IC: Vein of Truth, An adventure into the wilds Options

[Panzergeist]

Swift Eagle heads through the trees above the rest of the group, going down the middle from branch to branch with bow at the ready and a barbed arrow nocked. He has Thor's microskimmer and spider drones in his backpack. Upon reaching the end of the forest, he climbs as high as he can and scans the area with his magically augmented senses. His Rapid Transit outfit makes him nearly invisible up in the boughs of the great tree.

[Beast of Revolut...]

Thor switches back to his van and looks over its passive sensor feeds, watching for any sign of the rednecks.

[Chance359]

Sedrky hunkers down next the Red Tom and the comatose Belfast. Seeing Tom's pipe, he pulls a smoke of his own. "Any idea how long til the mice come back?"

[Number 6]

Hellcow will creep forward, behind Raven, just to keep an eye on him as he scouts. Passing the pumphouse Hellcow looks inside a window, trying to gague how delapitated the machinery is.

Good thing I brought that respirator.

Covering the retreating form of Raven, the elf subvocalizes into his radio. "Who's got the Knowsoft? Will we need anything in these buildings?"

Hellcow circles around the right to get a look at the dump sight.

"Have we decided on a team to go down and team to secure the site? I'm good in either role."

[TinkerGnome]

On the astral, two things quickly became apparent. The first was that the entire area had a light background count which seemed to cover everything equally. The second was tha the area was devoid of intelligent life and magic. Further astral scouting showed that the mine shaft went down a considerable distance before leveling out. It looks to still be stable, since there are no caveins apparent, but the details of the mundane are hard to grasp from the other plane.

The rest of the team arrays themselves around the mine. Paris finds himself with two obvious choices for a sniper/lookout nest. One is the top of the mining building and the other is the rise which goes along with the road away from the site. There is a small building situated at the fenceline which looks to have guarded the entrance in times past. It is currently abandoned.

[Panzergeist]

Swift Eagle strings up his hammock southeast of the guard shack, just on the other side of the intersection. He takes up position above it and continues scanning the area with his enhanced senses. Activating his encrypted radio, he says "Thor, can you give us a quick sensor sweep of the area?"

[Misfit Toy]

[Beast of Revolut...]

"Sure thing," Thor responds. He activates the active sensors on both the van and the blimp, and orders the blimp to do a quick circle of the plateau while he controls the van's sensors himself. "Make sure the spider goes down the mine with the exploratory team, and leave the skimmer with the aboveground team."

[JaronK]

Paris, in his small nest in a rise along the side of the road, scans the area through the scope of his sniper rifle. His rangefinder has been mounted on the underbarrel mount of the weapon, an both he and his gun are hidden under camoflague netting. His position just off the side of the road gives a decent view of the road itself and the surrounding area, and he searches for anything dangerous.

[tisoz]

Skeeter investigates the guard shack.

[Shadow]

Raven crouched down at the ridge. Her black coat swept the ground behind her as she scanned back and forth. She pulled a hair band out of her pocket. The last one was getting a little warn. She cocked her head to the side and redid her hair. Something caught her eye as she did so.

“Hey, I am going to take a look at those blocks down there, be back in a minute.”

Picking her path carefully, and holding her arms out to her side, the elf made her way down the cliff to the carved blocks.

[TinkerGnome]

Raven half climbs, half slides down the slope to look at the jumble of stones. On closer inspection, it looks like they were thrown down the slope from the area above or fell down it somehow, though it was done long enough ago that there is little physical evidence of this, aside from a bit of a landslide surrounding the stones.

The rocks themselves looked shaped, though the lines are dulled enough that it was either done a very long time ago or with primitive tools.

[Shadow]

Raven triggers the radio on her belt, "Hey Sedryk, you near Belfast or Red Tom, can you send them my way? There is something hinky about these stones, and I am damned if I know what."

[TinkerGnome]

As Belfast penetrates the mine shaft further, he stops suddenly as he realizes that several spirits seem to have congregated in one section of the mine. As one, they seem to become aware of his presence and turn.

Arrayed in the group, are elementals of earth, gnomes, and mountain spirits all appear to be in the group. Their sizes range from small to quite large. They also don't appear to be friendly.

[Number 6]

Hellcow wanders towards the strange blocks, since he was kinda headed that way anyhow.

Wow, real rocks! Just like on those nature tri-dees!

Hunching down, the elf inspects the stones.

[Misfit Toy]

Belfast comes to a stuttering stop as he encounter the sundry of spirits. Decked out in an ectoplasmic suit remenescent of the days of the potato famine back in the Motherland, he offers a smile as he tips his derby politely.

"I... guess you guys aren't in the mood for a chat are ya?" he asks tentatively, ready to burst into full speed at the drop of his hat...

[TinkerGnome]

Belfast shifts his aura as best he can to empathize with elemental earth. The spirits do not rush at him, but they also do not appear to soften.

One of the gnomes, along the larger spirits, eyes him. "You are not welcome in this place. What is here is ours."

[Misfit Toy]

Still ready to burst out at a moments notice, Bel decides to continue talking with the spirits to see what he can divine from them.

"In that case I apologize most humbly for the intrusion, my friends. I had no way of knowing these mines were already spoken for, and I only came in to have a look around to see if there was anything interesting inside. I'm sure you know how that goes...." He hoped that they were able to read the truth of these words in his aura, and subtly manipulated his masking subconsciously to emphasize it.

"If I may be so bold as to ask, what is it you are protecting and is there anything I can do to assist you in making sure it stays protected? I don't know if you've heard of me, but the name's Belfast. I have a bit of a reputation in a few places for helping the Children of the Earth out whenever I can..."

[TinkerGnome]

"We guard what is ours. Leave."

The gnome rumbles this, and it looks like the other spirits are more restless than even it is. It is pretty clear that the command is a direct threat.

[Misfit Toy]

"As you wish, friends. As you wish. I wish you well in your task." Bel bows humbly while flipping his ethereal derby down one arm, catching it with a a roll of his fingers, then reversing it back to his head. Just before turning to depart, he offers one last offer to the spirits. "If you change your mind, all you have to do is ask my help and it's yours, lads."

With that, the druid returns to the meat puppet he left behind...

[FXcalibur]

Evans slides down after Raven, wondering what caught her eye. Cow reaches the spot just as Evans reaches the pile of rocks.

"What is it, fellas?"

[Shadow]

"I'm not sure, but these blocks don't look at all natural. And one," she points at the one with scraping on it, "looks like someones bin messing with it. Any ideas?"

[Misfit Toy]

Red Tom takes a long puff from his pipe. The smoke filters past his lips in an oddly alluring way as he whispers most ominously, "He's baaaaack..."

With that, and less than fifteen minutes after his departure, Belfast's body begins to stir with life. There's an almost startled look on his face as he sees Sedryk sitting nearby, but it doesn't last long as its quickly replaced with a simple smile of gratitude. But that smile quickly fades as he reaches up and touches the earpiece to activate the commlink.

"Bel here. I just got back from a little exploratory run inside the mine and it looks like we're going to have a bit more trouble than we expected. It seems that something in there is pretty valuable to the mine's resident spirits. I wouldn't be quite as concerned, though, if it wasn't for the fact that this entire site seems to be almost... polluted... with some kind of strange astral energies. There's something not right about it, but I can't quite put my finger on it just yet.

"In any case, have any of you found anything? If not, I'll see if I can cajole one of the local fey into revealing what's going on down there. Whatever any of you do, don't head inside until we learn more."

[Shadow]

Raven swore under her breath. "Something is very hinky about this place. I've been feeling it since we got here."

She kicked one of the rock as she triggered her radio. "Bel, can you come down here and take a look at these rocks. I think it might be important."

[Misfit Toy]

"Sure," Bel replied. There was a pause. "Where would 'down here' be?"