<<<If you got his hoop on ice, and you can wait, I can make inquiries. Set up a little auction, maybe, but if you're in a hurry to make a sale that's what I have on the table today. So it's up to you - the highest bidder, or the buy-it-today price?>>>

Sotto voce, Blue advises Karmakaze, """ Bird in hand, way better than two in the bush. Let's take the good money and not risk keeping yet another dangerous cargo in our back seat. """

<<<[Karma>Jaxx] Will they pay six, tonight?,>>> she tries to sound confident, but not sure if she pulls it off. It has been a long night, and it is about to get busy.

Jaxx hums a bit to himself for a moment. <<<Eeehmmmm, you know what, if you get him to me tonight, bound and alive, no DocWagon HRT team incoming I can save some on my end, and squeeze you up to fifty-five. Dead but identifiable I can do you fifteen, so ka?>>>

<<<[Karma>Jaxx] Deal. He'll be alive, you know me. Now about the dragonettes... Can you put me into contact with any talismongers?>>>

"""It would be nice to get rid of two albatrosses around our necks in one night. """

<<<Talismongers? Kind of a specialised field there, Karmapillar. I know a few, and I could give you some names of shops, but if the critters are alive and kicking then there's a droog on the edge of the valley, running a shop he calls the Metabiologist. I can give you his coordinates, if you wanna try it. Not my scene. He's probably sleeping now, but the biz never does, does it? Would that grease your turbines?>>>

<<<[Karma>Jaxx] That would be great, Jaxxaroni!>>>

""" Alright, then, """ Blue rubs his hands together. """ Does my suggested plan for the two guards in the car work for you? If so, I'll get my spirit on the case. """

The link with Jaxx drops, and about three minutes later Karmakaze's 'link blips with the notification of an incoming message, with directions to Metabiologist.

Metabiologist's shop is in fact on the edge of the Puyallup valley, somewhere to the northeast of where Karmakaze and Blue are right now. It's one of the older areas that somehow escaped the volcanic flows from Mount Rainier, due to being high enough up the edge of the valley not to be inundated, but that subsequently lost infrastructure and was quietly forgotten and left to its own wreckage. Barrens? Kind of. But more the dilapidated kind, than the overbuilt slum kind.

"""Yes, your plan sounds great. I got an offload location for an unconscious or otherwise subdued Jeremy, and a possible buyer for the snakes."""

"""Alright, then.""" Blue rubs his hands together. As they park up the street form the target vehicle, Blue communicates with the spirit.

:::Brickrot, Conceal the two of us and yourself as well. Then, go to that vehicle, ::: he points to the black vehicle-shaped mass as it appears on the astral, ::: materialize above it so the two people inside can't see you appear, and then get to where you can see them, and Confuse them as well as you can.:::

"""OK. Brickrot is on its way. Let's go. """ As he steps out of the car, Blue steels himself for what may be a very painful double blast of mana. He heads non-nonchalantly up the street towards the target vehicle.

Blue strolls casually up the street, cool breeze playing at the hems of his clothing.

And nothing happens. Brickrot doesn't materialise.

Karmakaze follows Blue, with both firearms ready. She would rather lead, but she has no idea what is going on... astrally speaking.

Blue slows down. """ Something is wrong. Brickrot hasn't shown. I'm taking a look. """ Blue opens his perception to the astral plane to see what is up with the spirit.

Blue's vision shifts across the worlds, and with it comes a glow and heat unlike anything from the street in which he stands. He looks across in time to see a pillar of flame incinerating the writhing remains of Brickrot. It is a fire elemental, by the looks of things, and one as tall as a duplex.

On the more mundane level, Karmakaze sees some movement in the target vehicle, as if someone were turning around.

"""Trouble on the astral, Karmakaze. You'll have to deal with the car. """

Blue is a novice out here, but suddenly the sight of a honking big elemental reminds him of an axiom he obeyed when younger and playing Dungeons & Dragons edition 17.5:

'Never split the party."

Blue withdraws from the astral post-haste and fills in Karmakaze. """ Nasty on the astral. Maybe a mage in the car. Let's deal with the metahumans and the nasty should go away. """

Karmakaze ducks, pulling Blue down with her.

"""Follow me, and stay behind cover. They know something is up, now. Do you have anything else in your armory? Spells, firearms?"""

Karma speaks while peering through a series of car rear windows and windshields.

"""At least keep watch for any magic coming towards us."""

Her heart starts to race as the adrenaline kicks in, and a chill runs up her spine as she can no longer control the wired reflex jitters.

It may be a blessing, or it may be a curse, but the weather seems to make the occupants of the car disinclined to step outside. Whether they'd have a clear view of Blue and Karmakaze can't be established with any certainty, but they'd have to crane their necks to get one.

On the other hand, they do seem to be active. Karmakaze sees the car shift ever-so-slightly on its springs as they move around. They're probably not reaching for a bottle of vodka.

Blue catches sight of both of the occupants at the same time. Not perfect, maybe, but it's now or never. Either they are silenced or the prey gets enough warning to cut out. And maybe that fire elemental gets called into the fray.

"Yeah, I have something, KK. Here goes nothing. "" With a quick mental nod to his Totem, Blue fires up two Stunbolts, one at each occupant of the car.

+++ This could hurt. +++



Blue learns a lot from this. He has the strength of will to resist multiple castings at once, as long as they are not too high a Force. Now let's see if the spells work.

The two spells fly home - not that Karmakaze has any real view of this. All she perceives is a sort of beat of air from the direction of Blue, and then what looks like the two goons in the car slumping. Are they out? Gutpunched? Hard to tell, but something happened, sure as Ares stocks ammo.

OK, was that it? Maybe. All the dirty rain beaded on car windows makes it hard to get a good view. But so far, no alarms raised.

As soon as the bodies start to slump, Karmakaze is advancing with both firearms raised.

"""On the move,""" she tells Blue.

She keeps the heavy pistol in her right hand trained on the passenger and the sub in her left trained on the driver. Karma moves quickly, keeping her body as close to the parked cars as possible to maintain some cover.

Karmakaze moves forward smoothly, long elven legs covering the ground in a measure loping gait, nonetheless faster than Blue could ever have hoped to follow.

On her arrival next to the car, she sees both men slumped in their seats, completely unresponsive. They're both human, and whatever Blue did seems to have been highly effective. There's no clear sign to suggest that they're dead, rather than unconscious, although Karmakaze does see blood dripping from the nose of the one on the left. Presumably Blue knocked them out effectively.

From Karmakaze's body language, it is clear the two in the car are not currently a threat. Blue scans the area, looking for anything else dangerous.

When Blue looks through the veil, he sees fire. Flames licking in every direction.

Then he realises that the fire elemental that he had seen earlier is drifting around almost exactly where he is.

Figuratively speaking, Blue pulls his head out of that hole as fast as he can. Back fully in the material plane, he advises Karmakaze as he moves around erratically, trying not to make it easy for the elemental to materialize right around him.

""" There's a fire elemental in the astral that might be interested in me. If we immobilize these two and remove any way they can communicate with Jimmy, maybe we can ditch the thing by going inside. Maybe it's been told to patrol the perimeter, or something. """

Karma attempts to open the passanger side door, assuming that the unbloodied guard is more likely to come to first.

The passenger door opens, no problem, and Karmakaze can drag out the slumped human in the shotgun seat, although she lacks the strength to lift him bodily. He lands on the kerb like a sack of turnips and lies there, inert.

Blue's frantic dance doesn't make a lot of sense to the casual viewer, but perhaps it works because he is not suddenly enveloped in flame.

"""Damn!""" says Blue as he dances around, trying to be a moving target. """ I dredged up my knowledge of elementals. This thing won't necessarily disappear just because its master is unconscious. It could be just picking on the nearest target, me, and going for it. I don't dare Assense the two in the car for fear the elemental will have a shot at me on the astral. If one of them is a mage, it should have gone after him. Maybe the car made a barrier through which it could not find him. Can you pull the other guy out too? If one of them is the master, it might turn its flames on him. """

Blue continues to dance and makes sure his astral armor one-shot spell is to hand.

"""Drek!""" Karma says as the body slumps out.

She pats him down for any weapons, and assuming he may be the mage, she removes any jewelry from his body. Any artifacts she will place on the dash (+++maybe Blue will want something+++), weapons, comlinks and identifications she will keep.

She looks back at Blue, who looks to be entertaining the magical threats still. Hopefully she can finish quickly before whatever they are turn their focus toward her.

She then pulls the laces from the passengers shoes, and ties his hands behind his back, then his ankles together. She attempts to shove his body back into the vehicle the best she can, but if too difficult, she will just have to move to the driver and repeat the process.

Karmakaze quickly finds a long knife, an Ares Predator with two extra magazines, all loaded with hollowpoint ammunition. He also had two sets of handcuffs on him. Jewelry is there, of course; a fancy wrist chain, a chain with a locket around his neck, and half a dozen rings that, to judge by their wear, serve as brass knuckles as well. There's a 'link, a credstick but no separate ID.

The driver has a sort of billyclub, a Browning Maxpower (also with two extra magazines, all loaded with hollowpoints), but no jewels besides a single gold ring and a single gold earring. He, too, has a 'link, a credstick and no separate ID.

Both of them have DocWagon bracelets, but they're obviously lowest-tier contracts. It's not clear that DocWagon will even care as long as they aren't actually dying.

Shoving them back into seats unaided is a bit beyond Karmakaze, but there they are. At least they are immobilised.

The handcuffs are an excellent find, and instead of using shoelaces Karma handcuffs the passenger with the linkage running through the "drek-bar" and the driver through the steering wheel.

"""Blue, how are you doing with whatever you doing it with?"""

""" I'm trying to keep from being a stationary target for the fire elemental to materialize beside. But, honestly, I could keep that up forever and not know if I still needed to. I'll take a magical look at the items you stripped from the two of them to see if anything lights up. While I do that, do you think you could switch to the nastiest ammo you have, in case the elemental does materialize? I don't think I could handle it by myself. """

Blue gets close to the items Karmakaze dumped and takes a magical look at them.

"""All I have is gel rounds. Are those even less effective against spirits and the like than normal rounds?"""

Karmakaze wonders to herself if there were some sort of foci that could be placed on ammunition to make dispatching ghosts, and assumes if there were such a thing, it was probably quite expensive.

No fire elementals - nor any other spiritual entities - materialise when Blue, huffing and panting a little, comes over to look at the items.

It's hard to look for magical traces on items when one's view of the astral is dominated by a fire elemental, and this nonetheless appears to be Blue's present condition. They probably aren't, but all that his view confirms is that fire elementals are undeniably magical entities.

On the material plane everything has been so quiet that there's no sign of alarm or concern, as far as Karmakaze and Blue are concerned. The lovenest still has visible lights peeping from windows, but nobody is silhouetted against them.

Blue replies to Karmakaze. """ This issue with spirits is that they have a magical armour that is like vehicle armour. If your attack isn't powerful enough to overcome the armour, it has no effect at all. Fortunately, this elemental doesn't seem interested in materializing. Out here, anyway.

""" So let's ditch all the equipment somewhere so the two of these guys can't easily re-equip, and go after our target. It looks to me as if the occupants of the residence don't know yet that we are here. How do you propose we effect entry so as to keep them ignorant as long as possible? """

"""We could wait for him to come out, or we can try to find an unlocked entry. Or we could knock on the front door... Really I figured we would have to bust in through a window or something."""

In this weather, it comes as no surprise that all visible windows are shut, and at this time no light seems to be coming from behind any curtains or blinds.

It doesn't look as if the front door has anything as sophisticated as a maglock. It's possible (although not particularly likely) that the back of the structure would offer alternative access. There is a second storey, with an abbreviated roof over it that shelters a sort of narrow porch in front of the house; if the dynamic duo could find a way up there, they could address the upstairs windows with some degree of stability, but as for other points of access there are no skylights visible from this angle.

Blue responds, """Waiting for him to come out could be a problem. He probably will want to check with his security out here before he does that.

"""If we could get up to that second story, that might be an easier way in, and closer to our target. Second story doors and windows are sometimes left unlocked ... I understand. I don't have an easy way to magically get us up there, though. No spell, and I suspect the fire elemental on the astral plane would eat any spirit I summon out here to carry us up. Are you any good at climbing?

""" Might be an idea to check the back, too, to see if there is a fire escape or back stairs. """

Thinking further, Blue adds, """ If I could get to a place where I could see the inside of a door, I could use a spell to open it from the inside. Like, a side window or back window giving a line of sight to a front door, for example. """

"""I am thinking the same thing. Let's try the back."""

Karmakaze and Blue walk around the end of the structure, and find a narrow access road at the back, mostly populated by raccoon-proof trash bins. The look is rather different here; there are no cute little porches or overhangs, just a flat facade with uniform windows and a back door per apartment. It's pretty obvious that the builders maximised the internal space of the houses by building right up to the access road's easement, while saving any hope of appearances for the side facing the main traffic.

On inspection (by counting) they find a glimmer of hope: the window to the left of the back door in each dwelling is a kitchen window, and it is slightly open with a smell of steak sauce coming from the deserted kitchen.

"""Here we go,""" Karma whispers. """Can you provide any protection or stealth as we enter?"""

""" Well, I can make one of us invisible, even to machines, but I don't know how that will help when there are two of us. Let's see if there is any camera equipment aimed our way. """

Blue takes a look around to see if there is a camera overlooking their actions.

The closest cameras that Blue spots are up on the corners of the rowhouse, at the entry to the access road on which they stand. Presently the nearer one is maybe thirty yards distant, and not pointing directly at them.

Blue informs Karmakaze. """ I can't see any camera looking our way at the moment. Let's go. See if you can pull the window wider open and climb in. I might need a little help getting up there and in. """

A action enters Blue's mind. """ Wait! Magicians can have more than one elemental on call at the same time. Watching an open window from inside would be cautious. Let me look in the window astrally to see if there is something waiting for us in there. """

Taking the risk that the fire elemental isn't hanging right on him, Blue looks inside through the opening with his astral sense.

Karma crouches in the shadows while Blue does his magic.

"""Tell me when to go. If you want to make me invisible while I enter and clear the first floor, then you can enter after."""

The fire elemental does not appear to have followed around, for whatever reason that made sense in its mission.

The interior of the building looks refreshingly mundane. The astral doesn't add much to the view of what Blue sees anyway with his vision, and there's enough ambient light that Karmakaze gets a pretty good view as well.

In summary, the interior of the lovenest looks rather like what Karmakaze would think of as ex-fratgirl chic. There are cutesy bits of kitsch decorations adorning what is a functional but relatively mid-range household interior. Sure, the kitchen countertops are probably polished concrete or similar artificial stone, and it looks nice but the reality is that it's a cheap solution. The appliances are nothing to get too excited about, for all that she has an automatic rice cooker and an autowok, but in all fairness they're probably better than were originally with this place.

Maybe the money goes on her underwear drawer and perfume selection.