Changing into his working clothes once in the van. Murrey sweeps his sensors through the building and the area. Taking the remote deck with him, leaving the van running and security armed. The drone brain has orders to move if bothered, attack if left with no option. Taking the Rucksack and the arachnid with outside the vehicle.

Paladin

A single woman turns towards you as you speak. She looks like her entire life has been lived in a single day on her face. The crags in her face are filled with dirt and grime. Her eyes are dull and flat. As she looks at you she licks her cracked lips with a swollen tongue. "I know something......"

Murrey

The sensors show pockets of heat and some movement. The 3rd floor shows 2 heat signatures, one small and the other fairly large. The muddle readings indicate the area is littered with debris and odd shapes.

Focusing his eyes into the normal world for a moment,
"There are two on three. One is large, similair to a troll, possibly an ork. The other is small, possibly a child. The floor is uneven, my guess is what ever it is you guys say is wrong here is up there. I can send something up for a visual if lou yike."

Paladin looks to the woman and motions for her to step aside for him, while he rubs his thumb and index finger together, letting her know she'll be rewarded.

Once he is aside with her, he whispers "Tell me."

Paladin

You slip her the nuyen and are fairly certain no one saw. Your voice seems to ease her closer to you. Her breath washes over you, smelling of decay and death. "The freaks go there and party. The red lady's court, all glittery. Fangs and tails, they all slink in." As she speaks, the sanity bleeds from her eyes. Her hands seem to twitch and flutter like flies beating against a window. "Then the lights and the songs" She begins to hum to herself, while rubbing her cheek against your chest. "Been a good girl, saw the pretty fancies and danced." She stops, as if she hears something. Her head cocked to the side. "Then the monsters were gone, looked under the bed. They went to the party and feasted. Oh the blood was so red and shiny, just like the red lady." She begins to giggle uncontrollable as she trails back into the darkness.

Paladin, grabs her arm, not hard or demanding, just enough to keep her around for one more question...

"Who killed the freaks? What monsters?"

Paladin

Her head rolls to the side. Her giggles trail off as she looks at your hand, as if she had never thought you were real in the first place. "All gone." She begins to cry softly, the tears leaving trails down her face. "The white fur, so white. The blood like rubies, and she was so fast but never fast enough. They were everywhere, all teeth and claws." She barks like some sort of canine. "They screamed and screamed." She jerks her arm free and begins to beat the side of her face with balled fists. "No room at the inn! No room at the inn! All full. Not even a virign."

Paladin lets her go with a look of sadness. His eyes slowly move to the rest of the group and he motions them down the alley. As they walk, he speaks in a low voice.

"I'm not sure what attacked them, but she says the were all fangs and claws. I'm not sure how much weight I give it, but at least its something to keep in mind..."

His voice is very emotional and those watching the astral can see his inner rage at this type of atrocity.

Shuddering as the woman speaks, Murrey again unfocuses and place the small spider drone on the wall, having it climb up the wall to the 3rd floor for a look see.

:: Moira's face, now shadowed by the plain black clothes and long duster that is so typical of the masses, seems paler than usual, her eyes show the torment she feels just being near the desolute castoffs. Looking up at the warehouse, she shudders visably. ::

"We'd best go meet with our young johnson."

:: She turns from the street and keeps her eyes cast down as her hands pull the collar of her coat up and over her ears and chin; heading back to the entrance the "action decker" spoke of. With a silent gesture, the small locket around her neck opens and a beautiful wolf shimmers into the astral before her. She pauses to have a quiet word with her friend before proceeding inwards. ::

"Laluna, a terrible tragedy has befallen this building. One that needs justice swiftly in order to make sure it never happens again. Though I fear the contents of this third floor may injure my very soul - and thus fear for yours - I need you to assist me in trying to find out who was responsible. Can you help me?"

Murrey

The drone scrambles up to the windows of the 3rd floor. The glass is painted over with a dark substance.

Moira

The wolf's fur bristles. I stand ready as always, until the tide of my blood pulls me elsewhere. This place stinks of violence and despair. I will watch.

:: With an unconscious stroke in the mundanely invisible fur of her most trusted companion, she approaches the rusty ladder that allows access to the fire escape. Unable to squash the sound, the rusty ladder creaks and groans as she pulls herself up, one rung and a time until she reaches the actual stairs. Her grace enables her to minimalize the continued rattles and pops that the metal structure creates. Reaching the window, she pauses to put her respirator on, mostly to mask the scent she suspects she will soon be assualted with. ::

:: Carefully avoiding the window sill, she steps into the first room and calls out, muffled slightly by the respirtor. ::

"We've arrived."

Paladin steps in right behind her and quickly takes in his surroundings.

Murrey disconnects and begins to climb, picking up the drone once at the top and placing it on his shoulder.

All

As you round the back of the building you come across a small tricked out Vespa scooter. It's parked close to the wall. It's a sleek silver and grey number.

Murrey

You can clearly see that the scooter is a custom job. The body is unique and you know its stocked full of after market modifications. Some rigger/mechanic must have poured a lot of blood and sweat into this baby.

Moira & Paladin

The room is saturated with a heavy copper smell. The floor is littered with limbs and shapes. As your mind tries to make sense of it, you realize that you're looking at bodies scattered on the ground. You begin to pick out individual people. They all have some odd feature. Blue hair, scaly skin, or extra eyes. Their faces are all contorted with pain and agony. There are huge swaths of blood with shapes in them. The meaty smell of flesh hangs in the air. You begin to piece things together from the grisly scenes around you. They all seem to have turned on one another, ripping and killing with their bare hands. Some strangled with cords from the sound equipment lining the walls of the impromptu club. One woman had her face slammed repeatedly into the wall. Another man has his throat eaten out by another man. Standing in the center of the room, a thin elven woman in club ware. Her hair is magenta, streaked with black and her skin is covered with a fine white fur. Her clothes and skin are covered with bloody streaks, like she had tried to wipe it away. Her eyes are a hard and clear pale blue.

"Welcome to hell, boys and girls."

:: Moira immediately makes for the window and pushes Murray to the side before wretching over the side of the fire escape. ::

"Father above, shelter me..."

Paladin steps foward slowly, picking his way through the cadavers taking the scene in completely. He'd seen a lot of horrific things in his time, but this went right to the top of the list. What on God's Earth could have caused this... He does his best to calm his nerves, then shifts his senses over to the Astral. He expects to see the Astral clouding left behind, but hoped that he may be able to find something, anything, that could be a clue as to what caused this.

"I'd like to run a few tests for grace tases that might have been in play here."
Murrey connects back top his network and calls the MK6 to exit the Van and close it back up. Using it's strong arms, he has it climb up the fireescape. Once that is complete, he slids a chip into his chipslot and begins moving another drone through the cadavers.

Paladin glances up at the girl covered in the white fur, "This..."

His voice trails off, words can't even describe something like this. He just keeps glancing around, trying to make senses of it all.

Paladin

Up close the area is revolting. The garish wash of colors spread over the area like a new bruise. The bodies look odd from the astral. They seem to be empty or rather that the essence of who they are has been ripped out of them. There is a feeling of jagged edges and hunger.

The Changling nods at Murrey. "Feel free, they're not going to mind." Her voice is hard with bitterness and acid. "Name's Iblis. I'm the one footing the bill for this." She opens her arms and does a slow full turn. "These were my friends before they killed each other in this orgy." She stops facing the window where the team has been entering, her arms dropping like dead meat. "So who are you all?"

A disdaining flick of his eyes at the ladder, and he wraps the ever present flows of mana around him, drifting up to step onto the third floor, and immediately wishes he hasn't. It was worse then the thing that had been eating the college students, worse then the bug spirits and the blood mages.

His grip white knuckled on the staff, he glanced around, bracing himself for the rush of violence and pain that would permeate the very walls in this space. He brushes a comforting touch across Moria's shoulder as he steps past her, moving around the edges of the room, searching for the traces that had to be present, supressing the constant urge to shudder as he physically pushes through the astral remains of so much death.

:: Moira finally manages to stifle her wretching and takes a few deep breaths of relatively clean air before she replaces the respirator. Moving back into the room, she lets her eyes rest on the only changeling alive in their midst. ::

"I...words cannot convey the sorrow I feel for your friends. I am Moira, a moon shaman. This is Bakatare, Immortal, Paladin and Murray. Can you tell us everything you know about what happened?"

Bakatare

As you push into the room, the world slides around you. You see flashes of people dancing, laughing and lights splashed across every surface. The room spins and you feel blood splash over your face, choking you and all you taste is copper. You see the room again with everyone screaming and tearing into each other. Standing off to the side you see a Changling with white fur for skin. She is standing with 2 guns outs firing into the crowd as they surged towards her. Her tears reflect the light show still going on. She keeps screaming stop, over and over again. The world snaps back and you see the same woman facing your team. Her face closed and dark.

Unable to take it any longer, Paladin forces his vision back to the physical plane and waits for the Changling to answer Moira.

All

"Keep it bottled Miss Teen Super Model, I am way past the feeling stage on this." Each word seems to cost her dearly, she stiffens against the urge for comfort. "I run a floating rave and this is one of our regular spots. We had a party here a few nights ago. Everything was going on as usual. When everyone I know lost it and started killing each other. I don't know when or how it started. One sec I was riding a good feeling from a pill and the next, shooting holes into the heads of people I had drinks with that same night. "

"What whatever effected everyone effecting you too, or were you simply defending yourself?"

:: Moira looks geniunly hurt by the insult, but after a heartbeat, she lets it pass. ::

I can only imagine what last night must have done to this girl. No....I can't even imagine it...

"Did you fall under the same influence as your friends? Or was your reaction simply self defense? For that matter, did it look like everyone was affected, or just enough to cause everyone to become either hunter or prey?"

"At first I didn't know why I was left sane and all right up here." She taps the side of her head. "Then I spoke to my boss and found out they my company has a magical insurance policy. I had full coverage, lucky me. I called the shaman that we use for astral security and found out the wards we put up were so much wet tissue paper now." She looks around as she speaks. "Everyone I could see was flipped out and before you ask, our candy man was clean. I had his party favors checked out and they are squeaky clean."

He gasps softly as the images crash over him, dropping to one knee, both hands clasped to the staff to keep him from pitching head first into the gore. The elementals surge around him, too much of his attention focused on the current moment, and he clamps control back around them with a mental snarl.

A few deep breathes, compusure regained, he recovered his feet, looking towards Iblis as Moira speaks.

"Bakatare, shouldn't you get your elementals out of here? I'm not possitive, but can't they go toxic from hanging out in areas such as this?"

"It's possible it was some sort of Mob Mood, or control thoughts...though on this scale is....quite unbelievable."

:: Turning to the group. ::

"Im not sure if we'll find anything this young lady hasn't already, but why don't you all split up and begin to search. Im gonna spend some time in the astral. Bakatare, would you care to join me?"

:: Finding a place as clean from debris as possible, she settles down and closes her eyes. The first thing she does astrally is hug the furry wolf out of deeper needs than she can come to terms with. Then, she looks at it's depthless eyes and half smiles. ::

"Let's see if we can't identify the spell or power used and potentially what cast it."

He nods, stepping gingerly around the debris to settle down crossed legged next to Moira, the staff balanced across his knees as he focuses inwards, the world fading to a dull grey beneath the panorama of colors sprayed across the astral.

He pauses, waiting for Moira, smiling as he notices the familiar.

:: Moira looks about and frowns slightly. Crouching down, she lays a hand on the head of her ally. ::

"It feels like ritual magic...shamic definately...can you identify the totem or totems involved?"

Paladin turns back into the Astral to keep guard over his team mates.

Moira

It is something old and dark. It does not walk the spirit ways with me and mine. Laluna continues to watch the astral space around you.

Paladin

You can see an astral spirit resembling a wolf by Moira.

"I know this is tough, pretend as you like. I won't pretend to know what you've gone through, and you have why mord that if I find it in my power to bring something resembling justice out of this, I will. But for now, we have a grisly task ahead. I feel a search of the bodies may provide us with some information. I will be as delicate as I can, I will have the drone move them and perform the search."

Waiting for her response, Murrey continues recording images and getting an unltrasound map to better contruct a 3-d model later.

Iblis barks out a bitter laugh. "They're so much meat now so do what you like."

Relieved to be away from his meat senses, Murrey sets about the grisly task of directing the mk-6 to organizing and searching the bodies.

The MK-6 brings some drone parts ouut into a cleared space.
"Can anyone mell tea if there are remaining impressions on this drone chassis? Otherwise I will attempt to recover it's memory."

Immortal had been silent the whole time, as was his way. He could be downright crude in a social situation, mean as a slitch with a casual encounter, but when it came down to business, he was a shadow. This was closer to home than he would care to admit, and it drew from him a mask of stone upon his face. He'd come home one day, years past, to a slaughter such as this. His wife and young child had been the victims. He had seen so many scenes as this in the years that followed that he had become detatched from them. What haunted him was that he -could- be detatched. It chilled him to the core. While the others talked with the changeling, and began their search of the area, Immortal simply stood, looking over the scene. After a moment, he excused himself silently from the third floor, lighting a cigarillo, he begins a survey of the rest of the building. Silently looking for anything which might provide a tell as to who might have purputrated the scene above.

Paladin looks to Murrey and says, "Do what you gotta do here. We're gunna go check the rest of the building."

He then follows Immortal out the door.

Before Paladin can make it out the door, Murrey hands him a small device, "Here, take this with you. It'll give you access to some of the fata deeds. If there is trouble, you can signal for help fairly quickly with it. If either of you has a datajack, you can connect directly, saves time."
Murrey turns to Iblis, "You said that your company had protection for you, is there anyone there that would profit from this, or that would want to fee you salter or fall? Someone that might not known the extent of your insurance? Also, do you know who belongs to this drone?"

Bakatare's voice sounds vaguely disembodied, as if coming through an amplifier that flattened emotion as a faint, ghostly figure materializes, Bakatare but with something overlaid, some form just behind his astral one.

"There are spirits called Nomads that feed on emotions like anger and fear that can posses people's bodies, and drive them to homocidal rages. They are rare, and a pack of them traveling together is unheard of, and could be potentially devestating. I would need to do more research before I could say for sure, or offer up any way of dealing with the situation. However, as I stated, a group of them traveling together is unusual, and I do not believe a single spirit could move fast enough to cause this kind of chaos in such a large group of individuals."

Sounding as if it's coming from his backback not moving his lips, "So spirits may have done this? Is there come who-ju sethod of calling the spirits in the area to this party?"

On the receiver screen, Paladin, you see a text message: Do either of you have radios?

Immortal

You begin to examine the area below the club. As you move down the fire escape to the 2nd floor and make your way in. You find this floor has had the area near the center cleared away. There is twisted circle laid out. It seems to draw in light from around it. A heavy acidic smell hangs in the air.

Murrey

Iblis walks towards you. "My benefactor places everything close to the chest so I have no idea if she has enemies out there. As for people who want to see us fall, flip on your trid. We're freaks and that's enough to warrant a death sentence." As she draws closer she leans in to look over the drone. "Not ours, we have no riggers who work the party circuit."

Over the speaker, "Obviously you don't remember someone bringing it in. I'll begin the examination. Please, I know it's tough, but you may be able to spot that which is out of place among the victems more readily than I can, so you dee anything among the affects that should not be there?"
The MK-6 begins it's examination of the drone.

Paladin takes the device from Murrey with a nod and plugs it into his datajack and as he does so, synchs his radio up with Murrey's signal. He then heads downstairs and comes up behind Immortal.

"What the hell is that?" he asks as he checks out the circle's astral signature.

Murrey

"I'll take a look around." She turns away and begins to move through the room . She stops at each corpse and looks them over. She closes the eyes of each person while saying their names and goodbye. The tears flow freely as she works.

You turn and squat to take a better look at the drone. The walker drone doesn't seem to be booby trapped. It appears to have been damaged by the maddened crowd. It looks to be custom but nobody's work that you know of. It does seem to be similar to the bug you found. You begin to dissect the walker and quickly find a small cache of memory is still intact. It appears the drone was crammed with sensors, or at least as much as you can in this small chassis. You isolate the simsense channel this walker was using. You do find a small explosive charge in it. Looks like they wanted to be able to toast the drone from a distance.

Immortal

As you step a little closer to look at the circle, you see none of the tell-tale signs of blood magic. It looks more shamanic than hermetic in nature. You can see a section of the circle has been smudged out.

Paladin

As you slide to the astral you see the area just above the circle a broiling snarl of violent emotions. The circle appears to have no astral presence but the astral space that is contaminanted is an almost exact match to the boundaries of the circle.

Over the speaker and on the receiver, "I've got a noisemaker here. Looks like dumbone sidn't want to rely on the magic for this. Everyone, please step away from the drone parts."