Runners
Christopher Toff
Sanquals Love
Senk Gethin
Toast
Fentin
Chem

The team restocks on explosives and ammo at the Dudu Dudu Oja arms market, in Agege, and is shocked at both the variety of weapons (from small arms to small aircraft) on display, and the clientele, who range from mercs to religious extremist/seperatist groups to runners like themselves to state agents, all of whom would likely be at each other’s throats if encountered anywhere else. Chem decides to stick around and do some shopping. Feeling prepared, Toast hires some of the baggage carriers at the airport to report in when Thankyou arrives, and provide as many details on his team as possible. Then the team heads to northeast Kosofe to scout out the lab site, and lay their trap.

They get the report back- multiple drones, 1 dwarf who matches Barnaby “Wombat” Rudd’s description, 1 troll with a lot of gear, 1 magical ork, and 3 humans. They all leave the airport on bikes after loading up their gear. The team decides to let TY’s group do the heavy lifting, and hit them on the way out of the Gilgamesh Initiative facility. They watch as the team, seemingly all pro’s aside from Rudd, blast their way into the lab, and then follow through the path they cleared. Toff and Love hang back to provide spell support, while Fentin provides sniper cover and jams the area.

Toast and Gethin sneak onto the roof of the building while Fentin overrides the limited (yet powerful) onboard AI in a combat drone the TY team left outside, and uses it to destroy some more GI facility gun ports. They also destroy the semi-intelligent bikes, and the various guns and sensors on the facility. They think the drones/bikes may have been infected with TY/Deus strain CFD. 2 of the humans also appear to be TY CFD clones, which is distressing. They rig up some explosives by the obvious exit, and wait for the team to appear.

As the TY team leaves the building, Toff forcefully levitates Rudd out of the way as Love uses a massive fireball to trigger Gethin’s explosives, and Toast pulls Rudd over the lip of the roof to relative safety. Gethin zaps Rudd with the microwave cyberware scrambler to disable the cranial bomb, and Toast doses him with gamma scopolamine. Gethin and Fentin prepare to fire, but there seem to be no survivors. Some of TY’s team was already injured, and the combo of the fireball and explosives did them in. Fentin, Toff, and Love do astral and matrix recon and find a waiting fanboat with a camo’d pilot nearby in the lagoon.

They approach cautiously, but after determining that the pilot appears to be a hireling rather than another clone, they decide to bluff as if they are the team the pilot is waiting for. They also bribe him to take them to a different destination than planned. However, he works for Innocent Dobiri, who TY seems to also know, so the team worries that their route out of town may be compromised, and decide to get smuggled via a pirate seacraft instead. They get dropped off in Apapa, and get the fanboatman to give them the geo location of the intended drop-point, on the jungle side of the Lagoon, so they assume TY has a rendevouz team waiting there who will soon notice something is amiss.

Luckily, the weekly pirate market is just wrapping up, and they find a willing crew among the Fanti Families there to take them to Asamando, where they will fly to Cairo on a Draco Foundation jet provided by Frosty Jane. The drug that Toast dosed Rudd with is just wearing off as they get aboard the boat, so they question him quickly while he is still under the truth serum effects. Toff also mind probes him, which he doesn’t like. However, he is not CFD-infected, and they eventually come to an agreement that he will pass over the data from the GI job in exchange for safe passage (conveniently) to Cairo, where the Coptic Pope has created a technomancer sanctuary. While aboard the Fanti ship, they hear legends of a yearly meet-up at some sort of “pirate haven” known as Libertalia, possibly in the Ethiomalian Territoties.

They reach Asamando with no trouble, and hop aboard the jet as quick as they can, not wanting to illegally stay in a country where prisoners often end up as food. They brief Rudd on the cache hunt, which he is excited to assist, and he explains his use: he has access to the great dragon Masaru’s rebuilt Library of Alexandria, as well as connections to rare book/item sellers throughout the middle east, especially in the markets of Cairo and Istanbul. He also secures them a loaner van while in Cairo from a friend in the t-mancer underground, for which he has done extensive ID forging in the past.

They drop Rudd off at the Coptic center of power, the Hanging Church, for an interview intended to verify his ID and claims as one seeking sanctuary, and plan to touch base after the job is complete. They call Adegoke’s major-domo, who arranges to send the “traitor”, Issac Olaleye to Cairo, and provides his itinerary while there. He explains that the job also pays double if they get a recorded confession. They decide to pick him up at the train station when he gets in, and attempt to bribe his bodyguard to get him out of the way. Chem rigs the middle seat of the van up with an electrical trap, and Fentin gets them guest passes to a conference at Issac’s hotel in case they miss the pickup. Until Rudd gets them fake licenses for their non-comabt magic, both Love and Toff are having severe focus withdrawal.

Toff and Toast use Am-mut from Jackpoint to get a connection with the Cairo faction of the Grey Wolves Maffiya, a nationalist Turkish criminal syndicate. A member named Tayyip Baybasin arranges a quiet warehouse and body disposal for them as needed, for a reasonable rate. They make the pickup in a repainted van, with Gethin posing as the chaffeur. They get them aboard, and after Fentin browses the bodyguard’s Persona 2.1 feed and find that he’s a cyber-addict, succeed in bribing him to get back out of the van as they shock Issac into submission.

They get him the warehouse, dose him with gamma scopolamine, and begin their interrogation. Fentin hacks his comm and peruses his records to look for proof. However, he maintains his innocence, and Fentin says the records back him up- he hasn’t been the one double-selling info to the Apep Consortium. Toff reads his mind to confirm, and it checks out. They call it in to the major-domo, and say that it looks like the likeliest culprit is the art dealer that Issac was in town to meet. The major-domo tells them to get after her, but decides to hire someone else, after they balk on pay. They get a reduced payout for figuring out the truth, as well as Adegoke’s thanks (the more valuable commodity)- them and Jane are now free to operate openly in the area’s Adegoke has sway over and connections in.

However, although the major-domo has them assure Issas that he is still welcome in Adegoke’s employ and they apologize, he seems deeply shaken by the experience, and Toast helps him secure a fake SIN through Rudd, for the bug-out bag that he has just now decided he needs. The rest of the team thinks they shouldn’t help him, but oh well….

Rudd gets back in touch, and tells them he’s in with people in Cairo now, and has begun researching at the Library in Alexandria. Based on the keywords they gave him to search, he tells them that he has a lead on the location of the Lost Library of Throal, which they heard rumors of in the Vault of Lore. He thinks it is likely in Poland, in the Silesia region, probably near to Owl Mountain. The Nazi’s had a major effort underway during WWII, under Himmler, to find Atlantis, and they had a major dig in the region. Also, artifact hunters and amateur miners have turned up some good objects in the area, both magical and historical. There is also a rumor that some of the Nazi high command planned to retreat to underground bunkers dug out in the region, in order to survive the allied forces bombardment, and later re-emerge, but their location has never been discovered….

Time to head for Poland!