Kadel spots no other menaces, explosive or otherwise, up the ladder.

Hooking his flashlight onto his utility belt, Kadel quickly scales up the ladder to the room above. He pulls the flashlight free again as soon as he hits the floor on B1, and shines its beam around the room to find the light switch. Spotting it on a nearby wall, he flips it on and assesses the room he's in as the light illuminates his surroundings with its radiance.

With echos of the blasts still ringing in his ears, Kyle snatches up the Colt Whisper and pears around the doorframe. He squezzes off a burst in the enemy's direction before ducking back to the relative safety of the doorframe.

Team A

FWA-KRABOOM!

The incredibly distinct and eardrum shattering sound of a sniper rifle pierces the air in the theatre. The sniper bites his cig so hard that it tears in half, the round from his gun blasting right through the wooden and plasteel structural material Slash's heat signature was emanating from.

The mage was hoping Burn would make a move first. He looked powerful, but the mage just had to try. He gathered his spiritual strength and flung the best spell he knew at Burn, leaving him utterly drained.

Team B
The moment Kadel flips on the switch, he notices the room he's in is not much different in size than the one below, but the room is so well furnished...

He's walked in a small library, filled with a hermetic circle and shelves of musty tomes. Various comfortable couches and expensive furniture adorns the place. Even the lights have been built to resemble flickering candlelight.

A dressing table in a corner of the room has all manner of magical looking trinkets abound. A desk right next to that is actually a workdesk of what looks to be a demolitions shop - a few mines and grenades lie scattered on the desk.

The room has several 'fake' windows that show a constant view of a semi-victorian city skyscape below, as if they were in a tower. A quick assensing reveals that it's an illusion. Pretty illusion, but illusion nontheless. It's currently nightime in the illusion cityscape.

There's one door out of the room, and it has an incredibly powerful ward on it - The lift level doorway of B1. The ward is an amazing Force 12 ward on the elevator doorway.

Kadel looks at the luxurious furnishings of the room for a moment, silent. Then he turns to the dwarf as he scrambles up the ladder and steps off right next to him.

"Maintenance power supply terminal, huh?"

He shrugs in response.

"Don't look at me. I didn't come here before."

Out of the corner of his eye, Kadel catches a smooth line running down the wall behind the bookcase. As he moves closer to investigate, he finds out that it's part of the outline of what looks like a doorway. After some huffing and puffing, he manages to push the bookcase further down, revealing the entire door. He grips the knob and tries it - unlocked.

"Guys, I think you better come up here," Kadel whispers into the comms. After considering for a second, he holsters his pistol and pulls free a Defiance Super Shock taser from his belt. One hand on the doorknob and the other on his gun, he swings the door open while simultaneously bringing his weapon up.

Axe crept up to the balcony level and got a good look at the situation. He spotted the spellcaster, as well as the sniper and pulled upon the links between himself and several of his spirits, letting them know that their master wished for them to handle that sniper and mage.

Team B

An incredibly insidious odor hits the team standing in front of the door as Kadel opens it. It looks to be a utility room, with what looks like a backup generator set into the back wall, with lots of hanging wires and electronics scattered about the room.

The smell is coming from the floor, which is utterly covered in (normal) rat carcasses and dried rat blood. A single light on the ceiling illuminates the room eerily. And strange enough, in front of the generator interface a large black dog lies asleep, chained to a post driven into the ground a feet away.

Interestingly, the generator interface looks shot - literally. bullet holes and sparks indicate that the generator is offline, and the building is taking power from some other source.

"..."

Closing the door gently so as to not awaken the dog, Kadel turns around and faces the team.

"Busted auxiliary generator, from what I can tell. Riddled with bullet holes. If this was done by the Ts , I think it's safe to say that the building isn't drawing power from the plant anymore either. Somehow they've managed to keep everything up and running regardless. If it was done by a third party, then I guess we should prepare for a major blackout in this place sometime in the near future."

Switching his radio frequency to the one shared by all the fireteams, he says, "Team A, Delta, Black Spec - this is Bravo 2 speaking. We've ascertained that there has been at least two traps of the explosive variety set for us on the climb up. Assuming that this is the work of those who are now holding the building hostage, it's possible that they've taken similar measures to secure the roof entrance. Keep your eyes open. Bravo 2 out."

Muttering something about tumbling deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, Kadel moves to the elevator shaft and shines the flashlight around to make sure it's not rigged with another trap. Seeing none, he calls up the cargo lift, thumbs the 1st floor button, and closes his eyes, meditating to prepare himself for the inevitable fight that is awaiting them somewhere in the many floors above.

Reaper has followed up the team leads up to level B1. The troll is impressed by Kadel's keen eye that picked up the outline of the hidden door. As they examine their surroundings, he keeps his Astral sight open for anything not obvious on the physical world. In particular, he examines the unusual sleeping dog.

Preparing to go up the final level to the besieged ground level, Reaper sccops up the various magical fetishes that lie scattered around and places them into his multiple pockets for future examination.

"Theo' any o' dese boombooms look like tha otha ones?"

Team B
The dog looks strange on the astral - it's dual-natured, but there's something about it that just looks very, very out of place. Heck, it's aura doesn't really seem to be that of a dog, either. Looks more like a wolf.

There is quite a number of explosives in the room, mostly in packets marked C4 and C12. There's a detonator, bunch of timers and tools to work on explosives, but no mines, grenades or other kinds of explosives you can find within the desk.

Reaper pockets a small pile of mostly expendable fetishes from every category.

Reaper continues to examine the dog Astrally, trying to sort out what it was that appeared "abnormal".

It's mainly the fact that it looks more like a wolf, though a bit of the disturbance seems to be emotional - it's sleeping soundly, nose and ears twitching, but it also seems to be rather disturbed by something. A bad dream or nightmare perhaps.

Team A

The girl with the assault rifle is caught off guard. The round from Slash's gun tears through the top of the theatre seat and shears right through her armoured chest, a huge gash of blood erupting from a gaping wound in just above her heart. She's knocked back by the force of the blow, and slams against the back of the theatre seat behind her, avoiding falling prone. Blood is openly trickling down her mouth, and she doesn't look like she's up to continue the fight.

The lift cab stops moving as it reaches its final destination seconds later. Kadel opens his eyes at the same time the doors begin to slide open.

Team B

There's a long corridor out of this lift, being a maintenance lift and all, so it's not placed in a very obvious location.

The corridor is made out of a stark gray marble-like material, shiny and glossy all over. The kicker here is that the corridor is splashed with blood much like the lift is, a trail of it leads through to the only door you can see, which is at the far end of the corridor (corridor length is about 10 metres). It's a tight fit for Reaper.

Some maintenance pipes are exposed through cracks in the blood- and bullet-riddled walls. There's some kind of light smoke or similar looking substance wafting out from the cracks and covering minute parts of the corridor in a fine mist. This mist also shows that the entirety of the corridor seems to be trapped with laser lines, though you can't see any laser projectors or receivers in the walls - odd.

And at the end of the corridor is a single metal crate. On top of this crate are bottles of booze, and a machine gun on a tripod. A human in gray urban camo is sprawled over the machine gun, but you can't tell if he's sleeping or has been knocked out.

As the sniper is made, Terry thinks to himself, "I could use one of those." He refocuses, waiting for the sniper to show himself again while he adjusts his grip on his weapon.

Kadel stares at the web of laser beams criss-crossing down the corridor. From the way the trap is arranged, he's pretty sure he can ninja his way through them, but there's no way Reaper can pass without tripping at least one. Strange enough, there are no visible emitters or receivers on the walls.

He considers for a second how the laser trap can be disabled, and draws a complete blank. Without visible parts to tinker with, there's no way to go through them unless it's only a single system with mirror strips in between to reflect the beams. The independent formation of the individual laser lines rules that possibility out.

"To hell with it."

He aims carefully at a spot four inches away from where the first beam intersects with the wall, and fires a single shot. The bullet tears through grey material and he hears the sizzling of fried circuitry. Shining his flashlight through the hole, he finds not an emitter or receiver, but an huge network of electronics that looks like it spans the entire length and width of the wall. Abruptly, every single beam in the hallway disappears.

"Jesus. What in God's name is this shit?" Kadel breathes incredulously as he stares at the wall of circuitry behind the wall of marble.

As far as he knows, this wasn't a standard laser trap design...it's far more advanced than anything he has ever seen. Why the owner of the building saw it fit to wire up the corridor leading to the basement levels with such a high tech security system is yet another mystery in the pot of overflowing mysteries that they've come across since the insertion into the sewers. Like the rest of the inconsistencies, Kadel files it away in his mind and starts to move down the corridor.

"Laser trap up top, highly possible that it has been tripped," he reports into the comms. "Reinforcements may be coming as we speak. We need to move, and move quickly. Get up here now."

As he reaches the man with the machine gun, Kadel sidesteps behind him and shoves the pistol up his spine.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Nap time's over."

"Zzz...ugh? What's going on? Oh drek...okay! Okay! Easy!"

The T replies with a drunken stupor and a thick accent you can't quite make out. It sounds like English isn't his first language. One his head is a rough bandage over a patch of bruised skin. Looks like blunt trauma. He had been holding a gun in one of his hands, a Colt America model L36, which he promptly drops once he wakes up.

"I hope for your sake that you're in good enough shape to answer a few questions," Kadel says coldly.

"One, who are you working for?"

"Two, in what floors are the hostages being held?"

"Three, where did you guys stash the warhead?"

"I am working for the greater cause." He replies just as coldly and matter-of-factly. "To rid the world of these scum abominations you call metahumans."

"There are hostages on every floor. As for the nuclear weapon, it is in one of the towers on the top floor of this building."

"Rid the world of metahuman scum? How exactly are you planning to do that? And don't bother rehashing the bullshit that you guys fed the authorities, because we both know that they're not going to succumb to your demands."

"Seattle will be an example, of course. Other nations will take us seriously once this place is gone." He snorts. It's rather obvious he either doesn't know what's really going on, or intentionally feeding you a load of bull.

Kadel nods in response. "Fine. Answer me this last question, and you can walk away with your life. Where in the building can I find the leader of this operation?"

I feel sorry for this poor bastard if he actually believes what he's saying.

He doubts that this man will lead him to whoever is in charge, but it's worth a shot.

"My life's not really important anymore." He mumbles under his breath. "Fine, you want to meet our leader? Try and head up to the restaurant and suites on the 60th floor. He'll be there, I assure it."

Kadel grins, and says, "Hey man, don't worry. Your life isn't quite forfeit yet, because whatever you might think, that nuke is not going to blow. Sorry to disappoint."

He pulls his taser free and shoves it right under the terrorist's left shoulder blade. "Well, interview's over. You can go back to sleep now. Sweet dreams."

Twin prongs pierce through the man's clothes and send a surge of electricity into his body as Kadel pulls the trigger. As the terrorist folds over, he holsters the weapon and turns his head to gaze at the door behind him.

"Theodor, two questions," he says into the comms. "Are there really suites and a restaurant on the 60th floor? And are there specific places in the building where the general security cameras, if there are any, are being monitored?"

The T sprawls over the crate, knocking down the bottles of booze, muttering something in his sleep about 'Cathy'. Weird.

Anyway, The maps Theodor has include that there really are suites there, though the restaurent mentioned is displayed on the map more like a high class bar.

Sec cam feeds are pumped directly through to the mainframe, where presumably security deckers monitor them. It's located on the 1st floor somewhere, though they have stations and jackpoints all over the place. Theo's map however, notes that intel gathered on the building suggests the mainframe is either down or in repairs and not functioning.

Theodor studies the map overlays in his brain, his hand on his chin whilst doing so.

"....Eatink house in 60th floor? Am seeink suites but am seeink no eatink house. Am only seeink good place to drink. Unt...accordink to map, ze master sekurity comp iz shot. Terrorists are takink it out fust... am thinkink cameras may not be verkink, but ze slave points are intact."

"No security cams, huh? That could be both a good and bad thing for us."

Kadel waits until the rest of the team reaches the corridor, then swings open the door at the end past the crate.

Burn tiptoes invisibly into the theatre, confident that no one can see him. The mage, astrally perceiving, does in fact see him, and unleashes a stunbolt spell at Burn, who is still perfectly visible on the astral plane. Fighting off the effects of the spell, Burn tosses a manabolt at the first enemy he sees: the sniper.

Noting the sudden actions of Burn, Terry actively masks himself, then switches to astral perception so he can see what is really happening, while still keeping an eye out for the sniper. If the mage is fighting some elemental, he might be able to help.

Team A

The sniper lurches forward and falls over the edge of the small room he was overlooking the theatre from. He and his rifle hit the floor below with quite an impact.

Team A

The body of the mage lies dead on the floor, pummeled to oblivion and back by Axe's spirits.

After a brief conflict, your opponents are dead or gone. The only two left are the dazed machine gunner and the severely injured lady with the assault rifle.

Team B

You open the door and see a large front floor foyer. The foyer of the building is huge and has been made up rather nicely with vintage post-modern deconstructionist style. There are lots of displays and other pieces of architecture, now they lie scattered in piles here and there, some obscuring doors, and some even on fire.

The front double glass doors of the building have been blocked by a pile of such displays. The entirety of the lobby has been riddled with bullet holes and blood sprays, a few dead bodies of Ts lie scattered about, as well as some that look like civilians.

"You!"

A loud voice calls over from behind an upturned desk some distance away. Taking cover behind the desk is a well-built man dressed in security armour with the Knight Errant logo emblazoned on his shoulder plates.

"Identify yourselves!"

The dwarf mage pops his head through the door and whistles at the carnage. He spots the source of the voice and promptly pulls his head back through the door.

The man in security armour's eyes widen visibly, even though he's almost ten metres away.

"Identify yourselves, and make it good!"

Kadel takes half a step back as soon as he sees the man, taking cover behind the doorway.

"CT team hired by the G," he answers in response. "Who the hell are you?"

"Knight Errant Firewatch Dispatch. What the hell are you doing with a T if you're on our side?"

Kadel narrows his eyes, and reaches behind him, grabbing a fist full of the dwarf's shirt and pulling him forth.

"You're talking about him?"

The dwarf gets shoved unceremoniously forward.

"Yeah, him! His unit got into a firefight with mine, runt ran away with another one!"

The dwarf doesn't seem to be trying to free himself, and mutters calmly something about his bad luck.

"I suppose you're going to believe them and shoot me right now, huh?"

"According to him, he was part of the mercenary unit hired to defend this building. Is there a reason why I should take your word over his?"

Team B

"Listen, whoever you are." The man in security armour shouts back. "That's an identified T you're with right now. We could very well ask you the same bloody fragging question."

Terry's military training and instincts were in fine form. "Allright, let's clear and secure the room, then the adjoining ones, people!" He maneuvered over to the prisoners, pistol in hand and aimed between them. "You two, lay flat on your stomachs, spread eagled. Fail to comply and I will shoot you. You have 5 seconds starting now." He begins a mental countdown, deadly serious.

The machine gunner groans and flops around, still partially deaf and dazed from the flashbang grenade. He can barely make out your words, but he tries to comply.

The girl, despite bleeding badly, quickly follow through with your request, staining the blood red carpet even more so.

Terry pats each of them down, searching for weapons, utilities, etc. He confiscates any and everything, then calls for someone to bind the two up for questioning.

"Identified T? Where's the identification? I'll admit he's sorta decked out like the T catching up on his beauty sleep back there, but surely you have more than that to go on.

'As for us, we came in with the military antiterrorist teams Black Spec 4 and Delta 5. If you still have a way to contact your boss outside, you can give 'em a ring to confirm. I'm pretty sure they would've found out who the rooftop-bound aircraft were carrying by now.

'Besides, why do you think you're still alive? If we're the big bad terrorists, wouldn't we be trying to...oh, I don't know...kill you, maybe?"

As Kadel proceeds to discuss the various possibilities with the KE guard, Reaper again rests his body against the wall and projects into the room, looking for other life within the battle-torn ground floor.

Team B

"It's a hellhole down here, we're not taking any chances. That runt engaged us in a firefight back when we were securing this floor! That's proof enough for us..."

Reaper floats through the door and above the rather high-ceilinged foyer. He spots four beings still alive in the battlezone. However, only one of them has the KE armour on - The rest are wearing gray camo outfits and ducking behind some serious cover, cocking and loading weaponry. Even the one with the KE armour on doesn't have the full set, and what he does have on is riddled with blood and bullet holes, while the person inside doesn't look to be injured in the slightest. One of them is awakened and concentrating some feet away, summoning what looks to be a city spirit. He already has five of them floating about him in the astral, though he doesn't notice you.

Reaper quickly returns to his body, whispering into his comm even as he does so, "Drek, looks like an ahmbush - 'e's not KE an' dere's four others loadin' up weapons. One's a mage wit' five spirits, I'll take care of spirits in Astral." He also quickly gives the general location of each one, especially the mage. "An' lets deny dem any line o' sight if ya can."

Reaper then calls all his elementals, dropping back into Astral space and ordering them to "Attack my enemies".

"Allright. One of you talks at a time and the other keeps his or her murderous mouth shut. Understand?" Terry looked at the both, then pointed at the machine gunner. "You...identify yourself and your organization. I want to know the numbers ya brought in and who's in charge as well as where to find him and what to expect on the way. And just in case ya think I'm kidding around..."

Terry takes the survival knife from the girl and lets them both get a good look at it, then slams it down in the man's foot.

"Remember, I can do a whole lot worse."

He really couldn't. He was no cold blooded torturer...his viciousness was a result of outrage and anger, not the calm, cold demeanor needed to torture someone...but they didn't know that.

"Ambush, damn."

DT slowly halls the dwarf back in.


"We are in a bad spot to be assaulting the room. It looks like they are still getting ready form Reapers description. We can charge them and hope to catch them by surprise or try and talk our way into getting closer. Kade? Your the boss, make the call."

The lady is bleeding too much to understand you coherently. In fact, both of them look extremely out of it. The machine gunner certainly pipes up when his feet ends up cut - He hollers in pain and curses in...some asian language. sounds like slang Japanese. He finally replies in perfect English.

"Black December...terror..." He shakes his head, still suffering from the effects of the flashbang. "terr-er... name... Suzuhara...Miyamoto...leader...three floors down...at sui..." He strains his voice, still fighting off the pain from his feet.

Transmission from BlackSpec to both Teams

Your team radios suddenly go live as your correspondant from the BlackSpec group call the both of you on your dedicated channels.

"I'll cut the military talk 'cause we're in deep drek and lots of it." Sounds of loud explosions, screams and gunfire on the opposite end. "Our tech got a look at those terrorist frequencies Alpha team sent us...one of them is Delta's dedicated channel..."

With that, the transmission cuts off abruptly. Their signal, already weak, seems to be blocked by something.