We are hanging out at GG’s place when there is a commotion — someone is arriving. We se our old friend and Owl Shaman, Tebriel. It seems that he was sent here by Smoke Jaguar to help us out. After a brief re-introduction we tell him of our current mission.

Our plan is to take the sub south to the area that Fenola is being held in, and find a way to get her out.

We load up all of our gear and take off in the sub, since we will not be returning. On the way out, Nutz manages to scrape the sub on the side of the wall, causing a small leak.

Nutz pilots the sub south and finds a small boathouse that looks safe to store the sub in. All exit and move into the city. It is mid-afternoon and there is a light rain falling.

We make our way through the city to her building. Nutz sends the flying drone around the perimiter of the building. The north entrance looks sealed off but the others seem to be open. There are lots of security cameras around. Some people are coming in and out of the building but they do not seem to be armed.

We move towards the door and they barricade themselves inside. Skelfeng casts Magic Fingers in case they need to be “coaxed”. Jack approaches and asks them if we can rent a room. They let him in and tell him that it is very expensive. He says that he can provide several things, including passage out of the city.

We decide that we could sell one of Nutz’ drones in order to buy the girl back. Jack goes back in and one of the guys, named T’krit, asks him about getting out of the city; he wants passage for himself and a few of his men.

Jack explains that we want the girl in exchange. The guy agrees and lets us into the building.

We go up to the penthouse and get settled in. They bring up the girl and we explain the situation to her. She begins crying, and seems very happy to be getting out of the city and to see her brother again.

T’krit announces to his men that some of them will be leaving the city, and some will be asked to stay and help out. We will leave some supplies here for them as well.

We start packing up to leave. Fenola explains that she needs to get some of her family heirlooms out of her apartment before she can go. Some of T’krit’s men will go with us to the apartment building, which is nearby.

All of us head into the building, but we leave some of T’krit’s men on the ground floor. We head up to the 26th floor, but smell a sweet odor and decide to head back down to the 19th floor since there are most certainly bugs upstairs.

We ask Fenola about the location of her items, and her apartment number. She gives us the information and we head upstairs, leaving her with the others.

We get back up to the 26th floor and there seems to be activity. Skelfeng sees several bug spirits around. We launch our grenades into the hallway and take them out. We find two more in the apartment and kill them as well. We take her belongings from the safe in her room and clear the area.

Returning to T’krit’s building, we pack up our belongings and take the passengers with us.

We leave in the sub and are able to escape the same way that we came in, through the hole in the fence that we previously made. Our trip back to Milwaukee is without incident.

We deliver the girl back to Dorchatus and she is very happy to be back. He makes good on his promise and says that he will tell his superiors that he has killed Nacre.

Some of the passengers stay with us in the warehouse base. After a day or so, most of them leave, thanking us profusely and promising to return and repay us for helping them.

A few days later we deliver the cage to Smoke Jaguar. He adds 1.25 million nuyen to our account, which amounts to 250,000 nuyen apiece. He tell us that we are going on a trip, and takes us in his plane to Seattle.

After landing we go through a DMZ area where an Urban Brawl had just occurred. We go inside a church nearby and into a room with an Aztec-style altar with petroglyphs. Each person present has a piece of the codex.

A ritual occurs — they assemble the pieces of the codex and a flash whites out the room. The codex is glowing intensely. We all feel very good. Skelfeng approaches the codex to look at it. Several other magicians do the same.

He casts Analyze Magic on it, to find out the codex’s purpose. Apparently it is a focus, gathering nearby mana into the crystal at the center. It could be called a “mana battery” of sorts (force 9).

In game terms, it increases everyone’s Essence by 1.