Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
Aradia
Tabasco
Creep

After the confusing paydata selling day, with a lot of new feelings about what to do next, their relations with others, etc, the team decides to try to fortify the local Shadow Chapters by hiring a bunch of runners (for a small fee, of course) to do a bunch of the various jobs the team has amassed during their time in town. They also hear some worrying rumors about some very angry Marry Me… megafans who are are displeased about the team’s revelations. 6 out of 16 (in total) of the reprogrammed Shadow Chaps members are successfully deprogrammed, the rest die via the allergic shock trigger that was also implanted to prevent tampering. Shiawase is holding one of the 6 survivors for study by their MFID branch, but promises it’s “catch and release” and won’t be a regular habit.

The team does some research on local runners, figuring out who are the crews to know, who’s got good rep, etc.This includes all the teams they met while distributing VDH’s hoard, a useful reference, as well as some others they’ve encountered in their time here and in Chicago. With this list in hand, they compare it (the teams on it’s capabilities) with their list of available jobs, and assign out one to each team, with the explanation that this is a test run for the team to join the Shadow Chaps, which will bring more work. The team decides to keep certain Free Seattle/high secrecy jobs for themselves, especially as Kit wants the Shadow Chaps to remain officially neutral on Free Seattle and able to work either side, with Wei and Snow agree with.

Takashi and his Rusted Stiletto mutant recruits storm the Aqua Arcana lab facility and free the captive Merrow, as well as various other critter subjects kept there. The mutants remain reasonably restrained and only eat some of the staff, though at the request of the Sea Dragon, they make a horrifying video of them eating alive the project head in front of all his cowering coworkers, with the announcement that Merrow are under the Sea Dragon’s protection, and experimentation upon them will not be tolerated. Remo helps Creature with some research, and Takashi is able to shuttle the Merrow to one of 3 spots of their choosing: Enatai Beach Park on Council Island (already a free Merrow gathering point), Blake Island (the Sea Dragon’s recent acquisition), or the water-entry level of the Beaux Arts arcology in Bellevue, after Eletheria purchases a significant portion of it for their private use.

Next up, Kukulkan’s Crew is sent to investigate the Halloweeners, at Shiawase Daigou’s suggestion, and figure out what they’re up to trying to corrupt the Spirit of the City. They confirm some info that the team had provided from the early, early days of the team file, when Eion Smash had snuck into Glow City to observe a ritual done by Nightmare, the gang leader, and found himself mutated for his trouble. Asking if they should continue, the team decides to throw in some extra assistance and hires the New Assets to back up K’s Crew, though Picaro, the young ork adept on the crew seems gung-ho to go either way. With some injuries on K’s Crew and casualties amongst the new recruits to New Assets (Tommy Talon explains it was a test run anyway), the runners prevail and manage to destroy the statue of Chemosh that was being used to power the mutation rituals, corrupt the local Spiders, and attack the Spirit of the City. After a hard battle, they also manage to disrupt Nightmare, who seems to be some of Cancer spirit, likely from Miggon.

Imre Dahl’s crew is hired to look into all the assassins in town, and their on-call hitman, By the Numbers, gets a solid report back, backed up by their deckers and mage doing some research. They get names and likely targets of all the top tier assassins working, and manage to strike a few from their “concerns” list based on them being hyper-focussed or specialized on things the team doesn’t care about. They also spot some good possibilities for turning certain assassins against each other. Tabasco pays out of pocket for a side job, and hires the same crew to take out a Shedim merc/assassin named SIN who is in town. Unfortunately, By the Numbers is killed in the process, and this crew refuses to join the Shadow Chaps, and Dahl says not to contact them again.

Beltfed’s team takes on Rooster’s job, and successfully steal the secret rites of the all-Dwarf Stonecutter’s Guild and pass them along. They also report to the team that this is likely Rooster up to something on the Seelie Court, as the Stonecutter’s Guild and the Court’s Zhigul Makers faction are deeply connected. The team doesn’t know what this will entail, but files it away as potentially useful.

They hire the Coven of the Crypt for a few different jobs- looking into who owns Shades, who owns Fenris Nacht, and the Sons of Snohomish. They bungle the Shades job a bit, but confirm that it has unusually good, though not overly threatening security, and that Imre Dahl’s crew is involved somehow (too bad the team already burned that bridge…). They have better luck at Fenris Nacht, discovering that an ancient dragon-hunting order is behind it through a series of LLC’s and shell corps. The Sea Dragon violently takes over ownership, which most of the patrons accept, as she is obviously a strong hunter. Yoko Aruki and a bunch of sea drakes lead the assault, and they mount the heads of the local ownership (and any onsite who resisted) in the secluded alley leading to the entrance. Nyssa Hallas is satisfied with this info. The SoS turn out to predictably be a human metaracist org, with ties to some of the metaracist doctors from the destroyed Paladin clinic network in Denver. The team finds some old notes in the file about that. They’ve opened a new clinic in town, which will need dealing with. They also seem to be doing false flag attacks on humans under the “Sauron’s Legion” banner, in order to drive recruitment.

Grappler’s crew (who Carol knew from Chicago) gets tasked with sabotaging, false-flagging and overall making the UCAS JTF look bad, to popularize their pulling out. The team at Kit’s insistence request a “low lethality” plan, which costs more and is harder, but the team pulls it off with style. This greatly pleases both Rahel Juric and Shiawase Daigou, who gives them yet another job: Renraku will almost surely get various “x-guide” contracts for De La Mar’s new matrix relaunch, and he wants a sleeper agent inserted to make sure that Shiawase has some backdoors and kill codes in place, just in case. The team recruits a cocky and eager young hacker with some social/con skills named Kid Code, who agrees to the longterm assignment, and they successfully get him inserted and set up in his new position. Shiawase Daigou is most impressed with the team and their rapid results.

Howard and Phillips INC is given the job of looking more into the K-Code and the Null Sect, as well as this digital Horror entity that De La Mar has codenamed “Blackout.” They mostly just confirm the info the DDLM gave to the team, especially re: K-Code, but do discover some local Null connections that the team didn’t know about, including an infested host in Redmond that might be a worthwhile target. They also confirm the presence in town of the Null assassin Hitsec Burn, and report that they had a lot of gear fried in their investigations. They report that it seems that Null attacks are down in areas where DDLM’s new matrix is live (Boston, Chicago) but escalating in other places, suggesting they are attempting a pressure campaign to speed the transition. The team give H&P the Null Doc to help them keep safe in future.

Tommy Vermont and Las Muñecas set their trap as discussed: they put out word in some places they know Kellan Hunter will hear it that Natalia is a Monad, and sit back and observe. Hunter manages to kill Natalia after stalking her for a few days, and takes her eyes, and Vermont and the LM’s take him out (perhaps a little excessively, but best to be sure), ending that serial killer threat to the city, as well as shutting down the Death Ships pipeline. A matrix-based member of the Nadja Fixer Network named Sofia also contacts the team and thanks them for their efforts, having received proof of Natalia’s corruption and activities from the LM’s. She’ll be taking over the Seattle beat for now in Natalia’s absence.

The Mythfits are given the job of looking into the First Union smuggling org, and discover that it is a forced conversion recruitment Monad operation, which deeply upsets Kit. It also proves useful as a way to recruit other smugglers and go-gangers to take revenge, and the local FU chapter is basically wiped out, though with pretty high casualties on the ganger side. The Mythfits luckily only require some hospital stays to get back on their feet after a gnarly brawl.

With all these new crews signed up for the Shadow Chaps, and only one real failed job amongst the lot, Kit plans to start recruiting more fixers, street docs, etc to begin building the full network. The team also has to figure out what to do with all the assassin info. Miranda King from Spinrad contacts them on an old number of Carol’s asking if she was correct in recognizing them from Chicago. Aradia gets in touch to maintain Carol’s fake dead status, and agrees to work with her. First off, she does an interview on Kit’s Shadowcast “The Bolthole” in order to start building relationships between Spinrad and Monad communities, since they don’t like that EVO has the market cornered at the moment. She then hires Aradia/the team to begin prepping an epic night (or more) out for a certain VIP, who she will not confirm or deny is Spinrad himself.

They also hear that the referendum is officially starting, and will last for exactly one week. Creepily, Horizon is deeply involved, conducting opinion polls and surveys the whole time to gauge the populace. The team better get a move on to make sure things swing their way, and not let any of their preferred delegates gets clipped! Happily, they also got a list of high end bodyguard in town, and can recommend their services.

The team also hears from Su Cheng, and learns that due to his secret manipulation, Jimmy Kincaid has brokered a peace deal between the Ancients and the Triad to secure an arms smuggling deal, basically granting them the power that Cheng was worried about the Laesa/Yakuza having. Unfortunately, someone seems to take exception to this (or something else Kincaid did) and severs his arm, destroying his last bit of magic and cutting him off from his ally spirit. Hearing that she’s been appearing randomly around town, Aradia and Tabasco astrally track her to an apartment/office registered to a pair of people finder/bounty hunter/bailbondswomen named Skip and Trace. They try to offer assistance consoling the spirit, but S&T seem to have a pre-existing relationship with her and say they have it under control. Aradia tries to snoop a bit more astrally and gets KO’ed by the very emotional spirit. Tabasco leaves a number in case they can be of future help, and then carries unconscious Aradia out of there, successfully taking the hint. But who went after Kincaid and why?