You actually meet a few of Lone Star's mages and their accompanying spirits and elementals projecting around the building, though they have received word of you and grudgingly let you pass. Almost all of the building is warded except for parts that are under construction, as well as the rooftop. The Mage explain to you that they don't dare try to get past the wards in case they belong to the terrorists and not the building's owner.

When the Troll Mage gets back from the Astral, he realizes Syl's already sent him a case file on the terror group Black December.

"Best I could do on such short notice, Reaper. Hope it's good enough chummer, because it's ripped, well supposedly ripped, from one of the gov's own database. Came from a friend, but I did a bit of cross-referencing for you on other sources and it seems to check out."

Slash decides to pick up a little gear before heading to Fort Lewis. He calls Spikehead up on his cell phone. "Spike, I need 8 clips of APDS ammo for my Predator 3s, and I need them pronto. I also need 2 doses of oxygenated flourocarbons."

Slash hangs up the phone and drives home with Burn. Once home, he double-checks that all his gear is in the car, and sets to work making some atropine with in their chemistry shop. It's probably overkill given how good he is with swords, but hey, it never hurts to have your weapons coated in poison.

Burn calls up Lancer HQ and asks if they have some items for him. He needs a force 4 expendable health spell focus, a force 3 expendable manipulation spell focus, two doses of oxygenated flourocarbons, and five 1 kg shaped charges, suitable for blowing holes in walls or breaching doors.

Upon reaching home, he helps Slash make some atropine, then summons a few spirits.

The meeting thus concluded, Theodor leaves the Space Needle. He drives back to the unnamed town, situated on the intersection of the borders of Snohomish, Redmond and Bellvue, his home. With 6 hours left to spare, he figured he should pack some extra gear, just in case.

Stopping his car at the scrapyard at the entrance of the small town, he approaches a zinc shack, that has apparently been converted to a makeshift shop of sorts, what with that large section cut off and installed counter and all.

A scruffy junkyard drifter mans the counter, and greets Theodor as he approaches.

"Hey-a! If it isn't-a my regular-a customer-a. I make-a you a great-a offer today-a. I sell-a you a duck."

A 'quack' is heard in the background.

"Am sorryink, komrade Ethos, but am not interestink in pet right now."

"Pity-a. Nobody to take-a care O' him-a after we get-a evacuated-a."

"You are knowink vat goink on?"

"Eldritch-a, that creepy-a detective-a, he get message-a from-a parents-a. Then Spike-a spread the word-a. Detective-a call-a inna favor with-a society-a. They take-a the town-a somewhere safe-a until thing-a blows over-a."

"Vunderbar. Am beink glad you all vill beink safe. Oh...am askink if you haff stuff I vas havink ordered last veek."

"Ahh! Manage-a to rustle-a up a boom-booms and Lock-a remov-a device-a. It's-a amazing-a what-a you can find-a inna junk...but don't-a let-a coppa catch-a you, and don't-a tell-a them about me-a if you do."

Ethos dives underneath the counter, and reemerges with a carboard box, in suprisingly good condition. Within are 5 units of Compound 12, an additional 5 radio detonators, 3 FlashPacks, 5 Incendiary Grenades and a level 4 Maglock Removal Passkey, and a level 4 Keypad Sequencer.

"Will appreaciate-a it-a if you-a could pay-a me-a up front-a. My business-a and-a bank-a account-a about-a to go-a in nuclear-a smoke-a."

"Am thinkink you should not beink so pessimistic." Theodor quips as he taps his credstick on the reader of Etho's reconditioned EFTPOS unit. "Havink to be goink now. Vishink us luck."

===============

After checking up on the rest of the town, and confirming evacuation arrangements with Eldritch and a society of the Seven representative, Theodor drives out of town for the second time in a day. He arrives at Fort Lewis with about half an hour to spare, the trunk of his common Ford Americar and pockets stuffed with whatever gear he hopes is necessary to complete the mission...

Edit: Remembering that he shouldn't go in without knowing where to go in the first place, he sends an encrypted SMS to Spike to send-by-wire the floor plan of the building in question straight into his headware memory for his Orientation System to interface with.

During the eight hours the runners used to prepare themselves, Spike and Nicole were busy taking equipment orders and placing contingency plans into place. Most of the League’s suppliers were willing to slip a friend some rare gear when they needed it, so Spike paid a quick visit to Somewhere, USA to pick up the orders his runners were passing him and calling in a few favours of his own. Nic was busy withdrawing almost all Lancer agents from Seattle. Both fixer and mediator were reluctant to leave Seattle as it held so many memories for them and both eventually convinced themselves their runners were up to the task. The two of them decided to spend the evening in a candlelit dinner down in a quaint little eatery in Redmond just for old times sake, and to perhaps share their last meal with somebody that truly meant something to them.

As the sun begins to set, a figurative dark cloud settles over Seattle as the newsnets finally begin to break free from government suppression and the people are beginning to ask questions. Some are fleeing for their lives; the docks and airports are starting to get swarmed and the Star is being stretched too thinly over Seattle. The government, corps and star’s media reps are piled down under a mountain of angry and fearful callers and reporters. The National Guard is the process of being called in to keep the peace.

- - - - -

2200 Hours, 26th February 2063, Fort Lewis, Seattle

The guards treat the runners with much suspicion as they enter the compound, but they have strict orders to bring these people to the back of the facilities where an ensemble of military grade air vehicles lie in a massive hangar, with crewmen frantically rushing about making final checks on the aircraft systems.

The runners are first greeted by a seven-men ensemble of Delta Task Force Five. Most of them wear stony expressions on their faces but the more cheery of the men walk up to make quick chit chat with you, passing over their radio frequencies and some blueprints of the skyscraper. They pile up into one chopper and pass the remaining time performing maintenance on their weaponry. They carry unique-looking, high tech gear, though you notice most of their larger caliber weapons accept the same kind of magazine – and a popular magazine variety indeed; the one the Ares Alpha uses.

Only one member from Seattle Task Force BlackSpec Four comes over to greet you – a tall human woman, dressed head to toe in hardened milspec, night-black armour with at least three guns strapped to her hips and back – they look far more advanced than what Delta was carrying. Heck, one of her pistols even sport a faint blue light softly glowing from within its’ silver-black frame and the others sport a faint red one. You can’t see any portion of her face from beyond the mask, but she gives you a genuinely hearty salute, then passes over their frequencies.

The contingent of ten or so aircraft take off from Fort Lewis at 10pm on the dot and soon Fireteam A is sitting out a journey on the winds in an armoured chopper soaring across the brightly lit Seattle sky. The pilot, a dwarf rigger, goes over a quick drill of what’s going to happen – Three choppers land on the roof: Delta, BS4 and the runners. The T-birds and other craft provide cover support whilst that happens, and to ensure you guys get down safely.

Fireteam B also soars towards the Ritz in a military chopper, slightly behind the others. With your decision to enter through the sewers, the pilot drops you off in one of the more easily accessible locations of the sewers. It should only be a short hike through the dankness of the pipes to the Ritz.

- - - - -

Everybody tenses up as the air ensemble reaches the Ritz. As the choppers close the hundred metre gap, suddenly a shower or rocket-propelled grenades come flying out of the barricaded windows of the Ritz! Ten twenty…no, fifty, all in perfect concert! The radio channels fill up with shrill cries of warning and evasive action. Fireteam A’s rigger slams onto the controls tightly and three RPGs sail past the chopper and explode onto an office building far in the background. The rigger barks several harsh responses into the chopper’s radio and the T-birds open up with a shower of missiles and suppressive fire of their own. RPGs keep flying out of the building’s windows but whoever’s shooting them and the cover they’re behind is quickly cut to shreds. The hail of rockets eventually falters and it looks like none of the aircraft have suffered any form of serious damage.

And then came the spirits.

- - - - -

The aircraft come under fire literally from a large group of large spirits, dancing and twirling about with incredible speed in the darkness of the night. Huge goblets of fire and other magical spells are slung towards the aircraft. The rigger opens fire with a salvo of missiles and machinegun fire, but the spirits are taking too long to defeat. Fireteam A notices some other soldiers in the other aircraft faint, presumably to attack on the astral. It doesn’t take long for an army of spirits to manifest on the aircraft’s side, and the air around the Ritz is turned into a dazzling, bright and violent show of fireworks, confusion and chaos. One chopper gets hit by a humongous orb of pure force, cutting and sharding a straight line along the entirety of its’ side.

Delta’s chopper spirals down and out of formation, slamming spectacularly into side of the Ritz.

- - - - -

The wire mesh fence of the sewer entrance to the section of the Seattle sewerworld where the Ritz can be accessed from is very rusted and disabled easily with a bit of applied force. The dark green and dank pipes carry a stinking, slow moving flow of grime down their centers. A few rats scurry about the place, in boxes, behind trash, into cracks on the wall.

Turning the corner, Fireteam B comes across an extremely peculiar scene. The lamps of this area of the sewers have been shot out, plunging the place into an almost total darkness. Hundreds of bullet and explosion marks line the tunnels from here on out, and thick red blood is splattered all over the walls. A huge pack of abnormally large rats, an awakened species, lie dead and their remains scattered messily about the tunnels.

At the end of the dark tunnels is the way up to the Ritz – a cargo lift going by the designations on the map. A single light remains, flickering eerily in the still darkness and casting wild, dancing shadows on the walls. Handprints in blood cover the lift doors, which are open and ajar. The lift’s innards look blown out from this distance, but the service ladder under the escape trapdoor to the lift cab’s roof looks to be unfurled and open.

- - - - -

“I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know now!” The rigger screams into the radio. Only muffled screams and static reply as yet another craft, this time a T-bird, drops out of the sky. The plane falls towards the Ritz and drags along the side of the building, cutting through multiple floors of scaffolding and erupting into a huge fireball at ground level, just missing a lone star vehicle surrounding the perimeter.

“Jesus Christ. Poor Bastards.”

Suddenly the rigger’s sensors spring to life. Looking up from the console, the dwarf just manages to avoid a Hellfire missile tearing towards the chopper. The missile’s fins clip against the end rotors and spirals out of control towards the city streets.

- - - - -

BOOOM!

A series of tunnels to the right of Fireteam B in the sewers caves in with a great explosion. Several vehicles and bloodied bodies fall into the holes made, but the team is too far away to suffer from any injury.

- - - - -

“BlackSpec safely on rooftop”, the dwarf repeats to himself as he sees the black ops team disembark from their transport safely on the roof. He dives through the thick of the aerial battle and manages to get the chopper down to a reasonable level on the roof.

“Go! Git!” He screams towards you. A wisp of flame trails through the cockpit panels as soon as the last of you jump off. The rigger turns towards his controls too late as a fire elemental smashes through the bullet holes on his weakened cockpit and engulfs the dwarf in red-hot flame. The last thing he’ll ever scream as the chopper goes down towards the city streets.

BlackSpec four has already moved on into one of the towers of the Ritz, the tower where the nuke is suspected to be, and the roof is empty. The battle in the skies rage still rage above, but the roof is clear.

Fireteam B

Jesus H. Christ. Kadel pulls his Ruger free of its holster and scans the tunnel down to the lift. What a fuck-up.

Giving the others a silent nod, he starts moving towards the broken lift. His gut is screaming at him that something is wrong and that he should get the hell out of there right now, but he ignores it.

Sorry, old buddy. Normally I'll listen to you, but not this time. Not this time.

Dancing in and out of the shadows, Kadel continues down the tunnel.

Kadel sets foot into the dark pipe, and slowly makes his way about it, skirting past rat carcasses, piles of decaying junk and the small puddle of putrid blood that has gathered at the bottom of the pipe from all the carcasses. The sole light at the end of the tunnel by the lift flickers on and off menacingly, casting alien shadows onto the pipe walls.

You notice the floor is covered in nearly hundreds of shell casings, most of them large, but while some of the carcasses have indeed been shot to hell and back thrice over, a lot of them shows signs of brutal death by something sharp and edged. Through the cracks in the pipe, the glowing yellow eyes of mice watch you silently, but they fill instantly with fear and dissapear back into the darkness when they realize you know that they are hiding.

The sewers are silent.

Keeping a tight grip on his weapon, Kadel kneels down next to one of the corpses and tries to visualize the slaughter that had taken place here. Running a gloved hand over the body, he frowns and stands up.

Who the hell would go around shooting rats with automatic weapons?

A better question...where did such huge rats come from in the first place?

Terry managed to find a broom closet and curl up in it to get a few hours sleep. He was getting hungry, though, and he had yet to figure a way out of the building. Well, when all else fails, there is nothing that cannot be solved with swift and brutal violence!

He pulled his Morrisey and checked it over, then checked his spare clips. In his army days he'd gotten used to carrying spare clips all the time. He mindlessly sung softly as he worked, then pocketed his ammo and kept his gun in hand.

"Great Spirit, grant me the wisdom of Wolf and the luck of Raven...and, of course, the hoop-kicking ability of Neil the Ork Barbarian! I love that show."

He stepped out of the broom closet, pistol in hand, and started to move toward the door.

The explosion rolled through the sewers sending debris flying. Downtown crouched low, thankful for the chem. Seal on his clothes as brown water lapped against his pants. His ears adjusted to the sound, protecting themselves from any of the damage that loud noises cause. He tried very hard to breath through his mouth as the stench would screw up his sensitive noise.

He moved his right forefinger over the pressure sensitive switch. Two things happened. The lowlight flashlight mounted on the barrel of the G-36 sprang to life. To his augmented Ork eyes the sewer became as bright as daylight. Secondly: the low powered laser sight blinked on then off in a self test.

“Team, DT, I’m good to go. There’s one helluva firefight going on upstairs. Kilo, I got your six, let’s keep moving.”

Slash quickly took stock of his fireteam, noting that they were all safe as he scanned the area, the reticules on his smartlink goggles moving as he panned his predator 3s across the room. No enemies in the immediate vicinity. "Black team, this is Alpha 1. Alpha team safely inserted. Status report? Over." I sure as hell hope they are still good to go on the nuke.

"Alpha, we read you." A low-pitched voice answers, a distinctly feminine one, although it seems to be through some sort of breathing mask that slightly electrnically garbles her voice. "Assault on tower going as planned-"

A section of the tower blows off in huge chunks, spraying large chunks of rock and plasteel, as well as other structural material outward.

"As planned." The voice calmly repeats. "Pursue own objectives, will call if we need backup. By the by, Delta signals coming in. They've got survivors a few floors down. See if you can hook up with them on route to objective."

"I'm going to have to defeat this ward before I or my spirits can go inside," Burn says.

Reaper

The Astral jaunt was quicker than he would have liked, and he returned without gaining much useful information. Reaper did take a moment to speak with some of the other projecting mages though. "Don't suppoz da wagemages who warded dis ding is avai'ble ta give us access?"

Later, arriving at Fort Lewis, Reaper often found himself the target of most of the attention the group was getting - not only was he physically larger than the rest of the team, the versatile Valiant LMG slung across his back and deadly-looking Halberd with the faintly glinting edge easily carried in his hand sufficed to make anyone nervous, regardless of how well trained they were.

The briefing at the base was almost non-existant - likely out of necessity considering the urgency of the situation, and the troll was glad to have gotten answers to the most of his pressing questions prior to the conclusion of the meeting with the general. Nevertheless, he confers with his teammates to share the information he gleaned from Nic regarding Ares Macrotech, Mitsuhama and Seader-Krupp's recent interest in "biz"; likewise, he uploads his Black December file he recieved from Syl to the others.

Sooner than he expected, he was aboard the chopper bearing Fireteam B towards the destination. Although the Reaper loved to fly, it was only when he was in control in the Astral - not as some sitting duck in a hunk of metal waiting to be shot down. This sentiment was reinforced rather dramatically as the air combat began - and made concrete if any doubt remained when the Spirits began to appear. Wishing he were in the position to fight back and likely eliminate the Astral threats, he could only hold on as they veered downward, dropping towards their own insertion point. However, by that time, it was too late to return to help the others - hopefully they made it in.

Upon landing, the Reaper gives his team a heads up about his SOP, "Give me uh nano fer uh few spells - I tend ta go 'round cloaked in magic. Take uh minute ta adjust - I'll help ya out." With that, the troll suddenly vanishes from sight! It takes the team a minute for them to penetrate his magic before they continue onward. Following the floormaps given to them, the group had no trouble making their way to the entrance to the sewer tunnels - yet the grisly sight awaiting them only heightned the danger ahead. The mess left behind certainly looked like the work of another group of runners', corp or private. Opening his Third Eye, the Reaper looked for any telltale residue of magic in the Astral.

OOC: Casting Improved Invis. on touchdown and assigning it to Sustaing Foci. Gonna keep talking to them until they all make their saves. Rolls are in the OOC forum. From here on out, Astral perceiving.

At sundown, his spirits fled and Axe put off calling up more until the team was in the air. He summoned up a trio of wind spirits to guard the craft, but they were quickly lost in the fighting in air. Touching down on the building, he found himself with only Marelle for support. As the team moved onto the building, he reached out for it on the astral plain, singing a song in his mind that Bacchus had taught him long ago.

The song tied strings of astral energy onto other strings of astral energy and soon the lot of them produced a connection to the building that made itself present around the group. When the being slid into his astral view, Axe gave it a bow and sent a beseaching request for concealment. That done, he sang the song again and brought forth another child of the building to serve him, and then another and another, though none as large as the first.

"Alright, Black Team is good to go, and a few of Delta Team are still alive down there. Kyle, I'll open the door, and you go in, then I'll follow you. Our shamans are going to have to mess with the ward to get their spirits through."

Slash opens the door and stands aside for Kyle to run in, then runs iun behind him, pistols in hand.

Axe shrugs. "Got it covered." He opens his astral eyes and takes a good look at the ward.

Burn dismisses his watchers, sends his other spirits back to their home metaplanes, deactivates his sustaining focus, and charges in behind Slash.

The brief meeting at the base was much quicker than Roland expected. He gave out his donuts and coffee to anyone who wanted one, though it seemed that mainly the enlisteds who were helping prep the planes and the riggers were more receptive for his snacks. Roland took another drag from his cigarette, this might be his last one period. The jerky will help any nervousness during the mission itself, Roland patted the pouch that held the jerky. Roland glances at the other members of his team, he tries to scrutinize what each one is carrying in terms of weaponry and how well they seem to handle them.

The ride itself was a bit nervewracking, Roland tried to relax by dozing on the flight. They were to deposited at a distance away so it there was little chance for them to be in a hot LZ. In fact it was probable that Lone Star will cordon the area off for them. Roland grimaced at the thought of how many of his friends might be down there manning the perimeter around the building.

It seemed alright when they landed, Roland heard the troll mentioning about bringing up his invisibility spell. With that thought in mind, Roland asks, 'Hey Reaper, what other spells do you cast?' Roland appreciated the firepower that mage was carrying.

Roland called out to the group before they headed into the sewer entrance, the dark gloom awaited beyond. 'Ok, last check, all communications gear set to the right frequency? Weapons loaded and ready for a nice jaunt through the wonderful sewers of Seattle?' Roland made a small grimace at the thought of what he might smell, he readies his respirator, hopefully it'll help against the smell. Though, who knows if the smell will ever wash out of his gear....

He nods to Kadel to as scout. 'Remember, if you run into trouble to give 'em hell and then fall back to our position if they're too many of them. We need to agree on what is our fall back positions, I propose for whatever floor we're on to fall back to the stairs. If we need to fall back while we're on the stairs to fall back three floors and enter that particular floor where we can regroup, reassess and set up any ambushes. Is that okay?'

Roland readies his gear, watches as Kadel enters the gloom, followed by Downtown, he follows after and listens as the rest of the group follows behind. His cybereyes readjusting giving him a greenish view of the tunnels as his lowlight vision is activated. Downtown and Kadel show up brightly as his thermographics also begin to activate in the darkness, Roland begins to move slightly slower to give Kadel more time move further ahead as scout.
----------------------------------------

The explosions and collapse of the tunnels startled Roland. Not good, that means the drek has hit the fan up there.... Roland crouches down and signals the rest of the team to wait as he watches Kadel up ahead examining the entrance into the building. The dark bulges in the distance that Kadel took time to examine is not a good sign, probably another team as made it to this location already, Roland dreaded facing a corporate runner team. Great I can see us now, a three or four way gunbattle with us, the terrorists, some corpers, heck for fun, let's do some mistaken identity and have us and Team Alpha blindly shoot at each other. That'll be a comedic sight....

Roland waits for Kadel to finish inspecting and give the all clear signal before moving forward.

Kadel takes a quick glance up the elevator shaft. Seeing nothing up there but pitch blackness, his left hand goes up in an "all clear" signal while he keeps his pistol trained towards the darkness over his head.

"Nothing here, as far as I can tell," Kadel says softly over the transceiver.

"Nothing alive, anyway," he adds with a smirk. "There are a bunch of dead rats scattered around and they're...well, I think you guys should see for yourself."

He sniffs the air as he crosses the threshhold into the next room, sneaking as best he can as a matter of course. He had his hands free, his pistol holstered. He scanned the erea as well, using both his normal enhanced sight and his "inner sight," as if his vision had a tactile aspect to it.

Danny hustles the last few yards to the shaft and pokes his head up it. He slides his AR along the sling so that the weapon is on his back. He pulls out a small flashlight from his cargo pocket and shines it up the shaft. The low light flashlight illuminates the interior briefly.

"Looks all clear, watch my back."

Danny nimbly scrambles up the hatch, thankfull for the fact that he is on the trim side for an ork. Once in the elevator itself he slides his AR back to the front.

"All clear," he says over the comms.

The team reaches the wrecked elevator, opens the maintenance hatch, and starts climbing. Before ascending, Theodor loads the map data, that Spike sent him earlier before they were transported to the scene, into his Orientation System, and overlays it on the top left of his field of vision.

Am vunderink if zere is alternate route...

As he climbs the maintenance ladder behind the two lead men, he keeps an eye out for any additional wall panels leading to other mainteneance shafts, using the transparent map overlay as a reference.

Fireteam A
The rooftop door is in a disefranchised state - it nearly fails to hand onto its' hinges as you burst into the level below. You exit out into what looks to be backstage of one of those old performance theatres. Three terrorists - one male human, one female ork and one huge male troll, all dressed in typical terrorist-looking black and white garb, and lying about backstage. The human is holding a gun and shrieking in anger in arabic tongue at a group of bound and gagged hostages in a corner of the place. In the meantime, the ork is busy performing first aid on the troll, who looks bloodied and shot up, lying down against some theatre props as the ork wraps bandages around his wounds.

It doesn't take long for them to notice that the door has opened and someone uninvited has come in. The human snarls viciously in your direction, jams his bloodstained ingram against the forehead of a crying office lady and his finger starts to go for the trigger. The female ork takes a step back in surprise, and goes for a radio attached to her belt. The huge troll stands up and grabs an assault rifle from the floor next to him, leveling it in your general direction...

Fireteam B
As the team pulls themselves out of the cab using the ladder, they notice something that they missed before, which they couldn't get whilst just looking up the lift's trapdoor. The next floor's lift doors are open, partially blocked by a wall of wooden crates that have been hurriedly pushed aside. A faint light comes from this next floor door that barely manages to peirce the still darkness around you. Footsteps and a trail of bloodstains lead through the mess of crates, which looks very fresh.

The ladder that leads up the entire lift shaft has been somehow cut and utterly pulverized in one of its' segments, creating a gap of about two metres between the pieces of ladder, although the rest of the ladder seems fine. Theodor realizes that the ladder leads to some air ducts which are noted to exit in a central hub on the ground floor.

As you look up, you see the first air duct up - the shortest route - is just beyond the reach of the ladder unless you can bypass the gap somehow. And it's not just the ladder that's been mauled up; parts of the lift shaft's beams and superstructures have been deeply engraved with violent cutting and slashing marks, and the top of the train cab is no less bloody than the sewer below.

The bent cover of the air duct lies at your feet. A trail of bloodstained handprints lead up from the floor of the lift cab, up vertically onto the wall and into the air duct, without so much as nearing the ladder.

Axe keeps his head down as the leaders of the group go first. He is essentially useless in a firefight with his reflex boosting spell gone.

DT looks to the rest of the team and mouths, what the frag?

Keeping his wepon pointed at the open door he slides over to the remains of the latter.

Two meters, to far to jump.

"Anyone have any rope?"

Roland looked at the marks and shrugged to Downtown's puzzled look. The claw marks in the wall, only something paranormal or a desperate cybered sam could possibly do this. Not good, here's another wrench thrown into the whole mess....

Roland looked over to Downtown and whispered back, "I have a grapple gun and line but that's a bit too much for this, I think we can have Reaper boost you and Kadel up first to secure it. I'll keep an eye at that vent until everyone else can get up there and I think the Reaper can reach up and lift himself up. Let's make this quick but quietly, I don't know what the frag happened here."

Roland trained his assault rifle up at the air vent and waited for the worse.

Frag, never an easy mission is there?

Following the rest of Team B, Reaper pauses as the rest of the team come upon the presence of living creatures. "Holdup, I'll take uh peek", he whispers into his comm. Resting himself, Reaper leaps into the Astral and slowly floats up to see what it was that was making sounds from within the opening. He'll venture into the room astrally if nothing is first seen, Halberd held ready.

As Reaper floats up to the duct on the astral, he senses a faint disturbance...looking down into the duct, there's a faint background count inside.

Trying to get a better sense of the disturbance, he moves closer, attempting to learn the strength of the count, or even possibly it's source.

Kadel gazes up the dark air duct with a frown on his face.

"You guys really want to crawl through that?" He nods at the partially open lift doors leading to the room with the crates. "Might be a better choice to just take the long route. At least then we can't all get killed by one well placed grenade."

The background count seems light (level 1) and is slowly receding as you watch it. The source of the background count doesn't seem to be in the air duct anymore, then, but you manage to pick up slight traces of emotions through which the count was made. The closer you get to it, the closer you feel overwhelmed with a sadness, anger, pain and grim determination that is not your own.

Floating back down, Reaper goes to investigate the room beyond the opening partially blocked by the crates.

Roland looks at Kadel, 'Miscommunication, I meant getting up into the room with the crates. I do not want to place any bets of whether the ducts are designed to support a fully grown troll to crawl through..... Though it would be funny seeing the results. But I doubt OSHA has that sort of building codes standards in mind.'

Roland motions Kadel and Downtown to join Reaper in investigating the room if they even need boosting to get up there to the door.

He still waits in shaft with the technician, his rifle still pointing up the shaft in case anything decides to drop down on him. Roland waits for an all clear signal before helping the technician move any further.

"I suggest waiting until Reaper finishes his astral investigation. If there are terrorists or some other nasties in that room, we ought to know ahead of time before we go in."

Kadel glances at Theodor. "Hey professor, while we're waiting, you could rig up one of your booby traps or something down there inside the lift if you want. Might slow down any corporate goons who decide to follow our footsteps."

"Scrag the human first!" Slash yells to Kyle as he sidesteps into the room and brings his pistols up.

Roland reaches into one of his pouches and brings out a roll of string. 'Here ya go Professor, I'm sure you can get some mileage out of this with your traps.'

Roland also removes one of his flashbangs, and gives them to the professor. 'These are much better, not only a flash grenade but it's coupled to a concussion grenade, they'll really get a blast out of it.... yeah, pun intended...' Roland smirks at his terrible joke.

Roland whispers out to the others, 'see anything?' The waiting is unbearable, plus being in the same confined space with someone who's busy setting boobytraps is not Roland's idea of a fun time.

Kadel studies Theodor's "trap" with a half amused, half impressed grin on his face. "I must say, professor, your expertise in such things is truly unparalleled."

His eyes pass over the opened lift doors above him as he wonders what's taking Reaper so long to return. Hope he didn't run into any trouble.

Theodor greatfully accepts the string and the Flashbang.

"Ah. Is just vat I need."

He cuts a length of string, then carefully ties one end to the handle of the lift maintenance hatch. Loosening the fuse on one of the flashbangs, he attaches it to the other end and places it on a ledge a little ways from the trapdoor.

" ...unt now if zey don't get ze hint, ve haff boom no.2 droppink in as soon as zey open door beeg enough for Drone to squeeze through...unt now ve haff to find ozher means of exit."

Ve are spendink time too much here. Vere iz ze scout? If ve don't scoot, somevun vill find us here...

Reaper

The quick Astral recon was productive, and the troll drops back into his meatbod. He whispers into his comm, "Single girl in dat room," pointing to the space beyond the crates - "dyin', but's she's got a Pred. Her boyfriend's dead. Suggest we parley."

Terry opens the door and instantly recognises the scene in front of him. All his army training instantly floods his being. He quickdraws his pistol (2,4,5,3,5...lots more 4's on 11 dice) as he goes down on 1 knee, sliding sideways to keep the doorjamb blocking his profile and points the business end at the human threatening the hostages. His training screamed at him to shoot the ork, or even sneak away, but his protective nature demanded he save the noncombatants.

Axe leans slightly into the room, past the ward, and flings a bind spell at the troll, sending magical bands around his limbs, locking them together.

The human's fingers start to move towards the trigger, but he hears a strange noise behind him. His instincts kick in and he reflexively tries to dive towards a prop of a wodden horse, but he's both too slow and too clumsy. He trips, shrieks and gets the living snot shot out of him in midair by Terry's handgun. He lands a crumpled, bloody mess just a few feet away from the hostages.

Running to his left with guns pointed ahead, Slash fires his left pistol at the orc, then squeezes off a shot at the troll with his right pistol.

Kadel nods at the rest of the team. "I'm going up."

With that, he turns and snatches one of the rungs of the service ladder. Scaling the ladder like an acrobat, he kicks off the wall and executes a spinning jump through the partially blocked lift doors. Bending his knees to absorb the impact, his boots touch the floor like a soft kiss, his landing not producing a single ripple to disturb the ghostly silence permeating the room.

Kadel moves quickly between the crates, using the shadows as a cloak to hide his presence. Soon, he spots the girl that Reaper was talking about. Her back is facing him, and she seems preoccupied with the dead body in her arms. Stepping up silently, he kneels on one knee and presses the cold steel of his pistol against the base of her cranium.

"Do not speak. Do not move. We're not here to hurt you."

Careful to keep his voice low, Kadel speaks to the team over the comms. "I've secured the girl. She's hurt pretty bad, so you medicine guys might want to do what you can to patch her up. The blood trail leads to a closed door, and I have no idea what's behind it. Best to keep our presence a secret and not raise your voices too much."

The girl responds with a sharp intake of air; a soft gasp. She twitches for a second, then closes her eyes and drops the predator she was holding in her hand. A tear streaks down her cheek. She remains quiet.

That's my cue. Roland thinks upon hearing Kadel's pronouncement. Drek, this is more like it, coming in to save the day, dear lady from the sweet deadly jaws of death....

Roland tries to signal to the others to head into the room. No sense in all of them being clustered in a elevator shaft.

Roland rushes forth to the downed lady, his first move is to kick her weapon out of her reach and then he'll attempt to patch up the woman using his medkit and prevent her from dying.

Drek, she's just a kid! Terrorist or someone in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or another team?

Roland removes his repirator and mask so that the patient can see a human face and he'll say comforting words to her that are automatic to all DocWagon responders. His voice automatically lowering to the best soothing voice he can muster through the training of Lone Star and Docwagon.

Ok, weapon threat removed. Patient is wounded in chest, let's see.... next step.... ok.... have to remember to watch out for....

Stock phrases that the corporate shrinks have researched strenuously and all employees have committed to memory to use on patients, especially those who are victims of violent crimes. Roland tries to give a reassuring, but also sympathetic smile to her as he treated her as his eyes try to convey some sadness in sympathy of what she has gone through.

Hopefully she'll pull through, poor kid. Ok, if I can establish rapport, maybe she'll give some valuable information....

Roland murmurs to her while he treats the wounds, 'There, there, I'm here to help. Please don't be scared, everything will be okay.'

Following the others up into the room, the troll stands guard next to the door, continue to watch the room Astrally and Physically.