Below the entrance, a staircase stretched down into darkness with only a few emergency lights providing illumination. As far as Wraith could hear and see, there was no-one around.
On the astral a strong barrier blocked his view.



bnc's door opened without a sound. One moment the maglock kept it closed, the next it swung open. Outside, she could make out a short corridor with four more cell doors - two on each side, of which the one next to her was also open now. A moment later a slight Japanese girl in the same hospital gown as she had had exited. She looked to be about 17, with dark, short hair and a pretty face.
She smiled when she saw bnc and bnc realized that her matrix access had been restored.

At the end of the corridor, another locked door waited, but this one had an easily accessible UDP in plain view.

Before:
Anna augments her senses, and then summons a spirit of man. She allows the spirit to cast two invisibility spells, and then cast two spells of her own. Turning the four party members invisible to mundane eyes.

When seeing the ward, she shrugs "This is where the spell get us. Let's cross the ward without spells to keep quiet. She said and moved pased the barrier, gun at hand.

Nova slung her rifle over her shoulder and signaled to the others, that she would climb down first. She switched her ultrasound to passive mode for now, relying on low-light and thermographic vision, as she descended down the staircase, silent as a cat.

Anna follows quietly, trying her best not to be the one that exposes the team. It is nice to have the woman of steel and restraint leading the way she must admit. Since she notices Wraith astrally active, she remains mundane most of the time. With the exception of quick looks when she is stationary, Anna does not feel confident enough to sneak with the distraction of astral sight. If there are no more wards she'll consider more invisibility spells.

sneaking: 12d6t5 4

Sharkboy followed down behind Nova, his bow hanging from his back as he descended, doing his best to stay quiet and relying on his electroception to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Electroception: 10d6t5 4
Sneaking: 13d6t5 4

bnc steps out of the cell and looks around. When she sees the young technomancer, a very strong but decidedly irrational and out-of-place emotion rushes over her: shame. Looking at this young, pretty girl, she gets painfully aware of what she herself looks like: almost naked, worn-out not only from drug-abuse and malnutrition but also from the aftereffects of the narcoject. Her skin, unnatural in color, stretches unhealthily over ribs and hip. Though some might even find this even pleasant, it makes bnc sick, and seeing herself exposed to this way more beautiful girl, gets her deeper than she'd ever admit. She tries to cover up her feelings with a faint smile - a smile so uncomfortable that it just makes it more plainly obvious how out of place bnc feels.
Dumb slitch. Now really isn't the time to compare boobs. Don't be silly!, bnc chastised herself, trying to regain focus.
After a short moment of hesitation, bnc nods towards the door and runs over to it. She casts a hasty look around the shoulder, before she plugs herself in without saying a word. She stays in AR, however. The notion of leaving her body in this environment sends shivers down her spinal cord.

The team encountered three separate wards on their way down - which explained why having spirits patrol wasn't very feasible for the occupants of this facility.
They reached a locked door behind which they could hear two voices conversing:
"...I don't like it. They are still talking with Rosenberg, but there is no sign of where the other mercenaries have gone. Send another team out to secure the perimeter and look for them. I'll go down and look after the girl. She spend an awful long time at the sink before going back to sleep."
"Aye Sir, we'll take the bikes and report as soon as we find anything."


Meanwhile, bnc found herself persuading the lock with little effort to open up - Nyan allowed her also a glimpse at her pet sprite: The resonance creature was a massive presence in the matrix that nevertheless blended in almost effortlessly between the many device icons.
Unasked, Nyan explained: "I'm a Techno Shaman, so the resonance helps me out whenever I call sprites to my side."
The door opened and revealed a sterile looking room beyond - hightech autodoc units, medicine cabinets and an operating theater lay beyond. Two Caduceus anthro drones assisted a human dressed in scrubs with the preparation of a surgery tray.
So far he hadn't noticed them.

For a moment, bnc looks almost irritated. She fought down the feeling with great effort. The young decker had been fascinated - drawn - by magic and its myths as a child. When she grew up to become a decker, the interest shifted to the more digital aspects of the world. But the mythical still had a place in her heart, though deeply buried by, among others, bitterness. That this young girl, who got bestowed with prettiness, too, was also gifted with a quasi-magical gift that allowed her to do almost intuitively what bnc had worked for long and hard, angered her. But there was something even bitterer below the anger. Envy. She knew she should be excited to meet a technoshaman in real, to be thrilled by the opportunities it gave.
But for the moment, bnc didn't even manage to suppress a glare.

"Nice", she mutters under her breath while she opens the door. bnc glances inside, then quickly closes it silently.
"One worker, two anthrodrones. You control the one with the ID 'surgery 0x0fD8', I'll take the other one. Roger?"

Nyan nodded. For a moment, bnc could see how she spawned a sprite from nothing before it somehow vanished from sight. A moment later she noticed the designated drone suddenly had three new MARKs.

Knowing full well that he wasn't much of a sneak, Wraith moved after his companions and stayed some steps behind them.
These wards are annoying.
After passing through the lid, he carefully - unless one of his companions objects - closed the lid so patrols would find no evidence of their coming.

@team:
<<Gotta strike before he leaves for bnc. Who moves first?>>

Sharkboy glaces over to Nova. "Do you want to knock, or should I?"

"Hold me please" she subvocal to Wraith and takes a moment to project through the door and peek. She wants to know how many people are out there.



She returns with her findings a brief moment later.

bnc noticed that the two anthro drones didn't have any weapons beyond their precision limbs - allowing her to use whatever unarmed combat moves she knew. More interesting was the fact, that the drone had just prepared an anesthetic in a hypospray.



Anna peeked through the door. There she saw the auras of two people. One of which was moving towards an exit, while the other stood at the dark gray form of what was probably the elevator doors.
A look through the elevator doors confirmed that the elevator car was at least 10 m below them - that's where her line of sight ended with another ward.

"The fuck's going on?", bnc asks alertedly. They haven't included her in her plannings until yet.

"Guy on top floor moving down to check on you. We're on him.", he replied to bnc.
Wraith did as asked and stabilized Anna's body, activating his combat focus while doing so. He took a deep breath to clear his mind and felt his heart racing in his chest and his divine focus pulsing vibrantly I'm his clutched fist. He was tense as a bowstring and high on anticipation and adrenaline.
It was moments like this that he lived for.

"I don't care who knocks, just knock it down quickly or I'll do it myself."

She stabilizes and says "Two men, we take them one by one silently. ll make Shark invisible, and he'll be first. The rest of us help without being detected. Have the drone scan for biomonitor or something." She says.