Runners
Creep
Chew Gum
Dig
The Detective
Tabasco aka Cholula

The team gets everyone into position and triggers the assault against the OOSG fortified warehouse. Rose is providing TM comms support to boost the range of the TacNET, giving everyone some critical bonuses, while ChewGum and the spirits watch the back for anyone trying to escape towards the river. Otters keeps the van out of sight for now, running the RCC from inside the smuggling compartment, while The Detective rides inside, keeps an eye out locally, and provides leadership and oversight via the TacNET. DIg and SINder set up to provide magical cover for the assault team, while Bard is covering from a sniper perch.

The assault team approaches, with Cholula and the Windsor crew members Signpost, Smaug, and Lunatech easily hopping over the fence that rings the building. Otters’ mule drone gets hung up for a moment at the fenceline while also providing covering fire for the bounding overwatch maneuver. Creep sneaks up without anyone seeming to notice him. As Cholula turns to help out the drone, some panels on the warehouse wall drops and two of the ballistas fire massive bolts into the drone, destroying it. Bard takes out one of their crew with a well-placed sniper shot, while Dig keeps missing over and over with lightning bolts.

Signpost cracks open some more defensive paneling and those 3 slip inside, with Creep sneakily following, and Cholula ascending to the roof. CG opens up with suppressive fire on the back wall, keeping everyone trapped inside with the spirits on overwatch. The ballistas next turn their fire on Bard’s position, and he is hit and drops off the TacNET, seemingly unconscious or dead. SINder seems to be distracted trying to help him, and Dig manages to distract one of the ballista crews with another unusually weak spell, but it provides enough cover for Cholula to manage to light them on fire with phosphorus arrows.

The Windsor crew takes out the other ballista crew, as Cholula comes under fire from a crossbow-wielding knight, and a half dozen other knights charge and dogpile the Windsor crew, wildly swinging their claymore’s in some kind of combat frenzy. One of them seems to be the obvious leader, who Creep and Cholula mark out on the TacNET. They appear to be making short work of the outnumbered Windsor crew, so Creep and Cholula open fire on them as well, revealing their positions.

Dig also launches some spells at those he can see, and CG starts descending from his perch to breech from the rear and help. Otters moves the van closer for support and extraction now that the ballistas are out of commission. Cholula gets hit by a couple of stun grenades and is forced to retreat, and Creep has to fall back outside after two of the knights charge up towards his position. CG’s spirit manages to cause one of them to fall on his own sword during the attack, injuriously, and Dig snags the other one with his magic fingers to keep him from catching Creep.

Creep leaves a grenade behind and detonates it, shredding the knight’s armor. He still charges out in pursuit, and Otters drops him with the van HMG. Dig approaches closer to get into the fight as well and almost gets tagged with some kind of nasty toxin thrown by the leader. It seems to briefly increase his drain, but he feels like he dodged something worse. CG blasts his way in from the back and opens up on the OOSG knights who have been hacking up the Windsor crew.

Singpost looks dead, Smaug is badly injured, and Lunatech also looks pretty hurt but is sneakily hauling herself free over towards the pile of toxic chemical barrels in one corner. She starts fiddling with some tubes and wires connected to them when she gets there while Otters takes out another OOSG knight who tries to come after Dig in the doorway, and CG frantically dodges attacks from the 2 who charge him. The leader manages to counter a powerful spell from Dig, and starts swinging his sword at him after annihilating Dig’s spirit with his mageblade.

Dig dodges impressively well with some assistance from Otters and TD, and manages to hold the leader just long enough with his magic fingers to allow himself to escape to a safer distance. Unfortunately, SINder was trying to use his own spell to haul the KO’ed Smaug out the door to safety, and Smaug is cut in half by the OOSG leader. Lunatech seeing this, and with 3 knights remaining and them team out of good ideas on how to fight them effectively, and with the van damaged from another sword blow, makes a decision, and shouting “to the MOOOOOOOOON” ignites some det cord she has wound around the chemical drum tubing she has spliced together.

CG goes down under the OOSG assault, though his spirit is able to keep one of the knights from stopping Lunatech. Cholula decides on a crazy rescue plan, and takes a running jump off the roof of the van and goes into a sliding dive to grab CG and get them both out the back of the warehouse before it blows. TD grabs Creep into the van as Otters spins it around to put the open door away from the warehouse and the van between Dig and the warehouse.

It blows big and Dig manages to leap into the open side door as the van is blown towards him. CG and Cholula roll free with some more help from the plant corpse spirit, and get picked up. Rose and SINder haul a bandaged and unconscious Bard down, still impaled with a massive ballista bolt, and get back to their vehicle to head home and try to regroup, much depleted. The team heads back to their safehouse and rests.

The next day, they package up their assorted intel, and Dig heads up to Smoach’s to get help interpreting it. He promises they will help Smoach deal with the Shadow spirit threat soon. Smoach ID’s the toxin used on him as “Void Blast”- it apparently messes with channeling, and would likely have done a lot of damage as well if it had hit full on. He also ID’s a key sigil that the team saw on the OOSG bladed as “St. Hubert’s Key” a symbol of a sort of purification- he’s heard some Catholic’s think there is an artifact affiliated that can stave off or prevent HMHVV infection. But this seems darker, like they wanted to “purify” the world of the Infected.

This would explain the noxious chemical cloud over the part of downtown where the fight took place, where some of whatever was in the barrels is still burning, or at least smoking. Smoach also ID’s the sigil on the necklace the leader wore, which is what he used to counterspell Dig, as a rumored symbol of a shadowy group called the “Cult of the Great Hunter”, and explains that he had thought they were just a paranoid internet rumor. Supposedly, they were some 4th World humans who didn’t hide during the transition to magical downtime, and instead spent the time hunting and killing dragons, fae, and others while they slumbered or sheltered in their Kaer’s. As well as, rumors say, continued their work into the 5th World, and beyond, up to the present- though once again, Smoach says this is all just fringe rumor stuff, or so he thought.

With data in hand, Dig flies down to Brunwyn’s yacht, and passes it over. She seems thrilled that them and the Windsor crew took the initiative and dealt with the OOSG, and after Dig fumbles around a bit, gives him some money. She says that she has to rescind a few previous job offers, as some of the people she’s been seeking have been found, either by herself or others, in which case they did not survive. Someone else appears to be hunting the scientists that she’s been collecting. However, she says she can always find work for a quality team, and seems happy with their performance here. After casually intimidating Dig a bit, he leaves and visits Grandmother Biyu, who tells him she has another lead on the mystery vans.

Returning to the safehouse, Dig reports back on all this, and they decide to split the pay between Otters getting her mule replaced and sending a bunch to the Windsor crew. They also get some new updates= apparently Canadian separatists have blown the 3 main bridges from Downtown to Windsor, cutting the SE district off significantly from the rest of town. Cholula is still super stressed about the threat of Bloodripper, so he and CG agree to try to track him down.

The rest of the team decide to finally help Smoach deal with Shadow spirits, and start readying themselves to deal with that threat once and for all.