Session 1 — The Sato Job

The transcript doesn’t state the real-world date; add it here once confirmed.

The crew’s first real mission as an established team (their second job together — see Session 0 for the recapped first).

This session is the first act of a single mission, the Sato job, tracked in the group’s VTT as Mission 2, “Ghost Route,” which runs through Session 2 and Session 3. Session 1 is the entire Legwork phase. The group ran out of table time before reaching the Mission/Action phase, so it ends on a cliffhanger. Session 2 picks up in the Action phase and runs to Get Paid, and Session 3 is the breakout that closes the mission out. Mission-level bookkeeping (the legwork clock, directives and end-of-mission experience) is therefore resolved later, not here.

Summary

Corpo fixer Iona Glass, acting for Rest Easy Interstate Services (REIS), hires the crew to find Mara Sato — a REIS systems engineer who’s gone dark — and bring her back alive along with a set of stolen arcology keys. A full session of Legwork follows: public and corporate hacking, a physical retracing of Mara’s last movements, and a reunion with an old Van Life contact. The crew learns the stolen keys are the very same access codes that destroyed Van Life years ago, that Mara had help from a VYRAL insider, and that Iona Glass secretly runs a REIS “cleanup” division built for plausible deniability. The session ends with the crew heading into the Switchback to pick up Mara’s trail, mission still unresolved.

Key Events

The Job

Speckz gets a call mid-breakfast from Iona Glass, a corpo fixer he recognizes by reputation. REIS pulls strings with its own toll network to reroute Neon Drift’s van straight to the REIS Six arcology, where Iona’s office sits near the top, above the cloud deck. She lays out the job: Mara Sato, a REIS systems engineer, has gone dark after her credentials were used somewhere she had no business being. She took proprietary company property with her — access keys to the entire arcology, originally tied to “some old gang that drove around in vans.” Neon Drift immediately recognizes the reference: Van Life.

Speckz negotiates pay (Get the Job); the crew accepts. Terms: bring Mara back alive, and everything she’s carrying comes back with her, within 48 hours or the pay drops. Muktar presses Iona further about what happens after 48 hours and, on a miss, gets more than he bargained for — a glimpse of her willingness to escalate (“more people like you start showing up to capture her”).

Splitting Up

The crew splits to work the case:

• Bullfrog stays in the van, first sweeping the gray web for chatter about the stolen keys (nothing — Mara isn’t shopping them around), then confirming the keys are most valuable to VYRAL: a VYRAL cover account tried to purchase similar access roughly six weeks ago.
• Speckz works Section 36 — the last place Mara’s credentials were used — talking to locals under a fake name (“Han”). A contact named Tony reveals Mara was sick of her job at REIS, had her REIS-implanted tracker illegally removed off the books (no licensed ripperdoc would touch it), and headed for the sub-basement levels with credentials that could take her anywhere. Speckz declares Alfonso, a ripperdoc contact from his own past (Alfonso removed the tracking/recording features from Speckz’s military-installed cyber-eyes when Speckz left the service against his will).
• Neon Drift reaches out to old Van Life contacts via a nearly-dead message board and connects with Van Helsing, arranging to meet at the Early Bird Diner.
• Muktar heads to Mara’s workplace inside REIS Six to retrace her commute in person, wanting to understand her choice rather than just read about it.

Van Helsing and the Keys’ History

At the Early Bird Diner, Van Helsing — an old Van Life bandmate of Neon Drift’s, now working a straight job in a computer repair shop and openly missing “wheels” — reveals that the stolen arcology keys are the exact same access codes that destroyed Van Life years ago: maintenance lanes, ramps, toll controllers, citywide access, all gone in one stroke (“getting burnt”). REIS was expected to patch the exploit out but never did, which Van Helsing takes as a sign someone wants it left open. He suspects Camper Van Beethoven — a former Van Life member who split off and “made it” — might be working with Rest Easy. He also references the group currently being “under” Van Morrison in some capacity, preventing them from pooling resources again.

Van Helsing gives Neon Drift a piece of gear: tech to make Van Buren (his van) discreet, since it’s normally too recognizable for covert work.

Muktar, working the diner in parallel, bonds with the cook Dolores (offering to deal with anyone who bothers her — “you sound like a lady who is in charge of her fate”) and debates with Neon Drift whether Mara “stole” the keys or was simply handed an opportunity. Muktar’s read: she took fate into her own hands, same as he did escaping the Under Sector, and he won’t call it stealing.

Muktar’s Retracing

Walking Mara’s commute alone, Muktar gets a vivid flash of memory: Mara hesitating at the train platform, not wanting to go through with it, until a call from Iona Glass — “you can’t opt out now, not yet” — pushes her to board anyway. Using his “Gut Knowledge” move (his reskinned corporate-secrets ability, drawing on the memories of people he’s eaten), Muktar confirms Mara is most valuable to VYRAL, and recovers a memory from a Knet employee he once killed: that employee had been secretly surveilling Mara, and recorded her meeting on a bench with a facial-recognition-obscured, high-ranking VYRAL official who handed her something — almost certainly the keys. Muktar again reflects that Kestrel is the only victim whose memories he holds clearly.

Bullfrog’s Hacks

Bullfrog hacks REIS’s internal systems directly and confirms Mara’s tracked movement lines up exactly with Iona’s own intel (last position: Section 36), and that she met a VYRAL rep immediately before going dark. Mid-hack, an unknown third party opens an encrypted channel straight to Bullfrog — bypassing the rest of the crew entirely — addressing him by his hacker handle and offering “name and reputation” (not money) to breach a K-Net interface system and pull a video file. Bullfrog holds out for real payment, then breaches the system on a weak hit: he gets the file (NSMC-encrypted) but can’t resist leaving an ego-driven calling card — an animated bullfrog GIF reading “You are found,” signed with his real handle. Bullfrog does not tell the rest of the crew about this contact or the job — an open thread.

The COPD cover story. Working the secret channel in the back of the van, Bullfrog starts breathing heavily enough that Muktar notices and asks if he’s all right. Bullfrog deflects — “this is just my COPD acting up” — and Neon Drift instantly pulls the van over to dig out his shaker vest, over Bullfrog’s protests (“not now, not dad”). Neon has no idea he’s interrupting a hack; he thinks his girlfriend’s son is having a medical emergency. The moment later became the basis for Neon marking his Intimate directive at the end of the mission — see Session 2.

Meanwhile, Speckz meets Alfonso in person, who confirms Mara came to him to have her tracker pulled, paid well, and headed for “the basement levels” — mentioning “those fights” (the Under Sector arena) with visible unease.

Digging Into the Employer

Back together and provisioning at the Early Bird for an extended trip underground (Neon Drift’s drone Eight Arms to Hold You hauls out cases of synth bacon), the crew turns their hacking on their own employer. A first pass confirms Iona Glass is REIS’s senior director of Corporate Risk and Recovery, also tied to an internal unit called Special Projects — details classified. Muktar is troubled (“no corp has special projects that are not bad”), tempered by Bullfrog’s cynicism (“no corps are good in the first place — yet here we are doing a job for one”).

Bullfrog pushes further, hacking properly into REIS systems to dig up more on Special Projects. He fails to hold access, panics, and jacks out — but not before grabbing a file. The grab triggers a real alarm: REIS’s network security division detects an intrusion. The GM ticks the REIS corporate response clock. The crew debates whether Iona can trace it back to them — Neon Drift concludes she likely can, since Bullfrog routed the hack through Neon’s own drone, All Correct, which carries Neon’s signature, and Iona already knows who Neon is.

The stolen data pays off: Iona’s Special Projects division exists to “clean up messes that should not make it up to corporate leadership” — plausible deniability, built in. Neon Drift’s summary: “She’s a cleaner.”

Heading to the Switchback

With about thirty minutes left, the GM ends the session here rather than starting the Mission/Action phase. The crew has a plan — follow the arcology keys’ activation trail into the Switchback’s underground entrances, where all signs point to Mara having gone — but nothing beyond that has happened yet. No confrontation, no recovered keys, no payment.

Standout Quotes

“She’s on the grid, she’s being tracked, baby. All those Palantir cameras or Flock cameras, they’re keeping an eye on her.” — Duskit (Bullfrog)

“You can’t opt out now, not yet.” — SiliKen, voicing Iona Glass in Muktar’s recovered memory of Mara

“Sometimes fate gives you a door, and she was strong enough to walk through it.” — Killjoy Keegan (Muktar), on Mara Sato

“Many people are stuck in their jobs, their lives. They’re born into a system that they cannot leave. But Mara Sato, she left. She took fate into her own hands… I would not consider it stealing.” — Killjoy Keegan (Muktar)

“I fucking switchback. A whole group of us got stuck there for six months one time. Refueling on the road. We just couldn’t get out. It’s a nightmare in that place.” — regular human faits, voicing Neon Drift to Van Helsing

“I do not believe that we should kill Bullfrog. I do not think it’s fair to kill Bullfrog for failing this one thing. I will defend you, Mr. Bullfrog.” — Killjoy Keegan (Muktar)

“That’s the name of my van. I kinda am my van, so I just go with it, right?” — regular human faits (Neon Drift), on why people call him Van Buren

“This is why you wish I did not talk to him. You did not want me to learn of your past.” / “I clearly do want you to learn of my past. The more we know about each other, the more safe I feel operating together.” — Killjoy Keegan (Muktar) and regular human faits (Neon Drift)

Open Threads

• Mara Sato is still missing — the crew is heading into the Switchback to pick up her trail; no contact made yet.
• The arcology keys haven’t been recovered, and Iona Glass hasn’t paid out.
• Bullfrog’s secret contact and the NSMC-encrypted video file — unresolved, and Bullfrog hasn’t told the crew it happened.
• REIS’s network security division is now aware of an intrusion tied to the crew (clock ticked); whether Iona connects it to them directly is still open.
• Camper Van Beethoven may be colluding with Rest Easy to keep the arcology-key exploit unpatched — unconfirmed, per Van Helsing’s suspicion.
• Van Life is currently “under” Van Morrison in some ongoing way that’s preventing them from regrouping — new wrinkle on the Van Life thread from Session 0.
• The Velvet Bailiff (a VYRAL bounty-hunter media personality) aired anonymized footage of the crew from their previous job — low-grade public exposure risk the crew hasn’t addressed.
• Muktar’s debt to Kestrel — still unresolved, carried over from Session 0.
• Iona Glass’s “Special Projects” division — confirmed as a cleanup/deniability operation, but its full scope is still unknown.

Meta / Errata

• Weak hits (7-9): confirmed no mechanical distinction between rolling a 7, 8, or 9 — all are the same “weak hit” result.
• Research-a-Corporation-style moves: follow-up questions are always allowed regardless of roll result — not gated behind a 10+. This came up when the table initially misread the move text.
• Jacking out of a hack requires no roll — it’s free, not a move.
• Failing the same move type twice in a row is allowed — no mechanical restriction against consecutive misses on the same move.
• Non-public information requires a proper hacking procedure (jack in, risk of a trace clock, one move before exposure), not the passive Research move — Research alone only works on information that’s already public.
• Console Cowboy grants Hold usable toward a following Research roll, rather than being a standalone effect on its own.
• Cyberdeck gear tiers clarified: Cyberdeck → Ghost Deck → Performance Deck (2 programs) → Toolbox Deck (4 programs) → Advanced Deck (6 programs). Programs function as equipment/gear bonuses rather than raw numeric bonuses, since PbtA doesn’t natively support flat bonuses. The GM granted Bullfrog a standing +1 forward to cyberdecking rolls until the playbook’s specifics are fully worked out.
• Legwork clock and other GM-move clocks tick as a GM move choice on a miss, not automatically on every failure — the GM may choose a tick, or a different consequence, depending on fictional positioning.
• Links between PCs provide a +1/-1 modifier on a relevant roll, not a standalone stat; Help/Interfere isn’t its own listed move and gets built as a custom roll entry in the group’s VTT.

Player Notes

• Confirmed next regular session: October 3rd. A possible earlier session on the following Monday around 10 AM was floated but left unconfirmed, pending the GM following up on Discord.
• The group’s transcription bot is named NoteCat.
• Real names surfaced this session, now reflected in CLAUDE.md’s Player → Character Mapping table: SiliKen = Ken, Killjoy Keegan = Joe, Feklars = Ramsey.
• Heavy VTT/tech troubleshooting this session (login issues, image uploads, move lookups) — not recorded here beyond what’s already folded into Meta/Errata as actual rulings.