"For crying out loud," Raven utters off com. "Down here would be down the cliff where the weird rocks are."

"Well excuuuuuse me." Although unseen, another smile creeped upon Belfast's face as he released the switch on his transciever. A knowing nod between him and Red Tom preceeded the leprechauns extinguishing of his pipe. As the Irishman dusted off his clothes, he threw a glance towards the nearby ork.

"Thanks for keeping an eye out while I was away, Sedryk. Wanna tag along with us as we head down the cliff to investigate these rocks?"

Once Bel got his answer, he turned and proceeded to do just that. Along the way he took a good, long hard look at the strange energies permeating this place, trying to unlock any secrets he could about it while carrying on idle chitchat with either Red Tom or Sedryk as the case may be.

Belfast requests the gnome form a gesalt with him, but notes an odd reluctance on the part of the gnome to do so. Bound as he is, though, the spirit mergest without an outward complaint.

The stones themselves look very much like witching stones on the physical plane, Belfast quickly realizes, though they are jumbled here instead of standing errect over top of a ley line. On the astral, they look even more so. They appear to be the source of much of the background count surrounding this area, though it is probably their presence so near a mana line without being in the proper orientation that causes the trouble.

How long they've been here is impossible to tell.

Leaning down to the study the rocks more carefully, Belfast rubs his chin a bit before standing back up and calling Red Tom to his side. A simple glance conveys the silent message that Bel wants the leprechaun to go to the top of the cliff to examine the area there and see if he can figure out why these stones fell. His attention then turns back to Raven and the others gathered nearby.

"These appear to be some kind of... hmm, how do I put this into laymen's terms... all right, imagine the flow of magic across the world as a great network of electrical power lines. Using that analogy, this area is sort of like a junction box and these stones are the transformers and fuses therein that help insure the power flows properly. Somehow, they've been disrupted and have left this area in a state of rather disconcerting flux that might be the cause for some of the problems I've been sensing here... and it doubtlessly has some connection to the spirits I ran into inside.

"I can try to repair them enough to eliminate a few of the problems, but that will probably take a few hours to do if I enlist the aid of some of the fey I've been able to persuade to help us. On the other hand, we can leave it as it is, but I have no way of knowing how bad things may get and my ability to protect you from the magical dangers we are definitely going to be encountering as a result of this misalignment will be hampered. So... what should we do? Spend a few hours trying to fix it while setting up camp, or ignore it and hope for the best? I think you know where my decision lies, but I'll leave it up to the rest of you since I have a rather biased opinion."

He stood fully erect and folded his arms. His eyes seemed to be somewhere else as he continued looking around while listening to the ensuing discussion, but despite the obvious distraction he did, indeed, seem to be still listening.

"I sat clean it up, the less problems we have the better."

Brand scrambles her way down the cliff and stands by as Belfast examines the stones and then attempts to explain the situation. At the first given opportunity, she taps him on the shoulder.

"Package recieved... about the same time we approached the mine."

Lifting his brow at Brand, it takes the mage a moment to realize what she was talking about. "Oh, right."

He touches the comm unit plugged into his ear and tries to get in touch with the rigger. "Thor, Bel. If you have a moment, can you send one of your drones to get a good look at our previous camp? We just received word that someone or something just found one of the little surprises we left behind."

Paris, hearing the communication to Belfast over the comm, aims his binoculars at the congregation near the stones. Seeing no immediate threat, and no way to help the situation, he resumes scanning the area for anything coming.

Sedryk listens to Belfasts explaination, "I don't know alot about magic, but I know that keeping it flowing right along can only help. Will moving these stones help?"

"I can't be certain, of course, but I would say the probability is exceptionally high that it would."

"Well in the mean time, while you figure out what to do Bel. Let's get the surface samples and survey done."

Raven scrambled back up the cliff, her head swam with all the magical mumbo jumbo that was getting tossed around. She went to work setting up the survey equipment as best she could, or simply following the directions of anyone who new better.

"Right. I'll get started on that. The rest of you, do what you can from outside the mine but don't venture in until we figure out what to do in regards to the current residents. That includes keeping those surveying drones outside as well. Now go do that voodoo that you all do so well, and I'll do the same..."

As Raven sets up the survey equipment with the help of a few team members, Belfast and a few other interested parties set about righting the stones. Whether or not they were moved intentionally from the proper position, it is clear that the cracked asphault road is located where the stones should be.

Using spirits judiciously, as well as an earth moving spell, Belfast makes good time on getting the stones litterally sliding uphill. Sedryk tries to help initially, but quickly realizes that the stones are impossibly heavy.

The stones are all at the top of the drop within an hour of starting and Red Tom causes the asphault to shred itself with a spell, revealing the area of ground below where the stones must go. Working as fast and accurately as possible, the team gets the stones into place.

By the time the sun sinks below the horizon, Raven has the drone system working, a half dozen small devices which fly or crawl over the area, recording data about the terrain. The system refuses to work without a satellite uplink, so that has been set up as well.

As the last of the stones falls into place, the effect is immediate on the astral plane. The noise, which had covered the entire hillside now seems confined to the area of the stones and a few meters to each side. With more adjusting, the noise could be eliminated, but it appears to be a long task that the team doesn't have time for right now.

Paris rubs his legs quietly as the sun sets. He slowly pulls his camoflagued sleeping bag out of the rucksack and sets it up within his nest. After a bite of rations, he settles back down to continue his watch, now within the more comfortable bag.

"Hmm, these things span world-wide eh? Is anyone gonna notice what we've done here?"

"So you're saying this piece of road here is where these rocks should be?" Evans says to Bel. "I'm no magician, but could this be a case of 'man building over nature, angering mother nature' kind of thing I keep seeing in old fairy tales?"

"And you mentioned magical dangers. I've been around the business for a while, so I have a...general understanding of what's at stake. Is this going to be another case of keep-the-mage slash shaman-alive or is there any physical way we tackle them if the drek hits the fan?"

In response to Hellcow, Belfast gives one of those dismissive 'nah' expressions. "The virtual static it was creating was limited to the immediate area. Unless someone was specifically monitoring this area, it's unlikely anyone would have noticed the change. The stones were just placed here to help fix a localized problem. Now we just have to figure out what that localized problem is..."

Bel's dismissive expression mutates into one of curious thought at Evan's words. "It's entirely possible. I didn't see any reason to suspect that the disruption was malicious in nature. The original miners here probably disrupted it by mistake." He reached up to scratch his chin. "No, I'm not so much concerned for myself as I am for the rest of you. I'm fairly certain I can personally fend off the spirits inside if they turn aggressively hostile, it's the rest of you I'm concerned about. A few of the ones I saw looked pretty powerful, so most of the weapons I've seen you carrying around will be all but useless against them. Hopefully we can find a way to end this without having to come to blows wit them, though. If anything, I'd say this is more of a 'putting spirits to rest' job than 'blowing away the evil spirits.' At least that's my initial take on the situation until we learn more.

"But whatever it is that's causing my spirits to be... disagreeable... is still afoot. If we decide to pursue this matter further I have two workable options available. The first is that I can try and force one of the mine's fey folk to come before me and compel him to tell us what is going on, and the other is to shed myself of this mortal coil and travel to their homeworld across the ether to see if I can discover the truth there. I'm morally against the former, but if it will help the fey and other spirits of this area in the long run its a necessary evil. The latter will most likely be dangerous and it's something I'd have to do on my own since I have no means of bringing any of you along with me. It could also take only a few minutes or, in a worse case scenario, a few days or even weeks. Obviously we don't have that much time.

"In other words, thave gives us three major options." He holds up his index finger. "One, say 'fook this shite' and storm into the mine with guns blazing." Then comes his next finger. "Two, forcefully interrogate one of the local fey into answering our questions." And then another. "Three, project to the planes and hope it doesn't take more than an hour or two to find the answer. Naturally I'm against one and two, but three isn't much of an option either. So, hopefully, someone else has a better idea...

"Any suggestions?"

Evans leans against a nearby tree and rubs his chin, staring into the ground.

"There's something bothering me though." He looks up. "I hope whatever we did here with the rocks rectified their moods, but if we didn't, it's going to be a safe bet going into the mines is going to get them angry and us under a lot of figurative firepower."

"Trouble is, I don't think they mentioned what was bothering them, did they? If it was this disruption of magical...what did you call it, current? Magical current, and that's fixed, then hopefully they won't mind us entering the mine." Evans sighs deeply. "However, what I'm concerned about is them minding any humans mining the area, or even setting foot in that mine. If they don't want humans here at all, then..."

He leaves his words hanging in the air. His hand leaves his chin and gestures loosely to Belfast.

"Seems you're the expert here. I happen to disagree with your first two options as well. I think finding out why those spirits were hostile to you would be the first step. If you ask me, I'd rather find out what's going on with them first. That probably means option two or three."

"Can I ask though, of your abilities on this 'ether'? If you have a way of monitering time and returning if the journey is too long, I'd suggest it. If not, then...Geez, mate, not much of a choice." Evans words slowly trail off as he looks at the ground again. It's obvious the last part of his sentence was more meant for himself than anybody else.

"I definately, definately, do not want to go in guns blazing. If you can't keep track of time, then...I don't know...two sounds better...and believe me, I don't like the idea of interrogation either."

"I am curious in something though, Bel. Could these spirits be guarding something? Again, you're the expert; do these spirits here have a characteristic of guarding ore depositis, or hate people digging into soil, or anything along those lines? Might be a clue."

Raven leaned up against a piece of survey equipment. Her lean muscles were some what sore from the heavy lifting. She desperately wanted to shed he jacket. In the end though her mind won out over her body. It would take to long to get the armor back on incase of a fire fight.

"We don't have the time for Bel to do soul searching, and we don't have the firepower to go in blazing. If they can tell us what to do to make it better so we can get paid, then I say frag it. Make them tell us."

Hellcow ponders Belfasts suggestions. He listens to the other raptly, and nods when Raven speaks.

"The only other option I can think of is, maybe they'd be willing to trade something for the information, and maybe the sample we need? But we don't know what they could want. If that's impractical, I agree, we have to know more before we go in. And we can't spare the hours."

The elf looks glum at what he's going to suggest.

"Sounds like snatch and interrogate is the only option. Belfast, will only you be able to question him?"

Swift Eagle considers this development. "I would not like to take on peaceful free spirits. Perhaps we can bargain with them? Offer them some karma or something?"

"Belfast, do you think that the spirits would be willing to give us the drilling sample that we need? Perhaps we could negotiate karma or whatever Swift Eagle was talking about, get the sample we need and tell the Johnson about it."

"Not to add to our troubles, but we still have the other group we ran into earlier. If they set off they traps we left back at the beach, we can only assume that they will continue to follow us."

"I suggest that Bel finds someplace to hunker down and do his thing while the rest of us make sure that he won't be interupted."

Thor ponders the group's options. "I could take my spider drone down the mines. Belfast, how easy would it be for them to spot a drone from astral space? Perhaps those militiamen know something useful? Should we try to capture one of them?"

Thinking of the militiamen, Thor decides to check the original landing site and see if any of the traps his teammates set have been tripped. He orders the blimp drone to rise to an altitude of 200 meters, and head south to the site of the skirmishes with the two rednecks and the bear. "Im sending the blimp south to check the original landing sites for signs of a counterattack, or detonation of the booby traps. I won't have you guys covered for a few minutes, so keep me apprised of the situation. "

It then occurs to him that he can still do a little surveying from the surface. "Could you set up a couple of the flying survey drones for me? I'll start some surface scanning until we decide hat to do underground."

All the talk about spirits is a little over Skeeter's head. Spirits confuse him. He understands what he can see and touch, but then when they disappear, he has to woder if his senses betrayed him.

When he hears Thor suggest capturing a militiaman, whatever one of them are, but they sound like men, Skeeter volunteers to help. He'd volunteer to help with the mining equipment but some of it looks a little hard to figure out.

As his blimp cruises down to the site of the skirmish, Thor jumps back into his van and runs a quick active sensor sweep of the area. Jumping back into the blimp, he scans the skirmish site.

Belfast attempted to summon forth one of the spirits from the mine, but its resistance was too much for him. Instead, he turned his attention to drawing another spirit from the earth itself. As the gnome took form, he could already feel its resistance to his control.

"Given that these spirits are a mixture of three different magical traditions," Swift Eagle says, "They couldn't all have been summoned by a single metahuman mage. If they are not free spirits, then they are either controlled by a combination of at least three powerful mages of different traditions, which is unlikely, or else a dragon. Dragons can control all kinds of spirits. We may have to deal with a wizworm after all."

Hellcow stepped over to the now-formed gnome with a vague grin on his face.

"Hello there. I apologize for the inconvenience, but my friends and I have some questions that must be answered. The sooner we can complete our task, the sooner we can be out of your hair."

Hellcow peered at the gnome. Does he even have hair under that red felt cap?

"Now, to our questions...."

Paris, seeing an elemental appear within the camp grounds, moves his rifle around to aim at the intruder. Seeing the less than startled reactions of the party below, he decides not to fire immediately. Instead, he subvocalizes in to the radio

"You folks seem to have company... is everything all right?"

He then carefully takes aim, awaiting the response.

"Just chatting with the local townsfolk, it appears," Brand's placid voice crackles over the radio. "No big worries. There's some magical whateverthehell going on here... don't ask me exactly what. Bel's on it."

Since she finished with what she can do, and Bel and Hellcow seemed occupied, Raven found a nice patch of dirt to relax on. She drew her weapon and gave it a quick cleaning, no need for dirt or grime to ruin it when she needed it.

"Gotcha. Good luck with that."

Paris resumes sweeping the area for threats.

Hellcow turns to the gnome and bows low (or whatever is applicable to spirits)

"What, precisely, are you and your companions down there protecting?"

"Who is controlling your companions now, and controlled you immediatly before my brother here?" Pointing at Belfast.

The gnome cocks its head to the side, as though listening to something greater than itself. Belfast knows that this equates with communing with the domain of the mountain and talking to other spirits, though the spirit grows even a little more rebellious after doing so. It takes quite a bit of Belfast's control to force answers from the spirit in response to Hellcow's questions.

"No one controls us," it says, the shiny ebon coals which seem to represent its eyes glare at Belfast. "The golden soul of the earth calls to us. It is what we protect."

Swift Eagle strings his camoflagued hammock up in the branches of the tree he is in.

Hellcow raises an eyebrow at the somewhat mystifying answer.

"Please clarify what the 'golden soul of the earth' is, as descriptively and expressive as possible. Indeed, feel free to run on as long as you like."

"Also, what are you protecting this golden soul from, exactly, and why does it even NEED your protection?"

The elf looks down his nose curiously at the short spirit.

The gnome looks quizically at Hellcow. "The golden soul of the earth is the golden soul of the earth. It shines with the purity of the earth itself. It was and always has been, though not here in all of that time. We protect it from anyone who would take it. It is ours, and ours alone."

The gnome seems to grow a little more rebellious as it answers the last question and Belfast realizes that it does not appear to head for the metaplanes, but rather to the mine below. Acting quickly, he loops another band of magical control around the spirit, keeping it from joining its brothers. The effort costs Belfast much energy, but he controls the spirit. It glowers at him.

Belfast's expression turns acrimonious as he struggles to recapture the spirit and stares the corrupted gnome deep in its eyes. In a tone quite uncharacteristic for the Mickey, Bel turns to the others nearby before speaking.

"This place must be clensed. Rally everyone together and prepare for a front assault inside. We're going in in thirty minutes. I'll run anyone through a crash course who hasn't had any experience battling hostile spirits. Likewise, if anyone has any suggestions on how to go about this, now's the time to speak."

And at that he grows quiet as he finds a boulder nearby to sit and regain his energies.

Thor moves his mini-blimp back into position 200 meters above the mine site. "I'm afraid I won't be any help in an underground battle; only my aerial drones are armed. I'll keep watch topside for you guys though. Eagle, set those two drones up so I can activate them if I need them." Staying in direct control of the blimp, he orders his drone-controlled van to keep it's active sensors active, in case the hostile force decides to sneak up on him while he is watching the mine.

Evans pulls a canister of fresh water from his pack and hands it to Bel.

"I know the basics, but if you've got any advice now would be a nice time to share."

Swift Eagle packs his hammock back into his backpack, comes down from the tree, and starts looking for places to set Thor's drones. He sets the microskimmer in between some bushes near the middle of the mine site, where it is hard to see but can easily move if it needs to power up. After a bit of thought, he climbs onto the roof of the guard shack and sets the spider drone on the middle of the roof, where it cannot be seen at all from below. "There, your drones shouldn't be seen unless you activate them now." He joins the rest of the team near the shaft.

Thor activates the spider and skimmer drones for just a couple seconds to find their position, then turns them back off. He activates the active sensors on his mini-blimp, determined to keep a good watch on the surface while his team is down in the mine. He spares one last glance at the status of the van to make sure it is continuing its sensor sweeps, and decides to warm up the strato-9. He orders the strato to turn on its electrical systems and activate its own active sensors, but not turn on its engine until further notice. Jumping back into the blimp, he watches the mine area.

Swift Eagle leads the ay with swords in hand, taking advantage of his heightened senses to warn him of any danger.

Hellcow double checks his gear, clothing and weapons.

Spirits, eh? Won't be needing these.

The elf pops the gel-round clip out of his Alpha, and replaces it with a clip full of red-tipped bullets. Finding everything in order, he grips his alpha and falls in behind Swift Eagle.

Sedryk checks his gear and realizes that he forgot to bring his tazer. "You know this is probably going to sound unprofessional of me, but I did count of fighting spirits."

The elevator is more rickety than comfort would usually allow, but taking the ladder down the half kilometer shaft into the mine seems too dizzying a process to contemplate. Instead, the group takes the elevator down the deep shaft, hoping beyond hope that if the cables give out that the brakes would still work.

After a seeming eternity watching the cut stone slide past the front of the lift, a tall, open space appears beyond it. The darkness of the mines is absolute, the bulbs and lamps once used here no longer providing any illumination.

Belfast waves his hand over a talisman he bears and the light from the electric torches the group carries becomes stronger, illuminating a lot more of the mine than the individual beams could without some magic.

The main shaft stretches approximately 500 meters in length and varies in width between 8 and 10 meters on the main shaft. The group is able to traverse the artifacts of mining without incident and arrives at the corner in short order. Red Tom manifests and moves forward, ready to blast the spirits with his mojo. The concealment of other spirits gives him time enough to act.

The spirits certainly seem to wake up as he does so, and the entire area errupts on the astral with the howling of angry spirits. They rush the team, en mass, though only three are visible on the material plane.

Evans braces his Ares Alpha against his shoulder and trains the sights on spirits down the passageway. Once Bel gave the cue, he swung his rifle at one of the three materialized spirits and held down the trigger. The rifle roaded ferociously and Evans did his best to keep it steady. "...-Six-Seven-Eight-break!" He thought, counting both from memory and the ammunition counter in his Smartlink display. Exactly on the eighth shot, the gun bucked far too north to hit, but the trigger was already depressed. He looked up at the rushing spirits and crossed his fingers that he was able to do some form of damage.

Grouped targets, at range, good place to drop some HE grenades.

Hellcow glances up at the ceiling, and the old timbers spaced along the passageway. They appeared pretty sound, but.....

Probably not designed to survive a warzone, better save that for a last resort.

Raising the Alpha to his shoulder, Hellcow mentally switches the gun from grenade launch to 3-round burst, and squeezes the trigger.