"I asked to speak with you because we believe we might be meddling in the affairs of Dragons and I thought you might be able to shed some light on the subject.

"I'll cut right to the chase. There was a grizzly murder committed 2 nights ago at a rave. Shamans of the Advasary totem conjured up several Nomad Spirits which we believed possessed half of the 50 or so party goers and all but one was killed in the battle that insued.

"One of my team mates spoke with a diviner of some power and there were two references we think may be linked somehow with dragons. To begin with, do you know what the "stone serpents" may refer to? There was much discussion of those long asleep and now awake as well as a "once former prince". Knowing that Lofwyr has recently left the council of princes in the Tir, we wondered if that could be a reference to him."

Joli leans back into the chair as she takes the information in. "Well, the Stone Serpent could be referring to Celedyr. In the Cardiff-Bristol region he goes by Draig gan y Carreg, roughly translated 'Dragon of the Stones'. That's the only tie I could make with that to a great dragon." She closes her eyes and seems to be thinking. "He's not seen very frequently so most people assume he's not very active, that couldn't be further from the truth. His activity mostly occurs in the matrix, he's one of the most trix savy of the winged set. Transys Neuronet, his reclaimed shiny toy, has recently pushed into the arena of cyber-implantation in animals and paranimals. The word is that his is looking for a way for wyrms to deck like the rest of us." She pauses and takes a breath. "He has a flair for lanuages and seems to have a keen ineterst in geology, archaeology, and mineral alchemy. He's rumored to have opened a new lair in the Pueblo Corporate Council, he seems to have allied himself with an underground tribe in the area called the Pueblo Awakened. He also has a large street gang, well more like an army at this point working under his leadership called the Knights of Rage. Select members serve in his Praetorian guard." Her eyes open, the fatigue apparent in her gaze. "Any other questions about him before I move on to Lofwyr?"

"What about any tie-ins with the changling crowd. The targets in this particular issue are solely changlings. Any reason he would have any negative modivations against them?"

"Don't forget to ask her if she knows of any ties to the Red Queen specifically. It may be something from before she became a Changeling."

"I haven't heard anything that ties him to the Changlings, if there is a connection then it's new."

Standing against the back wall Blaze thinks to himself Well at least we aren't dealing with a dragon's plans here, although it does look like we'll need to pick up our mystery person before we can go anywhere else with this, and before we can make those scumbags pay

"What about an entity known as the Red Queen?"

Joli's eyebrows arch up. "For someone claiming to need info on the Great and Scaley, I'm surprised to hear that name. She's a new operator in the shadows with a focus on dragons. So far I haven't been able to tie her or him to any one lizard lord. She has only recently surfaced in Seattle. The only reason I know of her is through the Draco Foundation. The Red Queen offered information on which dragons where still amongst the living and the awake for a handsome fee, of course. That's been it. But truth be told, I run in very small circles. What's the Red Queen got to do with any on this?"

"I;m hesitant to give out too much information after the heat that has been hitting her charitable orginazations, but let's just say she has quite a bit of pull within the Changling society and she could very well be the overall target of the latest incidents."

"Healthy policy where they're concerned. As far as I know no dragon has shown undue interest in SURGE but that doesn't mean a thing. I have spent a good chunk of my life trying to understand them and I have barely mastered the basics. They think on a time scale way beyond us and who knows what they value from moment to moment. You all may be caught up in a twisted side bet for them, that has no really bearing on their larger plans." Joli stretches in her chair and then slumps back into it.

Shade moves from the wall and whispers into Joli's ear. Her movements are liquid but precise. No energy seems wasted.

Any idea where the Red Queen got her info on dragons from?

Who says what she even knows, let alone where she got it....

A look of frustration passes over Joli's face that quickly settles into resignation. She turns towards Shade. "Alright but I want to leave at the last possible second, so cut it close." The woman nods and heads back to her post by the wall, pausing to grab her purse. She reaches into it and removes several small darts that she begins to secret around her person. Joli turns back to Moira and Blaze her face openly exhausted and ragged.

"It appears my time with you is running short so I will tell you what I can about Lofwyr. He did indeed recently resign from the Council of Princes with no explaination. The rumor is that elements of the Council posed potential threats to his long range plans. This potential threat could be Hestaby, another great dragon who has influence there. His pet corp is Saeder-Krupp as everyone knows. He has a history of confrontation with others of his kind. He is directly linked to the death of one great dragon, Nachtmeister. They fought and he is presumed dead, but I am waiting to see the corpse myself. The only thing that can be gleaned from his plots and schemes is a steady accumulation of wealth and power. He has bad relations with a few other wyrms, Celedyr to name one. He is a ruthless creature with little need for 'human' things such as compassion or mercy." As she speaks her voice beguns more laced with acid and venom. Her hatred is almost palatable, seeming to choke the room with its stench. "You'll have to excuse my vehemence where he's concerned. He's made my life a living hell and there's little I can do about it. My personal rants aside, he's bad news for bottom feeders like us. When he's around things, especially little things, get squished. My advice to you is do whatever you..."

Shade's voice cuts through the conversation. "They're on this floor." Joli stands up and makes a small gesture towards the half of the room where Moira and Blaze are. The air ripples as the mana extends across the room in a solid wall. "Do nothing." Her voice is filled with fear and urgency. "You don't want a piece of this. Wait in here for at least.."

The door opens silently as a figure, a man dressed in standard shadowrun faire enters the room behind Joli's back. He doesn't seem to see either of you and you watch in horror as he creeps into the room. His movement is utterly silent as he unholsters a small firearm. As he clears the small hallway, Shade uncoils from her spot against the wall. A foot lashes out and clears the gun from his hands, a small pivot and turn and her foot is driven into his gut. The sound of air and bones cracking fill the small space as the man is forced over from the blow. She drives knee hard into his face, snapping his face up. The bloody ruin of his nose and shock is the last thing you see as she drive the her elbow into his head and he hits the floor with a hard thud. Her voice comes out cool and even. "We need to go now." She bends down and jabs a dart into the side of the man's neck.

Joli turns to you, the fear of nearly being shot still evident on her face. Her voice shakes as she finishes speaking. "Wait at least 10 minutes before leaving. Leave the body, Winter already knows about it and what to do." She moves and grabs her jacket. "Whatever business you have, get it done and then get out of the way. You people are nothing to them so this is probably some little side game they have running. Get out of the line of fire as soon as possible." Shade moves and taps her on the shoulder. "Times up." They both exit, with Shade in the lead and close the door behind them.

:: Moira remains still and silent, her expression not unlike that of a deer frozen in terror as a predator nears. The confrontation happens so fast that she doesn't breath or blink an eye and the moment they are gone, she shudders back into animation. ::

"We...we should get back..."

Tracing the whole thing with a predator's eye Blaze stands unmoved by the confrontation, as the two exit the room a shimmer of red covers his body from head to toe, if she was looking at him Moira would have noticed his eyes flash to those of a large cat, and wiskers apear on his face; However, both are gone before she takes notice. Glancing over at Moira after her comment, "That sounds like a good plan, any idea who the guys in the armor was?"

as he speaks he leans over the body casually examining it.

Calling over to Murrey on the radio " I assume you picked all of that up, We're gonna wait just a moment or to and then we're gonna be heading down, if you could have the car warmed up for us, thanks."

Timing out exactly ten minutes in his head Blaze looks over at Moira, "well that's their ten let's go."

"Queen's Bishop to King's Rook. I'm four moves ahead, so you better lake a sheg if you want to outlive Bobby Fisher."

:: Moira seems to have shaken off the combat paralysis by the time they are ready to go and is silent as she contemplates what she was told until she gets into the vehicle. Then over the comms she address her Japanese friend. ::

"Bakatare...what do you make of all that? Are we truly meddling in the affairs of Lowfyr? If that's the case we just stepped into a much larger mess than I think we are prepared to handle."

Blaze states simply, "I don't think we're meddling in the affairs of Lofwyr, I think that she, however, is."

muttering to Murrey, "Bobby Fisher, well now we have a chess fanatic, I'm impressed that you even know who that is, and we're coming out now."

"But would a Dragon really mess around with the kind of mojo we're seeing? We're going up against things that scream of toxic and/or blood magic."

"Anything's possible, unfortunately, and I'll agree things got more complicated. We need to do a little more digging, and we definitely have to speak to the Red Queen. Come on back. Next meeting, we'll all go, even if the rest of us are waiting out in the van. I don't want to risk getting picked off in smaller groups right now. But yes, folks, it does look like we're meddling in the affairs of dragons."

"Fan-fraggin-tastic."

Blaze listens to both of them, "I don't know, I'm in the same vein of thinking as Paladin, I don't think they would mess with this type of drek, I wasn't there but from what you said this looks more like the work of a psyco-path, not a Dragon. And I'll be sure to ask about it when I meet with the Red Queen, whenever Iblis sets up that meet."

"However, I do think that we need to look into Adam some, a likely pick him up. We could get a lot of info out of him, and I think that's going to be our most active lead."

"Are you kidding? Dragons are not known for their fuzzy happy beliefs on magic. Toxic and blood magic are, unforntuantely, some of the most powerful magic out there and more often then not are driven by an obsessive need for power. How does that NOT jive with what we have just been told about Lowfyr? And regarding Adam, we will NOT make any attempts to grab him until we are sure what and who he is. Hell...he could BE Lowfyr. I've heard rumors that dragons have the ability to take the form of a human and no astral reading by a metahuman has a chance in hell of breaking through that mask."

Blaze states his question simply "Why would he slaughter the Changlings?"

"So far as we know the changelings were killed just to be killed. They were forced to slaughter each other, now what does Lofwyr have to gain, yes I know don't pretend you can know what dragons think, but from where I'm sitting there is nothing. Changelings have little status as a whole, they aren't liked, people wouldn't miss them one way or another, none of them were important, otherwise this would have been on the Trid and we wouldn't have this job, so WHY."

"I think that this is just an interesting timing of the events, from my observation Joli has some sort of vendetta against Lofwyr, which is why she was attacked, she seemed to expect it, and not because of what we were there to talk about, because she didn't know where the conversation was going to go. I think what we have here is paranoia coupled with interesting timing."

As the two of them exit the room and head out of the building Blaze drops his spell.

"How about we just stay on the side that we don't really know drek about any of this. We just have a lot of guesses. Now get your butts back here and we'll plan out our next course of action."

"That should work for now, but we do need to plan and planning to sit in our safe house and cower because we don't want to tick off a dragon won't get us anywhere."

"I almost wonder if you were listening to the same thing as I was. We know that the Red Queen was once powerful until she changed and she is now putting together an entire subculture. We also know that the Red Queen is know to be a new operator in the shadows with a heavy knowledge base in dragons. That could mean that she herself poses a threat to Lowfyr's plans. If that's the case, and she uses changlings almost exclusively, taking out all her players at the rave is an excellent way of killing her effectiveness while disguising the hit as a hate crime."

"Besides, who says the trouble Jolie was running from has anything to do with Lowfyr? She obviously has enemies, but we had no idea who those enemies are and I have enough on my plate without worrying about that. I trust her information is as accurate as we're going to get."

"I'm going to have to concur with Moira on this one. We need to check with the Red Queen though, and get her side of the story. She may be able to clarify things up one way or the other, especially after we find out what corp she used to work for."

"fine we'll investigate the Red Queen, its all the same to me, but sitting around doing nothing is going to drive me absolutely nuts."

"Diggin' up info that could keep our butts out of the fire ain't doin' nothin' Blaze. But I get yer point, maybe we can do some sparing when ya get back."

Bakatare shakes his head back at the apartment, listening to the ongoing conversation.

I will never understand some of the people I work with. Less then 24 hours ago, several people with guns and bombs were strenously attempting to cut short the threads of our lives, and now they complain of being bored.

"Sounds fine to me but I think I'll pass on the sparring, I'll probibally just go for a long jog or something."

Murrey's van weaves into the traffic from the hotel and begins to lose itself in the flow of the downtown flow of cars and people. After 15 minutes of back tracking and false trails, the group arrives back at the house in the Elven District.

"Iblis, did you ever get a response back from the Red Queen? We still need to talk to her. We also need to get a tail on Adam. Murrey, can you take Paladin and I and stake this guy out, stay on his tail as much as possible without drawing attention? We need more information from him, but I don't want to risk confronting him yet. I don't think we need all three for the surveillance, but I don't want to risk a single member or two getting caught alone, and this way we have muscle and mojo with each group. Blaze, Moira, and Iblis should head in for the meeting with the Queen, and see what kind of info we can get there. Thoughts?"

"Not a bad idea, just keep someone in the car when you go to meet her. Lust because we weren't bothered the jast time someone tried to bust up a meet doesn't meam they won't try the next time. These folks are two steps ahead and we don't even know the song, let alone the dance."

"Alright, once Iblis gets back to us about that meet I can live with that. I do have to ask though, where's the muscle in my group, I'm pleased to know you all believe that I can cover muscle, but mostly all I've got mojo out the hoop. Really it doesn't matter two of us magic users can cover just as well, mostly I was just wondering."

Paladin turns to Bakatare and asks, "Can you keep the van hiden as well as Moira could do with her spirits?"

"Well, depends, vow much attention is given to a MSP han? Speaking of which, who is the local MSP for that neighborhood?"

Iblis's voice drifts out from the bathroom. "You are all set to meet with her Highness this evening at 10 pm. I have the location, we'll need about an hour or so to get there." As she speaks she strolls out with a towel wrapped around her head and wearing boxer briefs and a t-shirt. "Remember when you deal with her play it smart and watch yourselves. She's a ...............little odd with the unchanged."

Lifting just one eyebrow "Odd, how so?"

Lifting just one eyebrow "Odd, how so?"

"I could cover the van sitting still or moving slow, but since both this guy and his pet are awakened, I'd prefer to go with mundane surveillance. Less chance of him noticing it. Anything we do with spells or spirits will show up like a glowing beacon on the astral."

Iblis turns towards Blaze. "Just don't piss her off and think before you speak, it will go better for you in the long run."

"We will do everything in our power not to offend her, or embarass you, Iblis. We only want to help her situation, not alienate her."

Blaze drops his eyebrow, and scowls slightly before brightening into a slight smile, "I shall do everything in my power not to tick her off despite not knowing what will tick her off. That poses no problem."

Paladin smirks a bit before grabbing his pack off the ground and throwing it over his shoulder. Turning to Bakatare and Murrey, he asks, "Ready to roll?"

Paladin
Your phone rings and a quick check tells you it's Ralph from the Star.

Paladin picks the line up via Transducer. "Whats up Ralph?"

Over van speakers,
Always.
Murrey changes the van scheme to that of a MSP that services Adam's Neighborhood with the appropriate Transponer and plates along the route.

Paladin
You can clearly hear the sound of traffic coming through the line. "Hey, on my way home but I have some info on that address you gave me. The home is owned by a small company called Zembu. It's a small software firm that builds custom databases for 3rd party companies. There's no one name on the property. I didn't ask our deckers to take a look into it any deeper since I didn't want to expalin where I got the info." You can hear the faitgue in his voice and the sublte shift of noise of highway to city street traffic. "The 'Adam' fella you decribed matches up with a guy by the name of Michael Nelson. We came across his name while checking into the Body Bag, he's renting out the place for some S & M super party. He has no active files with us. He was born in Germany but doesn't seem to stay put for very long. He has a few degree from over seas in paranormal psychology. He works as a free lance consultant and public speaker. Please tell me something in that helps?"