Clusterfrag

(( 5P DAMAGE! ))

Val's burst punches three clean holes through the eco-terrorist, dropping him where he stands.

Val doesn't take even a second to appreciate the sight of the remainder of the terrorist falling to the floor. He draws a bead on the last target standing and squeezes the trigger again.

(( 7P DAMAGE! ))

Val is rewarded with a splatter of blood against the planter as his shot hits home.

(( Tyros is up. ))

Tyros surveys the carnage. The team is frighteningly effective at destroying mundane opposition, but the presence of a spirit changes the combat dynamic. The mage that summoned the air devil is almost certainly not present. Afterall, the terrorist's magicians know the team is coming and would be fools to expose themselves to the blazing barrels of automatic fire Tyros' comrades lay down. Not while they have a chance to fight from a safe distance anyway. So they've sent a spirit in their place, something that bullets can't hurt and that would destroy, albiet slowly perhaps, any mundane threat.

Clearly they have understimated the giant, claymore wielding troll. Battling spirits is Tyros' particularly special niche within FSRS and he loves it. With a great roar, Tyros hefts his massive blade and charges the whirling torrent of air surrounding Doc. The big troll's heavy footsteps thud audibly with each stride. Taking advantage of Doc's low profile, Tyros makes a vicious lateral cut with his blade above his comrade's head, whipping it through the tornado with enough force to break the hurricane force winds that sustain it.

((Don't forget my +2 dice from an ally in melee))

(( 13P DAMAGE! ))

Tyros cleaves the spirit in 'twain and Doc drops to the ground, sputtering for air as the gusts separate and whisk away into the far corners of the astral plane.

The last remaining (and wounded) eco-terrorist raises a hand. A plume of violet flames stretch towards Sinjin.
(( 7P DAMAGE! ))

Sinjin is blasted backwards by the violent force of the magical attack.
(( 6S DAMAGE! ))

[ Max = 55 ]
[ Doc = 40 ]
[ Val = 37 ]
[ Tyros = 28 ]

Max sees the eruption of energy and turns instinctively toward its source. Without thinking, Max squeezes the trigger.

Tyros looks at the source of the manabolt. Idiot Mage, guess they aren't as smart as I give them credit for, he thinks.

((I'm going to be in Mexico until Monday and won't have much in the way of Internet access. I'll post when I can, but feel free to attack for me, etc.))

Marlowe's barrel catches a shaft of sunlight and--for a moment--becomes a gleaming beacon of wanton destruction, transforming Max into a kind of bloody angel.
(( 16P DAMAGE! ))

The mage's head explodes in a fulmination of gore as all three slugs hit dead-center on his solar plexus.

The entrance area falls into silence as the abrupt and brutal combat ends.

Max slings Marlowe over his shoulder in a single hurried motion and rushes toward Sinjin, who seemed to have been recipient to the worst of the damage dealt to the team. Skidding across the floor to one knee, Max stops just beside the downed ork and puts a hand on his shoulder. With as much or little humor as could be expected in this situation, Max mutters,

"Man, I'm really not used to being on this side of a field wound!"

Careening his head back toward the elevator car, Max calls out,

"Yo Doc! If you're done catching your breath, Sinjin's hurt pretty bad over here!"

His eyes turn back to the physad, who is unfortunately much worse for the wear.

Adams grunts, and pushes himself up to a sitting position. He squeezes the bridge of his nose as the beginnings of a headache start to set in.

Fraggin' mages, he thinks, at least nothing seems to be broken.

He pulls himself the rest of the way up, and makes his way over to Max's agitated voice. Kneeling next to his comrade, he takes stock of the damage.

"Fraggin' mages," he mutters aloud this time.

He pulls out a medkit, and starts prepping it. The Ork's armor has fared surprisingly well, the spell having largely bypassed the inanimate material to attack the living flesh underneath. Removing segments of the ballistic and impact resistant suit, Doc hooks the leads from the medkit up to the injured man. The automated kit starts to administer its payload and chirp out readings regarding Sinjin's overall health, while Doc manually debrides the burns, and covers them with dermaplast.

"Sinjin," he says, "as your primary care physician, I recommend that you duck next time," he says with a grin.

Max snickers at Doc's comment.

From behind the black veil of hell, Sinjin's mind in lost amid a cosmos of agony. Tiny, starlike points of light dance and flicker then wink out of existence before reappearing elsewhere in his minds eye, a swirling miasma of confusion set against a background of darkness and pain. Slowly, ever so slowly, the blackness fades to grey as his consciousness picks out the muted sounds of a voice above him. Max....

Sinjin's eyes open upon another world, one filled with the acrid smell of white hot carbon and the oily stench of cauterized flesh. He immediately retches, the ejected bile steaming and boiling away upon the surface of his scorched armored chest plate. Coughing, he feels a strange tug across his chest as the burned skin of his chest pulls free from the lining of his armor, having bonded to its fibers as it melted.

Letting his head drop back to the ground, he closes his eyes again and says miserably, "Check please...."

(( 7P HEALED! ))

Doc's expertly trained fingers work quickly, removing the affected layers of skin and applying quick-grafts where needed. It's only a few minutes before he's finished and though Sinjin may have patches of numbness for a few days, he's more or less back to his usual self. Albeit, with a few dozen cc's of narcozene coursing through his bloodstream.

Max stands back with some amazement as the patch-job wraps up. Doc is an exquisitely lethal instrument and handy as frag with drones, but the artistry in him truly comes out when he's stitching up his comrades. The elf reflects on it for a moment and feels the legitimate inspiration that one feels when watching a master wield his craft to bend the world to his whim.

But the reverie has to break. Max stoops down and pulls Sinjin to his feet. He's patched up, but still covered in blood and the chars of the energy burns. Grinning a little, Max dusts off one of the ork's shoulders and says,

"I don't know.. I kind of think this look suits you."

Turning his attention back to their surroundings, Max begins unconsciously reloading his shotgun as he walks toward the security station to inspect its viability.

Adams packs the last of the used supplies back into the medkit, and admires his handiwork. He won't admit it, but he feels much more at home patching up wounded soldiers--or runners for that matter--out in the field, than he does working in a clean, clinical environment.

"Should be good to go. If there's one thing that fighting the Tir taught me, it's how to patch up fraggin' magic wounds," he says, standing up.

He walks over to one of the ubiquitous autoclave chutes that laboratories like this are lined with, and drops the used supplies down the hatch. There's a faint fwoomp from the chute as the bits of material are rendered into their component elements.

Sucking in a deep breath, Sinjin revels in the cool sensation of Docs medicines as they work their way through his system, numbing his ravaged nerves.

Grinning at Max's lighthearted banter, he feels a great appreciation for the twists of fate that brought him a place on this team of quirky and highly skilled operators.

"Generally, I find it much more comfortable to be wearing someone else's blood...but thank you."

He meets Doc"s eyes with a look worth more than words, knowing full well that if the talented man had not been nearby his day would have been quite ruined.

Bennding, he picks up a shriveled and blackened peice of skin from among the many flakes scattered on the floor around where he lay. Deviously, he holds it out to Val asking, "Care for some Orc rhind?"

The decker pales noticably and turns away, muttering under his breath.

Security glass twinkles like diamond dust and crackles underfoot as Max stalks nimbly through the much abused security center. All of the control panels have been smashed and gutted. Every display sports a series of bullet holes or a brute force impact, framed by spider-webbed plastic. A pair of (presumably) BioDrive security officers lay stripped of their armor and left, lifeless, lying in their civilian underclothes.

Val's stomach roils at Sinjin's thoughtful offering.

"Ugh. That smells fragging horrible, but then again it's not much worse than your usual scent. Plus, it's undercooked. Hopefully the next mage we run into will be a better chef."

Val turns away and follows the team, wondering if Sinjin's twisted sense of humor would linger on even after his death.

Max surveys the damage to the security terminals and says,

"Well, I don't know what we expected, but this is a bust."

Turning back to the civillian, Max asks,

"Lead the way to where we might find this sample. And any place you think they might be holding prisoners."

The ork--still a bit discombobulated from his flight down the elevator shaft and the noisy/violet frenzy--shakes his head.

"I don't have the mind of a terrorist, but the most logistically sound place to put hostages would be in storage, on the other side of this floor."

Max nods and says,

"Then let's see what there is to see in storage. Through here, I take it?"

Max points toward a doorway and begins to move with his weapon at the ready.

Doc hoists his pack back onto his back and nods, weapon ready.

"And let's see about shutting down that damn EM interference, while we're at it," he says.

Val takes one last glance around the security center and shakes his head sadly before turning away and following the rest of the team. Shame. I could have had some fun with this stuff...

The team passes through the battered remains of BioDrive's security center and follows a long corridor, flanked by offices. The ork assistant points at a set of double-doors on the far side, indicating with a thumbs-up that it's the terminus of their search.

Max steps cautiously up to the door and cups an ear against it.

Adams keeps his rifle at the low ready, at raises an eyebrow at Max.

Max's face contorts in a confused expression as he strains to hear what lies beyond the door.

(( PM'd. ))

Max waves Doc to join him at his forward position against the door. Joined by his teammate, Max whispers,

"Is it just me, or are they listening to Johnny Nuclear and the Meltdowns in there?"

The reason for the question is obvious-- Max isn't asking if he's correctly identified the band; he's asking if what he's hearing is actually there to be heard.

Adams' eyebrow raises higher, and he walks over to place his ear against the door.

Though more a fan of electro-grind himself, Doc confirms that the faint undulations of the nuclear-grunge band seem to originate from the other side of the double doors.

Adam's eyebrow is now threatening to mutiny and join the hair on his head.

The frag? He mouths silently at Max.

A wave of relief washes over Max as he realizes that it's not another hallucination. Bending his flexicam just so, the elf positions its eye so that the lens is flush with the floor so as to be able to see through the crack under the door.

The rest of the team sees Max with his shotgun butted up against his shoulder with his eye to the optics piece and its muzzle nearly touching the ground directly beneath him. It's kind of funny.

Max's flexicam reveals nothing but a strange, fog-like mist.

Max reports his finds to the team with some confusion,

<I don't see anything in there, but I sure as drek hear it. There's some kind of mist beyond these doors. I'm gonna crack one open-- be ready for anything.>

Tentatively, Max reaches his fingers toward the handle. The hesitation in the elf is plain compared to his usual hasty actions. Wrapping his fingers around the handle, Max eases open the door.