Although Anna kept looking, she couldn't pick up the trail again.

Frustrated, Anna returns to the hotel and then enters the pool to practice her swimming. She floats alright but is not very elegant about it.

bnc waves Splitterbruch goodbye friendly, but absentmindedly. She had no head for politiness.

<@team <chums@sbg annas got some news shell get u upd8d can u move here [GEOARO] & ask around mayb some1 s seen her>>

"No, you're not talking trid decker ... alas, there are hardly any cams. We must needs go for Salzburg Security itself then. They'll have records."

bnc looks for the Salzburg Security host and analyzes it.

Sharkboy sees himself out of the hotel, catching a ride in the Van back into Salzburg to stay near Anna or bnc to make sure they don't get into trouble.

Salzburg turned out to have a layer of five relevant hosts:
There was the Salzburg Traffic Host that controlled most of the main motorways and official roads in the city including traffic lights and Grid Guide. That one was easiest with an A7S6D8F9 configuration.
There were two separate Public Security Hosts that kept an eye on infrastructure like gas, water and electricity and all associated sensors - one for above ground stuff, the other for all the subterran ones. Both had an A7S8D10F9 config.
There was the Entertainment, Education and Tourism System, that controlled the flow of the local media and coordinated also the University's affairs. That one kept itself at a moderate A6S5D8F7.
And finally there was the center piece, the Security Host of the Archdiozese, that controlled and watched over all that went on within the other hosts and also coordinated all police and security related topics. That one went in for a whooping A11S8D10F9.

All of them had access to sensor arrays and collected data from various sources - though it was collected all in the fifth host - an absolute beast of an industry host.

Once all the info has been shared with the team, bnc again initiates a conference in the teamchannel.
"All right. I think I can crack the police host. It won't be an easy thing but I might do it. It'd be a tad easier, though, if I could get physical access to something connected to the host."

And that's what she goes looking for: a security camera or door or any other icon that is slaved to the security host itself - preferrably someplace where it can be easily accessed.

That turns out to be a tall order. Very few parts of the infrastructure is directly slaved to the security host - only the local police precincts qualify. And their cameras and doors are not what you'd call an easy target."

When Anna returns to her room she asks "So what is the plan, walk around the gas station with a missing person image and ask people if they saw our friend? Just to be certain. "

"Actually I thought of something cleverer ... I dunno, you're a private detective hired by the clinic because they don't trust in Salzburg Security and now try to do it on their own. Something like that ..."

bnc then dives into the virtual reality. She easily fools the host to accept her. Finding the dossier, however, was a whole different thing entirely.

10 minutes later, bnc had the case file - it was unprotected since someone seemed to be currently working with it.
Two days ago someone had broken in the morgue without raising an alarm. The ward had shown signs of someone pressing through and the leading forensic mage - a catholic priest - had concluded that most likely an HMHVV victim was the likely culprit.
That conclusion was corroborated by the fact, that the intruder had opened lab 3 and defiled the body of a car crash victim. In total there was about 4 kilos of human meat missing.
The Bishop guards decided to keep the lid on the story, so a team of mages from the university was called in to create a stronger ward to prevent any further intrusions.
A specialist from Mitsuhama had also come in and started a process that was likely just fancy words for "using divination" according to the specialist there were no positive results.
An annotation by the officer in charge mentioned that he was not sure if this contractor had told them the whole truth.
He had send a plain cloth detective after the man, who had gone straight to the Kühberg in the East of Salzburg, but had lost the man's trace.

When the team shared what they had discovered, Wraith - using uni-work as an excuse - excused himself from Marissa and made his way to the indicated spot.


@team:
<< Will do.>>

He dashed off on his bike, keeping Nova updated on his location so they could coordinate their actions.

Anna texts ">>Anyone to give me a ride?". She'll perhaps walk to the location if it is not very far from the Adler.

Nova had fun driving around on her bike. Here and there, she detached herself from the Gridlink to be able to drive a little faster. When Anna and bnc updated them on their new findings, she stopped and turned the bike around.

<< Sounds like we got a real trail here. Maybe we can find her before everything goes down, after all. Alright, I am on my way to the location. >>

She looked up the location data, that bnc sent them, on her commlink, to see what kind of place that is.

bnc gives her a confused look. How can she alternate between competent and outright stupid so fast? This is a gift.
"You can join in the van if you like? Unless you'd love to walk a hundred and fifty kilometers..."

bnc shares the information she could dig up about Robert Buchner and the Kühberg. "Seems we got two good targets. Let's split up, I'd say. One party goes searching for Buchner on the Kühberg, the other one asks around near the morgue. Or can you finish asking around while Anna and I are on the way so that we can go hiking together? I guess we need all fire power we can gather if there are Lindwürmer around. Yeah, that's probably better. You have around one to one-and-a-half hours. I don't think, you'll need more. Let's meet in 100 minutes at Stadtpfarre St. Gnigl. Whatever you can do in this time, you do. Then we hunt some initiate. So-ka for everyone?"

She texts for notification, and enters the van "150km?! I did not realize it was that long."

@Team>>"I'll head to the haunted castle people are avoiding because of the mating Lind warmers.

>>What's a lind warmer?>>

bnc cracks a smile. "It's a dragonlike creature. Basically the European version of the wyvern. They grow ten meters and more, that's why I suggest we go together"

Wraith carefully made his way to the indicated spot, where he first took a look around the place for any suspicious onlookers etc.
If he finds himself unwatched, he then opens his third eye, visualized the aura he knew from Kerstin, and tries to find any traces of her signature.

Anna asks with curiosity "Are they sapient?"

bnc downloads the Parazoology skillsoft from Singularity and explains to the group what she (now) knows about lindworms.

ALPENLINDWURM
(NEOVARANUS LAPIDEUS)
Habitat: High mountains
Nutrition: Carnivores
Activity: day or night active
Aggro index: 6.9
length/height: 2 m
Mass: 100 kg
The term alpine lindworm is actually a taxonomic error made shortly after the emergence of these dracoform species in the Alps due to a lack of understanding of dragon biology. In the seventies and after classification of other dracoforms and dracomorphic species, the taxonomy of the paranormal race was scientifically corrected based on metagenetic analyses. According to current knowledge, the alpine lindworm is in fact an earth draconian and thus a direct relative of the fire draconian (and a distant relative of the dragon), native to high mountains in Eurasia such as the Alps, the Carpathians, the Dinaric Mountains and the Caucasus. With a length of less than two metres, it is the largest representative of these wingless species to date and is considered one of the most dangerous due to its toughness and strength. With its grey to grey-white scales, it is often difficult to distinguish in the Alps from the surrounding rock, especially as it can remain in one place for hours or even days as a patient predator. Many an unsuspecting alpine hiker has already been doomed by this.
Above all big game such as ibex, chamois or the European mouflon belong to the preferred prey of the alpine lime worm, which is an excellent climber because of this and the rugged habitat. Despite its size and mass, it can move almost vertically up and down the rock. In contrast to their cousins, alpine lindworms live quite solitary. and form family associations only temporarily, in order to mate and raise their young.

Anna says "So we're going to see mating Lindworms... How exiciting! How dangerous are they to us? Think we can handle them if it comes to that? any spell we want to have ready?"