for travel, medical, and getting set up in Denver, and use the 7 damaged ones to present as themselves. They steal the boat, and Butter remote pilots it. Grackle helps rig the charge for it, and Squeamish uses his alchemical talents to sprinkle the wimps with the team’s bio-signs. They call EVO security and Knight Errant to tip them off to wanted runners trying to escape Puget Sound on a smuggler boat with a load of EVO tech and data, triggering a chase and shootout, followed by the planned massive explosion. EVO clears out after verifying their tech isn’t there, and KE claims jurisdiction, allowing Oaks to ID the bodies as planned. They burn their FBI-provided SIN’s.

Heading to Izzy Heidelberger’s remote farm in Snohomish, the team all sneaks overland from individually to avoid attention. Tyrese shoots (and maybe kills) a random civilian who spots Butter. Butter gives Hans Yolo admin access to his car while he’s gone. Izzy seems as forgetful as advertised. The T-bird smugglers load them up, locking them in back after realizing Eion’s condition, and they take off. They leave the bay door open for a bit, and the team sees the light of Seattle dimming as they skim off towards the mountains. For most of the team this is their first time out of the city, and they prepare for a long flight to Denver…

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Butter
Eion Smash
Three Card
Watt Tinbo
Yanko Lazer
Grackle
Blue

The team completes their work paying back Imaginary Annie Goldsmith by sabotaging one final candidates press conference in Puyallup by instigating a gang brawl, revealing that the politician was bribing local gangers to act as out-of-uniform security. They barely escape intact, but make a clean getaway. They also call on Izidor Kurtlanik to get some last minute bonus info on the hardest candidate to investigate, Corinne Potter. They find out she is likely a Dawkins Group plant (or similar), and pass the info along. Annie warns them to be careful- DG is nothing to fuck with. She also says she will warn the others that they’ve collaborated with, and declares them square. She also leverages her new influence to better personal connections in Seattle which can only help the team.

They have a party to celebrate after they all heal up, and are feeling pretty good for a moment, until they notice Eion is missing. He had a weird dream of Glow City and headed there. Encountering some Halloweeners, including their leader Nightmare, he followed them to the melted reactor at the center of GC, Nightmare occasionally seeming to beckon him on. He found a terrible shrine of mutation there, and witnessed the Weeners seemingly experimenting on locals and releasing mutants after their experiments. He also accepted assistance from a strange new magical force, and his mentor spirit became Mutation. Though still irradiated, he insisted on heading back to the safehouse to spread this new power to his “family”, as he gained new abilities in his transformation.

This is a problem for the rest of the team, who make him go hang out in the junkyard til he’s no longer emitting radiation. This kills one of his pet bandits but makes the other stronger. So it works? Aleiron also receives warning from Kurtlanik about a new cult in town, seemingly with some Amazonian ties, called “The Suffering.” She does some research but can’t find much, other than that they worship “She Who Thrives Beneath the Rot.” The team also grabs the 2 feral ghouls, Eion having traded another body to Squid and the 162’s. They go to Squeamish, and get well paid. He impresses Eion by explaining that his experiment is to see if rumors are true that infected cannibalization boosts their powers, so he’s going to make one eat the other and see what happens. This fits perfectly with Eion’s dark Darwinism, and he also sells Squeamish some reagents from GC.

The rest of the team is increasingly concerned about this, especially given that Yanko gets more creepy warnings from Cobra, the prophecy child, about his future (or lack thereof), and the whole team is warned by Annie that someone has been throwing money around looking for info on them. They find out that there is a private “alive or dead” bounty on them currently, offerer unknown. Also, something called the Null Sect ate Blue’s sprite in Marry Me, Kat Katana, and seems to have also killed 1 dev and a few players, as well as flat-lining others. Wat, 3 Card, and Blue are all distressed. Grackle does another quick delivery for his strange side job employer.

Runners
Aleiron Grey
Butter
Eion Smash
Three Card
Watt Tinbo
Yanko Lazer
Grackle

The team gets fixated on the recent reappearance of the Taco Temple franchise, which they all remember from their youths but have no evidence of actually having existed. They make great tacos though, and there’s one just down the block from the safehouse, so aside from Aleiron they’re thrilled. They begin doing some digging and smear campaign prep for Imaginary Annie, and manage to secure a solid lead for Kathleen Shaard in the race for Underground Mayor. They also make the dragon-backed opponent out to be a radiation-spreading madman, and use the same tactic against Kalanyr’s candidate for governor. They also find out that Charles Seaver, another candidate, is likely possessed by a shedim. A voudoun summoner named Shockwave warns them off of pursuing him further, given his likely power level, but the Draco Foundation is interested. Jenny is off in the wilderness somewhere, the team finally having forced Butter to expel her from the safehouse.

Eion and Grackle bond on a trip to Glow City, and Eion and Yanko progress in their magical trainings, both initiating; Eion in the Painted Horse Lodge (which seems suspiciously dark magic-friendly), and Yanko in Vigilant Iron Schooling House, after honing his skills at Sticks and Stones. They finally pay the Reality Hackers back for their help in prison by rescuing some technomancers from the Yakuza goons who are rounding them up for delivery to MCT, including a new team member who decides to stay with them instead of going to the technohaven the RH’ers provide. Blue seems like a skilled hacker and sniper, but a real weirdo. Should fit right in. Eion continues training his new bandit “pets”. Aleiron expands her messaging for her cult.

The team takes some sketchy work for decent pay, mostly because Wat wants a motorcycle. After doing very little research, they end up in a war zone, between Northern CalFree and Southern TIr Tairngire, TT seems to be taking the opportunity of Hestaby’s absence to push south, while militias fend them off. Merc’s work both sides. The team gets caught up in some murky ARES corporate infighting over some various arms deals, for which they are initially working for the unethcial side (wetwork, chemical weapons, etc), but eventually swap sides and (secretly) betray their hirer (affiliated with Damien Knight) for the other faction, which seems aligned with Arthur Vogel, a dwarven environmentalist on ARES’ board (thought of as the corp’s conscience). They got dosed with Laes in the coverup and lose some time, but get paid and think it won’t come back on them.

Butter heads out in search of an alchemist named Squeamish, who is supposedly very paranoid but in possession of a lot of useful info, including the location of the PNW’s famed “parliament of cars”. Grackles becomes a full Halloweener, and spends hours crafting the perfect skull makeup design with Iva Linus Hathaway. Aleiron consults with Izidor Kurtlanik about spinning the recent wetwork they did in CalFree as opposing metaracism (given as the arms dealer they killed was affiliated with the elf supremacist Brat’Mael). The team digs into a bunch of 6th World Tarot stuff, finding both hints that Taco Temple is more than it seems, and that the deck as a whole seems to hint at something big- seemingly including a map?

Butter gets some leads on Squeamish via a Puyallup PI named Jimmy Kincaid. He decides not to make contact in order to help the team on another job: tracking down some more technomancers in danger for the Reality Hackers. These TM’s might not come willingly, and it’s unclear exactly how many there are, between 1 and a half dozen. The RH’s offer a bonus for any hackers they rescue as well. The team finds out that the TM gang, called the Resonance Junkies, is on the run from a corp hit squad after developing some software for the corp.

They track them to an abandoned trainyard in Renton, where they are guarded by some surviving Night Hunters. The team decides to full frontal assault while Yanko sneaks, not sure if the TM’s are guarded or hostages. The team almost gets killed by Night Hunters but Yanko manages to sneak past them, climb the tower, and grab the leader of the RJ’s, then convinces them that he is there to help with a stunning intimidation. The rest of the team gets scooped up by Butter to flee the bloodthirsty NH’ers. Butter comes back after dropping Wat and the team off at Trickster’s Daughter’s clinic, and comes back and grabs the TM’s/hackers. However, there isn’t room for all of them, so they leave Yanko and one of the RJ’s behind, who Yanko shortly ditches to escape from the NH’ers, while the less agile RJ is torn apart, screaming.

Butter also does some digging into Tommy Vermont, his recently CFD-infected friend/cop contact. He gets his medical file from an info broker contact and forwards it to Riot to take a look. Riot examines it and says that it’s beyond her, but passes it along to her street doc mentor, the legendary Butch. Butch, through Riot, says that if the team can safely bring Vermont in, in containment, she may be able to help: she is developing an experimental treatment, but will need the assistance of a submerged technomancer as well as all her medical skills. Butter says that this will have to wait, but is interested.

The team does some more political digging, and finds dirt on all the remaining candidates for governor, to various degrees of quality, with one exception. They help Shri manufacture a scandal about Choi, and ex-FBI candidate, by knocking out a surveillance detail on one of her people. Grackle and Wat manage to salvage enough tech from the surveillance van to upgrade Grackle’s deck and Wat’s link. A composite sketch of Wat is released, but he was disguised enough that they’re not worried. The team also meets a PI named Glenn Steele, who’s been double-checking their info for Annie, and doing some secondary digging. He seems competent, and him and Grackle bond a bit.

They also finally make contact with Squeamish, who proves to be even more paranoid than advertised, but they talk him out of killing them, and make a deal. They will bring him pairs of HMHVV infected (ghouls, vamps, etc) to experiment with, and for the first pair they bring he will tell them where the parliament of cars is. He also has some various reagents he needs on his quest to become a Master Alchemist, so he gives them a list and says he’ll pay well for delivery. The team track down a gum toad in eastern Redmond, and meet up with an IOND magic-school graduate named Linnie Han, who helps them slay the gum toad and harvest its excretions in exchange for pay. Plus now they know a mage, which could be handy.

3 Card gets help from Wat to romance Gina, Grackle witnesses firsthand how terrifyingly powerful Nightmare, the leader of the Halloweeners is, Grackle goes on another mysterious package delivery quest, Blue keeps leveling up in “Marry Me” via a registered sprite, Yanko visits Cobra, the child who delivered his ominous prophecy (and only gets more disturbed by cryptic hints), Eion makes a deal to get 2 feral ghouls from the 162’s in exchange for 2 bodies, Butter makes a pact with a wild spirit and receives a strange boon (perhaps a friendly introduction to the Parliament), Aleiron becomes better at profiling people and deepens some connections, Wat writes more stories for “Marry Me”, and the whole team enjoys their new access to ShadowSEA!