4509 stays outside. He scans the license plates of passing cars in silence.
Nail considers lighting another smoke, but 4509’s silent presence unnerves him slightly. Rather than lighting up, he decides to break the tension by talking.
“Looks like it’s just us,” he says to the dour cyborg. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Ask it.” One of the few cars still out this late passes and 4509’s eyes track it as it goes, background programs capturing stills and running checks on its plates.
“Alright.” Nail replies, “I always wonder, what got you into all this body modification to start with? Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive stuff. But why?”
The cyborg is silent for a few moments. Eventually he turns to look at Nail, lidless mechanical eyes locked on his face. “I’m curing my cancer one pound at a time.”
Nail relaxes a bit and resumes smoking. However, 4509’s response only raises further idle questions in Nail’s mind.
“Fair enough,” Nail responds. “But if humanity is cancer, why are you working to protect it?”
“I’m not.”
“I see,” he replies, getting up. While stretching, he says, “Well, in any case, those devices must have been pretty expensive.” He starts walking back through the door.
On the doorway, before heading in, he quips casually: “Oh, and please don’t cure me of my cancer. I’ve grown kinda attached to it.”
Once back inside, Nail does what he usually does. Not much.
Sinthia awakes with a start.* Something is wrong.*
She’s alone in a bedroom in Goethe’s safe house. The low sound of idle conversation drifts into the room, too muffled for her to understand. The hair on her flesh stands on end, and a shiver runs down her spine. Her blood is reacting to…something. Magic?
Sinthia has always been too rash and impulsive to comprehend the intricacies of dedicated, persistently logical ritual magic, but she can recognize a spell when she’s the target of one. Someone is casting ritual magic against her, probably using the blood she left behind in the stairwell of Psycare…
Once Sinthia decides what to tell the group, and everyone decides whether and how to act upon it, a much bigger update will follow. Sorry for the delays!
Seneth, please let this be you. Help me find you, for Raven’s sake.
Feeling no pain, Sinthia is able to focus on what she should do. Her skin crawls, and for a moment, it feels like insects squirm across her body.
No. This isn’t Seneth. It doesn’t feel the same.
Sinthia finds the rest of the crew conversing in another room the Safe House.
“We have a problem. Well, I have a problem and it may spell the end of our time together unless any of you know a way to use it. Someone is casting a spell against me…within me. They are using my blood and somehow…well, I have no idea what they are doing, but it can’t be good.”
Sinthia pauses.
“I can not track it. Does anyone know of how this can be used to fight the Dark? Can we locate who is doing this if we take my blood and analyze it. I have zero skills in this area.”
“If they’re casting on her they could be tracking her. Our location might be compromised.”
"Well, if you have zero skills in this area, I can’t really see any of the rest of us doing any better. As far as them tracking us, well, it’s possible, but it could be just about anything. Ritual magic has pretty much infinite possibilities, but it all has one thing in common: the results are powerful, much more so than anything that can be pulled out of a mage’s ass in combat.
“But we should leave. Now. At least until we figure out what the spell is. Because if they haven’t finished the spell yet, even if it is a tracking spell, they won’t know about this place yet. I’m all ears as to where all of you think we should go. Any luck on that tracer device?”
Nail yawns, still in a half-asleep state after exchanging banter with Goethe. “Why can’t anyone just fight with their fists anymore?” Nail complains. His brain soon wakes up and he realizes the danger everyone is in. “Goethe is right. That spell could finish any minute now. We need to go. We’ll discuss where to on the way.”
Nail then quickly packs his few belongings, including some licquor he will borrow.
Butcher replies, “Yes, and no. The tracer was broadcasting blindly. It was not receiving signals from any source, so there’s trail for us to follow. Theoretically, I can broadcast anything you could ask for, even something to overload the receiver, or cause it to malfunction. But practically…out of the question. I have a portable computer and a Swiss army knife, when I really need a fully stocked tech lab.”
Rescigno listens to Goethe and Butcher, deep in thought. Finally, he offers his own insight.
“We can go back to UO headquarters, but that’s risky. We’re still in the process of securing the building, and our mages haven’t finished examining everyone. We can go to Synthcorp, where they have a magnificent tech lab. But, also risky.” There’s a twinkle in his eye, and a mischievous grin as he continues. "But, why go through all that trouble to find the Dark, when it’s so damned determined to come to us?
It’s not my neck on the line, though. It’s up to you Runners, if you want to play it safe and lock Sinthia down at UO or Synthcorp, where we can regroup and study the Psycare computer drive, use corporate mages to block the ritual spell, build a machine to sabotage their tracer receiver, and interrogate Erwin some more. Or, you can use Raven-girl as vampire bait, and give the Dark cult a bloody lip."
“We’ve been bloodying them. Anything we do that doesn’t address the source is a waste of time.”
Nightshade shakes her head. “I disagree,” she says quietly. “However many resources they have, they can’t be unlimited. Taking them on their own turf is bound to be a pain; if we can take down some of their effectives in our own ambush, those are effectives they won’t have in a showdown.”
She pauses, glancing at 4509. “And you may have forgotten, but if someone’s nose gets bloodied enough times, they’ll sometimes back off. If we don’t have to fight that fight, I won’t complain.”
“But–not here.” She grins at Goethe. “A firefight here will definitely make the landlord unhappy. And this isn’t really a hardened fortification. The Synthcorp HQ actually sounds like a good idea to me–they had a solid facility, good resources and defensible. I only worry there may be too many bystanders that can be used against us.”
She grabs her bag and throws the items not yet put away into it. “But wherever we’re going, we need to get on the road. Clock’s ticking, as usual. If someone has a better idea, speak now. Best is someplace with limited approaches and few or no bystanders. Ideally, someplace where I can set some ‘surprises’ in some of those approaches without someone coming after us for damages later.”
Nail had just been about to head to the door when Rescigno, and then Nightshade, address the group. Nail replies thusly:
"I agree with 4509. Unless Mr. The Dark himself comes after Sinthia, using her as bait is only going to net us a few stooges, minus of course whatever injuries they manage to inflict on us for our trouble. These creeps don’t care about their own skins, and that makes them dangerous.
Besides that, what makes you sure they would come after us directly? For all we know, the Dark is turning Sinthia into whatever kind of monster is using Seneth’s body…"
A small chill goes over the room, as Nail pauses briefly to let his words sink in. Also because he needs to light up a cig. Taking a lone puff to break the ice, he continues on.
“Also, Reggie, can I call you Reggie? We don’t use any member of my crew as bait unless they volunteer.” While saying this, he keeps his gaze on Rescigno, but glances over once briefly at Nightshade. After taking another puff, Nail suddenly notices Goethe glaring at him for smoking indoors, and with a sigh puts out his cig.
Narrowing his gaze, Nail goes on to say, “I say we use Synthcorp. It sounds like we have a lot of techy things to do. If they have such a great tech lab, then that’s the place to do it. And, if The Dark does come after us, it’ll be somewhat on our own turf. Any objections?”
Tired from moving his lips so much, Nail takes out the bottle he had just put in his bag and takes a swig. A split second after it looks like he’s done talking, he continues talking:
“And, could someone at least find out the real name of this chump we’re up against? I’m starting to feel like I’m in some cliched fantasy novel.”
4509 doesn’t bother saying anything more.
"All right. I think it’s decided then. We regroup at Synthcorp. Whether we go the bait route or the direct offensive, it gives us a more secure place to figure out a plan. Granted, they’ll eventually find us and I’d rather strike at these guys before they can adequately prepare for us, but at the same time, we need to not rush in unprepared.
“There’s also the slight risk that they’re already watching Synthcorp, in which case they might make the decision for us. But regardless, if they find us here we’re sitting ducks.”
“Bait. I can live with that. Let’s do it,” replies Sinthia.