Clusterfrag

The Barrens: an ode to the erosion of society played on an orchestra of unfortunate circumstances and failed dreams. It's a socio-economic prison, full of have-nots engaged in Sisyphean subsistence. A weed-infested Babylon of rusted out vehicles and vacant buildings. A lawless theater, so thoroughly exsanguinated of resources that even the avaricious Mega Corporations have withdrawn the proboscis of parasitic Capitalism.

The landscape is blanketed in an oppressive darkness, barely kept at bay by the Vantichrist's meager halogens and the scattered funeral pyres of burning refuse. The concrete carcasses of abandoned estate homes loom in the shadows with their ribs of rebar, spilling rubble viscera. Grim reminders of Redmond's history appear in the form of signs bearing the yellow-jacket trefoil.

The van caroms past the ruins of a bus stop, reclaimed by mousy nettle and vines like wicker. A stained mannequin torso has been carefully arranged atop a cinderblock bench; the word slitch spray-painted across the plastic breast. Asphalt gravel crunches underneath the van's wheels. Rain blooms on the windshield.

Gradually, a noxious odor of burning plastic and wet garbage permeates the van. The road deteriorates into a cobble of tarmac shards and the Vantichrist jounces sharply over the terrain. A patchwork of empty lots ringed with hills of discarded materials marks the entrance to The Heaps. Overhead, the stars are lost among the polluted gloom.

The PolyWorks facility is a grim, two-story affair that looks like a rain-slick, industrial mausoleum. The exterior is a mosaic of empty window frames, long devoid of glass. An acre of scrubby thorn bushes and rubble serves as parking lot. Anything of value has been stripped as evidenced by the empty husks of utility boxes and naked power-lines. The rear service entrance is open, the rolling security door savaged out of the way like a mangled accordion.

Thoryne steps out of the van and into the rain, his boots squelching in the mud. The glow from the van's headlights render him nothing more than a Troll-shaped shadow. His gaze sweeps over the ruined façade of the chemical plant, which is composed of a palette of cold colors in his thermographic vision. A few pin-points of bright orange trawl along the ground level floor. Rats, he figures. His modified AK-98 is held low, but ready.

"Looks to be clear," he grumbles. His eyes track the subtle movement of the small heat signatures. "...of people, anyway."

Having spent the van ride researching the entity that once was Bongoland, Mouse has come away with exactly two findings: the first being a low resolution map of the park, its landmarks recreated in garish caricature. The second is less discovery than personal revelation- that nothing good has ever happened at Bongoland, and anyone who willingly chooses to go there (herself included) has made some terrible life choices in doing so. In an attempt to feel useful, she's cross-referenced the Mapsoft's aerial imagery with the shoddy visitor map, and superimposed her own labels over the roughly corresponding locations. With a swipe of her hand, she sends icons of both maps to her team's Commlinks.

As soon as the Vantichrist trundles to a halt, she sets to work immediately, stacking a couple ancient pizza-boxes onto the bench-space beside her in a crude facsimile of a desk. Gingerly, she tops this makeshift structure with a small hockey-puck shaped device- her satellite link, as though literally crowning her pathetic attempt at a mobile command center. Gritting her teeth, she sends out an initial, exploratory pulse, praying to the gods of signal scrubbing that her efforts will prove functional enough that she won't have to set foot in Bongoland proper.

(( AR Matrix Perception: Just a super quick check to see A) how bad is the noise here normally, and B) can she spot any icons whatsoever in the vicinity. ))

Mouse's pulse comes back unanswered. The latency of the reply suggests considerable background noise. Not surprising, considering the parking lot likely lies within the Trojan-Satsop exclusion zone.

Mick steps into the night, their form seeming to deliquesce into shadow. Moving nimbly on the balls of their feet, the orc pads through the PolyWorks entrance. Unseen and unheard, they move from room to room and take in the grayscale interior with their low-light vision. The chemical plant is empty and uninhabited, little more than a series of mildew-infested work spaces. The only sound is the muted drum of the storm and the trickle of water.

After a few minutes of silent observation, Mick returns to the entrance. The anticipation of possible violence triggers an acetous flavor in their mouth. Their pulse beats in their ears. They feel an unseen force beckoning them to the amusement park they know is so very close.

Axel's chest thumps even after T-Bone's latest rendition of Seven Seas of Rhye fades to the background patter of the irradiated rain worrying the roof, like nature's own Geiger counter. This is a bad place. Axel knows that all too well. The mountains of refuse don't bother him, in fact, he finds them reassuring. Piles of refuse are how he cobbled together most of his gear back in the day. They inhabit the same place in his heart and mind that a playground or sandbox might in a more well adjusted human. But this place, this scar reaches past even Axel's copious chrome enhancements, and touches a very old, very atavistic part of the animal that still lives behind the smiles and flowery elocution of every sentient flesh being. DANGER. This is a bad place because he Knows it's a bad place. A place where things go to die, or to turn into something far worse. There are stranger and more terrifying things than just psychotic clowns here.

There are things deep down in The Glow, red in tooth and claw, who see with metahuman eyes.

Axel's reverie is broken by the sounds of Mouse redecorating the back of the Vantichrist in ways all too familiar to himself. The sounds of frustration that follow only add to his worry.

"Drek, yeah, we're pretty godsdammed close the Pile. Probably want to make this quick before we suck down too many rads and turn into the locals," he says, taking a seat opposite Mouse, and running a shakedown on all of his gear.

(( RCC config: all 5 points into noise cancellation +2 noise cancellation from his Antennae cyberware. Want to find out if maxed out noise cancellation is enough for a link to the drones, and also how low noise cancellation can go to still have a solid link, if possible. ))

Yung tries to stand inside the van but finds it too confined to stretch to his full height. “What da noise like out there Mouse? We got any chance of gettin video feed back to you if we do some prowling?”

As he waits for a response, Yung steps outside. Finally able to move with some freedom, he goes through a practiced routine of stretches. He clasps his hands above his head and inverts his palms toward the ceiling, slowly leaning from one side to the other. He releases his hands, letting them fall to his sides while twisting his head from side to side, a motion that is followed by a barely perceptible popping sound.

He begins breathing in a slow and deliberate rhythm, moving his arms and legs through a series of sweeping motions punctuated by sharp exhalations, as if he is dancing with an invisible partner. It all looks quite ridiculous, of course, the guy in the 5,000¥ suit performing a martial arts routine in the irradiated garage of an abandoned chemical processing plant, c’mon! Yet, at the same time, it’s somehow meditative, oddly calming given the circumstances.

As he finishes his routine, Yung once again pulls out his trademark sunglasses, pushing them high on the bridge of his nose.

“We gotta get dis drek going soon or the sun gonna come up, and we be stuck with our chinchin out.”

“Big man, Thoryne, you a soft stepper, or maybe help keep a perimeter with Axel and Mouse here while they do their thing?”

“I can recon at da perimeter of Bongoland, but the way I move, it’s quick but not always quiet. Maybe I keep overwatch eh?”

“Reiya, what you think? You said you turn into a lobo, yeah? You wanna work the perimeter with me, maybe scout the outskirts while I keep an eye out?”

“That just leave Mick and Taipan, Mick you said you good at sneakin, what about you Taipan? He should have some backup if he gonna go into the piero kōjō, eh?”

“But hey, dis just my thoughts, anyone else got ideas let’s hear em, but we don’t got too much time, so rapidamente.”

Yung pulls out his Ares Predator V and begins a methodical routine at the end of his soliloquy. He Checks the chamber, counts the rounds in the clip, and runs a series of SmartLink diagnostics before once again holstering it within his greatcoat.

As the macabre afterimages of the black box footage are replaced by the equally dismaying scenes of the Barrens that slide by the van's windows, Taipan idly considers which of his life choices he might reevaluate if he had to do it over again, though the halfhearted effort is more a matter of habit than true reflection.

The oppressive percussion of rainfall against the van's exterior rises in tempo as they slow to a stop in front of the PolyWorks plant, its timbre rapidly shifting into harsher tones as the door slides open and Taipan steps into the mud. He grunts, shaking his head slightly to bring himself fully into the moment.

He nods at Thoryne's gruff voice. "Looks like it from here," he replies before stepping softly after Mick toward the PolyWorks entrance. He grunts in annoyance as he takes a second to sift through his radar sensor data, finding nothing but snow.

Old fashioned way then.

Rifle stock pressed to his shoulder, Taipan swings quietly inside the door and checks his corners with practiced precision. He nods briefly to Mick before proceeding further.

Great spirits, this place is terrible. Beyond the refuse and the stink, it’s the feel of the place, and she discerns similar unease in the faces of her fellow runners. Even though she hasn’t reached out with any of her otherworldly senses, this Bongoland feels spiritually bad. The shaman suppresses a shudder.

Grateful for Akela’s poise and direction in the face of this contemporary urban hellhole, Reiya nods her assent to his suggestion. “I’ll circle with you. Give me a minute to shift.”

Shift is the proper word; she's still herself as a wolf, albeit slightly altered by the perceptions of the form itself. She heads outside, knowing there’s not room enough for a proper wolf in the van, even with a few of them already outside. Plus, she’d be tempted to rip a chunk of the van out and remind the Vantichrist not to fuck with her. Her nostrils flare in distaste and almost apology to her wolf-form; this place is going to smell so much worse with the exquisite sharpness of a lupine nose.

After moving some paces away from her comrades as quietly as she can, Reiya closes her eyes, focuses inward, and commences the process of change.

(( I forget if I need to roll for Shapeshift? If so, roll, please. Also, perception and stealth rolls when Yung and I go out, methinks. Onegai shimasu~ ))

“FRAG. THIS. PING.” The stilted, vaguely calm tones of the synthesized voice are a jarring contrast to the rapidfire emotions in the decker’s eyes: rage, dread, and despondency. As pulls her knees up to her chest, a pained whine escapes her, barely audible under the noise of her own speech. “THIS NOISE- THIS ISN’T JUST BARREN NET. IT’S INTERFERENCE.” If trying to navigate Bellevue grid was akin to swimming in clear waters, this might as well be toxic sludge. Her hands curl into claws as she rakes them across her scalp, black hair tangling between her fingers. She tears her attention away from the flow of dropped packets in her visual space, trying instead focus on Akela, moving through his flowing kata, the motions in distinct opposition to Mouse’s own form as a ball of raw tension. This only serves to exacerbate how badly she’s losing her own drek, and she forces her eyes shut, banging her head against the wall beside her with a metallic clunk.

Her head slides down, eyes still shut as her voice continues. “YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO AT LEAST KEEP CONTACT WITH EACH OTHER, ESPECIALLY IF YOU KEEP CLOSE. BETWEEN ALL OF US SPREAD OUT, WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO FUNCTION AS A DREK-TIER LOCAL NETWORK.” It’s only now that she removes one hand from her scalp, stretching her fingers out as if to demonstrate the connections between each of the runners in disparate locations. “IT’LL BE SPOTTY AT BEST, THOUGH.” This itself warrants a grimace. “I’LL SEE IF I CAN BRIDGE… LITERALLY ANY OF OUR CONNECTIONS. SCRUB WHATEVER I CAN.”

This is clearly not an ideal solution, but it’s clear she’s as short on ideas as bandwidth. “IN THE MEANTIME, I TRUST YOU SNEAKY TYPES TO DO YOUR THING. SEE WHAT YOU CAN FIND ON THE CARGO’S LOCATION, IF IT'S EVEN STASHED HERE, WHAT GUARD DUTY LOOKS LIKE, OBVIOUS DREK.” Her eyes drift open, watching the movements of the more capable fighters. “ONCE WE’VE ESTABLISHED A PATH TO THE GOODS, OR EVEN A CLEAR ROUTE TO THE PARK, I’LL FOLLOW YOU IN, AND SEE IF I CAN’T SPOT ANY SMILING ICONS.” She forces a deep breath, as though mirroring Akela’s preparatory routine. “UNTIL THEN, I’M MORE LIABILITY THAN ASSET OUT THERE. THE LAST THING I WANT IS TO BLOW UP YOUR RECON AND END UP THE NEXT KUCHISAKE-ONNA.”

Reiya closes her eyes and gathers astral energy. Behind her mind's eye, she watches the glittering currents of energy surging towards her and filling every cell in her body. Images flit through her conscious mind: a waxing crest of moon, tracks in the snow, an endless sea of stars. There is a moment of pain; a clean agony that feels like rebirth. For a split second, she feels as though she's standing on the brink of creation, at once everything there ever was or will be and also nothing.

A large silver wolf stands where Reiya had been, sporting a splash of black color along its back. Golden eyes gleam in the pale blaze of the van's headlights. It shakes a forelimb, freeing a paw from the confines of Reiya's clothes.

Axel stares out of the tunnel of the van, skin crawling at the vision of carnage made flesh standing on four paws in the grainy mist of Seattle's perpetual downpour.

A fraggin' timber wolf in the barrens, frag me, he thinks. His eyes wander down to the diminutive drone cradled in his palm, second thoughts about his unconscious body laying there helplessly in the presence of a primordial predator. He blinks away his train of thought, and shrugs to himself.

Not the most dangerous thing about tonight, I guess.

He walks over to the rear door, and peers out. He takes the drone, and places it gingerly on the rear bumper, over the "Dunkelzahn '57" sticker that has refused to fade at all in 22 years of Seattle weather.

He looks across the faces of what he realizes he's already thinking of as the forward team, his eyes pausing briefly before darting away from the wolf. "Good luck," he says with what he hopes is a reassuring smile, before swinging the door to the van closed, and locking it.

Sitting back down across from Mouse, he sets to affixing the fiber-optic cable to the jack in the back of his neck. "Well," he says to Mouse as much as himself, "I guess this is me." And the world shrinks to a tiny dot of light in his vision, before springing back with a view of the lot from the bumper of the Vantichrist.

(( Jump into "Echo", the MCT-FlySpy ))

Reiya revels in the pain and glory of the transformation, settling into her wolf’s skin. Whether it’s the form itself, the process of change, or the focus of the task at hand, she always feels calmer as a wolf, and more connected to her team. They are her pack, perhaps just for now, but the designation feels solid and immutable while in this form.

Stretching, shaking and grooming her luscious fur, the shaman performs the lupine version of Akela’s limbering up. Then she waves her muzzle at Akela as if to say, Shall we?

The view through the flyspy's compound eyes would be dizzying if Axel weren't so accustomed to it. It's a bit like viewing the world through a jewel and the rigger has logged enough hours on the hornet-shaped drone that it feels natural. The drone thrums to life, beating carbon-poly wings and ascending into the rain. Already Axel can feel the interference being kept at bay by a series of signal scrubbers, like trying to wade through liquid sand.

Yung, Reiya, Mick, and Taipan stalk across the weed-infested substrate, enveloped in darkness. The ground remains relatively level for the next sixty meters before giving way to the ditch that encircles a majority of Bongoland. The tip of the sunken amphitheater is barely visible, atop which resides a statue of the park's mascot.

Bongo is a caricature of a gorilla, highly anthropomorphized. His friendly grin has been perverted by damage to the cartoonish jaw, obviously in vulgar imitation of the Smiles' trademark. One arm is missing. Human remains seem to be trailing from the other remaining limb, offal bloated by the moisture and in an advanced state of decomposition. While originally purple, wear and tear have rendered the mascot monochromatic.

Overhead, the flyspy zips through the rain. Axel fights the lethargy that comes from the unstable connection. From his high vantage point, the rigger can make out faint light deeper in the park.

Mick slinks through the dark like an orphan returning home, their senses at peak arousal. They regard their misfit companions with equal measures of tactical apprehension and strange curiosity. Taipan looks to them more likely to be unreformed corpo scum than a trusted ally, but strange days make strange fellows.

The pull in their chest remains; something is drawing them close. Mick isn't sure if everybody feels it, if everybody is being beckoned, or if they're being singled out for some reason. Whatever the answer, Mick feels a profound unease at the sense of.. what?.. drawing them deeper and deeper into danger.

Opening a channel on a commlink almost as old as Bongoland, Mick's speaks low and hushed to the group, < So, we got eyes in meatspace, what eyes we can in cyberspace, and a set of eyes in the air. Anybody got eyes in astral space? Also, if things go sideways, are we going in hot, or are we retreating? >

Axel wades through the storm, each raindrop buffeting the usually smooth ride of the tiny insect-like drone. He's not aware of the act of beating the wings of the drone, any more than he's aware of contracting the muscles in his forearm to bend his fingers when picking up a soykaf. He just thinks, and it happens. Emotion and intent as telemetry. An absence of the concerns of the flesh. It is a joyful experience only hampered by the attenuated signal in this hellscape.

He can sense a tightness like a muscle at the base of the wings, and with a subtle shift and a sensation of tightening further, he pushes up through the deluge to circle 10 meters above the team, disappearing into an invisible speck in a sky overflowing with them. He begins to circle, flying a halo above the team as they approach the chemical plant.

<<Might want to poke the... Lobo, and ask your question. Didn't spot any comms that she might have implanted.>>

Directing their voice at the wolf, Mick intones, "Did you catch that, uh.." They stumble trying to come up with the shaman's name. "Uh, wolf-person? Anybody watching us from the spirit world?"

Since glaring is only so effective as a wolf, Reiya bares her fangs briefly at Mick for the “wolf-person” epithet. Surely the orc can remember her fragging name, or at least call her the shaman she is. Nonetheless, she obliges, calling on her second sight in order to overlay her visual plane with the astral one.

Yung and Reiya tap into the hidden part of their unconscious mind. The world is a reflection on the surface of a glassy pond. Ripples form at the center, ebbing outward to reveal a facsimile; an impressionist landscape, the inanimate rendered in shades of gray. Their comrades appear as brilliant avatars of prismatic light, undulating with living energies.

But here, there is also toxicity. The astral plane is tainted with the rot of pollution and grief and death. Scars like great fractal bruises lick across the surface, just beneath the meek bloom of flora. Spore-like wisps with a cancerous pallor hang suspended in the air. The astral feels like a sharp breath held before violence. There is a thrum in the mind; the count-down ticking of a clock older than time.

In the immediate vicinity, aside from each other, they are alone.

Taipan plods through the darkness, eyes cycling from low-light to thermos and back again as they traverse the obscured landscape ahead of the slowly advancing group, occasionally flicking over his shoulder from one unlikely companion to the other. They rest for a second longer as they slide across the large wolf loping along behind, its golden eyes betraying an intelligence that seems as out of place in that primal visage as he feels in this unlikely group of misfits. While much is strange, the tightly wound anticipation broadcast through each of their movements is familiar, and makes him feel slightly less alone.

<<Not much cover out here. If we are noticed, best to close distance and overwhelm any threat quickly.>>

He grimaces inwardly, knowing from past experience that most people like these don't much like being given suggestions by people from his walk of life. His old one, anyway.

His eyes alight on the wolf once more, unsure if she can hear him. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it again, turning forward. He shrugs uncomfortably in his wet coat. Like suggesting to the water that it be wet, I imagine.

Taipan creeps closer to the amphitheater, head tucked low and his rifle action-ready. As he reaches the fifty meter mark, he freezes mid-step. A brief irregularity, almost imperceptible catches his attention. There in the raveled morass of weeds and thorns-- nearly invisible-- is a razor-thin tripwire. He cranes his neck and follows the wire's path until it reaches the pin of a grenade which has been taped to a stake in the ground. Taipan recognizes it as a standard-issue flash-bang grenade, the kind prevalent on the black market.

<No hay nada.> Yung mutters mostly to himself. <Nuttin but sad decay and unpleasantness from the spirits out here.>

For the first time since meeting his companions, Yung has a palpable air of discomfort about him. Perhaps due to broadening his senses and taking in more than just the drek covered meatspace around him, or perhaps something else. He glances down toward the wolf flanking him as they advance.

This can’t just be chance, can it? There’s something more at work here…

Yung briefly scans the approach with his low light filter.
(( Roll Perception to attempt to locate any natural cover on the approach ))

As he searches his hand subconsciously stretches out toward the mane of the silver wolf. He makes only the briefest contact before reflexively pulling his hand back, quickly regaining his composure in an attempt to play off the transgression as though nothing actually happened.

< Axel, what kinda scopes you got? You see any lookouts near the structures by the old parking lot, or swing round dat way? >

The visual feedback from the drones is full of flickering artifacts from the noise. Axel attempts to steady the fly-spy and focuses the optical sensors. He can't make out much through the sheets of rain besides the team directly below him, but there are two distinct thermographic patterns in the sunken amphitheater.

Taipan freezes abruptly, his left arm held up in a tightly closed fist. He points at the tripwire, tracing the line from the stake to the flashbang.

<<Watch where you step out here,>> he vocalizes once the group is clustered around, just loudly enough to be heard above the rain. <<Flashbang. Just enough to alert them and disorient us for a minute or two, which suggests that they can mobilize quickly. Keep low.>>

He turns forward again, keeping his head low and taking an exaggerated step over the thin wire.

Axel maintains a high altitude, the drone's small body weaving through the rain that pummels and provides it cover in equal measures. He moves toward the entrance where the team is likely to enter.

<<Heads up, got two contacts in the amphitheater. Moving closer.>> He comms out. He resists the urge to drop to the deck and scout ahead. Closer, but still far enough off the ground to get lost in the visual and auditory noise of the storm.

Reiya feels almost sick at the level of pollution in the astral plane. She smells the same fear in Akela, and though it’s generally unwise to pet a wolf, she actually welcomes the brief contact and physical evidence of their shared grief at this defilement of the spirit realm. They may be alone for now, but this place has the potential to be an astral minefield, and her hackles are way up.

Though the shaman has no system that would let her tap into commlink communications, her enhanced hearing in lupine form somewhat makes up for this. She freezes as Taipan does, recognizing a tracker at least as skilled as herself, and hears his low warning. She neatly leaps over the tripwire and uses her enhanced lupine vision (another advantage to this form) to scout for more.

Yung ducks down low, hunching over in a three point stance as he nimbly avoids the tripwire Taipan discovered. After safely traversing the trap he leans close to the wolf. "There are two larger forms ahead in the amphitheater, if our stealth is blown I will follow your lead to coordinate taking out one of them."

Relaying the same on comms < If our cover is blown during the approach, Reiya and I will focus on one of the two, Mick and Taipan, you can take the other. >

Reiya's sense of smell nearly overwhelms her. When she reverts to her human form she feels handicapped in an olfactory capacity, deprived of a smorgasbord of scents. In lupine form, Reiya struggles to parse through the myriad aromas on the wind. She smells rain of course, and earth, but the earthy bouquet carries something sulfuric. There's the offering draped across Bongo's arm that emanates the sickly-sweet ammonia odor of death and decomposition. But there's more, a smell she has come to associate with humanity: something akin to worn leather, body odor, blood and either fear or excitement or both. The tang of cordite follows, faint but unmistakable. Firearms.

The golden eyes sweep the bramble, but the remaining ground to the amphitheater's edge looks clear of traps.

<Wait. We need to think dis over again, my mistake. We want to take one of these clowns alive no, unconscious but alive?>

<If dat da case,> Yung continues, eying Taipan’s sword sheath. <I think me and Mick focus on the one we want to keep alive, Taipan and Reiya hit the other one no, Taipan you not plannin to go in there shooting eh, you use the ken?>

Not for the first time, Reiya is frustrated by her inability to speak to her comrades just when communication is most essential. Gotta work on developing telepathy, she reminds herself, but that doesn’t help her now. Drek, we better figure out some basic signals before I shift wolf-wise next time.

The shaman pads over to Akela to get his attention. With her left paw, she extends a single claw and writes the four letters “GUNS.” She looks up at Akela’s face, casts her muzzle in a circle to indicate the group, and sits on her haunches, as if to say, Wait.

Reiya gets up and walks carefully and slowly to the edge of the amphitheater. Sitting once more, she performs the spellcraft equivalent of taking a look.

(( Perception roll for Yung, Reiya casts Clairvoyance. ))

There’s an oddly sisyphean element in preserving the signal from the onslaught of Glow City static, like trying to reinforce a sand castle against a tidal wave. The data that makes it through is so distilled as to be almost pathetic in its minimalism, like a telegram in the age of mass media. Mouse grits her teeth as she funnels her attention into the task at hand, forcing herself not to think of how much more useful she would have been if she’d grown a spine and ventured out with her crew, not because there’s no truth in it, but because she simply can’t afford the distraction now.

The helplessness is made all the more poignant by the communications themselves, or at least, the ones she can actually witness, and the vague references to hostiles and indecision. The last thing she wants is for her team to start pulling their punches, only to get their heads handed to them. Yes, she’s aware that these runners wouldn’t have been brought on board if they couldn’t stand up to a few gangers, and what could she possibly tell them anyway that they don’t already know? ‘There are other ways to get this information? Don’t endanger yourself to kidnap a goon who probably won't even cooperate?’ Hell, Taipan looks old enough to be her dad, and he wouldn’t have gotten that way if he hadn’t learned what fights to pick.

Akela’s question hovers in her vision, itself noise in its persistence: do they take the gangers dead or alive? Mouse exhales, sending out one more thought into the barrage of extraneous noise that the away team is facing: <<Whatever you have to do, we’ll make it work. I trust your judgment.>> It's a lie, or an exaggeration at best, but it's one she has to convince herself right now.

(( Reiya takes 1 point of stun damage. ))

Reiya collects her thoughts and opens her mind's eye. The world seems to fall away, sinking into the corners of her vision. She rides a burning star of astral light to the terminus of the amphitheater. She winces at the strain of maintaining her wolf form and weaving magic, but years of discipline and practice serve her well. Her vision returns.

The amphitheater is a funnel of concrete, ringed on each layer with steps. The area is absolutely littered with detritus: broken bottles, crushed cans, discarded inhalers and injectors, a liberal amount of general garbage and (to Reiya's horror) a multitude of body parts in various states of decay. At the bottom of the venue is a raised stage, upon which a charred corpse lays spread-eagle. At least two dozen knives of various lengths and types have been embedded in the deceased.

Sitting a few steps above the grisly display are two members of the Smile gang-- obvious from their stylings and attire.

The first of which is a lean, skeletal human male. His face is powdered, and dark diamonds surround bulging eyes in a perverse imitation of the traditional mime. Shreds of what was once an expensive suit hang off of his limbs like bandages. His long, tangled hair has been slicked back with an oily substance. He's reclining on the concrete steps, balancing a throwing knife on one finger and seems to be listening to his companion.

The one doing the talking is also a human male, but built like a body-builder-- a stark contrast to his comrade. A tight fitting armored vest and BDU shorts seem about to burst underneath bulging, enhanced muscles. The big one is totally bald. His face is smeared with a child-like imitation of a cat's nose and whiskers. His own heavily lidded eyes serve as the "pupil" for the caricature cat's eyes. Mismatched blades protrude from the knuckles on each hand and he grinds them together as he speaks.

Mick weaves through their approach toward Bongoland, slipping around debris and sinking into the deepest pools of shadow they can find. The depression leading down into the amphitheater opens just ahead of their position, its glow radiating into the deeply earnest drizzle leaking down on them from a bruised and bulging sky. < I'm going to slip around to the left flank of the pit here. See if I can get a closer look. > The ork moves gracefully forward, their stomach grumbling and wishing like fraggin' hell that there had been a ¡Los Tacos mas Locos! or a Colonel Crockett's Coun'ry Crumpets food truck to greet them where they'd arrived.

The shaman shudders as she releases the spell, inwardly wincing from the weight of working two forms of magic at once and the fatigue it has induced. She’s getting out of practice, perhaps, or more likely, adversely affected by this environment of horror.

Yet again lamenting her inability to communicate complex concepts, she retreats slowly back to Akela, who seemingly understood her well enough the first time. Wearily she writes “2” with a stick figure beside it, and underneath, the word “BLADES,” panting to catch her breath and trusting that he'll spread the word.

Mick stalks up to the edge of the former rest area, gingerly placing their steps to avoid making a sound. Here the ground gives way, crumbling into a gully that surrounds the central area of the park. Mick estimates about twenty meters to the opposite bank. The muddy embankments disappear into the dark surface of collected rain water. Loops of something silvery crest the scum on the tepid surface. Razorwire.