Anna says, with a matrix lin >>I'll come with you. She felt happy to have a chance to walk the woods. Hiking was not something she considered, nobody she knew actually did these things.

Taurus will quickly change out of his suit, throwing on some workout gear in it's place. the shoulder rig with the Predator looks rather odd, but it can't be helped. When he left Ares he really hadn't given a lot of thought to what he might need to wear as Runner, and the opportunity and resources haven't really been available either.

"I will take point, please stay behind me and keep me between you and any threats we may encounter, okay?" he will say to the others, looking each in the eye until he gets a clear response.

Anna gives Taurus a military-style salute, "Yes sir" she says being serious that she'll let him be first, but also a bit amused by how seriously the man carries himself.

bnc has retreated into her private rooms to go full VR properly.

"I'll stay nearby, but I see no reason for all of us to go there to get a car.", James says, gets up, and actually stretches.

Then bnc's voice is heard over the teamchannel: "Anna, I'm currently working on a multi-layered map, merging a semi-3D-map of what my surveillance drone recorded with an abstract map. I want to add a layer in which the ley lines are recorded. How accurately can you draw a digital map of the ley lines in a perimeter of 500 meters of the nexus?"

Leylines are a notoriously imprecise thing, twisting and turning on the micro level - and sometimes wander quite a bit on the macro level. Still, Anna is fairly sure that the three line cross under the main building in the center of the camp.

The group leaving the flying witch hut find the woods as dense as described, but far from unpleasant in fair May weather. The air is fragrant and the sun shines warm enough that the shadow of the trees is just really enjoyable. Only the rather steep inclines and roots all over the place make it necessary to keep your eyes on where you step.
Although the distance isn't particularly long, traversing it costs enough time that the sun is significantly lower in the sky then when you set out. Dusk is approaching quickly.

Once you reach the main road, walking gets easier on the well maintained sidewalks - until you reach Häberle's place. The shop is close to closing, but the restaurant is quite open and a multitude of enticing smells waft out from the window you assume belongs to the kitchen.
A single teen-aged troll is visible through the window of the vehicle shop, looking concentrated at the deceptively small commlink in his large hands.

"Excuse me, someone told us you might have a vehicle for us here." Taurus says to the boy when he is easily in hearing.

Anna augments her willpower in order to force her mind to remember the lay lines, and where they were located on the map. She finally marks what she can, but the number of details she remembers is far less than the richness she experienced.

>> Did what I can bnc sending the file. Now let's go trekking.

Anna walks carefully and feels more on a field trip than at some secret mission. Needless to say, they did not technically accept the job, but the negotiation was better done when they know what they are dealing with. She has only seen the woods in the tries before, and as she is fit, she finds the expirience quite enjoyable. A small sadness causes her to feel deprived of a lifetime of sticking just to the (bad) parts of a big city. The outdoors were not an option, but most of the area is the 'outdoors'.

"Dinner!" she says when she smells the restaurant. "Should I order anything for you?" she asks Taurus, I'll text you the menu. "Join after you get the car. she asks Nova "Coming?" and would then to the restaurant to see whats on the menu. She hadn't made the trip to go back hungry, not that she is certain how they are going to get back to begin with darkness creeping in. "I am a mage, I'll figure it out..." she reasons.

Nova changed into a more casual set of clothes from her large backpack. Tight-fitting jeans and a long-sleeved hiking shirt with a pair of trekking sneakers and a purple softshell jacket and a simple black baseball hat with no logo. Underneath, she had only her form-fitting body armor for protection, and she also wore black leather gloves, as usual. The Ares Predator was hidden in the concealed holster near the small of her back.

She had seen her share of the outdoors when she moved over from russia. As with most things, there have been some good and some bad experiences. It's not much of a surprise, that she doesn't break a sweat during the short walk.

"Sure, I could use something to eat. It's been a pretty long day, actually."

"What's your favorite food? she asks casually as she walks alongside Nova to the Restaurant.

As the drone is positioned and bnc doesn't have a whole lot of other tasks at the moment, she Jumps into James while the group walks through the forest. Before they reach Todtnau, however, she says goodbye and parts. From here, she searches a good vantage point from which she can get a second view on restaurant and workshop. This vantage point would ideally be between 500 and 1000 metres from the nexus itself. While the Munin drone watches the general scene from above, focussing on vehicles that draw near (airborne and not), gathering crowds or anything of the sort, James focusses on the interiors of the buildings. In a third and fourth window, she watches the camera output of Nova's and Taurus's commlinks. The sound is mute. However, she has a language recognition system translate the words into text simultaneously, thus keeping her informed about what is being talked while still being able to focus on surveillance. She then circles jumping into the Munin - jumping out, monitoring the overview - jumping into James - jumping out again.

The troll-boy looked up with a frown across his thick mono-brow:
"We got cars and stuff. What are you looking for?" Only then did he actually take in the group he was talking to and said: "Oh, wait a sec, I'll gonna fetch Paps."

Without waiting for a reply, he went out from behind the counter and vanished through a door in the back.
Five minutes went by before he returned with a significantly larger troll, who was wearing a horribly clashing jacket with electrochromic modifications that gave the impression that the caro pattern always stayed in place, no matter how he moved.
The troll had invested heavily into dental work and showed very even teeth and tusks in his broad smile.

"Ah, you must be the customers, Eliza told me about?" He looked questioningly and continued when he got confirmation:
"Your rides are ready. Wasn't easy to pick up enough smart tires at short notice, but it changes the experience dramatically. The suspension is significantly improved too, so the wild terrain shouldn't be a problem. The electric motors have been further silenced too and I went for a dark green as your color.
Sizes are one normal and three petites. I've transfered ownership to Eliza already, so you can ride them off the lot immediately if you want - I even threw in a slightly improved pilot and sensor system."

At his words, four small, green shapes rolled out from the back room: One large and three regular sized Cyclops Entertainment Monowheels. Certainly a step up from a Dodge Scoot... but not much.

Meanwhile, Anna found herself looking at a cozy dinning room with lots of wood around the walls, wooden tables, chairs and hanging on the walls even wooden spoons, plates and forks.
Although several tables were filled, there were more than enough free that the group could have gotten an individual table for everyone.

"I havn't given that much thought, to be honest. Surprise me," Nova replied to Anna's question.

She comments do Nova "Common, dream up a bit. What if they had all the dishes in the world, what would you want to order?

Anna waits to be seated, and then once seated she asks for recommendations in basic German."What are the recommended dishes for dinner? Also one of her first thoughts is "Do you have Musli for takeaway?" it would be a bit of a hassle to get the Musli to her in time, but bnc may appreciate it.

Taurus is going to have to get used to being around other trolls, he almost corrected the man when he spoke of sizes.

"Thank you very much sir, we will do our level best to return them in good shape."

Taurus will set the three smaller bikes to follow his and settles himself into his seat.

OOC: Are we working with one of these or one of these?

"No need. Eliza bought them directly. There ability to fold down to a compact shape makes them invaluable for travel. Please send her my regards - I always appreciate doing business with her - even if it has been a while since last time."
Häberle replied.
"I'm going to close down the shop for tonight - would you care for some dinner? We have currently some excellent wild boar on the menu - with dumplings and cranberries."

Meanwhile at the restaurant the young female ork acting as your server smiled cheerfully at you and with a pretty thick accent explained:

"Our today's special is wild boar with dumplings and cranberries, but I personally am a huge fan of our Zwiebelrostbraten mit Spätzle
To drink we have an especially fine dry red Spätburgunder wine.
About the muesli to go, I'll see what I can do - that's more of a breakfast food around here. But I'm sure we have some Seitenbacher and yogurth."

"I'll try the Zwiebelrostbraten mit Spätzle then." Anna response happily. The notion of proper food makes her happy. She texts Taurus In the team channel:>>@Alex Should I order the Wild boar with dumplings and cranberries? for you-it looks good.

>>@bnc, I am trying to get you some Musli. Unless you want something more.

bnc realizes too late what Anna is doing.
<@Anna <grrl dont b awkward. i can get muesli @evry store 1/5 the price. just eat ur stuff im not hungry>>, she responds. When everything goes nice and smooth with the bike, bnc texts Eliza
<@Eliza <can u grant me marks for the bikes?>>

"I will have the wild boar with the red," Nova said to the waitress. " Thank you! That does sound good."

"So, you are not a vegetarian, then. I somehow thought you were," she mentioned to Anna.

Suit yourself, but do note that our spot is rather inaccessible. Took us a while to just get out of the woods. I reasoned you'll want to eat something tonight before you get settled.

I don't believe in rules and restrictions, and my favorite is Sushi. So definitely not a vegetarian.Why did you think that?

"That sounds good, my companions are already in the restaurant, I will join them." Taurus arrives at the table just as Nova makes her order, "One more of those for me please." He settles down in a chair, really enjoying the environment of a place built for Trolls. He even manages a smile to the ladies as he jokes, "Our 'unicycles' are waiting for us outside."

Anna extends the joke."So, we have a Minotaur riding a unicycle, and I can do juggling" eying Nova she asks "What do you bring to our small circus?"

Häberle joined the table and gave a wink to the ork girl to bring him the same.
"Ah, you must be the companions, Eliza mentioned. Your Minotaur must feel very lucky to have such a batch of pretty women with him.
If I may introduce myself, Erich Häberle. My wife Anne is running the kitchens."
With a casual move of his wrist, Häberle uncorked a bottle of wine and filled the team's glasses.
"I was very surprised to hear from Eliza that she had business right here on my doorstep. Any chance it has something to do with those satanists?"

"Satanists?" Taurus drinks after asking the question.

"I'm pretty good with gymnastics, if that counts," Nova said to Anna.

When the troll entered, she nodded in his direction as a form of greeting.

"We do not know any specifics yet," Nova added. "But satanists doesn't sound very appealing. If you can tell us more, it will surely be helpful."

Anna nods at the troll but otherwise listens in on the conversation.

"Well, as you can see, we are quite a bit tourist dependent around here. We are a very welcoming, open community and we can deal with quite a lot of strange to accomodate all sorts.
But personally, I draw the line at people who torture animals to death and use their blood to paint graffiti on the walls. Thank god, nothing else has happened yet. I'm pretty sure no-one local would do such a thing - our youths are either working industriously..." at that he smiled at the busy ork girl "... or at least don't do stupid drek outside the matrix." At that he nodded towards the young troll that also had taken a seat on a small table and was yet again staring at his commlink with the singleminded focus that only gamers and addicts displayed in public.

"Of course there are quite a lot of hotels and B&Bs around here - at anyone of them, those idiots could stay."

Anna looks interested, but she is uncertain this bunch of Satanists is relevant. It makes for an interesting conversation though "How long since it started, Can you say that it has gotten worse recently? "

"About a week ago or so. at least that's when I first noticed. Someone had hung up a pregnant deer and cut open her belly...
Sorry, not really dinner conversation. Anyway, they used the blood to write these strange symbols on the ground. The only thing I recognized where the pentagrams.
I'm getting around here a lot during test drives and I saw during the following days another two places where a dog and a cat had been similarly slaughtered.

"Did you, by chance, make any pictures of those symbols?" Nova asked.


<< @Anna: Couldn't that be mages looking for those ley lines? Like, making these small rituals to test if they got the spot right, or something like that? >>

>>You got it right, I think it is black magic.

Good point, bnc reflects when Anna reminds her of calories. Bother I still need those.
So, she sends James into a store to buy sandwiches, spread cheese, muesli bars, and vitamine pills, as well as six cans of Pepper Plus, a roll and some jam.

Then she redirects her attention to the protocols ... and finds the ongoing conversation interesting. She jacks into Nova's audio channel, but really focusses on looking for newspaper reports, eye-witness testimonies and maybe even pictures of the mentioned symbols.

Häberle scratched his head: "No. Now that you mention it, I probably should have. But I think some of them are still visible. I'm going to mark the places on a map for you."

bnc's lightning fast search turned up quite a lot of junk, but with the help of a few filters, she soon had some very interesting bits of information:
There are currently two main factions of Black Magic practicioners in Southern Germany. Both are regarded as cults by the federal authorities of the ADL.

The first one calls themselves "Institute of higher arcane knowledge". They are pretty secretive and have serious financial backing. Their leader is Thadeus Eisner, alumni of the free University of Berlin.

The second one just calls themselves the "Hellfire Coven". This one has come to attention because they are heavily recruiting among youths and young adults and alledgedly introducing them to drug fuelled orgies. Rumors say, their leader, M. v. Koselbruch is heavily invested in spirit pacts and regularly has some of his disciples die in gruesome accidents.

"Looks like we are gonna get to do a little test drive, then." Nova said.

Through coincidence, Anna remembers that she has encountered a similar ritual before, Augury. She was never into divination, mainly because looking into the future is not as appealing as it first seems. First, the act of casting the ritual may change the future, and second, the answers come in riddles that can be interpreted in many ways.

>> bnc, it is the Augury ritual. They are trying to see into the future. Now seeing the future is easy, but without focus it is just noise.
The ritual filters out the information into a choerent answer. However, the future comes in riddles and you are looking for an initiated mage with strong foundations, perhaps even a T.hD that wrote a thesis on Divination. There shouldn't be many mages around here that can reliably pull it off.

To Nova she says "Indeed, but riding the unicycles is going to be so embarrassing"

<@Anna <u probably right. ask the fellow whether he can reproduce the drawings. whatever we find there might already have been bleached out one way or another. also try to casually find out roughly where the other cases of these rituals happened>>

bnc looks for organizations who care for stray dogs and cats. Also, she searches social media for families who ask around whether someone has spotted their missing pets and sorts the results by distance to the place, looking for patterns or maybe a means to get a gist how far away from each other rituals like this took place. If her search in the social media reveal mentions of blood rituals of any sort, she'll of course pay attention to these.

Anna marks the locations on the map, and tells bnc ">>We'll get there after dinner. I'd project myself, but it is a public place and I don't want to look as if someone spiked m drink.

Anna asks "Any chance you can redraw the symbols from memory? I can help with visual aids of arcane symbols for reference, and possibly help with other means."

<@Anna <wow anna very discreet>>

Häberle took out a tourist map ARO and marked the places where he had found the dead animals: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1daPEfMsghAQoXQe7NoApn24GgMqxme42&usp=sharing ://https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?...mp;usp=sharing

Afterwards he tried to draw the symbols he saw, but Anna soon recognized that he neither had the talent nor the necessary knowledge to create something useful. But at least it strengthened her theory about it being an augury ritual.

bnc's search doesn't bring um more vanished pets than usual for a rural area. Though there is a small article that someone stole a cow and her two calfs from a pasture last monday - as well as an article of two teenage girls running away from their homes and being currently marked as missing:
Christine Nemann and Yasmine Ubruk, both living in Todtnau. Only a few more clicks and bnc has their parents adresses.

bnc quickly updates the map to contain their current operation basis and the assumed nexus position as well.
<@all <the nexus is quite precisely in the same area as where the rituals took place.
i found out that some livestock was stolen. ill investigate that via james. probably unrelated
also 2 teen girls are missing. ill attach the newspaper artcl & their parents' adresses. finish ur meals and check on them. might be unrelated but they might also prep sthg where they need human blood.
taurus do you have any policing exp?>>

<< If this is related, and I can only assume that it is, then this might get pretty messy. We should try to find those girls. They don't deserve any of this. Although, they might as well be recruits. But still. Finding their trail could get us pretty close to these people. >>

>>It is worth investigating, I agree. Let's check the symbols and see if there is something worthwhile there. Perhaps Mhume knows how to do a ritual of her own if they left something behind. bnc, please forward the correspondence to her, and ask for some pointers for what to look at when we investigate. Also, let's prepare to negotiate, Nova are you any good at that? Augury ritual implies an experienced mage, which implies better pay for us. So we do get something out of this groundwork. It is best to get rid of it before we are too emotionally invested in this gig.

<@team <will do. might be able to dig up some info on the girls>>

After forwarding the message, bnc will try to find out more about the girls. Firstly, she checks out their social media profiles, what's going on in them and when they were last active.
Then bnc will pay a matrix visit to their parents' house and see what interesting icons she'd find there. She won't be as lucky as finding a comm, but there still might be clues.

The girls were attending the local Realschule, living close by. Mohamed Ubruk is an ork with a small bicycle shop. His daughter - although born to a pair of ork parents is a phenotypical human - a quirk of the sixth world genetic lottery. According to her posts on social media, that must have been quite a source of strive within her family and at school.

Nemanns have a small cleaning company with both of them being dwarves as well as their daughter. They too suffer from being a minority here, though seemingly a lot less than a human girl in an Ork and Troll dominated environment. This seems the main reason why the two girls found friendship among each other.

Both the girls' comms have been inactive for quite a while now - four days to be precise. Police are - according to the local papers - searching the area with drones. A task that is made difficult by the heavily wooded area.

When made aware about the situation, Muhme replies: <<This is not good. There is a high chance that whoever is behind theses auguries will resort to blood magic to conduct an ascension ritual - and in doing so open a bridge to the outer planes. We have to stop this ritual - if necessary by shooting any livestock or hostages they have.

I'm offering each of you 15k for the swift resolution.>>

<< Okay. So there has been a lot of "between the lines" talk here. I don't think you actually told us, yet, what our job will be in its entirety. We can figure, that it is to stop that ritual from happening, of course, but is that it? Any more details? And what exactly do you mean with the offer for the "swift response". Is this like a bonus? Or is it the offer for the job? If not, what is your offer for the job? I'm not big on rules myself, but a bit more formalized approach would be very much appreciated. >> Nova replied to Muhme.

Muhme replied: <<The mission is: Stop the ritual - preferably by stopping the ritualists. You know where they'll show up and when. Feel free to use whatever measure you deem necessary - including taking out their designated victims before they can be weaponized.
For that I offer each of you 15.000 Nuyen.
If you can resolve this situation without us having to wait the remaining 1.5 days, i.e. finding them tonight, so we can move on to the next likely site, I'll add another 7.5k to your individual pay.>>

>>> Mhume we were under the impression that the next job would pay similar to the previous one. Augury is a difficult ritual that requires an initiated mage and an arcane scholar. This is no wannabe sorcerer, it is a professional - and likely university trained mage. I do not know that Ascension ritual but again, someone that can pull that off is very dangerous, and we are one man short so that saves you a lot of money and make it more dangerous to the rest of us.
You can pay 30k - and given circumstances this is fair pay. I'll appreciate if we can settle on that price without the haggling routine -30k no bonuses and we will do it as fast as possible while trying to minimize the risk and the visibility of the mission. I mean it with great respect, but 15k for facing a murder initiated mage and his cabal is too little for people of our caliber, and it feels like you should know it by now. I mean you hired us for a considerably higher fee, and we performed the task to your satisfaction.

Muhme replied: <<You are overstating the danger here. Your opponents are not aware of you - that makes them an easy target for your two heavy hitters. Combined with your impressive counterspelling abilities there should be no danger you can't deal with.
Your initial fee was a sign of good will on my part - and all it did was give that fish idiot reason to abandon the mission. All this leads to is you asking more and more for every trivial task.
This is just not feasible. I have a budget - and I already added what I would have offered the fish man to your bonus. 22k are generous.
If I squander my funds at such a low level situation, I will be unable to pay you when a really difficult mission appears. Or are you going in those for pennies when the time comes? I think not.
I can increase the bonus to a full 10k for a total of 25k - but only if you can recover the gear of these ritualists. That might allow me to recoup some of my expenses.>>

<< The more you tell us about the situation at hand, something that you have spent a great amount of time on to prepare, I'm certain, the better we can adjudicate it. We do not need to know your whole plan, and you surely do not want to share it, but just what is relevant for the current mission. You use your knowledge, already, to figure out what you are willing to offer, but without it, we can only guess. The more vagueness, the higher the price. Because that vagueness is greatly affecting our risk here. Well, it is also yours in a way, since you want these missions to succeed, obviously. Anyways, I am willing to trust your assessment here and this offer does sound fair to me. >> Nova messaged.