After spending a week in jail the team finally decides to break Vinny out. Dakka goes missing to follow up on a lead on his missing twin sister, but this chick code name White Rabbit shows up saying she’s heard about the breakout and wants to help since her friend is also being held in the same facility. The plan is set, Rabbit and Daemon will get the prisoner transfer route from the police database, and Hitori uses a watcher spirit, then a regular spirit to astrally scope out the substation. Block the transport and break Vinny and this hacker friend out.

Rabbit finds out she needs a passkey and gets the rookie desk cop to give up his commlink. They get into the Node and things are going according to plan, but the information they want isn’t in the node. They follow a hard line connection to police dispatch, examine the node, see the databomb, and send in a Crack sprite to atempt a disarm. The sprite fails and a general alert is triggered. Daemon uses a Paladin sprite to protect the Crack sprite and the team beings to hack their way into the node. Daemon gets a user account, and compiles a stronger Paladin sprite to wreak havoc for a bit while Rabbit goes for the admin account. The Spider on the node begins to flail at the Paladin sprite in futility as it puts up an excellent defense. Rabbit gets into the node, and begins a data search for the transfer route information. The Paladin protects Rabbit’s icon which proves to be its downfall. Daemon logs into Rabbit’s PAN and sets her up with another Paladin sprite on her own icon to protect her. The data is finally found and then Rabbit gets it in her head to crash the node (make it look like a kid prank). It takes some time but the node crashes.

A spot is picked along the route with minimal camera coverage and a good vantage point or two. The team steals a garbage truck and a passenger vehicle to block in the convoy of the prisoner transport and patrol car. Hitori makes the truck invisible until the last second so the convoy has no idea what hit them. Rabbit jumps down from a fire escape onto the transport van and waits for an opening, Stan moseys on over to the patrol car and smashes the tinted windshield, Hitori lobs some stun damage at them, at which point Rabbit jumps down, steals an FN HAR, and rifle butts the two occupants of the squad car, fatally wounding one and KOing the other. A police lieutenant hops out the passenger side of the van and starts shooting at Rabbit, and 2 Steel Lynx attack drones emerge from the sides. Daemon leads all the surrounding civilians to safety (no witnesses) A call for backup is called in, despite efforts to jam it. Stan rips the power supply out of one of the drones and it crumples in a heap. A firefight ensues, with the second drone being a bit more of a problem. Stan rips the door off the back of the transport and is stun batoned for his trouble, but he Judo flips the guy into the alley. Two more officers attempt to harm Stan to no effect. Daemon’s drone appears on the scene and starts mopping up injured guys. The last drone finally goes down and Vinny is busted out of his transport cage. The teams gets out before backup arrives and blames the whole thing on the orc gangers who were also in the transport van.

Loot: 0¥ and 4 karma

Earned 4 Karma: 1 for Survival, 1 for Mission Objective, and 2 for coolness points.

Loot: 72,000¥ (+5,280¥ party fund) and 13 karma

Light military armor w/helmet and chemical seal, power focus (rating 4, onyx thorn earring), sustaining focus (Health, rating 4, eagle feathers and jet beads), monofilament sword, Ares Alpha assault rifle, 2 gas grenades, stun baton, 3 armor jackets, 3 commlinks (rating 4), 3 knives, 3 stun batons, 3 Yamaha Pulsar tasers, 5 sets form-fitting body armor, 5 commlinks (rating 5, running Analyze 5 and Encrypt 5), 5 vibro knives, 5 Ares Predator IV heavy pistols, sustaining focus (Health, rating 6, obsidian ring), stylized Aztlaner medium military armor (w/integrated retractable spurs, auto-injector (K-10)), red clay tobacco bowl with 1 dose of Immortal Flower, respirator (6), counterspelling focus (Combat, rating 6, obsidian ring), aspected binding focus (rating 6, blood spirits only, native jade and silver medallion), 2 blood fetishes, contact lenses (rating 3 w/image link, low-light, and thermographic vision), macuahuitl (weapon focus rating 6).

Earned 13 karma: 1 for destroying a blood spirit, 6 for recovering the Sextant, 1 for gaining Sonora as a contact, 2 for survival, 1 for coolness nominations, and 2 for coolness.

The runners track Sonora to Deer Creek Park, where a smuggler named Winding Joe is sneaking her out in a t-bird. Unfortunately, Sonora has hired goons to slow down pursuers. Worse, they drag another group of smugglers & slavers into the fight as the t-bird spins up its engines.

Things look pretty good at first: Daemon pulls off some cool off-road maneuvers, Stan corners a hacker, Dakka pops some triads, and Karina makes julienne fries. However, things take a turn for the worse when Dakka takes a serious beating from a triad adept, and Vinny gets sloppy with suppression fire around innocent women and children. Karina pulls off a brilliant FATALITY move on the adept, saving Dakka’s skin, and Daemon hauls ass to collect everyone and escape before the park rangers show up. He notices three mysterious men with religious paraphernalia as he speeds away.

Jane loses her temper a bit over the increasingly gratuitous lethality, and she dresses Vinny down for his callousness. On the bright side, the hacker spilled Sonora’s destination (San Bernardino, PCC) which should give Jane a break from map-reading, so she’ll be less cranky. It also gives her a chance to use some of her epic magic to heal everyone fully, although it leaves her drained again.

The good news from all this is that you can head off Sonora and get to LA before she does. The bad news is that some witnesses mistakenly fingered you as smugglers in league with the slavers. Word on the street is that the “deal” went bad, and now you’re wanted in the PCC for kidnapping, talislegging, metahuman trafficking, destruction of public property, possession of illegal firearms, assault with a deadly weapon, murder, and littering.

Loot: 0¥ (–2,800¥ party fund) and 4 karma

Looted a ton of weapons from the showdown at deer creek park. 6 Ingram White Knigts (2,000¥ each, 1 to Dakka, anyone else want a machine gun?), 14 Remington 990 (550¥ each), 7 Ruger Super Warhawk (250¥ each), 8 Ingram Smartgun X (650¥ each), 1 R1 Weapon Foci (Sword) (10,000¥), 6 pair cyber eyes R2 w/ flare comp, low light, vision enhancement 2, and smartlink (6,500¥ each) 1 R5 Commlink w/ hotsim module, Analyze 5, Armor 5, Attack 5, Biofeedback Filter 5, Black Hammer 3, Browse 4, Command 3, Decrypt 4, Edit 5, Scan 5, Spoof 3, Stealth 5, Track 3, Exploit 5. (to Vinny), 1 R4 Commlink (8,500¥), 8 R3 Commlink (2500¥ each), 7 Armor Jacket (900¥ each), 9 Lined Coat (700¥ each). Need to find a fence in LA before we can see a dime for any of this (split 6 ways). 1 Karma for tracking Sonora, 1 for survival, 1 for beatitude, 1 extra coolness point simply for being badass. 2,800¥ spent from party slush fund on information gathering.

The runners make it to Denver and start tracking down Sonora. Their best lead is a Native infobroker named Belinda Swiftwing, who operates out of the Golden Feather saloon in PCC quadrant. After surviving a police ambush, hiring a runner, and putting some racist orks & trolls in their places (and/or graves), they finally get to meet Belinda.

Also, a video of Vinny eating a shuriken gets 1,500,000 hits on the Matrix.

Loot: 0¥ and 3 karma

Looted Colt America L36 x4 (150¥ each), Defiance EX Shocker x4 (150¥ each), Stun Baton x4 (400¥ each), 1 pair Cyber Eyes R2 w Imagelink, Smartlink, and Thermographic Vision (2,750¥) split 6 ways (Dakka, Daemon, Karina, Hitori, Hiereth, Vinny). Karma: 1 survival, 1 coolness nominations, 1 miscellaneous good stuff.

A couple of t-birds (the mythical kind) force down Ricky Steelsky’s t-bird (the mechanical kind). The plane takes some damage, and an away team sets out to find a friendly mechanic. Unfortunately, the nice local hippie commune has been slaughtered by eco-terrorists. Vinny and Daemon demonstrate the effectiveness of grenades in sturdy farmhouses. Conclusion: It’s better to be outside when the grenades go off.

Loot: 10,000¥ and 4 karma

Got tons of gear from a bunch of eco-terrorist gun nuts. Fenced most of the loot so far. Karma: 1 for befriending Ricky Steelsky, 1 for causing and surviving absurd grenade damage, 1 for coolness, 1 for general survival.

Inside The Zone things heat up. We are attacked by a random pack of bug spirit hybrids, and when we can no longer proceed in the SUV we coerce some Maggot gangers to lead us to a parking garage where there are some snow mobiles. The Tacsoft labels targets but has a problem with one of them, as he doesn’t seem to be carrying any weapons. Hitori identifies him as a bug shaman, and Stan takes him out with a shotgun to the dome. The rest of the bug spirits are handled and we get ourselves some shiny snow mobiles. At The Spire it seems Spire Enterprises is under siege, they ask us to relay a message to The Union, but instead we take on the job of breaking the siege ourselves, and start wiping the floor with The Greek’s men. Daemon pulls off some crazy swerves and snow drifts as he dodges 10 attacks to keep Hitori in LoS of the forward groups who get stunballed into oblivion. Spire Enterprises pays us with 12 frag grenades and a ride on a VTOL aircraft and tells us Sonora left for Denver. Jane calls up and says the Sextant isn’t in Chi-town any more and we tell her what we know. She isn’t happy, with Denver being home to Ghostdragon.

Loot: 9,000¥ and 4 karma

A trip into The Zone proved to be profitable as we turned in 11 bug heads for 4k¥ each and a bug shaman with a price on her head of 10,000¥. Also collected 25 Ares Alphas from fallen mafia enforcers and a box of 12 frag grenades. Karma: 1 for reaching The Spire in the zone, 1 for contact with Spire Enterprises, 1 survival and 1 beatitude.

Frosty calls up after some R&R time to discuss finding the Sextant again, we meet her at a posh restaurant, so the trolls wait in the van, she outlines the mission and payment but is evasive about the location until we agree to take the mission. Turns out the Sextant is in Chicago. Frosty is using the Piri Ries map to do a magic ritual to track the Sextant but she can only do it every so often. We fly to O’Hare airport and start looking for this girl Sonora. Frosty wants us to hit up this bar called Pog mo Thoin and get her a t shirt and some information. On the way we run into some different Chicago locals. Human Brigade, homeless folk, water spirits, and wild dogs. At the bar they tell us to go meet “The Greek” who may have more information and that a bounty is out on Sonora, 50,000, which has brought all kinds of hunters, including Bossk apparently. The Greek says Sonora is probably in The Zone at the Spire, the only people crazy enough to actually smuggle her out of Chicago. A quick visit to Archangel’s Bounty Boards to get the latest list of most wanteds and we are off to the Zone.

Loot: 2,240¥ and 4 karma

After 10 weeks of downtime to train skills and make van upgrades the team takes a job from Jane to find the Sextant again: 5,000¥ up front, 5,000¥ on completion, plus the finders fee is raised to 120,000¥. Team expenses for the step van cost 2,760¥. Mission is in Chicago. Looted 17 Steyr TMP machine pistols, 11 Ares IV heavy pistols (traded to The Greek for EX-Explosive AR ammo). Karma: 1 for meeting “The Greek” 1 for tracking Sonora to The Spire, 1 survival, 1 beatitude.

A plan is concocted to turn in a worthless wife beater (Silence’s Cousin) in place of the master of disguise after Silence gives us information on the statue. Turns out it has a Hawala curse on it so the patriarch of Silence’s family gives it to us with out a fight, and Katrina extracts the pawn from the second story of the compound with some sneaky sneakiness. We turn in our gift to the king and find out the auction is happening back in Lagos on Lagos Island. We find out the Russian “archeologist” (read: mobsters) are the ones who bribed the taxi drivers and ghouls to ambush us, so Dakka makes short work of their ambush rigger and the archeologist with his sniper rifle, leaving a boat on the waterfront with no owner. The auction happens and Jane is quickly outbid, the map goes to the representatives of Lowfyr for 2.1 million nuyen, making our 10% finders fee 210,000¥. Jane and the team are on the same page as we begin operatoins to intercept Lowfyr’s man before he can deliver the map. Some quick driving by Daemon puts us ahead of the Aztechnology team who apparently has the same idea as us. Karina stays with the van and Dakka jumps out and heads for the empty boat. The cops start chasing the van, so Karina hops out and Dakka is on the other side of the bridge to the island trapping the guy with the map between the two of us. He is easily dispatched and we grab the map and get back on the boat. The Aztechnology guys take pot shots at us but Dakka scares them off with a Sniper Rifle shot to one of their craniums and an exploding motorcycle. We meet up at the airport and GTFO back to the UCAS. Foster pays us our 210,000¥ fee for the map and our nuyen for the bodyguard work, not bad for 1 weeks worth of work. Time for some nice relaxing down time.

Loot: 51,250¥ and 13 karma

Payday! After a successful mission and acquisition of the Piri Reis Map. 210,000¥ for the map (10% of 2.1 million) over 6 people is 35k each, 16,000¥ each for 8 days of body guard work, and an additional 5,000 naria as a per diem. Also 12 AK-97s from our little ghoul hunt and some form fitting body armor off of the guy who won the map auction. Total 51,000¥ plus whatever naira you may have lying around gets converted. Karma: 2 part session so 2 for survival 2 for beatitude and 9 for mission objectives, 1 for getting the stolen statue back, 1 for giving Silence to the king, 1 for keeping Silence alive, 1 for keeping Frosty alive during the Ghoul attack, 1 for getting to the auction on time, 1 for dealing with the Russians who tried to kill us, 2 for recovering the Map, 1 for dealing with the Aztecnology goons. 13 total karma.

After a good nights sleep we trekked into Surulere to retrieve the object we were sent for. Finding the place took SEVENTEEN hours and several wrong turns. We arrived exactly at midnight, as if fate wanted us to see this place in the dead of night. Two spirits attacked, sending Karina into a fantasy land where she murdered ghouls for the mask, and Daemon into a panicked state. Stan took care of the dead peeling bird face thing, and after Vinny was able to feel out the other target Jaime put 6 bullets square in it’s chest which caused it to go into hiding. Stan went upstairs to flush it out and was sent into robo dino fantasy land. The spirit fled and the magic subsided, so we searched the place. We found what we were looking for and GTFO of that place. Back at the hotel after a short nights rest we were pushed by area boys to buy a ju-ju charm to ward off bad spirits from the forbidden zone. Daemon talked them into a single sale and we paid them off to keep quiet and out of the way.

On our way to deliver the small iron mask we are contacted by Jane who took care of drop off for the item, we have to be on a plane in an hour to fly out to the palace of the Yoruba King Adegoke in Ifé. The favor from Kayin gets us the royal treatment. A Suite, a viewing of the artifacts tagged for auction, and an amazing dinner. The tour and viewing go ok. The Sextant is nowhere to be seen, but there is an interesting map. At dinner Jaime stuffs his face. After dinner Jane informs us we have a chance to pick up a side job, our invitation to the auction was as guests, not bidders, because we have no gift for the king, and we need one. If we can successfully acquire the Piri Reis map from the action we will receive 10% of its value as a bonus from Jane’s sponsors. With nothing left to do the team turns in to sleep in the suite. Our sleep is interrupted by a team of palace security, apparently there has been a theft and they wanted to see our reaction to guards. This provides an opportunity for us to get into the action with a gift for the king, a thief and a returned stolen artifact. Jane says she can hold down the suite with Heireth, and the rest of the team heads back to Lagos to look for leads.

The antiquities dealer Kayin has a potential lead, and tells us to contact a man named Hippo as a restaurant called the three friends. With some time to kill we get our per diem from the Hawala run by Kayin and track down a Valkyrie Module for the Bulldog and start an install project. After some progress we go meet Hippo, who wants 50,000 naira for the information, but Daemon talks him into a favor instead. A quick drop-off to the Island of Lagos of an unmarked package. We quickly agree, get the package, and start fighting traffic. A bribe gets us on the island and Hitori checks on the package (without telling any of us) with a watcher spirit. It contains common street drugs. The drop off goes off easy and we get back to Hippo for the information we need. Apparently a guy named Silence took the statue to insult the Yoruba government. He gives us the location of a brothel Silence likes to hang out at. We take up positions and send in Daemon to assess the situation. Turns out the situation sucks and Stan goes storming in the front door to keep Daemon from getting popped. A window out back opens and Karina goes in and hip checks a prostitute out the window, but his disguise gets disrupted so Karina goes for the finishing move and knocks Silence out. Stan trips up a guard inside and the other two pump him full off rounds, he goes down. Jaime leaps the alley, runs across the roof of the brothel, drops down and enters the front door, downs a guard with gel rounds, and gets the other two to surrender. He picks up the 3 AK-97s and Hitori and Daemon drag Stan out by the ankles. With area boys coming to investigate its time to scatter (too bad, as Silence is in a prostitute outfit and doesn’t have any of his gear). Vinny carries Stan back to the van and Jaime and Karina carry Silence. We zip tie his limbs and zip tie him to the van. Now all we need is the statue and we have our gift for Adegoke.

Loot: 250¥ and 4 karma

No appreciable loot from this session, 3 AK-97s from when we picked up Silence. Spent the party slush fund on information. Got paid a per diem of 5,000 neira. Karma: 1 for mission objective when we retrieved the mask, 1 bonus for getting out of the cursed zone under ideal circumstances (no damage, no ghoul packs chasing us), 1 for survival, 1 for beatitude.

Jane explains the layout of the Lagos black markets. To avoid looking like tourists and drawing attention the runners decide to split up into 2 groups, Daemon and Jaime go to check out a bulk weapons supplier named Osayi Ibe, a surly dwarf who doesn’t do small time deals. Jane, Karina, and Hiereth take a motorcycle taxi to the Leventis Market to pick up other odds and ends things. Dealings with Osayi go well, as Daemon negotiates the sale of our 13 AKs and purchase of a suped up Hermes Bulldog van, a crate of SA Puzzlers (4), an Einfield AS-7 bad ass custom Shotgun, and an R3 Tacsoft. We ask about Samriel, and Osayi knows the next place he went is a local Talismonger. On their way to the Market the taxi stops and the group sees something happening in the road. A group of gangers are taking people from an old school bus and loading them into a truck. One girl runs towards the taxi and a ganger chases after her, Jane decides enough is enough and shoots that bastard dead. Fight breaks out, gangers die, other gangers flee, and as Karina is getting ready to hunt down the bastards who were shooting at her Jane warns the group of the local tactic where the gangers act like cockroaches when they scatter, and come back in larger numbers. Group does their shopping. Daemon and Jaime stop by the talismonger to track Sammy. Turns out the talismonger doesn’t trust Sammy because he’s an Atlantean and chromed out for a mage. Some Data Searching is unfruitful as Hireth encounters a Data Bomb and a Black Ice program. Jane points out if we know Samriel is in an Atlantean compound we don’t have to search the local hotels. Jane points us to a friend of a friend ( Kayin, and he’s a friend of Jane’s friend Elijah) who runs an antiquites shop. He gives us some background on the “The Sextant of the Worlds” (not Sexton as we thought), and tells us it’s being sold in an upcoming auction hosted by Yoruba royalty, and if we do him a favor, he’ll provide us with an introduction into that circle. That little favor will involve us transporting an object from one location to another… sounds simple enough, but we will be doing it in fucked-up-magic areas where Jaime, Hitori, and Karina will be at a distinct disadvantage. Ghouls will be the enemy of the week.

We also agreed hacking off body parts to sell to chrome dealers is totally cool and we should do it more often. (Be happy we aren’t organ legging)

;)

Loot: –2,700¥ and 3 karma

No loot from this session, party bought a van and tacsoft R3, stash of AKs applied to van cost before dividing out. Karma for survival, protecting Jane during an ambush, and beatitude.