The team was woken up early the day before the historic Proposition 23 vote with a job offer: a Johnson with a day job as a city clerk hired them to start a riot in front of a Downtown polling station later that morning. With opposing protests going on either side of the street, this required just a small liberal application of Kamikaze by dermal patches to complete.

However, the riot seemed to interrupt a meeting between Edmund Jefferies (Governor Brackhaven’s Press Secretary) and Tia Viamonte (a Knight Errant officer). As the pair fled, the team picked up a briefcase they left behind to find a datachip all set to rig the election and leave evidence behind to frame Mothers of Metahumans (and You Know Who) and a counterfeit commlink stolen from police evidence lockup. Apparently, this is one of several commlinks that went “missing” together, and others have been associated with several individuals starting things up with the Ork Underground lately (like the bomber team and the copycat cutter), per Tosh.

After threatening and bargaining from Jefferies to get his briefcase back and a threat from Joe Martin to use footage of the team instigating the riot against them unless he was given an exclusive (spoiler: he wasn’t), the team received a second offer from their earlier Johnson to hunt down and smear his reputation. They wisely decided to hand over the data they’d been given directly to A.D.A. Dana Oaks by way of Tosh. (As they discovered later, the call had been spoofed by someone, the Johnson had died just after their first meeting, when his apartment caught on fire and his unit was the only one in the complex whose fire control systems malfunctioned.

The vote went as scheduled, and the Metroplex awaits the results.

Everyone received 3,000 nuyen (each) for the riot job.

Everyone received 30,000 nuyen (total, 5,000 each) for turning a copy of the information over to Athena Tatopoulos as an exclusive.

Everyone received 6,000 nuyen (each) from the DA’s office as a reward for turning over the evidence to them.

All characters get 7 Karma.
Everyone gets 2 Notoriety for turning a riot into a bloodbath with berserker combat drugs, and Martin massages the evidence for all its worth (see below).
Everyone gets 2 Public Awareness as NewsNet runs their faces daily for the next week (during their “Splatterhouse on Spring Street” special coverage).

(I have noted Karma/Street Cred gains on your character pages.)

The runners also gain the following contacts at Loyalty 1 (+1 Loyalty if they previously had this contact, max Loyalty 4):
A.D.A. Dana Oaks
Tosh Athack
Athena Tatopoulos

The team broke into DA David Beatty’s house only to find him dead in his office from a gunshot wound and Knight Errant on their way to the scene. Making a quick escape, they went into hiding before being contacted by Athena Tatopoulos. She showed them clearly faked footage of themselves taking out the DA and the head of Project Freedom (a political action group behind Proposition 23), among other individuals in the district attorney’s office. She also directed the team towards Leonard Freemont, a clerk in the DA’s office with a gambling debt to the mob who just happened to be their most recent Johnson.

They ran into Mr. Freemont at a Redmond area brothel that he frequented, and managed to start coaxing information out of him just before an unidentified street sam took him out from across the street with an assault cannon in a pickup truck. After a brief firefight with some mob-allied Skraacha, Knight Errant arrived, and Tosh Athack carted the team off, except for Artiste, who has ducked into an alley with the nearly-dead street sam from before.

Athack revealed that A.D.A. Dana Oaks had secretly survived the attacks against the DA’s office, and proceeded to personally confirm with attack survivors that the runners weren’t responsible. The parties involved then proceeded to help the team tie together the information they had uncovered thus far, and find a source for what was going on: a known technomancer terrorist going by the alias Anarchy. With his main enforcer out of commission, the runners quickly took out Anarchy and turned down any bounty on him, clearing their names in the process.

Everyone received 1,000 Y (each) as payment from Athena Tatopoulos.

Everyone received 3,000 Y (each) as a surprise deposit from Anarchy after his capture.

All characters get 8 Karma.
Everyone gets 1 Street Cred for clearing their names.

(I have noted Karma/Street Cred gains on your character pages.)

The runners also gain the following contacts at Loyalty 1 (+1 Loyalty if they previously had this contact, max Loyalty 4):
Tosh Athack
Athena Tatopoulos

After laying low for a few months the team gets a call from Tori. He has a Johnson that wants to meet at Cuppa Joe’s bakery and beanery in Tacoma to discuss a smple B & E with some data retrieval. The key phrase is a tall Regular Joe w/ a cheese danish.

Upon arriving the team is shown to a table and the propiater sets down a coffee pot and an extra napkin holder (privacy shield). After a minute (and a darn good cup of coffee) a guy that practically screamed new Mr. Johnson walked in and conferred with the dwarf behind the counter and then made his way over to us.

The team practically had to walk him through how an initial meet want, and then after he was settled down we got to business.

It seems that the DA David Beatty has some case files at his house on a secure data system and that some very important people would like the evidence to go away within the next 34 hrs. Since this is the DA’s residence the team negotiates the rate up to 14k. And the Johnson supplies a gate code for the community.

The team finishes their coffee and danish’s they get to work doing leg work on the gated community, David Beatty, his wife, and what their schedules are like.

After Dr. Yvers was secured, the panel van pilot was slaved to Basil so we could drive both back into Seattle Downtown. Artiste advised Shifter to wipe all the commlink’s in the area clean of incriminating info. She knew that there wasn’t much that they would be able to do about any physical evidence, nor the astral signature of the massive fear spell that Giles hit the previous driver of the panel van with.

After surreptitiously taking a few photo’s of the (hopefully) dead street-sam for future research. The team headed back into Downtown aiming to get the Doc under wraps till they could find a person with liquid assets that would be interested in having a talk with him. To that effect Artiste called McCallister about finding a safehouse in the Underground that they could use for a few hours.

After parking the still unconscious Doc in the abandoned store front and with Artiste, Frank, Rose & Shifter physically guarding him & Basil providing over-watch from his SUV, Giles gave Noel (the suspected vampire that had previously dealing with Yvers) to see if she might be interested in having another get-together with him. She indicated in the positive and gave us an address of an abandoned apt. building in Holloweener territory to meet at in three hours time.

After taking a small amount of time to recuperate in the Underground, the team made their way to the meet-up. With only one minor run-in with the local Holloweener’s gathering the road tolls (35¥ was paid) the team arrived in the vicinity of meet. While the SUV and most of the team waited at a local Stuffer Shack a block over Artiste and Giles made their way to the apt. building.

The Holloweener door guards admits them into the foyer, after piercing their eardrums with a very high pitched voice. Confirming that Noel is there, and is definitely interested in interviewing Yvers, Giles negotiates a 50k price (8333¥ per runner) for the doc. The rest of the team ushers the Doc into the foyer, dropping him on the table. They depart after receiving the agreed upon amount.

Since everyone was flush with cash the medical contents of the panel van were “donated” to Doc Rocket so that next time they need patched up they would have adequte equipment.

Following from the previous session, the capture was completed successfully, but not cleanly. Yver’s limo was rolled, and the chase vehicle took heavy damage from Frank drop-kicking the windshield at speed. The trailing van had apparently been carrying a cybered heavy with slightly outdated ‘ware, who succeeded in taking out most of the conscious runners (and Basil’s passenger-rear tire with a combination of reactive camouflage, spurs, and an assault cannon before being brought down. After swapping tires with the chase SUV and get everyone upright again (with a brief inspection of the high-grade medical and ritual gear in the van that had been tailing the group), the team was ready to be on the move, with their quarry in tow.

No karma award for this session, as we’ll be wrapping things up at the next game.

Late in the week, Artiste is informed (by clandestine means) that Dr. Clarence Yvers has been terminated from his current position at Velemenes Advanced Biotech (a shady minor Ares subsidiary in the Seattle area), and will be transferred on Sunday to Leywan-Kyne Engineering (an even shadier Ares subsidiary) in Everett. After contacting the other runners, the team begins to equip and plan for a personally-initiated extraction of the Doctor.

By Sunday afternoon, the team is waiting outside Velemenes for the security team to arrive and transfer Yvers. Following behind what appears to be at least six Ares security representatives, split between a limo and chase car, Shifter begins to hack into the vehicles’ nodes as El Basilisco tails them, trying to remain inconspicuous. Running short of time, Shifter tries to force his way into the limo’s system, and the intrusion is detected. As he is attacked by the security team’s hacker, the technomancer sets a sprite loose on the chase car’s system, causing it to almost loose control before its occupants forcibly reset the system.

The runners, realizing that the element of surprise has been lost, advance up and make an opening in the rear window of the limo. Meanwhile, a previously unnoticed icon attacks Shifter (who is still evading strikes from the security hacker), and the awakened on the crew notice a foreboding aura enveloping everything within a few meters of a van that appears to be tailing behind the three vehicles, keeping its distance.

Everyone was awarded 2 Karma for this session (I have updated character pages, as well).

Utilizing control magic and a machine gun-equipped drone, the team was able to take out the roach spirits before being wiped out (but not before Frank was knocked unconscious and Artiste fell to gunshot wounds). Tasking their local Crimson Crush contacts with watching the former Universal Brotherhood structure, the team split up to prepare for a further exploration.

Artiste and Rose headed to Doc Rockett’s clinic for some street-grade trauma care (and expired canine painkillers), while everyone else went back to the Underground to give King Willy an update and see if he could provide any assistance. It turned out that the Johnson had a history with insect spirits, and case full of capsule rounds and a few ink grenades all loaded with KE IV in case he ran into some again.

Ambulatory and heavily armed, the runners returned to the scene (there had been no activity at the orphanage as expected). Moving into the building, they found no more spirits, but an ominous hole in the basement. Climbing down, they entered a long earthen tunnel under the metroplex, with large side chambers irregularly spaced. This ultimately led to a massive chamber, filled with ant spirits, a human spellcaster (an insect shaman, one would assume), and three acolytes behind a barrier performing a ritual with some sort of artifact and Katarina’s younger sister.

Dispatching the guards, Shifter used a CS gas grenade to take one of acolytes out of the ritual. This interruption appeared to have a fatal effect on the trio, their spirits ripped from their bodies to somewhere on the deep astral. Returning the girl to her family, the team then met with Willy to report the good news. (Some of the team also graciously refused to accept his payment for the run.) The ork talismonger left the insect tradition relic with them to sell as they would (which they did, to Laurent Nazaire, who is quickly becoming their go-to contact for selling magical items).

Everyone received 5,000 Y (each) as payment from King Willy (if they accepted it).

Everyone also received 6,250 Y (each) in exchange for the relic from the Atlantean Foundation.

All characters get 5 Karma.
Everyone gets 1 Street Cred for stopping the insect shaman ritual.

(I have noted Karma/Street Cred gains on your character pages.)

The runners also gain the following contacts at Loyalty 1 (+1 Loyalty if they previously had this contact, max Loyalty 4):
King Willy
Laurent Nazaire

A new Johnson offered a run to the team: King Willy, a talismonger in the Ork Underground. The voodoun shaman asked the team to investigate a seemingly awakened sickness at an orphanage in Redmond that a personal friend was affiliated with. Willy had looked into it, and couldn’t find a cause. Speaking with his patron loa had only revealed something dangerous working behind the scenes and that whatever was causing this needed to be solved quickly (within a day or so) to avoid calamity. He was able to offer only 5,000 Y a head and an offer of assistance to the team if they ran into too big of a threat.

After accepting the run, the runners headed over to the orphanage, Metachildren First, just over the border into Redmond. After investigating the area, they examined the teenagers suffering from this infliction and interviewed the staff: an older ork woman, her human grad student assistant, and a Catholic priest that occasionally stops by (who had been the one to contact King Willy). Shifter began checking the staff’s commlinks and discovered Katarina (the grad student) had a fairly high-quality device that contained only instructions for administering a sedative, a schedule indicating multiple midnight visits to the orphanage, the text from a message indicating that tonight was to be the final pickup, and an image of a bound and bruised younger girl (apparently Katarina’s younger sister, who had been reported missing).

Frank and Elisha “Artiste” Berns went to check with their contacts in the local Crimson Crush to see if they had any leads. Meanwhile, the others worked on surveillance for the orphanage. The Crush pointed out that there were some heavies in the old Universal Brotherhood Redmond Chapterhouse who had beat one of their protection collectors. The two investigating the half-collapsed building. Entering from the back alley, they found it filled with clutter and refuse, as well as at least seven hybrid form roach spirits.

While the first creature was quickly taken out, the tables turned as what had formerly been a troll (prior to its inhabitation) charged them wielding a stop sign repurposed as a crude axe. The rest of the team moved to assist, with the awakened members traveling in astral form. Things did not look good after the first moments of the fight. Frank lay on the kitchen floor, knocked out from the impact of multiple pistol rounds, Artiste was falling back with injuries while laying down suppressive fire, Wild Rose and Giles were trying to hold the roaches back from astral space with spells and spirits, and El Basilisco and Shifter were still en route to the old chapterhouse (still a few minutes away at that time).

To be continued.

Everyone was awarded 2 Karma for this session.

MacCallister contacted the runners with an offer on a ’hooding job: several “accidents” involving fire and explosions have been happening recently in the Ork Underground (possibly related to the upcoming Proposition 23). Bull wanted the team to investigate and take care of the perpetrators of these unfortunate accidents, starting with an explosion at a school that occurred just as their meeting was finishing up.

After getting through a Knight Errant barricade, the runners assisted the Skraacha in their emergency response and discovered that Joe Martin and a reporter with KSAF has both been on the scene as moments after the explosion. Joe was not forthcoming with information at all, but Athena Tatopoulos was willing to pull her subordinate’s source on this story in exchange for a guaranteed exclusive.

The reporters’ source turned out to be none other than Captain Jack Turner, now rotting in a Knight Errant holding cell. The smuggler had been captured several months back and had organized several illegal courier routes (using his contacts and knowledge as a smuggler), in exchange for a better defense in court and a guarantee to stay out of general population. He was willing to provide the information in exchange for breaking him out of jail. Frank accomplished this by having Tosh Athack help escort Jack out of his cell with him as a team, and arrest him (again) for attempting to flee custody after providing the needed information.

Following the courier route information led to a team of female elf riggers on bikes carrying a small parcel across town. After dispatching the elves with a well place stunball, the package was recovered, and found to contain (after disarming an incendiary trap) a message listing a location in the Underground and a time. Replacing the note with another mentioning a time and place of their choosing (where many Underground residents of note would be present to handle things), the team dropped it off at the address at the end of the courier route.

The arsonists arrived as planned and were quickly subdued and drug to an abandoned home in the underground (their explosives disabled). An interrogation revealed that they were all convicts, released by a Johnson (with possible ties to the government) on the terms that they perform several acts of arson in the Ork Underground. Additionally, they had all been fitted with cortex bombs to make sure they followed their orders to completion. After plumbing them for all the information they could, the arsonists were left to mob justice.

I have updated all karma and reputation totals through this session. Several factions may now owe the team favors, so keep that in mind as we continue through the season.

The team was contacted by Laurent Nazaire to “recover” an artifact in the possession of The Illuminates of the New Dawn in Seattle. At the same time, Moreau wanted a scan of the item for his own purposes. Seeking out a nosferatu contact given to them by Nazaire, the runners were able to get a lead on the chapterhouse’s location. Before they could hunt out the item, they were contacted by Lin Yao Chang and Simon Andrews. Lin wanted to make a counter offer on the relic for his master, but Giles laughed in the assassin’s face and disconnected the call. Simon wanted the head of the chapterhouse brought in alive (in addition to his usual lechery), which the team agreed to, earning an additional payment for the night and a used mage mask in the process. In the end, they completed the goals set by Nazaire, Moreau, and Simon with relative ease, taking a few scrapes from mercenaries in the process.