IC: Extassis, Les Etrangers Beaux Options

[Buddha72]

Barrens

The ghoul seems to go deeper within himself and you're struck with the impression of a hollow body in front of you. His voice comes from somewhere deep within himself and almost seems to echo from the shell of his form.

"The item is a small vial containing a single scale from the patron. He wears it on his forearm, strapped to the inside of his arm. It allows him to channel the strain from great magics to the ritual group bounded to him."

Shiver

As you make your way to the spare room where the street samurai had crashed out, you begin to hear the faint sound of liquid dripping against cloth, a wet and soft patter of drops.

[Fenris]

Bakatare nods, resisting the urge to smile. Finally, useful information, and nobody's bleeding from their eyes this time.

He holds his hand out for the items, obviously intending to be on his way.

[Buddha72]

Bakatare

With a shudder the shell in front of you is reclaimed, the ghoul glides forward placing both items in your hands and bowing as if showing great respect. You are startled by the sudden warmth and moisture as he slides his tongue along your finger with the tenderness of a lover.

"Until we meet again then."

He releases your hand and turns to walk back into the darkness of the rink.

Shiver

As you draw nearer to the door of the room you begin to smell the sweet heavy copper of spilt blood.

[Fenris]

He suppresses a shudder as his fingers twitch, barely biting back the rapid words in Latin that would have augmented the energy he almost cascaded into the ghoul.

He lets his gaze linger on the figures back just long enough to settle the mental impression of his aura in his mind. Never hurt to know who might be after you.

He turned, speaking both out loud and subvocally as he strode towards the door. "We're done."

Round up the calvary,Murrey, we're heading out and heading home.

[BishopMcQ]

"Follow up with me in two hours. Rayne's grand-father is calling on the other line."

Disconnecting the call to Sully, Shiver drops the cell phone quietly into his pocket, and pushes the door in slowly. He couldn't hear the force that had brought blood to the apartment, but that did not mean it wasn't here. Without entering the room, the old man tries to assess recent actions and Havoc's health or lack thereof. His duty was to defend his ward. To do that he must know what hunts them.

[Buddha72]

Barrens

The small group makes its way back to the van, trailing behind them at a good distance is a feral looking group of ghouls. Their attention seems focused on the dead in the group of squatters that had launched the unsuccessful assualt on the group earlier. You begin the drive out of the area, watching the broken urban landscape scrolling past. A series of scenes slide up, all tinged by desperation and hopelessness. The numbness of this life threatens to swallow you whole but you have all learned to cope in some way. You soon return to the city and its safe illusion of civilization.

Shiver

The door slides across the carpet revealing a modest bedroom tastefully appointed as the rest of the apartment. You see the signs of recent habitation, a small duffel bag tossed in one corner and the bed's rumpled appearance. You scan the room and soon see the prone form of Havoc on the ground near the small balcony off of the room. His body positioning suggests he was struck down while making his way to the bed. His clothes appear stained with his own blood but there does not appear to be any damage to his clothing. You see no signs of a struggle or evidence of an intruder forcing their way into the room.

[Fenris]

He unwinds the spells one by one, body shaking from the release of magical energies. His responses always felt dull after the magical boost in reaction time, like his limbs weren't responding the way they should. Some people got addicted to the feeling, the hyper-tension, just like nova-coke or bliss.

The interior of the van dims a bit as the physical protections fall away, and he releases his grip on the staff, letting the energies in the foci fall dormant once again as he collapses the staff back down to the size of a small baton, tucking it into his belt under his coat.

He places a call to Shiver, letting the Connection....Waiting fill the visual display of his sunglasses as he was for the wized troll to answer.

[Nikoli]

"I hope the wheating meant well after the violence we purchased it with."

[BishopMcQ]

"Bakatare-sama. If your meetings are concluded, there has been trouble at home. Havoc has passed from the pages of Lord Potmos.

Shiver glides quietly into the room, showing reverence for the dead. Without touching the body, he looks over the crumpled form to ascertain if this was a mortal blow or a far reaching awakened one.

Necessity willing, there is one to stand vigil for this soul, as there will be for me.

[Fenris]

The groan is faint, but unmistakable.

Great. Dead shadowrunner in my apartment. Of course there's a dead shadowrunner in my apartment. My deposit is probably shot.

"Any idea what happened? Try to contain the body. I'll incinerate it as soon as I get home."

[Buddha72]

Shiver

You examine the body and soon realize the damage is mostly internal. It looks to be the work a powerful flow of mana channeled directly into his body though how they bypassed wards still remains a mystery. The body position seems to suggest he was making his way to the balcony as you look over the sliding glass door you quickly see the way they reached him. The door is slightly ajar as if he was opening it when the magic struck.

Van

You quickly move through the streets of the city, once again the convulted route chosen by Murphy defies reason and logic and somehow you arrive back at the safe house in record time while avoiding any traffic.

[BishopMcQ]

"It appears that the wards were breached and his life was unmade. When you arrive we will have much to discuss."

Shiver moves with a careful pace, avoiding the body to look out onto the balcony.

Blood calls to blood, a doll unmade resembling a man. This is a precarious position we stand upon, striding the soul's edge of reason.

He returns to the living room at the sight of the van pulling in across the street. The sliding door untouched from its position. Bakatare would need to re-seal his wards, a task the old troll was in no position to assist with.

When the team arrives in the apartment, Shiver nods to their host.

My apologies Bakatare-sama for the violation of hospitality. I did not notice the attack in time to respond and protect the young boy left in my care.

[Blitz]

:: The sounds of Bakatare's return reach into her subconscious and rouse her out of the deep sleep that had overtaken her. With a stretch, she stands and makes a futile attempt to straighten her sleep rumpled clothes. She joins the Troll and their host near the door in time to hear Shiver's comment about their teammate. Worry and emotion take over her face as she realizes she slept through yet another tragedy. ::

"What happened?"

[Fenris]

Do not let it burden you. This is not the old land, ours are not the old ways. Each of us has their own demons. I am grateful that this seemed limited to only one of you.

For the benefit of the rest of the team, he switched back to English for the moment.

"It looks like ritual sorcery. Any single practitioner would have been hard pressed to punch through my wards. Not impossible, just very difficult. Did he give any indication of enemies or people that were hunting him? We know that it isn't our adversaries."

[Buddha72]

Bakatare

As you speak to the others, you open your senses to the astral hoping to examine the lingering traces of focused mana to back up your theories. You see the heavy glow of the wards still intact along the outer edges of the room. All across Havoc's body you see the remnants of mana woven into his fesh, you can see where the mana was forced in and ruptured the delicate flow of life once contained in his body. As you pick out the signature of the work, you quickly realize you have never seen this worker's magic before, in fact it looks to be a ritual work of some sort. As you probe deeper you detect a taint to the mana, it feels coppery and wet to your astral senses.

Downtown

The team is gathered around the door to the room. The sour smell of death wafts its way into the rest of apartment. You see several large duffels tucked out of the way under the bed and the noise drifts in from the baloncy of the city going on indifferent to the life and death of its occupants.

[BishopMcQ]

"Blood magic did this. Associates alerted me to the perpetrator, who had many of us targeted for later acts of murder fueled magics. The practitioner, wrought his deeds for money. Raja Khan was the source behind this death, though the hand who commited the deed will soon meet the same fate as Havoc."

[Fenris]

"They do not seem to be linked to our target group.

I fear there is nothing more that can be done then to hope whoever commissioned these acts is satisfied with this single death. If the group that did this has perished, there is at least nothing more to fear from them.

In the meantime..."

Murrey, I do hesitate to ask, but we need to move Havok's body. Can we use your van?

"Wrap the body in the bedding, and I'll lower it down to the street from the balcony into Murrey's van. A simple illusion spell should keep people from seeing the body and causing an issue."

[Nikoli]

"Of course. Shere wall I drop him off?"

[BishopMcQ]

"If none knows of Raja Khan, I and my kind shall look into it."

Collecting up the items from the duffel bag near the bed, Shiver kneels down without touching the body.

"Once Havoc is moved, we must prepare for the party."

[Buddha72]

Downtown

Silence descends over the apartment as everyone moves to a task. The body of your former teammate is bundled up and placed out of the way until taken down to the van to be disposed of. The smell of blood that was once wet and coppery soon turns to a sickly sour taste in the back of your throat.

[Nikoli]

Supressing a shudder as his drones set about the grisly work, wanting desperately to have his attention focused elsewhere, but also wanting to honor the memory of his teammate he directly operates the MK-6 as it moves the body.

[Fenris]

Once the body is wrapped, he wraps the flows and twists around the limp form, blocking it from normal vision as he lifts it up and drops it lightly out of the window. He keeps it as close to the building as possible to hide in from anyone viewing in the astral as well. He stops the rapid assent a few feet above the concrete, moving it over and inside the van as soon as Murrey opened the door.

It brought back to mind the retrieval of another teammates body. He can't help but smile, despite the grim situation, at the memory of whisking her body through the ruins in the Barren's, trying to keep the Hunt from catching her or them, and the little fox riding shotgun in her backpack.

[Cedric Rolfsson]

Aaron looks around the room at the other runners.

"I know something of a person who goes by the name Raja Khan but I'm not certain its the same person. The guy and I have a history, he's a phys-ad who follows Tiger, an Ork. He runs with a gang and can be something a problem but I never figured him for being involved with blood magic. He's always been the kind that'd just dive in and start punching rather than plot and plan before a fight. If it's the same guy I know you can figure on him and maybe a few others from his gang being around. Street fighters one and all, but he makes sure they're better than your average ganger in a fight. He'll know me on sight."

He looked around the room at the others as he spoke, trying to convey the uncertainty he felt. He'd crossed pathes with Raja Khan, but never in a million years would he have figured the Ork warrior for being involved with something like blood magic. Khan was a fighter, top to bottom, and proud of his battle prowess.

[BishopMcQ]

"What reason would he have to kill you or others near you?"

Every shadowrunner is an individual, a person with Past and Future. Knowing that did not help Shiver feel sorry for the young boy, but he could not blame him. It was possible that the Ito clan had struck at him, as equally possible as they were hired for another. If the information lay upon his path, he would know it. Should such things not be part of his destiny, he would not.

[Buddha72]

Downtown

As the conversation unfolds the surreal image of a body floats down the side of the complex wrapped and hidden from view by the flows of mana. The body floats past and through the sluggish foot traffic of the city with no one the wiser as it settles into the rear of the van pulled off the main street in an access road runnning parallel to the condo complex.

Safe House

A small twisted cry pushes its way from Angelina's throat as her body shifts without warning to Desdemona. Her face is a mask of rage and frustration as she pushes her other self away and assumes control. "Useless twit...."

She shakes herself and her eyes lock onto Aaron and the heat is evident. Her voice is tight and bristling with hostility. "You mean to tell me that your shit has come to land on our faces? As for the rest of you, instead of giving that useless pile of dead meat a proper burial we should be putting this Raja on the dead list." Her scathing glare travels across the other runners before settling back on Aaron

At her change and outburst, Moira seems to recoil from the venom and implied insult. She seems to look to the others for support and decides to settle on Shiver on how to deal with her now that she seems able to assert her persona at will.