"I don't mind either way, just saying that a mix of abilities will probably be a better choice in the larger picture. If we make two groups like that, we should have one of the mages in each. At least, that's how I think," Nova explained. "You are the experts on the mage-sight, though, and if you think it works better, then we should go with that. However, we really should not be several hundred meters away, if anything happens and we have to react quickly. You would be on your own, otherwise. Unless, of course, we can find a decent spot for overwatch, so there is a way to assist you from range."

"As for myself. Let's say I'm pretty durable, even if I might not quite look the part. Don't judge the book by its cover. That's how you say it, right? I have decent people skills, but my main role would be that of a fighter, yes. I am trained in hand-to-hand and firearms of all sizes and at all ranges. On top of that I'm a highly trained scout, paramedic and dancer, classic and modern, though, I am not quite sure how useful that will be here. Oh, and if you put me in front of a lock, I can probably persuade it to open for us."

When bnc asked about the case, Nova answered: "That's my sniper rifle. Modded to break down easily. Like that Ranger Arms one, just without the fragility. Military-grade, anti-personnel. So, not the cal .50 one, as that is a bit too large and heavy to fit into such a case. It has its uses, but in most situations, I prefer the versatility of the smaller rifle. And the punch it packs isn't that much less, really."

Anna replied grinning a bit amused from bnc outlash "I may be dumb but I require hair dye to be blonde, perhaps bnc never got passed my chest..." (Anna has brown hair, and green eyes (her natural eyes are brown, but she often wear green contacts.).

As the team discussed the plan she decided to speak up as well.
She said We can do a picnic... but there are drawbacks to this plan, as it is just the two of us, and if you send me with Raph - not the ideal choice for combat.

I see countless other options though.

First, why don't we shoot a wrestling promotional... where Sharkboy spits on the grave of his rival. Or better yet, a promotional where the Shark meets..." she looks at Nova... "The Machine? Atomic blonde? Hydraulica? Limbs of doom?" She pauses and then continues "You two go trash talking each other, bnc will operate the camera, and multiple drones, this would explain her control rig...

When are all eyes on your exciting wrestling promotional.... who would notice me sneaking into the safehouse covered in RP."

Then she said"Another exciting option, me and Raph or Nova for that matter can come at night and kiss heavily... accidentally discover the safehouse as a place to make love. Very difficult just kill us for that - as it'll draw a lot of attention and is clearly not the behavior expected from a professional investigating the place. Again, sex sells and as we neck each other - one of the others could take a look - or even pretend to be a guard and expel us from the cemetery. So a possible ambush has more of us in range."

She paused and then continued.
"Third fun option, is that I and Raph can come at night wearing shaman tuxedos and placing flowers on graveyards. Chanting praises to the dead... Ancestor shamans like graveyards... Conjurers have plenty of oddities.... and ambushing two mages that are supposed to be aligned to the cemetery, and thus unaffected by the background count is a bit risky when you are not even sure - if the two are related to Bean Si."

She then says- moving her hands as she speaks.
"At any case, a diversion that attracts attention - would make it easier to one of us to sneak around unnoticed. Me and Raph are really mages - and you cannot determine our tradition with mage sight. Sharkboy really is a wrestler. So as crazy as these Ideas sound, they are believable... If any, such a behavior would make us seem less like shadowrunners, and less related to Bean Si. Some plans make more of us - at range in case shit does hit the fan. "

Sharkboy liked the idea of getting out of the van, but Anna's sketch for a wrestling promo had some problems. "Ms. Black, no one who watches wrestling would buy me and Nova being set up for a match. Men and women fight in different divisions. Men fight women, but those are usually as part of mixed-tags announced as a surprise at the start of a show. They tried singles matches back in the 50s, but after a few deaths in the ring because of guys like me reputable companies realized the bad publicity wasn't worth it.

"Second, we'd need a camera crew there or some drones to record the event. With just two wrestlers, we'd also need someone to play a promoter who organized the event in order to sell tickets for our imagined PPV or subscription service"

"Besides we should probably have at least one mage out in the graveyard. Neither Nova and I are that.

A spark of creativity hit sharkboy, and he could barely contain his grin for his mask. "However, promos in a cemetery are a wrestling staple." Sharkboy started looking through his commlink and then put an image up in AR. "Wraith do you have an urn, and want to be my manager? The urn is optional, but having a manager means we can dispense with having a promoter there."

"That's not even the only route we could go." He looked over at the girls. "One of you could also be a manager, but women are usually valets. Same role as a manager, but also there as eye-candy." He put another image up in AR. "I'm helping you get revenge on your drekhead ex in our match, or I could be the rudo who stole you from the tecnico. Same death match or casket match to promote, but the whole thing gets a bit more lurid."

She asked "Can you have both a manager and an eye candy? "

Sharkboy moved his head around, thinking of scenarios that would fit that. "You usually don't just, but you could. It makes it more confusing for the wrestler. Managers and valets usually help their client during the match, and if you have two people doing that it can be hard for the person in the ring to know what's they're going to do. It's also harder for them to coordinate and avoid getting spotted by the referee and costing the match on a disqualification."

Eliza chimed in: "For your information: The temperature in Vienna is currently 5 degrees below zero with heavy snowfall. The cemetary roads are not serviced at the moment"

Looking disappointed she said "Darn... what is with this country and winter... can't Kerstain hide in a warmer place. So no picnic or anything, which plans are still feasible?"

"I guess first step in any plan will be having a drone scout the graveyard for us and, if possible, assensing the area from afar to check for magical presence. Might not just be mages, with that cold they might have deployed a spirit to watch the grave while the mage himself stays in a nearby hotel.
Everyone cool with that?

If the place isn't guarded magically, then... Nova, you said you're a trained scout. Who else is good at being stealthy? Anna?

So how about:
No magical threat: Nova goes with Anna or me. Preferably Anna, as I'm not too good at sneaking and hiding about.
And if there is one... Well, then the plan depends on what we've got. I can probably deal with a spirit."

Towards Wraith: "Then I guess the same goes for me. My augments may not be as vast as theirs, but anyone would see that I'm heavily augmented."
She actually smiles at this. The word Augmentation obviously hasn't lost its original sweet taste to her.
"But then, mages aren't less conspicious. Don't overestimate how consipicous James would be. Once you spot him, yes, that may raise questions. But as long as I'm not doing a particularly bad job, it's nigh impossible to see him from the astral. If I'm not entirely wrong, anything dead will just be a grey blur of nothingness to you, will it not? If I con just roughly conceal his human shape, he'll be invisible to mages.
Not to hackers, though. He has RP armor, by the way. And fins, in case you wanna know." Again, she cracks a broad grin.

"What if we dress Nova up as kind of a cast-out war veteran? You know, the kind that lost limbs and comrades in some mean war, couldn't deal with her PTSD, started beetling or boozing and now visits her comrades in the dark of night, her barret clutched to her chest in tears, while her last caring friend accompanies her? Something along that line."

Anna replied, "I am comfortable with sneaking."

She replied to bnc "While I like roleplaying. Perhaps we complicate it too much; we go in scout the area once we convinced it is safe. If it is not safe than the drone and astral/matrix recognizes would give us a complete picture. We'll know what kind of resources the adversary have and adapt our plan accordingly."

She winked at Sharkboy "I'll show some legs for you if we need a distraction at a warmer place."

Sharkboy was slightly crestfallen at the inability to shoot a promo. It was have been good practice if nothing else. "Yeah, it might be a bit chilly for miniskirts. Not like we have a way to warm up afterwards. We probably wouldn't even get good audio with our equipment." (His concern for production quality was admirable).

As the team began to discuss tactics the van had already crossed the border and was now heading straight towards Vienna. Despite the worsening weather in the Alpine region they made good time while staying within grid guide's speed limit.

At one point Eliza asked: "Have you considered what to do if our opposition has placed something inside the hideout?"

"Scouting the area with drones and magic first, then sneaking in certainly works for me. All I can do from afar, then, would be watching the place with a scope, but even that might be useful."

"If there is something inside the hideout, we will have to deal with whatever it is, when we are there. Once we are in the area, the mages can scout the hideout, hopefully spotting anything strange before we open the door. Other than that, we just have to be careful. Place could be booby-trapped for all we know."

"Well, fine by me. Then let's do the d-tour over Linz where Wraith can pick up his stuff. Then we'll scout out the area and see what it looks like. If you don't mind, I'll leave meat-space now and infiltrate those fragging forums."

bnc shuts her eyes and leans back, only her eyes are still moving frantically. In a hot rally, first cruises through the forums with a legal account, reading, reading, reading, reading. She takes in all the information about their habits, their structure, their rules of society, anything. Once she feels she's got a grip on it, she moves onwards, still driven by the boost that Golden Mirror gave her. Mind racing, she digs deep into the host until she finds the forum's database, cracks all protection on it and lays several profound misleading hints on different places. Once finished, she makes a perfect copy of the protection that was on the file before she entered it, with one difference: Now she, too, would be accepted as an authorized user. Then, she hurries onwards to the host's log file and infiltrates it in a similar manner, erasing all traces of her activities, before she leaves and turns off her deck.

While the car made the slight detour towards Linz, bnc began reading through the different topics. Beneath the drivel of typical forum fare she found a surprisingly diverse cosmos - people of all straits of society had found there way here after testing one of the BTL chips. Whoever supplied those didn't seem to be too keen on making a huge profit - people traded openly cracked copies of popular products that you'd have to pay a huge markup on the streets.
The combat chips that the chipheads in Munich had used where completely free to use.
The "great hunt" as the forumnites called the search for Kerstin had a lot in common with a bee hive: Positive reinforcement brought more local members to the scene, increasing the validity through potential sightings.
Reading along, bnc felt both disgust but couldn't help but also feel the thrill that even reading about it brought to her. Anyone with a slotted chip could be called up by the hivemind if his location corresponded with a sighting, activating it's abilities and making people drop whatever they were doing to go out on the hunt.

Her false leads were taken up immediately, but after half an hour she noticed that the Forum Score of the account she had attributed the leads to had fallen significantly, indicating that the forum persona had lost credibility. It seemed, the more concrete her lead had been, the less credible it had become after nobody found anything there.
She repeated that a few times, lowering the stolen accounts' credibility more and more - until images came in of a young woman beaten to a pulp. bnc was shocked for a moment until she recognized that it certainly wasn't her sister. Still it was her false lead that had led these guys by pure dumb luck to a girl looking vaguely like her and her sister.
bnc watched as suddenly files were uploaded to her account - the wages of sin - consisting of a new moodchip file. Also her forum score rose again, granting the profile a tag connected to the successful "hunt".

"I'll have my Suzuki park at the next roadhouse. Let me hop off there, I'll take the detour with the bike. It'll be faster than the van, especially in the city. If you just go on ahead, I'll meet you before you reach Vienna. It's a Suzuki Mirage, it should easily catch up to the van.
That'll save us time, the clock is ticking."

Anna said "Sure, go for it... Are you any good with the bike?"

"Aye, I'm a decent driver. Had a bike since I was... 17, I think. So yeah, I'm quite all right with it."

As soon as the van had reached the roadhouse, Wraith grabs his coat and helmet and takes his leave with a nodd towards his coworkers.
"I'll keep you updated."

He heads for a sleek, grey racing bike parked some 15 metres away. With roaring engines, he strarts his bike, flashes his lights as a salute to the team and dashes off into the cold.


* * *

A little over an hour later, he sends the team some coordinates, where he plans to meet up with them: A small gas station and resting point for truckers next to the highway.

Once reunited - for once there were no troubles on the Austrian motorway - the team reached Austria even a little ahead of schedule, despite constantly worsening weather.

Vienna showed typical signs of a metropolis: Grimy snow, vast monuments to money and greatness as well as signs of abject poverty. The Zentral Friedhof was a particularly vast areal, surrounded here and there by small squatter colonies. The southern parking lot was no different and a normal citizen would have hessitated to leave their car here without a very good alarm system.

Still, a bit of calm could be felt coming from the vast areal beyond the small gate and the cemetary hadn't closed yet. Only a few other cars - mostly too old to be of any interest for even the hungriest junky to try and steal some parts - were parked there.

Visibility had fallen to below 50 m and a harsh Eastern wind blew thick snowflakes across the landscape.

Old gravestones were readily visible, casting huge, ominous shadows in the vaning light. When the motor went out for a moment only the howling of the winter wind could be heard...

"Anyone lurking in this kind of weather for a potential ambush must be pretty nuts," Nova declared when they arrived at the cemetary.

"With visibility this bad, we can probably just go there as a group, what do you think? Once the drone and magic scouting has been done, of course."

"Well, the place could still be trapped, even without human surveillance... So let's not be the same target. But, let me see what I can sense from the astral." She said and triggered her astral sight if conditions allow it she'd make a sweep of the graveyard.

Stepping outside the van, Anna felt the harsh wind on her skin as she opened her astral sight. Only a few steps into the graveyard she could feel the mana becoming sluggish - a green tinge of decay and rot filled the cemetary. The gravestones were still mostly gray although some where tinged with the emotions of the mourners making it harder to distinguish any living auras from the background.
Still, as far as she could sense unobstructed, there didn't seem to be any kind of life outside the snow - not even spirits, although she couldn't help but feel like this place might be a feasting ground for certain shadow spirits...

Anna found it strange to see no life at all, but there was little about that right now. "Graveyard seem strange, no life... " She said to Raph, "I am going all the way to the location now..."

Her next move was to investigate all the way to the safe house and search for something emotionally significant. She returned to the car, and projected her mind out, trying to suppress the funny face she makes as the tingling sensation gets too much for her, right before her mind disengages her body. She scanned the safehouse and its surrounding for auras, or emotionally significant items.

"Welp, time to get dressed again." Sharkboy considered just changing into FBAA, but instead changed back into his full suit and pulled out his bow and quiver. He only offered a wry comment to Raph and Anna's analysis over team comms. "So ya'll can't see dead people? That's a bit disappointing."

Nova opened her black case and pulled out various gun pieces to assemble. Once she was finished, which only really took a couple seconds, she held her sniper rifle in her hands.

"Yeah, I know what you think. Sniper Rifle. Heavy Snow. But this also works well at shorter ranges. And it has a silencer! And if its too unwieldy, I still have my sidearm."

She also pulled out her ballistic mask and a few extra armor pieces from another case and put them on. Better be prepared for whatever might be out there.

bnc dives right through the forums, indeed soaring from one thread to another, reading and taking in information with superhuman speed. All of a sudden, she stops. For a heartbeat she looks at the young woman that fell victim to bnc's false lead. Another heartbeat, she was unable to scroll down. Frozen, she stares at it for another couple of seconds.
It's not your fault. You didn't do this.
Without you meddling into their posts, she would still be up and healthy.
According to stochastics, your strategy will prevent many more deaths than it causes. Don't let your mind get clouded by primitive emotions. The fact that you don't hace pictures of those you saved doesn't mean that they count less. Focus, bnc.
According to stochastics, she'd probably have a baby, a boyfriend, one or two parents and to a certain probability a sibling who are now all mourning for her.
It's-
Don't try to rationalize this. You can't logic away a person whose life you ended.
Empirics clearly indicate that emotional responses, especially visual-based ones, are unreliable sources of estimation. Grow up, bnc. You're not a toddler anymore.

bnc swallows and moves on. For some reason, however, she first downloads the picture to her cyberdeck. Shortly after that, she decides to quit following the forums but also not to return to the others. Instead, she downloads a hot-sim experience where she'd be some brute who kicks ass and keeps punching his victim over and over and over. And over again, until bnc feels empty and exhausted. Only then she returns to meat space, drained and ashen, not only because of that girl but also because of what else is troubling her conscience.
Wherever you go, bnc, people suffer.
"What counts is what you do - for yourself and for others. And You, girl, are an abuser. You abuse yourself and others. You don't seem to hold any regard for the happiness of others. Seeing the kind of drunk you are, likely not even for your own happiness."



Blinking, she awakes again, staring at the others with haunted eyes. Quickly, she snatches a packages of silvery patches and puts it into Anna's hands. "Keep them for 120 minutes, then return them to me.", she says quickly, summoning all her resolve. She then inhales and turns her face outside the window, remaining mostly silent for the rest of the drive.

Once the mages are back, bnc chimes in. "I'll now send in my flies. I'll provide you with livestreams. Give me three minutes, then we go."

First, the young decker checks any icons on the graveyard, also searching for hidden ones. She does this using her commlink, while the deck is still turned off. Afterards, bnc then sends out her three Noizquitos, systematically flying over the graveyard.

On his return, Wraith had brought a backpack with him, along with a classic armor jacket, which he now put on before leaving the van. Underneath he wore his concealed quick-draw holster and his Ares Predator, loaded with gel ammo - although he had some regular bullets in his pocket.

He didn't have a mask, but he wore his helmet to hide his face and protect him against the cold.

Ha nodded with appreciation after Anna took to scout the graveyard and opened his third eye as well. His gaze didn't turn to the yard, but instead he checked the nearby houses, that would have a clear view on the graveyard, for any austral or dual-natured activity. He didn't directly assense every single person he finds, but checks for magical auras visible from the astral plane.

Setting the drones free, bnc noticed almost immediately that the small flyers were heavily outclassed by the severe wind. There little dog brains showed warnings that they couldn't maintain speed and altitude and were in danger of crashing.
It looked like she would have to pilot one and do it while avoiding wind and snow as best as she could. Their target was about 650 m away, so it wouldn't be a quick thing either - at least there wasn't much noise around to complicate things further.

Meanwhile, Raph had time to look for threats on the other side of the street. But since this was a more rural part, the only thing within a 100m that was high enough to act as a vantage point was a building of the AG Chemie, and he didn't see any magic auras there, unless you counted the slight toxic tinge hanging around the building.


Anna meanwhile moved across the astral further into the cemetery - and immediately found herself confronted with a dark entity, slowly revolving in space. She could count twenty tentacles on a slimy looking cephalopod...

Anna is alarmed by the *thing*... whatever it is - it seems dangerous, and she wants to get back.

Anna could only make out the obvious: It was a dark extraplanar creature and likely dangerous. Right now she wished she could remember more from that one lecture, but then, she was in luck as she would be able to gain first hand knowledge in just about a second as the thing seemed to have noticed her...

Her mind was racing, and she was excited and terrified.

The creature seemed to sniff Anna for a moment and then shot past her into the direction she had come from...

Anna responds with a mana barrier, trying to encompass the beast within a globe of mana. She remembers, that even if they are easy to get out of, it takes time... Her goal is to slow the beast down so that she can get into her body.

The maneuver worked: The creature had manifested to attack the barrier with it's physical body, allowing Anna to reach her body before it had a chance to get near.

Anna rushed to her body, but unaffected by her own barrier she used the opportunity to sling a couple of stun bolts at the beast. To say the least, she was not confident with her magical combat abilities - but she hoped that it would at least make the now physical spirit cry in pain, or make some other noise which would alert her friends to the danger.



(next combat turn).
She opened her eyes and cried loudly "Dark spirit!... Draw Guns!", she exited the van and tried to establish visual of the spirit.

The stun bolts did little more than enrage the spirit. Still Anna reached her body an instant later while the beast still tore at it's cage some 200m away.

Nova turned towards Anna, as she regained consciousness and immediately voiced a warning.

"Got a gun right here. Where is that beasty? I can't see anything..."

Of course, now she was on guard and headed out of the van as well, watching the surroundings. From past experience she knew, that spirits could appear just about anywhere, so she did not just focus her perception towards the cemetary, but also in other directions.

Wraith had just returned to his real body, still blinking his physical eyes and was about to inform the others, when Anna awoke and alerted them to the spirit. "No magical threats behi... WHAT? Frag!"
He got out of the van as well, but oddly enough, he didn't reach for his gun - instead, he touched the little necklace he was wearing, as well as the silver cross he wore on a wristband, murmuring a soft "Steh mir bei!".


He looks concentrated and raises both his hands, apparently getting ready for some kind of spell or incantation.

bnc quickly commands the little drones back when she experiences the winds. She has just Jumped Into a Noizquito, when she hears Anna's warning call. Frag, what the heck am I supposed to do against a god-damn spirit? Well, if she wants guns, guns is what she'll get!

bnc leaves the drone and Jumps into the sniper drone. She sends it up into the sky, watching her comrades under her, ready to shoot anytime.

She replied with a sense of urgency "Direction hideout, 200 meters... It can be here any second.",
She drew her taser, and looked alert.

Sharkboy's outfit from the previous run was only slightly altered, he had thrown a black balaclava ski mask on under his ballistic mask. It hid his hair slightly, kept him warmer, and meant that he could eat in the presence of others when this was over.*
He stepped out of the vehicle, slinging his bow and quiver over his shoulder, blinking to activate his smartlink and begrudgingly clinching his fists to start the mojo flowing.

The team stood still, watching for the spirit to appear while bnc brought out the larger drone. Unfortunately this one had the same problem with the strong wind, so she had to personally jump in to avoid it crashing immediately.

Time ticked by when suddenly, the team saw a small dot of light about 50m away and close to the ground. Through the wind and snow no details could be seen, but it seemed to flash SOS.

Someone needs help!
- I can't just run in there with a shadow spirit roaming around. That's suicide!
I wish you'd show the same concern for the lives of others. The Raph I knew would have never risked others falling to their death just to start a distraction.
- There was no other way. I can't save every single one.
Perhaps that's what I have to admit as well. That I can't save you. Not from this path you're taking, away from every value you once held so dear.
- oh come on!

Hands in the air, Wraith started a loud prayer: "Lord,your servant calls upon you once more: send aid in our time of need!"


The mage's hands were shaking, he staggered sidewards a few steps until he regained his composure. Despite the cold, he breathing heavily and was sweating underneath the helmet - whatever he was trying to do seemed to be quite taxing.

Anna followed toward the dot of light, with her taser in her hands ready to respond to an ambush, she switched on thermo vision hoping to see better.

Nova noticed the immediate reaction by Wraith. "You also saw that? Woah! You okay?"



"I will investigate. Maybe someone needs help, and we gotta deal with that thing one way or another, anyways."

With that, she slowly moved into the direction, where the light had been, watching for any threats, especially of the dark spirit type that Anna mentioned. She really expects some kind of trap, though. Why would anyone use a flashlight to signal SOS in such heavy snow...

Anna said to be seen "I' am coming with you..."

Frag!!
I'll check it out. Stay where you are. Mages, focus on the spirit thing."

Now not steering, but being the drone, bnc soared towards the light as soon as fast as she can without losing line of sight to her comrades.

Sharkboy followed to the right of Nova, standing a few paces away to make sure they had space to work. "Can someone please make the bad thing apparently hurting everyone visible?"