Aswon woke first, feeling refreshed and alert after a few hours sleep. He checked his watch and an eyebrow rose as he saw the time – he'd had over five hours of sleep, which was a lot for him. He let his arm flop back down, then stretched out, muscles straining and tendons flexing as he pointed his toes and reached out with his arms, luxuriating in the space – he'd gotten used to being cooped up in the tilt-wing day after day, but it was good to be able to have enough space not to have to curl around other people or bits of aircraft. The hard floor of the workshop didn't bother him – growing up in his village they'd had little more than a thin layer of reeds or a blanket to cover the floor, and he'd spent plenty of nights sleeping wherever he could find a space whilst he'd accompanied hunting parties across the plains of Africa growing up. Later life as a mercenary had continued the tradition, and he knew how much other people sometimes envied him for his ability to fall asleep pretty much on anything, and to look remarkably refreshed from three or four hours sleep.
He reached over to grasp his spear, then holding it just below the blade he swung the other end around until he could gently tap the mound of blankets twisted round in a tight ball. Tads wasn't particularly short, but he was always amazed at how she slept, reminding him of pictures he'd seen of nesting dormice. As he gently tapped the nest, a slender hand snaked out of the opening and waved to him, acknowledging his alarm call, before the nest of blankets started to unfurl like a flower in the spring time. Still half-asleep, Tads yawned, looked at the time and then reached over for her bag, getting ready to carry out her dawn rituals.
The both froze as they heard the noise, a soft footstep further over in the hanger. A quick glance around and a count of sleeping bodies told them it wasn't any of the team – everyone else was still sound asleep, curled up in or on whatever they had found to sleep on. Aswon rolled up onto his feet gracefully, flipping his spear end over end as he did so, getting ready to strike. Tads pushed herself to her feet quietly, lacking the grace of Aswon, but moving her hands to concentrate her mind and gathering her mental defences, quickly shielding both herself and Aswon against magical attacks. Mana flowed into her hand as she held it ready, primed to let loose with a blast of energy fit to take down whatever aggressors were creeping up on them. She saw Aswon point to himself and then the front of the tilt-wing, then her own body and the back, nodding in agreement and heading off to circle around the craft, carrying out her part of the pincer movement.
They crept quietly across the concrete floor, carefully placing their feet to move silently as they closed on the barely perceptible noise. As they moved around the ends of the craft they saw a young girl, a child of perhaps ten to fourteen. Barely over a metre tall, she was slender and had a shock of bright pink hair gathered into a high ponytail. Her features marked her out as Japanese – though neither Aswon nor Tads took that as a fact, having seen Kai meld and change his features often enough. She wore a tank top or vest covered in some slogans, and a pair of utility trousers that had a number of tools and gadgets thrust into the pockets or clipped onto the belt – along with a drop holster carrying a pistol of some kind. She stood just before the side of the tilt-wing, and was gently running a hand across the surface, stroking it and whispering something to herself.
"I am Aswon. Do no scratch or break our vehicle. The owner will become VERY angry, and we will never hear the last of it." The girl jumped a little as he spoke, turning quickly and somewhat guiltily to face him. Tads moved closer behind her, still ready to use her magic to take down the little girl if she proved to be not quite as innocent as she looked.
"Oh, Hi! I'm Nim. I like your plane." She reached down into a pocket and pulled out a cloth, then made a show of buffing the outer skin of the aircraft where she'd been touching it, in slow deliberate motions. "Kiki! Come out from under there!" A small white cat oozed out from under the fuselage and approached her, pushing between her legs and arching its back while a tail flicked back and forth against her knee. She put the cloth back into her pocket and ran a hand down the spine of the cat, and they heard the soft rumble of its purrs in the quiet of the workshop.
Aswon squinted a little, then dropped into astral, examining the cat carefully. He knew of a number of cats with magical powers or abilities, and there were some – Blackberry Cats and Talis Cats in particular – that could be really bad news. They weren't generally hostile, at least not in a way that caused you direct damage. But they could warp your sense of reality and free will, quickly turning you into nothing more than a bipedal servant. There were some people who claimed this wasn't very different from owning a normal cat of course, but the compulsion to serve some of these creatures could be so strong that people lost all sense of reality and self-preservation. But, when Aswon examined the cat, he became even more surprised. The cat was dead.
Well, not dead. But certainly not alive. It contained no spirit, no soul… but that was because it was a drone of some kind. A very impressive quadruped walker drone, a complex mass of machinery that could it appeared simulate a live cat with a surprising amount of fidelity.
"Your cat drone is very impressive. I think Marius, our pilot, would be interested in meeting you."
"Cool. That'd be cool. Yeah, I can chat with him."
"But until then, I advise you not to touch his aircraft. He can be….touchy about such things. Very protective. Perhaps you understand this. I'm sure you would not like people touching your cat."
"Oh I understand. But Kiki normally keeps out of everyone's way. So…. You're new here, huh?"
"Yes. But we will not be here long."
"Oh, you're not moving in and staying at the Church? You're not in the biz?" Aswon tried not to grin at the twelve year old girl who claimed to be 'in the biz'. He wasn't quite sure what biz she thought she was in, but he had a feeling there was a certain amount of bravado there.
"No, we're just passing through on the way to somewhere else. And we needed somewhere to stop off."
"Ahh, to repair the damage and replace stuff. Gotcha."
"Well no. Primarily for fuel. But Marius has said that the craft needs some repairs too."
"So Ka! I mean, it probably flies, but it's gotta rattle like a souvenir seller at a K-Pop concert!" Aswon wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he wasn't about to open that can of worms.
"Do you want breakfast?" Nim nodded at him emphatically. "Then Tads will keep an eye on you while I prepare some oatmeal. He watched as she tried not to jump when Tads eased up behind her into her peripheral vision.
"Ahh – you're old too! Are you all old?" Tads frowned at the small child, and decided not to answer, instead shooting Aswon a look that promised some kind of retribution later for landing her with babysitting duties. He headed into the tilt-wing though and dug out the small induction heater and got some water on the go, mixing up some oatmeal and preparing a few bowls for breakfast. A thought crossed his mind and he dug around in the supplies, finding a small box with a few of the last batch of cookies he'd made.
His clattering around had woken Marius and Kai, who stirred somewhat grumpily and emerged from their sleeping bags, stretching out the kinks from their backs. They were cheered up somewhat by the smell of fresh coffee though, heading towards Aswon to get a mug.
"Morning both. There's someone to see you by the way, Marius – she likes your plane."
"She? Not the ork you were working with yesterday?" Kai interrupted. Marius shrugged and just looked at Aswon.
"No, she. Small girl, very young. Seems interested in vehicles and machinery for certain. She's got a cat with her – but it's not a cat, it's a drone. Looks very advanced. But anyway, she's round the side with Tads keeping an eye on her."
"You finish your coffee, I'll go talk to her." Marius shrugged and settled back to have a drink and finish waking up. It wasn't like he wanted to talk to anyone right now anyway, so he was happy to defer to Kai on this one. Aswon finished the bowl of oatmeal and grabbed it, then led Kai round the side to where Nim was bombarding Tads with questions about how old she was, did it hurt and how did she feel knowing she was so close to death… which Tads was studiously avoiding answering.
"Here you go, Nim. There's a cookie in the box too, for afterwards!" His voice sharpened as she reached for the cookie first, staring at her until she took the hot bowl of oatmeal first, then placed the cookie on her left knee after sitting down cross-legged. "Marius is just getting a drink, but this is Kai, our captain. He wanted to come and meet you."
"Thank you." She smiled at Kai, then tucked into her food, shoveling spoons of mush into her mouth and eating rapidly. "So, you're in charge, huh?" It was a little hard to make out the words around the mouthful of food, but Kai got the gist of it. He did notice that whilst she was busy shovelling food into her mouth, her eyes remained active, flitting around the area and constantly watching the team as they got up and ready for another day.
"Well, not so much in charge really. But I like talking to people and arranging things. And the team is normally happy to treat or refer to me as the captain." Kai smiled, thinking about his habit of offering to take on work for free, and the inevitable reaction that caused. "But what about you? Do you live here?"
"Yeah, kinda. Well, I sorta got used to sleeping in my car. But here's good. There's loads of people inside, but you can normally find a place to curl up. I've not been here long, but they say its better now the new building is complete, though there's more people coming now as well. But I like it here. Seems like the place is getting more work in, and that's good."
"Work?"
"Yeah, work. Biz. Missions. You know, running the shadows. Breaking into places and stealing stuff. Defeating drone networks and penetrating security. Blasting bad guys. Extractions." Kai watched as she reeled off a bunch of tasks that Shadowrunners commonly carried out, noting that some things were not included. "Kidnapping. Wetwork. Destruction…" Kai blinked in surprise as she strayed into ground that he wasn't so happy with, and that the team had decided to generally stay away from. Yes this little girl seemed happy to list them off as vital skills on her CV, while slowly masticating a mouth of oatmeal.
"What about your parents?" He asked. She stiffened, and for just a moment her composure slipped. The confidence and attitude faded, and he saw a twelve year old girl, probably an orphan, sitting before him hunched over a bowl of food looking alone, frightened and afraid, unsure of her place in the world and how to cope with life. She took a breath, steadying herself, and then her back straightened, and he saw her steady herself. All across her body micro expressions reasserted themselves and her entire posture changed a tiny amount. Kai watched, somewhat fascinated, as her shields came back up. Her youth and inexperience made it more noticeable than would normally be the case, somewhat easier to study and observe – but then given her age and normal mental development it was incredible that she was so… robust.
"Nah. It's just me. What about you. Where are your parents?" She spooned up another mouthful of food and turned her wide eyes up to him, watching him carefully.
"Well, they're pretty far away. A whole other country. I come from a place called Mongolia, you see."
"Mongolia? That's like, the other side of the world! That's SOOO far away. I'd like to travel that far, but I can't."
"Oh? Why not?"
"The car would sink in the water, silly." Kai blinked, realising he'd walked straight into that one. The slight smile pulling at the corner of her mouth confirmed his thoughts, and he firmly shifted Nim from 'child' to 'competent adult' in his mental filing system. "So like, you're old… really old. But your parents must be REALLY old. Like nearly as old as Dragons."
"They're old, but not that old. I don't think that people get to be that old. Well… maybe some do. I've heard rumours that there are some elves, special ones, that are as old as some of the dragons. But they might be just stories. Who knows. Who knows…" He watched as the cat emerged from behind her and crawled up into her lap, curling up tightly and starting to purr loudly. "So, I guess that's your cat. What's it called?"
"Why?"
"Well, it's always good to know the name of things. Or sometimes, as our Shaman reminds me, the name of things as they wish to be known by."
"Oh. I'm not sure I understand, but she's called Kiki."
"And did you build her? She's very good."
"Sorta. My dad and I built her." There was a brief flash of vulnerability again, and for a moment her eyes drifted, loosing focus as she replayed some scene in her mind. She snapped back to the present and abruptly changed the subject. "Say, I got a question. I noticed on your landing gear that you're using the standard Aztechnology sensor control system. Why's that?"
"Um – I don't know. When it comes to technical questions, you lost me after 'I got a question'… you can ask Marius though. Marius? MARIUS!"
"What, Kai?" The German stuck his head around the doorway and looked down towards them.
"Nim here has a question for you. Go ask him, I'm sure he'll help you." Kai reached down and grabbed the almost empty bowl, giving her just enough time to scoop out the last spoonful of mush before taking it away, his other hand pointing towards Marius. Marius looked particularly unimpressed with having a small child sent his way, glaring at Kai while he sipped at his coffee.
"Ask me what."
"I just wondered why you're still using the Aztechnology control system on the landing gear."
"What do you mean?"
"Well look." She jumped down to the side of the ramp, and then marched around to the nearest set of landing gear, kneeling down by the side of the heavy duty wheels and support struts. Marius followed her out reluctantly – he didn't want to baby sit some child, but he wasn't going to let anyone start fiddling with his aircraft either. He circled and then crouched down, looking at the landing gear while she gestured. "See here… you've got the wheels obviously, that feed up into the main hydraulic shaft, the support rods and control pinions, shock absorbers and the feedback system. And here in the middle you've got your sensor node, taking readings from each of those systems, processing and manipulating the data, then uplinking that to your telemetry bus. And you've got a standard Aztechnology QM39 control node installed, just like on the Aguila choppers, or the Stormrider passenger jets. I just wondered why? Like, why not swap them for a Renraku CF series module?" Marius blinked in surprise as she ran through the systems, identifying each of the sub-components and parts, but then smiled as she reached her question.
"Ahh, I see. Well – the reason is because that part is not compatible. It would not work."
"Yes, it would!"
"No – it would not. The CF series uses a 70-pin controller chip and socket arrangement, while the landing gear here has a 68 pin socket. They would not fit together."
"They totally would!"
"No – there are too many pins on the chip. They would not." Marius tried not to snap, wondering if maybe he'd over-estimated the child. Surely she understood basic maths?
"They would you know – all you have to do is take off the extra pins!" She smiled up at him, talking rapidly as she saw him getting ready to interrupt her. "You see, the Renraku CF series, if you look at the chip diagram, looks EXACTLY like the QM39. Almost as if someone at Renraku had hired a team to break into an Azzie research facility and steal the plans. But they changed it up a bit, adding support for the Renraku control link system. But that needed two extra lanes, one for upstream and one for downstream signaling, so they had to change it from a 68 pin socket to a 70 pin. Also stopped the Azzies screaming so much about design theft." Marius blinked, then closed his mouth as she explained things to him.
"But, you're not a Renraku vacuum cleaner system. Or a floor polishing robot. Or an auto-butler. So you don't need to use the RCL system, do you?" She barely paused for breath, not giving him chance to answer what she clearly saw as a rhetorical question. "So, if you don't need them, chop em off. And then – look at that. You've got a 68 pin chip again. And sure, you need to modify the firmware a bit to make sure it's not trying to signal on pins 69 and 70 and giving you checksum errors… but once you do that, it works just fine. And then instead of buying a processing node for a complex aircraft from your Aztechnology authorised dealer for a thousand Nuyen, you go and buy some spare parts for your household cleaning drone from your Renraku superstore for a hundred, and it fits just fine. So… I just wanted to know why you hadn't done that…" She looked up at him with unblinking eyes, fixing him with a direct stare.
"That is a very good question." His mind whirred as he worked through the chain of logic. If what she said was true, and he was feeling a lot less doubtful now than he had been only a minute ago, then it should work – and the difference in availability and cost between the parts was vast. The landing gear sensors designed for security and military aircraft normally commanded a fairly hefty premium and required all kinds of hoops to be jumped through to get hold of. Whilst the ones that controlled household cleaning robots and home systems could be purchased from department stores. He looked down at her with interest now, wondering what other gems of information she might have.
"Would you like a tour of the aircraft?"
"Oh yes!" She scurried out from underneath the fuselage and followed him to the back ramp, watching intently as he worked through the various systems and components. He caught sight of Tads heading out of the hanger, presumably to go and find the team she'd been working with yesterday to finish off her digging and construction, closely followed by Shimazu, Hunter, Vadim and Aswon who set off at a jog to get some exercise. He continued the tour though, gradually working through the aircraft and ending up at the cockpit, where he let her sit in the co-pilot's seat as he described the systems.
"I like it! Well, I like most of it. Not the saggy and broken bits, but I guess you're going to fix those."
"We sustained some damage on our flight here, yes. Unfortunately we ran into some kind of EMP weapon that blasted us, forced us down." He saw her wince and share a look of sympathy with him, causing him to pause again, unaware that he was now duplicating the same reassessment Kai had made a few minutes ago.
"But still, it's very shiny! Say, do you want to see my other drones?"
"Sure, why not." Marius smiled at her, wondering if she had Cats in other colours or styles. He was less surprised about Kiki than the others, though equally appreciative of the design and aesthetics. He'd seen the pets before a number of times in the enclaves back in Germany – designed to give companionship and the 'pet owner experience' but without the drawbacks and restrictions of a live animal. He followed her out into the car park, spotting the others as they hit the far corner of the property, doing alternate sprint/jog interval training. She led him towards a non-descript Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit.
He cast an eye over the Jackrabbit, checking the vehicle over. The windows were tinted of course, a standard feature for just about every vehicle in existence since the awakening, preventing mages and spirits from seeing the driver and affecting them with hostile spells. It lacked a full size exhaust system, making it a methane powered vehicle, fairly common in the low end range of sub-compact cars, and a requirement for some areas due to strict pollution laws. Otherwise it seemed to be a fairly standard model, a three door commuter car designed for use in the urban sprawl. Perhaps sitting a little lower to the ground than normal…
Nim pulled out her deck and activated it, then Marius gave a small start of surprise as the boot of the car opened quickly and quietly, folding down to form a ramp to the tarmac surface. A heavily armoured twin-track combat drone rumbled down the ramp, tracks clattering on the steep slope as they fought for grip. The Yamatetsu Barghest drone was commonly used for security checkpoints and fire support, the twin tracks giving it low top speed but great terrain covering ability, and the chassis was very heavily armoured, allowing it to normally resist or ignore most small-arms fire. He also noticed that it had a number of stickers on it, depicting Ryumyo the Great Dragon… Well, that maybe shouldn't surprise him – the Japanese did have a bit of a fascination with him, the first dragon to appear after the awakening, and considered something of a national treasure.
"Check this out too!" Nim span the drone around to face in their direction, and he saw the snub-nosed barrel of an assault rifle emerging from the front mount, fixed in a flexible dome that would allow it to rotate thirty degrees or so in any direction. As she hit a command on her deck, the top of the drone opened, and a small turret appeared, sporting a twenty millimetre grenade launcher.
"That is some impressive firepower!" Marius exclaimed, taking a step to the side to ensure he was not in the line of fire and then leaning in to examine the chunky and heavily armoured drone. "It looks like you've made some modifications here?"
"Yes, we had to shuffle things around a bit, but I managed to get the ammo capacity for the rifle up to just over two thousand rounds, and it's got room for a belt of twenty grenades." Marius looked back at her in surprise, then checked out the drone again, before letting his attention wander to the car. Now that he was closer he could see that it too had been heavily modified – in fact modified might be an understatement. Rebuilt would be closer to the truth. The front passenger seat had been removed along with the rear seats, leaving instead a large cargo compartment that had been converted into a drone bay, designed to fit around and cushion the Barghest – not to protect it from external damage, but to ensure it didn't damage the car as it travelled. But it also contained the charging hardware for the drone, fed from the car's engine, allowing the drone to be kept topped off with power whilst it was being moved about. The storage bay consumed nearly all of the space, all apart from the top section of the car, which was another mass of machinery and boxy equipment.
"And what is up the top?"
"I've got a Cyberspace Dalmation in there, in a quick launch drone rail system. I don't like getting that one out to show off, because the fuel is so expensive, and it takes ages to scrub off the soot from the top of the car!" Marius snorted at the whine in her voice, and it was his turn to give her a look of sympathy. He knew the Dalmation well, liking the combination of speed and firepower possible with the vector thrust drone, and his estimation of Nim went up again. As she turned the Barghest around and backed it into the car and got the ramp stowed, he told her how he'd used his Dalmation for the team, describing the assault over the lake near Tbilisi and his use of the drone to gun down the approaching boats before they got too close to the team.
She stopped what she was doing for a moment, turning to watch as Aswon, Shimazu and the others started to do some sparring, working out with weapons and hand-to-hand moves against each other. Familiar enough with each other after six months of training together daily, they worked out with an impressive level of fluidity and speed as they moved back and forth, and he heard a muttered 'cool' as she watched them performing kicks, sweeps, jumps and strikes against each other, before turning to follow him into the tilt-wing.
As she walked up the fuselage, she looked up at a bundle of cables that sagged loose on their fittings in one of the bulkheads and pointed up at it.
"So I guess you had a pretty hard landing after you got zorched." Marius nodded at her. "Do you mind?" She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small pair of needle nose pliers and clicked them in the air.
"Go ahead – though I think you're going to need an M14 driver set to get the transverse bulkhead unscrewed and removed, to get at the…" his voice trailed off as she climbed up the side of the fuselage and wormed a hand up under the bulkhead, questing around with her hand to locate the loose junction block. Her tiny frame let her hands worm in under the reinforcing spar in a way that just wouldn't be possible to any of the team. Even so, the bend in her arm meant that her hand was facing outwards, away from the loose cable connections. With a little grunt of effort though she twisted her hand and Marius watched as the fingers rotated far more than should be possible, bending backwards and grasping the box and pushing it back into place.
"Genesis Bio-systems Flex Hands. Second best upgrade I got, after my rigger jacks. You wouldn't believe the number of screws and nuts I've managed to get out of a drone that was ninety percent back together with these." She shifted position a little and managed to get the cables pushed firmly back into place, then went to work with the pliers, feeding them in and behind the bulkhead and pushing all the joints back together firmly until they clicked into place. "I guess you're running contingency routing on this – these can't have been the only signally cables or you wouldn't have been flying. Ok… done!" She snaked her arm back out and pocketed the pliers triumphantly. "So – you want a hand with the rest?"
"Your help would be appreciated. Come, let us start at the cockpit – there is a selection of wiring right under the front panel that was shaken loose, that I was going to have to disassemble the entire front display to get at. You however…" Marius smiled at her, then led the way to the cockpit. The two of them set to work, tracing cables and systems, with Marius doing the heavy lifting and tool holding, while Nim contorted herself into some strange shapes and got into spaces not designed for any meta-human to work on the underside of panels or behind equipment. Some spaces were too small, even for her, but working as a pair they were able to make great progress on stripping down the systems that had been battered and knocked out of alignment and getting them back together again.
Out in the car park, the team were still working on their sparring and fitness when they saw a GMC Bulldog coming up the street, looking slightly off centre. They continued their training, keeping half an eye on it, just in case it became an issue – but it seemed to be in no particular rush and just drove sedately up towards them, turning into the car park and stopping near the front of the church. As the van slewed round they saw pock-marks all down one side where gunfire had impacted the vehicle, striking the concealed armour installed on the van to turn it into a poor-man's APC. The impact marks traced down the side, getting lower and lower until they intersected with the rear-wheel. The tyre bulged slightly, and they could see the remains of the expanding foam from the run-flat chemicals where it had spurted out of the bullet holes, hardening on contact with the air. The soft tyre certainly explained the off-kilter look to the vehicle and why they'd not been interested in driving any faster – run-flats were great for getting you out of trouble when the lead was flying but were notorious for affecting the handling of the vehicle.
The doors opened and the first of the occupants climbed down – stepping out of the rear compartment came a trim and well-muscled ork, nearly two metres tall and wearing a set of camouflage fatigues, carrying a compact sniper rifle with a contoured polymer frame. He oozed down out of the Bulldog, crossing the ground with the silky smoothness of someone running with jacked up reflexes, his head looking around the area for threats. He made eye contact with the team, examined them for a moment, then moved on, clearing the way for the next to emerge. A quick check revealed him to be a physical adept, though he'd sacrificed part of his magic to install some cyberware into his body - they could see the black imprint of the SmartLink weapon system tracing from the palm induction jack up through his arm towards his head and the aiming system installed just behind his right eyeball.
The next runner out of the vehicle was a dark-skinned human, much shorter and more slender than the first. She held a large wrench over one shoulder and a large toolbox in the other hand, and was wearing a set of work overalls with only a slightly stiff area around the torso indicating some concealed body armour. She seemed a lot less concerned with her surroundings than the first runner, and much more with keeping her toolbox steady and stable, making sure it remained level as she headed towards the front doors of the church.
The final runner to emerge from the rear of the van was a huge troll, unfolding from the doorway in a similar manner to the troll they'd seen at Dantes nightclub the previous night. This troll was about as tall, though nowhere near as heavily-built, with a massive shock of blonde hair atop his craggy head. A pistol was strapped to his leg, looking like a child's toy against his huge physique, but as he climbed out of the van, he pulled out a two and a half metre long staff that looked more like a tree trunk than a traditional weapon. When his feet hit the floor the suspension on the van rose noticeably. He ignored the team, seeming more concerned with the holes in his jacket and the blood stains on his coat - though he moved with no sign of obvious wounds. Aswon and Shimazu both dipped into astral again to look at him and saw his magical power radiating from his body, without any sign of masking. He was a shaman of some kind, very early in his magical journey with only a limited amount of power - but likely he had been able to magically heal himself if he'd been shot, leaving him with nothing but the physical holes in his clothing to deal with.
The driver's door opened and the fourth member of the runner team emerged, a male human of average height and build. He reached into the van as he climbed out, pulling out a large medical kit with loose bandages flapping in the morning breeze and a number of blood stains and smears over the outside of the plastic case. Tutting and shaking his head in despair, he used the loose end of the bandage to wipe away the blood, then reached into the van again to pull out a hunting rifle of some kind, roughly similar in size to Aswon's Purdey. He slid the rear door closed, ran a hand over the indentations in the side of the rear panel and then shrugged, heading for the church doors to follow along with the others. As he did, he gave the team a cheery wave, apparently unconcerned with their observations.
Aswon exchanged glances with the rest of his group - it appeared that it was 'business as usual' for the runners here, and from the looks of things they'd been on a mission the previous night that had ended up going a little hot, with a getaway under fire. Still, they'd been quite upbeat in their mood, so presumably they'd managed to obtain whatever it was that was the target of their operation.
With the other team out of the way, Hunter took the opportunity to cool down, then headed back to the workshop so he could get his deck and start doing a bit more research on Mount Rainier, to get a better idea of what they were heading in to. The others continued to work out, then took some time to go through their kit, dragging it out of the tilt-wing and taking advantage of the covered space to clean and repack equipment, do basic maintenance and carry out servicing on their devices.
Just before lunchtime Tads returned to the hanger, having finished her part of the excavations. She reported that there was an extensive cavern hollowed out below them now, including a whole bunch of smaller tunnels that were barely big enough for a cat to crawl through – apparently earmarked for fibre optic cables to be installed into. But while it wasn't finished, the heavy lifting had been done and the whole place was shored up now with forms and supports, and they could start bringing in construction material to line the walls and support the ceiling, without needing her magical excavation anymore.
Marius had worked through the morning with Nim and had taken advantage of her flexibility and stature, and had fixed a good number of the nagging issues with the electronics and cabling on the aircraft, making him much happier with the state of the vehicle – though he cautioned them that there was still significant work to do. Hunter meanwhile had jacked out and was setting up the screen on one wall, and looked to be ready to give them a briefing. They gathered around, and when everyone had quietened down, he started to read from his notes, occasionally flashing up pictures or maps to illustrate his points.
"Mount Rainier, also known as Tahoma or Tacoma, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about ninety-five kilometres south-southeast of Seattle. With a summit elevation of 4,392 metres, it is the highest mountain in the former U.S. state of Washington and the Cascade Range, the most topographically prominent mountain in the area and the tallest in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. Due to its high probability of eruption in the near future, Mount Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list." Several of the team exchanged glances here, clearly thinking the same thing, and wondering how their luck was going to hold out.
"The large amount of glacial ice means that Mount Rainier could produce massive lahars which could threaten the entire Puyallup River valley. According to the NAN Geological Survey, 'about two hundred thousand people and their homes are at risk in Mount Rainier's lahar-hazard zones'. Mount Rainier is ranked third of the 128 ultra-prominent mountain peaks of the former United States. Mount Rainier has a topographic prominence of 4,026 m, which is greater than that of K2, the world's second-tallest mountain at 4,020m. On clear days it dominates the southeastern horizon in most of the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area to such an extent that locals sometimes refer to it simply as 'the Mountain'. On days of exceptional clarity, it can also be seen from as far away as Corvallis, Tir Tangire, and Victoria, Tsimshian."
"With twenty-six major glaciers and over ninety square kilometres of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the area, with nothing coming even close for over a thousand kilometres. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each more than three hundred metres in diameter, with the larger east crater overlapping the west crater. Geothermal heat from the volcano keeps areas of both crater rims free of snow and ice and has formed the world's largest volcanic glacier cave network within the ice-filled craters, with over three kilometres of passages known and explored. A small crater lake occupies the lowest portion of the west crater below more than thirty metres of ice and is accessible only via the caves, and is the highest in the North American continent with a surface elevation of 4,329 metres."
"I wonder what lives in there? Bet it's something interesting…" Kai mused, then smiled and shook his head as the others glared at him. "I know, I know. We're on the clock. But we could stop off on the way back maybe and explore?" He paused for a moment before laughing. "Sorry, sorry, just kidding. Go on, Hunter."
"The Carbon, Puyallup, Mowich, Nisqually, and Cowlitz Rivers begin at eponymous glaciers of Mount Rainier. The sources of the White River are Winthrop, Emmons, and Fryingpan Glaciers. The White, Carbon, and Mowich join the Puyallup River, which discharges into Commencement Bay at Tacoma; the Nisqually empties into Puget Sound east of Lacey; and the Cowlitz joins the Columbia River between Kelso and Longview. These rivers form a high proportion of the watersheds for the entire area, and form a vital resource for the metroplex and surrounding districts."
"Mount Rainier is a stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc that consists of lava flows, debris flows, and pyroclastic ejecta and flows. Its early volcanic deposits are estimated at more than 840,000 years old and are part of the Lily Formation (about 2.9 million to 840,000 years ago). The early deposits formed a "proto-Rainier" or an ancestral cone prior to the present-day cone. The present cone is more than five hundred thousand years old. The volcano is highly eroded, with glaciers on its slopes, and appears to be made mostly of andesite. Rainier likely once stood even higher than today at about 4,900 metres before a major debris avalanche and the resulting Osceola Mudflow approximately five thousand years ago. In the past, Rainier has had large debris avalanches, and has also produced enormous lahars or volcanic mudflows, due to the large amount of glacial ice present. Its lahars have reached all the way to Puget Sound, a distance of more than forty-eight kilometres. Around five thousand years ago, a large chunk of the volcano slid away and that debris avalanche helped to produce the massive Osceola Mudflow, which went all the way to the site of present-day Tacoma and south Seattle. This massive avalanche of rock and ice removed the top five hundred metres of Rainier, bringing its height down to around 4,300. About five hundred and thirty to five hundred and fifty years ago, the Electron Mudflow occurred, although this was not as large-scale as the Osceola Mudflow. After the major collapse approximately five thousand years ago, subsequent eruptions of lava and tephra built up the modern summit cone until about as recently as a thousand years ago. As many as eleven Holocene tephra layers have been found on the volcano during investigations."
"On Aug 17, 2017, at 10:32 AM PST the Great Ghost Dance was triggered by terrorists, causing the eruption of Mounts. Hood, Rainier, St. Helens, and Adams to erupt simultaneously, the magical equivalent of nuclear war. Unable to respond effectively, the US had to accede to terrorist demands to prevent further loss of life, allowing the formation of the Native American Nations and the usurping of ownership for the entire western part of the continental US. During this eruption large lahars caused devastation in the area of Pullyup, killing tens of thousands and rendering hundreds of square kilometres of land uninhabitable. During the attack, earthquakes also shook the area, causing massive magma displacement and shifts in the geology. Deeper cave systems and magma chambers were exposed, while some of the previous cave system collapsed, while ejecta from the eruption settled on the slopes causing the volcano to rise in height on the eastern side by over a hundred metres, while the western approach was reduced by nearly thirty metres due to the fast flowing lava that seemed to be aimed squarely at the city of Seattle."
Hunter finished speaking and the silence stretched out for nearly thirty seconds, until Aswon spoke.
"What I'm hearing is, that if there's any kind of event up there, given the size and scale – we'll just die. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. It'll blow, and the area will be wiped out. That explains all the stuff we've picked up about this 'Pullyup Barrens' area to the south of the city. Trashed by the volcanic mudslide and ash storm from the eruption."
"Is it likely to have a strong negative astral taint, or some kind of background aura because of all the deaths?" Kai asked.
"Probably not – it was so long ago, and I don't think it would have counted as a truly evil event."
"Tell that to all the people that died!"
"I'm sure the deaths were tragic. But from what I have learnt of this Ghost Dance, the Native Americans didn't want to kill anyone – they wanted to display their power in a way that could not be argued against, and prove that they COULD strike back against the Anglos. Force them to the negotiating table. And weirdly, that intention would flavour and affect those deaths. They were not deliberate, not sought after. More the casualties of war. Very different to that area of Nagasaki we flew over – where yes, they too were casualties of a war, but the bomb was very deliberately aimed at a large population centre that was co-located with a bunch of major industrial targets."
"If you say so." Kai didn't seem convinced, but then pressed on. "Based on the heights given, I take it this is another one where we can only fly up so far, then find a place to land and have to hike the rest?" Hunter nodded, then keyed alive a new graphic showing a landing spot on the east side and a dotted line showing an ascent route to an area well inside the boundary of their drop zone. "Excellent, Hunter. I'm going to assume that you've done your customary excellent job with finding the smoothest and best landing spot for us, and I'm sure Marius can land there with minimal effort. So, we fly out of the city using the code from those two decker brothers, up to the landing spot, land and go for a walk, drop the thing, then come back and fly off. Unless there's any other issues?"
"This is higher than we've been before anywhere else. Oxygen might be an issue based on how thin the air is going to be. We might want to look into a supplemental supply." Aswon advised.
"Ok – that's something we can do. I'm sure Rad mentioned that there was a doctor in the church with some kind of clinic – maybe they'll have oxygen tanks or something that we can borrow or buy from them. Unless there's any other issues, let's go see if we can sort that out?" Nobody else had any issues to raise, so they broke up into groups to finish packing, preparing the craft – or in the case of Aswon and Kai, heading into the Church to find the medic. As they headed inside, he floated another idea to Kai.
"If we can't get any here, we can maybe ask around for some contacts to find a medical supplier in the city that we can purchase oxygen tanks from. I don't know how long that will take to set up, but it's an alternative."
"It is, but I think by the time we arrange a meet with a fixer, and get put in touch with someone, we'll be looking at a day or more to arrange." Aswon frowned, then checked his pocket secretary. "Yeah – technically, we have time. But if something goes wrong, that extra day might really be important. So I'd rather try the simple option first." Aswon nodded his head in agreement, then followed Kai inside. They collared the first person they found, a dishevelled elderly man that was aimlessly wandering the corridors, and got some directions to the doctor. She was located in a room that according to the door had once been a creche – but inside the room was kitted out with a large amount of medical kit, nearly all of it battered and clearly having seen better days.
"Ok, what's wrong with you?" The voice sounded weary and impatient, and indicated that the owner was not willing to put up with any nonsense. As they stepped into the room they saw the owner of the voice, cleaning up the area around a medical couch with spray disinfectant. She was a solidly-built black lady, probably in her mid-thirties, wearing a tight fitting set of coveralls that had fairly obvious pouches for armour plate inserts that would cover the arms, legs and core areas of the body. Noticeably lighter patches over the left breast and both upper arms indicated that corporate logos or name tags had once been stitched or attached there, but had been recently removed.
"Nothing, thank you. Or at least nothing we need medical attention for. I'm Kai, and this is Aswon. We're looking for Doctor April?"
"It's just April, and you found her. What do you want? I've got cleaning to do, then rounds."
"Well I can see you're busy, so we'll be brief. We're flying out of here soon, and going somewhere high, high enough we think we'll maybe need oxygen. If you have a tank available, I'd like to borrow it. Or buy it. But come to some kind of arrangement for it anyway."
"A tank of oxy? I've got one, but it's my only one. You want it, it's gonna cost you. I'll need two grand for it." Aswon spluttered, but it was Kai that managed to speak first.
"That seems a little high. Can we perhaps negotiate on the price?"
"Yeah, we can negotiate. It's two kay, or you don't get it. I need enough money to pay one of those nutters to go steal me another one, or I won't have one. And those pin-heads won't get out of their racks for less than five hundred. So I need two large, to get someone to walk into a clinic one night after closing time and get me a replacement. Budda George runs a charity. I can't afford to."
"What do you mean?" Kai asked, hearing an edge in her voice. She was bitter about something, and he could tell she wanted to talk about it – just needing the right excuse to vent about her situation.
"I mean I can't give shit out for free to thems that can afford it – there's folk here that can't and they'll die. George keeps 'em fed and under a roof, but he can't fix their insides. I can – but I gotta have the stuff to do it." She put the bottle and cleaning cloth down on a trolley and walked over towards the pair of them, raising a hand to point at Kai's chest. As she spoke, her finger punctuated each sentence, stabbing back and forth to emphasise her point.
"Do you know what happened the first week I was here? Little boy died. Died from an infection. Bit on some food that had a stone in it, and it cracked his tooth. Got some dirt in there, some bacteria in the blood stream. He was weak anyway, not been getting enough food. Unsanitary conditions, not enough vitamins, that kind of thing. He was an easy target, and the infection went to town on him. I found him, but I didn't have the antibiotics to deal with it. Because I didn't have stock, that little boy burned up and died, in front of me. Weren't nothing I could do to stop that – I was just too late. He died because he didn't have ten nuyens worth of tablets, because those pharma corps will only sell them at what rich folk can afford. You went those medicines, your insurance company pays four hundred Nuyen. These folks can't afford that. Nobody here can. So I need supplies from the black market, and hope they ain't tainted. No licence, so I can't buy legit. So beg, borrow or steal, to keep folks alive. So you want some of my gear, you pay me, so I can get stuff replaced. You dig?"
"I understand. And you have my sympathies – to have something like that happen in front of you must have been awful, especially knowing how easy it would have been to save him if you'd had the right equipment. I think we can stretch to two thousand for the tank. We're probably around for another couple of hours before we leave – is there anything we can do while we're here to help?"
"You can go break into a clinic somewhere and get me a load of supplies to restock. I'm low on blood, painkillers, dressing packs, a whole lot of stuff…"
"Maybe on the way back we can do something to help you out. But I don't think raiding a medical facility in daylight when we're new to the city is going to help you or us out, because we won't have time to plan it properly. So is there anything else?"
"Not unless you can magic some doctors and supplies out of thin air?"
"Ask and ye shall receive… Aswon, can you grab Shimazu and some supplies please?" Aswon paused and looked at Kai with a raised eyebrow, then shrugged as Kai nodded firmly at him, turning and heading back outside. Kai turned back to April and smiled at her.
"Ok, how about two grand for the oxygen tank, and if we don't use it we'll bring it back to you. And we'll also try to work out where we can get some medical supplies from to help you out with your situation."
"Deal." April snapped out quickly, not believing her ears. "This Shee-maar-zu of yours a doctor?"
"No, that would be me. But Shimazu is a very well qualified nurse practitioner, and well skilled at medical treatment too."
"Show me?" April sounded suspicious at the sudden revelation of Kai's medical prowess, so he spent the next few minutes working through some of the instruments and medical equipment she had, describing their use and function, and what kinds of treatments they allowed. When Shimazu appeared with the team's medical kit, they headed out of April's room and started to work their way through the church, wandering through "tent city" and stopping off to deal with a number of people suffering from long term issues, many of which stemmed from alcohol or substance addiction, malnutrition or the results of violent assaults. The three of them worked solidly for two hours to do the best they could for the homeless population, with Kai gently digging for information on the church and the local situation, finding out how Budda George had appeared one day to move into the abandoned church, and had somehow persuaded the local gangs to stop shooting at each other just long enough to establish the place as neutral ground.
From there he'd found a few local runners and fixed them up with jobs, low level stuff at first, getting him and them established. Once enough jobs were coming through him that he'd started to attract a number of teams to the area, he'd moved on to the next stage in his plan – encouraging the gangs to leave the area, backed up by the runner teams who saw him as their source for easy jobs. As more runners hung around, the area became safer and safer – none of the local gangs had the firepower to take them on, and there wasn't any profit in it anyway. With the local area effectively pacified, George expanded the church and took in more homeless people, appealing to local businesses and working with the media to establish a charitable mission to get people fed, clothed and housed. Nobody knew why he was doing it or where he was from – the homeless didn't care as long as he looked after them, and the runners didn't ask while he continued to act as a fixer for them and route them to deniable tasks and shadow-work for the various corporations.
It wasn't directly useful to them now, but it gave them a much better understanding of the church and it's inhabitants, and if they did come back this way after their current job was done, it would put them in a much better position to negotiate for supplies and goods on the way back through…
Meanwhile, back in the tilt wing, Marius had been ruminating on an idea for the past hour, and as he continued to work on the vehicle with Nim, his resolve hardened. It was much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. And besides – it was his tilt-wing after all.
"Say, Nim. Have you ever wanted to travel?" He saw her nod emphatically, not speaking because she had a screwdriver held between her teeth as she worked on getting a cable lined up with a junction block. "Good. Because we are flying out of here soon, heading south towards the big volcano just south of here. Then we are flying all the way down to Cal-Free, to find another mountain. Then back here. And I really think you would be a huge addition to our team. I am happy to offer you a space on the journey to come with us."
"Wow!" She spat out the screwdriver, managing to catch it before it hit the deck. "That's awesome! And I'd love to come! Only problem is I need to do some work to make sure I've got my rent." She saw Marius look at her with confusion. "I mean, I gotta get money for food. And fuel for my drones. Pay for maintenance materials. Stuff like that. So I got to earn me some Nuyen."
"How much do you need?"
"Well…" She stared into the distance for a moment. "I reckon I need nearly a…. thousand?" Her voice rose slightly, as if she was testing the waters somewhat.
"If you come with us, I will cover your…'rent' from my own pocket. In fact, I will offer fifteen hundred."
"You will? I mean, sure. That would be great. In that case I…. ahh crap. When are you leaving?"
"Shortly. By lunchtime I would imagine."
"Frak. I got a job later on. I already signed up for it. George has arranged for someone to come in, and they got something on they need some drone support for. I already said I'd help out. Double Frak." She sighed deeply, and her shoulders sagged, looking genuinely disappointed. "I don't know what the pay is for the job, but I don't want to get a rep for bailing on a job I said I'd do."
"I understand. Reputation is important, especially so in our line of work. It is a shame, but perhaps another time. Though if you change your mind, you probably have an hour to do so."
The time flew by, and soon enough it was closing on one in the afternoon. Shimazu, Kai and a much depleted medical kit returned to the tilt-wing, carrying an oxygen cylinder and several masks, tubes and connectors, while Nim said a sad and somewhat regretful goodbye to Marius. Once they were all loaded up, several of the larger runners from the church pushed them out into the open, then retreated as Marius started up the engines, lifting them off and turning to the south. Picking their way through the convoluted airspace of the metroplex took far longer than it should have done just based on the distance, but eventually they were at the southern end of the city, flying over the devastated area of Pullyup, crossing kilometre after kilometre of barren ash and volcanic lava, long solidified into a hostile landscape. Marius remained high over the ground below, not taking any chances of ingesting ash into the engines, regardless of how visible he might be to air traffic control, and Tads ensured that each of the engines had a spirit in attendance, using their powers to try and ensure that only 'good' air reached the intakes.
Flying south, they approached the border with the Salish, a long high fence that stretched for kilometres in either direction, with sensor posts and guard towers, backed up by patrol vehicles. Marius called out on the guard frequency as he got close to the border, giving his flight ID and clearance code, announcing that he was a medical flight heading to the town of Fairfax to pick up an urgent case. It took only moments for clearance to come through, and they slipped across the border without incident, heading towards the greener land beyond the path of destruction from the volcano that now loomed on the horizon.
They flew towards, and then straight over Fairfax, finally dropping altitude and disappearing off the scopes of anyone watching as they entered the foothills and approaches to the volcano. Strangely enough, despite the volcano being the source of the lava and pyroclastic flows, ash clouds and other eruption based events that had decimated the southern end of the metroplex, the land here had recovered, the rich and fertile soil having regrown forests and grasslands, upland meadows that rippled with wildflowers on either side of clear rivers fed from glacial runoff. Whatever the natives were doing, it certainly seemed to be working.
Marius threaded through the valleys and ridges, travelling north of the volcano and then working down the eastern flank, before turning in and starting his climb up towards the peak. The grey clouds of the massive weather system hung overhead, getting closer and closer as they climbed up the side of the volcano, Marius flying in gentle orbits as he zeroed in on their landing spot.
"Standby, spirits ahead." Shimazu called out, his hands suddenly grasping the optical system headset. "Multiple spirits, powerful ones. Multiple groups of multiple spirits. BREAK BREAK BREAK!" The tilt-wing banked sharply to the side as his voice barked out, Marius throwing the controls over hard. A split second later a number of large fireballs arced up from the mountain side as plumes of lava spurted up from the icy rocks, sending wafts of steam lancing into the air. With the rapid warning, Marius avoided the fireballs with ease, quickly dropping down and sideslipping through the air, making sure he was moving in all three dimensions to make targeting him as difficult as possible. More fireballs came arcing up through the sky as the belligerent spirits continued their assault, leaving a trail of explosions behind them, globes of actinic fire over fifteen metres in diameter that burst in their wake. On the astral plane, shields and magical defences sprang up around them as both Aswon using his spear and Tads raised their powers to protect them.
"I counted at least ten of them, all spirits, all very angry and hostile. Really hostile – I could feel the hatred boiling off them. Not as powerful as Tads or I am individually, but there's a lot more of them than us. They just emerged out of the rocks, materialised and then started to attack."
"Do you think we could negotiate with them?" Kai asked.
"Maybe. Anything is possible, but I don't feel inclined to go out there on my own and approach them. Not after that display."
"What about with Vadim as well?"
"I think that would be a very bad idea still, and just a way to lose both of our Shaman." Aswon gripped the spear tightly, concentrating hard on it, and trying to channel whatever strange power it had into the craft. He didn't know how the magical scales worked that protected or at least reduced the potential damage from fire, but it seemed like exactly the right kind of thing to try and cover the craft with. "We didn't provoke them, and that wasn't a warning shot. That was a deliberate attack, aimed to take us out of the sky."
"Yeah. Ok – so the primary landing spot doesn't look so good. What can we do, Hunter?"
"Working on it. Ok, I got an alternate spot, but it's lower and the route is harder. A lot harder. But I found a place called Anvil Rock that looks like a reasonable alternate spot."
"A place with a name? That might not be good. It may be a sacred place. And if it's on the mountain, those spirits may still detect our presence. If they are spirits of the volcano itself, they can appear anywhere upon it."
"Well, pretty much any space I can see that's big enough to put us down on is a landmark on this map, so wherever we go, it's got a name. So I don't see that we have a lot of choice!"
Nobody had a better idea, so Hunter fed the new co-ordinates to Marius, who eased back away from the volcano and then started to head around to the southern side, carefully approaching the towering monolith of rock ahead of him. The top wasn't visible, shrouded in clouds and he could already feel the aircraft starting to struggle as he climbed through the thinning air. Shimazu was cycling through the cameras though, calling out negative reports and keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of danger.
Tads meanwhile felt a tugging at her psyche, and dropped into astral space to find several of her spirits bobbing up and down in front of her.
[What is it?]
[Go. We want to go. This place is bad.]
[Bad? Why?]
[Hostility. This land is not for us. Release us? Please?]
[Go from here then, return to the metaplanes. But await my call. I will try not to call you, but if I call, we will need you, need you badly. Will you return?]
[If we must.]
Tads blinked and watched as the spirits blinked out of sight, returning to the metaplanes. They were still bound to her, but gone from the physical world, and with it the astral plane that co-joined it.
"We may have a problem. My spirits are all freaked out and have asked to be released. Something on the mountain is hostile to them, and they all wanted to leave. I've let them go back to the metaplanes, and they say they'll come if we call them. But they're not happy."
"Oh, that's just great. This gets better and better!" Hunter's voice rang out from the speakers, dripping with sarcasm.
"I thought you didn't like magic anyway, Hunter?" Aswon shot back.
"I don't. But at least it's better on our side than their side!" It was hard to argue with that logic, and they flew on for a few more moments before Aswon spoke again.
"Regardless of the spirit situation, we have to push on to accomplish our mission. And if we're going to push on, we need to get on the ground as quickly as possible. While we're protected from them getting in the aircraft by the ward, there's nothing to stop them attacking the outside. In the air we're a lot more vulnerable to them than they are to us. On the ground at least we can fight back with our weapon foci."
"I agree – though I'd much rather not fight them at all. I know, Aswon, that's not what you meant, and I'm sure you agree. But I don't like this at all." Tads looked worried – she really didn't want to call the spirits back to them and to this place when they so clearly didn't want to be here. But without them, she only had her spells to fall back upon, and while she had lots of powerful magical spells, they were mostly of a utility nature – not combat. Elk was not one for fighting, and she felt a strong aversion to the magic of death and destruction that other Shamans like Crocodile, Wolf or Shark – or even Wolverine – seemed happy to channel.
"Coming up on landing zone. Get ready." Marius was fighting the craft hard now, feeling his arms and legs struggling to fly him through the air, leaden limbs flailing in the thin atmosphere. He found the landing spot though, a large knoll that seemed to have minimal snow capping on it, and bought them in for a smooth landing with his customary skill and precision.
"Ok, I presume it's standard team now – myself, Hunter and Shimazu, with Tads and Vadim providing alternate astral cover? And how far have we got to go Hunter?"
"About two- and three-quarter kilometres horizontally Aswon. And about a thousand metres vertically."
"Crap. We'd better take survival gear then. That's far enough to get into real trouble."
The three fittest and fastest members of the team grabbed their packs, checking for water, food, emergency shelters and the other things they'd need to stand a chance of surviving on the slopes of the glacial volcano, then quickly climbed out of the door, sliding it shut behind them and leaving the rest of the team on guard.
Once they'd slung a rope between them, Shimazu led the way up the slope, walking across the top of the snow with no trace of his passage, while Hunter and Aswon had to wade through the snow drifts, leaving a deep trail behind them. Shimazu had the oxygen slung over the top of his pack, ready to use as they climbed higher, and one hand rested on the hilt of his sword, letting him peer into the astral realm as they climbed. Hunter had his assault rifle ready, just in case they encountered something other than spirits – a dire wolf or bear would ruin their day just as much as an elemental, after all. Aswon bought up the rear, his spear activated and kept watch on their flanks and tail, following along in Hunter's wake.
Marius watched them climb slowly up the mountain, climbing higher and higher, fading out of sight as they disappeared into the clouds.
"I do not have a good feeling about this…"
