Ross stepped forward slowly down the entrance noting the marks of recently detonated explosives. Pistol in hand walking door to door and slowly opening them. He didn’t see much else there for traps wise and gave the all clear to the dwarf behind him. She seemed intent on immediately inspecting some type of machinery taking up the entirety of one of the rooms.

Ross left her to her own devices and quickly set into looking over the rooms first. He took photos of the rooms and their contents before going through them. Other than finding a few crates of mana crystals, most of what he found were medical supplies or food stuffs. The dragon was very careful moving any of the boxes knowing there could still be traps hidden among them.

It was while he was moving one such box of crystals that their fearless commander showed up. He wasn’t expecting someone coming back so soon and hadn’t quite gotten used to the androids moments. “Oi eejit!” the sudden surprise caught him off guard, he only really went off like that when he was doing something dangerous. The odd Irish or Scottish reaction did slip out now and again when he wasn’t paying attention.

“Apologies, I’m searching for traps and through these boxes. Mostly food, some mana crystals, and medical supplies.” Ross was quick to compose himself while he sat the crate down. “The others find anything interesting?” trying to quickly move past his little outburst and to check in with the others.

The drum continued to thunder. The steady beat having drawn in spirits of the germanic indigenous peoples as well as a variety of North, Central and South American spirits who appeared in regalia and are circling the drum dancing and moving with the heat.

The ritual drum and ceremony has been going on for a few songs now. But it's clear the quartet are tiring. Yes even gods can get tired. Michelle brow is boring with sweat and he appears to almost be smoking or steaming with the effort and magical focus he's dishing out. The gods are looking tired too. Who knew a god could sweat? And by now the sacred offering of sage sweet grass and fungus have almost burned out. Michael and the gods trade a look. Then look about at any one gathered. Michael nods and starts a new song. He holds up a finger and before beginning to sing he calls "Hoka!"

About half way through the song. Raven and Manabozho suddenly whip off their headdresses. Several spirits in the dancing circle take caps or hats off. And moments later Micheal produces one of the most powerful tools he has. His pipe but without the bowl. Taking a deep breath he blows into the st producing a low pitch whistling tone. Another wave of power flaring out. And through the song he does that a total of four times.

But soon the song comes to an end. The last of the ritualistic magic swirling about keeping any local magic glowing and showing clear. But the four at the drum seem to be tapped at the moment. Michael makes one last long drawn out blow on the whistle in his pipe stem. Then he sits. The ritual having taken put quite abit out of him.

Amanda quickly went downwards to the hallway, quickly inspecting every door until she met both Ross and Astfridur. Both of them apparently busy collecting evidence. Her rapid descent and appearance to the duo startled Ross and Astfridur both, and she quickly scanned whatever intelligence they managed to gather. She was very impressed by all the evidence, but not before she managed to gather one, very important piece. "Hey, what's that clipboard doing there?" She asked, immediately grabbing it and as if a sudden light bulb turn on in her brain. Her eyes widened and she smiled at the dragon.

"Ross..." She said, pointing the clipboard to him. "This is a manifest indicating all their recent deliveries in 30 days. Holy crap, this could change the investigation!" She said, very much in a giddy tone. "I think that I'm going to scan this first, put it in my memory banks and hand it over to you. Hmmm... Oh snap! It also looks like there's a site where deliveries are happening just outside of Frankfurt. Look!" She said, pointing the detail towards the Dragon. "I've scanned it, so you can hold this. But I have, have to inform this to the rest of the group. You uhh, hang out with Astfridur for a while okay? I've got someone coming that I need to talk to. Some ghost business upstairs."

She quickly went upstairs. Eager to showcase her newest finding, but while the trio of Morgana, Faye and Micheal was busy doing their investigation on the potential origins of the portal. Amanda suddenly crashed into something rather fleshy and bouncy. Both of them fell into their knees and Amanda could only shake her head. "Ow, sorry about that."

"Oh, no worries Amanda."

"Wait. Madeleine?"

She rapidly shook her head and was happy by her sight. "Oh yeah! That exorcism, yeah yeah. Let me bring you to the ghost girl." She outstretched her hand, Madeleine more than happy to grab it before they both quickly went towards the portal site. Where the girl was waiting. The moment Madeleine saw the girl floating there, she sighed and Amanda could visibly see sadness in her eyes. "Poor girl." She said. "She needs to go to the afterlife, just let me prepare my things and we'll do it right here."

The demon woman only nodded towards Morgana. "Don't worry, this ritual is self contained, whatever spell you're casting on that portal won't be affected by the exorcism. Let me just... there we go!"

The demon was busy bringing a suitcase where her exorcism gear was present, and opening it. It revealed a golden chalice and a bottle of wine. "This is a demonic ritual, so please do stand back." She said to everyone, pouring into the chalice. The demoness started chanting. "Death imparts on us all, the weak, the strong, the man, the woman, and every living creature on this earth. Death shall come knocking on everyone's door, the door of the king, the noble, or the villein, it's sound exact, it's force equal. Death, shall become the great equalizer."

She repeated that chant three times. Runic circles appearing below her and glowing visible red before she then poured the wine straight below her. The moment the wine touches the rune covered ground, Madeleine was gone, covered by a great red mist. And once the mist has dissipated. A door, with a stylized image of the Grim Reaper on both it's great partings appeared to everyone.

And it opened, revealing a smoky Madeleine. As if she's been freshly baked from an oven, the smell of charcoal and ash pungent all across her. The interiors of the door she opened is seemingly black, with nothing being able to see what's inside of it. "To anyone who is living, please don't go beyond that door. You will be considered legally dead and it'll take a ton of paperwork from your family members and yourself to get back to the world of the living. In case you're wondering, this is a portal to underworld, not hell mind you, but the underworld. My master created this ritual for any wandering spirits to go back to the underworld. So yeah, don't go inside."

"Now come little girl. I believe meeting your parents one last time is a fitting end for your little wanderings isn't it?" She said, outstretching her hand towards the ghost.

---

Completely distracted from the previous matter she was discussing about, Faye silently watched the ritual Micheal was performing. Curiously, she listened to the drums and the chant as the magic around them swirled and pulsated to the tone. It was different than the calculated, straight circuits of Morgana's gloves, it was much more... primal and natural. Surprisingly enough, while not exactly the same, it was much closer to the way the Fae manipulated magic than it was from modern human magic. Where most people would see the beauty of the ritual, the music and the chant, Faye saw and felt a spectacle that few humans could watch. With the ritual over and Micheal sat down, Faye saw the effects of the ritual, making magic traces glowing and visible to anyone.

"It was wonderful!" Faye said, moving closer to Michael with a smile on her face.

"It's interesting, your ritual is closer to how the Fae manipulate the magic than most modern human spells are. It was truly a spectacle to watch." she said, praising him.

With that part done though, they still had to solve the issue of the small girl's ghost. Fortunately, Amanda soon arrived with Madeleine. When Madeleine mentioned a demonic ritual though, Faye got a bit restless. While she knew it would be nothing like the terrible magic that she felt from the leviathan but it was still very... uncomfortable for her.

As Madeleine started the chant, Faye couldn't help but give a feel a chill going down her spine as demonic runes slowly started to glow. It was a magic that was much more... forceful and brute in feeling than Micheal's ritual. Not only that but the very origin and essence of demonic magic was contrary to her own. Sure, it was not such an aberration as the magic coming from the Leviathan but it was still very uncomfortable and disconcerting for Faye. When the demonic ritual was finally done and the door to the underworld, as explained by Madeleine herself, formed, she extended her hand towards the small girl's ghost, offering to take her to see her parents one last time.

"That was very uncomfortable..." Faye said, putting her arms around herself as she felt a shiver run down her spine, looking at the door Madeleine had summoned before quickly looking away.

“Anywhere out of the way is fine. Just clear the area for me please.”

The process of clearing out the crates went quickly and smoothly even with just Faye doing the work, the Fae’s teleportation magic making swift work of something that would take her much, much longer. Even with magic it would have taken Morgana a long time to move those crates, needing to create a separate ritual for each one, accounting for distance, position, weight and size; it would have been simpler to move everything by hand. But it was easy for Faye, in a way that was honestly quite vexing to witness; even more so when she confidently stated that she would be able to trace the teleportation ritual back to its source, since that was something that Morgana simply could not do. Magic or not.

So many advantages; Fae blood was exceedingly potent.

As was demonic.

When Amanda’s assistant, or whatever she was, arrived to perform her exorcism ritual Morgana couldn’t help but stop what she was doing to watch. The crime scene would still be there in a few minutes after all and it wasn’t every day that one got to see a demon open a door to the underworld. Morgana made sure to make a note of it all, even raising her glove to her eye again to witness the magic being woven together for a moment, before the sight of it began to make her throb in a painless but worrying manner. She wondered how much of the spectacle was truly necessary; the chanting, repeated three times, a magically significant number, the runes, not written in chalk or any other substance, but conjured into the air itself, the wine, cast to the ground as an offering to some higher power, perhaps a symbolic substitute for blood not unlike how it was used in Eucharist rites to symbolise the blood of Christ. It was a fascinatingly archaic display that Morgana found somewhat quaint.

Her own focus on research was often to remove such superstitions from the act of casting, or to determine how much they really mattered; were it a human casting in such a way she would have rolled her eyes at the waste of effort and a good vintage, but since it was a demon…

It was foolish to compared demonic rituals to that or human, as foolish as comparing her own magic to Faye’s or that of a dragon’s. The magic of demons tended to be somewhat theological in nature, the kind of practice that called somewhat on the power of a higher being in order to work; beyond that she didn’t know much more. Needless to say, Morgana didn’t spend much time researching that kind of magic; she was part of the department of heretical studies after all and higher beings such as these tended to be a little annoyed if you skipped out on the ceremonial aspects of casting.

Spoilsports.

Nonetheless, even if all of the effort involved was somewhat impractical it allowed the practitioners to call on that much more power than they would be able to with just their own strength; there was a benefit to it. But of course, even without that demon’s had enough natural magical strength to be able to cast greater magical rituals such as this without even the need to scribble a hasty circle around themselves. A demon like Madeleine would have been able to open a long distance teleportation spell given the correct knowledge, no doubt; such a creature would have been one of her candidates for who was responsible had they not found evidence of a human ritual.

Speaking of which; with the show over Morgana turned her attention back to proceedings, focusing her attention back on the remains of the teleportation ritual now that Faye had cleared out the crates for her. It was, as she had expected, partially destroyed. Not intentionally as far as she could tell, though she was sure whoever had run this place would have cleared everything away before they left had they the chance. No, the ritual was damaged simply because people had been dragging heavy crates along the floor, scuffing the chalk and wiping away faint traces of magical circles and patterns. It was enough for her to work with however, so she got to work pacing around the circle and examining what she could.

Whoever had drawn this seemed to mostly be drawing on European influences for their work, which was not surprising given where they were, but there were also some influences from other cultures thrown in their as well; particularly the Middle East, whose influence on mathematics during the Golden Age of Islam had introduced several significant additions to magical theory as well. Morgana was tempted to say that the combination spoke of an international group, or a particularly well educated individual among their number, but there was another clue as well. The European influences were specifically Greek in nature, old influences at that; there were some traces of more modern ritual formulas, particularly Germanic matrices in the stabilising elements, but the bulk of the work was Greek formulas from a time predating the rise of the Roman Empire. Whoever designed this was using old knowledge, primarily.

“Hmm.”

Beyond that the circle was not large, but that was due more to the compactness of the design than anything to do with the scale involved; the ritual patterns were drawn in layers, different formulas and calculations and stabilising elements piled on top of each other in a way that Morgana could not help but admire. Most of the fine detail was worn away, but she could still tell that the circle had spaces for seven practitioners to work in concert with each other; seven was another magically significant number, though with how many schools of thought there were in the world it was hard to find a number was wasn’t magically significant to someone or another. Three for the trinity in Europe, four for death in Japan, seven for luck in many cultures and eight for the same in China, nine simply because it was three times three and three, as she had already said, was the trinity; at those were just the ones off the top of her head.

“I have everything I need for now. I’ll need to do some more research later, but I don’t believe the person who designed this ritual had any kind of formalised education in magic; not one from this millennium at least.” What that meant for their investigation she didn’t know yet, which was why she needed to look into this more. She would need to do some digging into the history books, try and find an organisation or faction that eschewed modern teachings or who clung to the old ways. Alternatively they were looking for an individual who had been hired by this organisation to create this ritual, a freelancer who happened to specialise in ancient magics. “Faye, your turn to do whatever it is you do with that portal.”

@Kumbaris@13org@King Cosmos



Michael sat there a time letting his pipe st eagle whistle rest across his chest. The three gods spent a moment rubbing the surface of the drum. Something oddly respectful in the action. After a moment Michael smiles at Faye. He nods "The shaman of the Americas have tried very hard to retain the rituals and magic of the old times. It's more caring I think more appreciative of what we have and thus can say we lived well with what we have."

He gives another big smile "And then..." He trailed off watching the tail end of the young girl being lead to the afterlife. As the girl reaches the door he calls to her "Nimis, I'm happy I met you. You really helped us. Rest well." The girl smiles and giggles then with a little skip she follows Madeline. Michael hums at Faye's comment. "Magic is magic. It's the intent not the source." He nods then looks about.

As the drum shrinks back down to hand held size he begins to pack up everything. Except for the pipe stem he actually breaks out the carved Jade stone bowl that has been shaped into am eagle theme with outstretched wings and taloned feet. As the gods finish cleaning up Michael packs the pipe bowl with Indian tobacco. The pure stuff. Attaches stem to bowl produces a box of matches and with a swipe lights match sets flame to tobacco and begins to pray in Cree. An aura of peace and calm pulsing from the man. The pipe smoke billowing about him. A prayer to those lost and to the grace of friends and family. Closing put the ritual he had performed. The magic of it kept the residual portal in view but the ritual he performed appears to be complete.

---

With Morgana finished with her investigation, mentioning something about the ones who casted the magic not having 'formal' knowledge of magic she called Faye, finally remembering her that she indeed had something to do other than chat with Michael about his ritual.

"Oh, right! I was supposed to do something regarding the portal, wasn't I?" she said, walking to where the very middle of the circle that Morgana was investigating was and closing her eyes as she focused on feeling the magic around her.

While the technicalities of the circle were completely unknown to her, Faye did experience something somewhat similar to what Morgana meant when she said that whoever made that circle didn't have formal knowledge in magic and probably not from this millennium. While normally human spells made magic move in an incredibly logical manner. While it was still confusing for Faye, it still had a set pattern to it. This spell was different. While it was still clearly man-made, with the magic oriented in a clearly artificial manner, it had no clear pattern... It was almost as if someone started writing a word in one language and then suddenly changed to another one in the middle of the word.

"Wow! Even though I know little of human magic, I now know that you weren't joking about what you said, Morgana... This is a mess!" Faye said.

It did take a bit but she had finally been able to make some sense of that huge mess and catch the trail of magic left by the ritual.

"Found it!" Faye said with a proud expression before she raised one of her arms and pointed west, much to everyone's bewilderment.

"What? Did you expect me to give you the geographical coordinates or something? That's a bit too much even for me!" she said, laughing.

"No, but seriously, I can give you a pretty good estimate of where it is though, maybe narrow it down to a city if I focus hard enough. Anyone has a map or something like that?" Faye asked, looking around.

Amanda could only pat Micheal at the back at a job well done. "I didn't expect anything less from the report of yourself, you can take a rest while Faye and Morgana figured out the inner workings of this portal." She complimented, before quickly shifting her attention to the Scientist and Faye Woman, both of them busy figuring out the ins and outs of the portal and how they're supposed to track it's origins. Morgana's explanation on the portal's workings were fascinating and deeply enriching, apparently whoever designed this has to take a very large field of expertise, might very well indicate someone with very high skill in magic or someone very long lived. That narrows down the possibility pool a bit.

The most interesting fact is that Morgana mentions this millennium, and that immediately piqued the interest of Amanda. Like, not from the 1000s? Hmm, that could only mean that this person is either long lived or has a dedicated background in ancient/ classical era magic, not a very large field of study as far as she knows, that narrows it down even further. Faye's attempt at ascribing the point of origin for the portal definitely alerted her. "Right right. What map do you want? Germany? Europe? Worldwide? I can project a screen at the wall nearby if you want it." Amanda offered, now clearly giddy at the progress of this investigation.

She has the transport manifest, she saved a child's life, and now she's about to probably find out the portal's origin point. Oh, so many possibilities on the first day! "Hey uhh, Pihtokahanapiwiyin? Can you summon Ross for me? I'm going to show Faye the map and then I think we can wrap up this site. There's another site that I want to investigate immediately after this."

@13org@King Cosmos@BigPapaBelial@ReusableSword

---

Faye stopped for a moment, thinking as Amanda asked how big the map she needed was, before turning towards her and answering.

"Hm... Considering what I felt, just a complete map of Europe would be good enough." Faye replied as she looked to Amanda.

When Amanda projected a complete map of Europe in the wall, Faye approached it inspecting the map as she focused on the magic that she had felt from the remains of the portal spell once more. Slowly, Faye drew a line with her finger on the map, stopping when it was right in the very center of Belarus.

"It should be right about here..." She said, leaning forward to read the name of the city.

"...Minsk, is that right? It should be somewhere in this city. Right in the heart of Belarus." Faye completed looking to the group as she gave a few steps back from the map in the wall.

"Thank you for the map, Amanda! We should be able to search the city for the specific location of the ritual if we go there." She said, thanking Amanda with a smile.

"I don't know what we'll find there but I am curious... Especially after what Morgana mentioned, regarding the magic used being a very, very old one. Anyways! I am ready to go whenever you guys are!" Faye said with an excited expression as Amanda mentioned that they were about to finish investigating that particular site.

@13org@Kumbaris@ReusableSword



Micheal blinked.

He sat there for a second, "Summon...Ross? UlRoss...right...uh..."

He then snorts and getting up out of his chair as it fades away thanks to Manabozho's magic. He takes a few steps away, tapping his still lit and lightly smoking pipe on his shoulder. He hums, trying to think on how to go about this. He hadn't traded contact info with anyone yet so he can't whip out his phone. That'd be easiest anyway. He gives a few sniffs, trying to think. Whiskeyjack stepping by and making a shouting motion.

Micheal snorted and shook his head, "No...that's rude..." He hummed, "Don't have the energy to do a summon ritual..." Raven stepped by a second later carrying Micheal's drum and the sea shell halves that had some still smoldering ritual herbs in them. He also made a movement meaning to shout. Again Micheal sighed, "You guys I swear." And it doesn't take long for Manabozho carrying the last of Micheals ritual gear to pass by and do the same.

Micheal snorts, "Okay okay. Idiots."

He looks over at Amanda, "On it boss."

He then turns and at the top of his lungs roars, "Yo! Ross! Get over here! We got stuff to do!"

And his voice bounced and echoed around the courtyard a few times.

All while Micheal took a casual pull off his pipe and blew out a long burst of scented smoke from his mouth afterward, "That good boss?" He calls over to Amanda.

“Tsk. A mess she says.” Morgana grumbled under her breath as Faye used her esoteric abilities to trace the magic in the portal to its destination. She watched the girl for a few seconds, seeing nothing whatever with her mundane eyes, before moving on.

What did magic look like to a fae? That they experienced magic in a different way to humans was well known, as shown by the way the girl could just glance at empty air and comment on how the magic looked to her, but what did she see exactly? Was there a visual difference between Greek and Middle Eastern formulas, between the modern and the archaic? How did they differ? Was it like looking at two paintings in different styles laid atop each other? Or like a building where the foundations were made in one style and the second floor in another?

Well, there was no denying that whoever had created this ritual had made something needlessly complex and potentially unstable by mixing different cultural spheres together, but it still worked and as far as Morgana could tell worked well; to call it a mess was to ignore the understanding and talent required to weave something like that together. Whoever made this was a genius, or at least exceptionally talented; the lack of a formal education does not mean the lack of any education after all, only that they did not learn what they knew from textbooks and classrooms. They had learned; in fact they had learned quite a lot. The intricacies involved, the careful balancing act of blending two or more disparate schools of magical theory without them clashing was more than Morgana could adequately describe; someone could dedicate years of their life to creating a ritual formula as complex as this and likely had. Though whether this person had created it themselves or simply learned it from another she wasn’t yet sure.

Being a scholar of magic was about standing on the shoulders of giants while trying to become a giant yourself, after all. Everything was built on top of what was there already.

Morgana raised her left hand and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger again. The circuit that appeared this time was different than the one she had used before with her right hand; rather than let her see the faint traces of magic in the air, this one let her capture and store images that could then be called forth later on. A camera, essentially. She recorded an image of the ritual circle for further perusal later on before turning away.

“Minsk, is it?” Not the place she would have expected to find a scholar of ancient Greek and Middle Eastern magics, but then those were a rare breed to begin with. “How fun. I’ve never been to Eastern Europe.”

The revelation from Faye about the portal's origin was highly concerning for Amanda. Minsk? Belarus? This investigation looks to be significantly expanding in scope, and Amanda feels like this is unraveling a thread one by one from a ball of yarn, you don't know how long it'll take you, but you know this is going to take a while. Well, no matter, Amanda can schedule a short flight to Minsk by the week, and it she can also coordinate with the local Minsk office once this day's finished.

And it's looking like it's almost finished already. Shutting her eye projectors down, Amanda did not expect to hear two sudden notifications in her internal comms systems.

It only reads:
Agents Astfridur and Dura will be reassigned to two separate cases in America.
Priority: Urgent.
Case Type: Auxiliary, Criminal Investigation.
Estimated Time for task completion: Unknown.

Note: Sorry for this, but all the agents in North America's busy doing some other stuff, and this is just some busy work where I need both agents in hand, I'm pretty sure you have the case in hand with all your current agents. Just call me in case you need more agents or something.

-Vicky

Dammit! Well, if the head honcho in Philly okayed the transfer, then Amanda doesn't have much to go for recourse does it?

Damn Vicky, here I am, thinking that we're best buds and all. And then here you are, taking 2 of my team members away like that. Amanda thought.

She had a... complicated relationship with Vicky. More like a friendly rivalry with each other, Vicky, or Victoria Miles, or Unit 4C. Was another Female Android Unit that survived the assault, and also currently a rising star Android Agent within the OMR. A specialist in combat strategies and firefights, she and Amanda had frequently clashed with each other, and it sort of became a running theme in OMR's North America Branch of these two Androids and their rivalry.

And it seems like Vicky just undercut her yet again...

"Yeah, gals. I have some bad news." She summoned Morgana, Faye and Micheal. "Oh, good job summoning Ross Crane. It's a pretty creative solution, but I don't know if Ross will respond though, might wanna check him out for real this time."

"But anyway, it seems that Agents Astfridur and Dura will be reassigned to a case in America. There's probably some internal wrangling going on, but unfortunately I can't appeal the decision. Yeah, I have to let them go sadly."

"BUT! I do have some good news though." She continued, hoping that the next fact will cheer them up. "I have this." She unfurled a manifest from her skirt pocket. "A transport manifest where all recent deliveries are noted. The most recent one? A house just outside of Frankfurt, literally a 10 minute drive from this local area. We could potentially encounter enemies though, so I suggest that you prepare to fight some baddies. I mean, if nobody's interested in further investigating the site, I can go by myself, but I don't think that'll be optimal since I lack sufficient magical aptitude."

"So uhh, yeah. Say goodbye to Astfridur and Dura, but let's go and investigate this site!" She cheered.

Yeah, even she knows that Astfridur and Dura going is an unquestionable loss for the team. The few cases she heard where such a thing has happened usually takes a longer time to finish, and with a reduced morale from the team overall. She has to consult the local Frankfurt database on how to improve the team's morale once all the business of the day's finished.

Micheal hums, "So Dura and Astfiridur are off on another adventure. Leaving us here to rock out? Well we can manage with what we have right?" He looks around and smiles.

He gives a sniff, "Okay so we need a proper summoning huh? I'm kinda tapped, and summoning isn't exactly my shtick." He gives another sniff. And redraws his pipe, "Well, it's all I got the energy for." He takes a few steps out, while repacking the bowl of his pipe. And with a flick of a match he lights the pipe, taking a few pulls to get the magical herb going, and kneels to carve an indigenous summoning rune into the ground, "Let's see."

Giving a hum he finally begins, "Ancestors, Spirits, Oymantou, hear me. I seek a comrade. Ulross Vallath. I seek his presense, help me bring him to us. Ancestors, Spirits, Oymantou, help me. I give this sacred pipe and it's smoke to all of you. Help me bring Ulross to us." He kneels beside the rune and begins to pray in his mother tongue of Cree. Sending out steadying urging and wishes for Ulross to come to them in their time of need.

The shaman maybe tired from the ritual he had performed but he does his best to send out a summons for Ulross to join them.

The android seemed to be able to discern what the significance of the outbuildings with a quick check then she was off again. This made the man wonder why they were even here as it seems that other than magic she could very easily take care of most things on this mission. Hmm perhaps her being a bit showy is nice though, if the enemy is watching and sees that she is more capable than the rest of us might focus their efforts in neutralizing her.

His line of thought was broken when he heard someone call out his name. Ross groaned and shook his head, these people did not act like the others he had been tasked with recently almost light hearted compared to what he was in earlier. Perhaps he could still salvage a few things from this outing and at least have a little fun. Ross began rummaging through more boxes of rations finding a couple he liked and stuffing them away in his jacket before setting his eyes on some crystals that looked interesting.

None of the things in this building were noteworthy and soon he felt himself being drawn back towards the main building by some mystical means. Guessing that the team was waiting for him the large man made his way back to the main building where the others have gathered. Some still seemed to be inspecting a wall but otherwise seemed like they had finished their inspection. “Are we ready to go?”

A straight forward question while he pulled out one of the rations with smoked fish so he could snack on it while he waited to see what the next step was.

Avi had remained quite for most of the briefing, unsure of if he even needed to say anything. This was his first time working in a group for the OMR. But he was sure that he could handle it. Toward the end of the briefing, the same dwarf in a turtleneck from earlier poked his head through the doorway. Avi glanced over at him as he motioned for him to come into the hallway. As silently as he could, Avi made his way out of the room. He followed the dwarf down the hallway, eventually stopping in front of a small office.

“There’s an urgent call for you Agent Mosley,” the dwarf stated.

“May I ask who it is?” Avi asked as he entered the office.

“An Agent Brock I believe.”

Avi sighed as he picked up the phone. Agent Theodore Brock was one of the higher ranking OMR agents in North America, and had been his handler on his undercover mission in Mexico. He had made his distaste for Avi’s handling of the mission quite public.

“Xaviron Mosley here.”

“Mosley, I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time?” Brock asked.

“Well. I was in a briefing, so-”

“Fine I’ll keep it brief. Romero is dead.”

Avi felt a pang in his chest. Luca Romero was a fellow OMR agent working the Mexico mission with Avi. While the mission had technically been a success, it had ended in a shootout, where Romero had taken several bullets. He had been quickly airlifted to a hospital in Texas.

“How did he die?” Avi asked with the faintest of a quiver in his voice.

“Infection,” Brock answered, “They didn’t clean out one of the holes good enough so it got infected. Then it spread damn quickly.”

Avi was silent.

“Well I thought you should know,” Brock said, his voice cold, “Maybe this mission you won’t fuck up your fellow agents.”

“Goodbye Agent Brock,” Avi replied quickly.

Avi slammed the phone down, while yelling fuck. Once he was done he glanced over at the dwarf in the hall who had heard his scream and seemed bewildered. Avi didn’t save anything as he left the office. He made his way back to the briefing room only to discover that his new team had already left.

Avi then proceeded back to the main office. The receptionist let him know that his team were investigating a warehouse stocked with weapons. Avi wasn’t in the greatest of moods and decided that he wasn’t needed in the field now. Instead he decided to look over the case files, as research always seemed to calm him down. So he requested the pertinent files and sat down at a small desk, going over everything once more.



Avi set the final file down while sighing. He gave a glance at the clock on the wall and saw that several hours had elapsed. The time taken to research had indeed calmed him down, so he figured now was the time to rejoin his team. If they asked where he had been he could always say that phone call had taken much longer than it actually did. It was a lie, but Avi was good at lying. It helped make him a good undercover agent.

Avi stood up and turned to the receptionist, “Could you perhaps arrange a driver to pick me up?”

The receptionist nodded and within ten minutes, Avi was outside and getting into an unmarked black car. To his surprise, it was the same elven driver from earlier today. He asked Avi where he was headed, to which Avi supplied the address of the warehouse.

The drive there was uneventful, save when the radio played Rock Me Amadeus, to which Avi tapped along to the song with his fingers. A few minutes after the song finished, the driver pulled up to the building. Avi got out and immediately took out his wand. While he was pretty sure it was a safe situation, Avi knew that there were always dangers involved with working for the OMR.

Upon entering the building, Avi spotted Amanda the android. He was just in ear shot as she described the transport manifest and the nearby house. Also possible bad guys meant Avi was not wrong to have his wand at the ready.

As the rest of the team gathered, Avi made his presence known, “My apologies. A very pressing matter had come up at the office that required my presence. But it would seem I arrived at the correct time. If everyone is prepared then I’ll accompany you all to the location on the manifest.”

@Martian@ReusableSword@King Cosmos@BigPapaBelial@13org

Amanda was busy talking with the police chief when she heard the entire team coming in, Dura and Astfridur included. She heard a litany fo questions from multiple agents, and decided that the time is right to answer all of them.

"All right, settle down, settle down." Amanda motioned the group. "Yes, we are currently going to the second site now, but unfortunately, agents Dura Mor and Astfridur Runmaheim will be going to America for the moment. I've already arranged for transportation to Frankfurt airport using that Elven chaffeur, but yeah. Say your goodbyes, and once you're finished. I'll answer your questions afterwards."

She then hugged both Dura and Astfridur, waving them goodbye before turning towards the rest of the group. Firstly answering Ross's question.

"Yep." Amanda promptly replied to Ross. "I think that we can go now. I've just talked to the Police Chief about the whole thing. And he told me that he's going to clean up and hand it over to the Municipal government once all is clear. Just electronically submitted a report while talking to him as well, so no need for paperwork on your side once we leave here."

Amanda then turns towards Avi. "Hey! Good to see you back, was wondering where you were all this time, but yeah, pretty sure everyone's prepared." She said, looking at the rest of the group and only nodding. "Let's just leave this place and go to the place mentioned by the manifest."

...

The ride was uneventful, Amanda looking more interested in the views of the German countryside than she was driving. Much to the concern and worry of the crew. Thankfully for them she was an Android, and her computational abilities already makes up for the very concerning. They thankfully reached the compound though.

And it's a total mess.

"Jezz, just what are they thinking?" Amanda thought, opening the door to the house before her reflexes quickly registered what was happening and she grabbed a flown arrow bolt right on time. She was startled, but her shock quickly turned into disappointment as she looked at the team, and her eyes switched to her scanning mode. "Okay, this is a hot mess." She mentioned. "Land-mines, bobby trapped crossbows and guns, grenade traps, trap doors leading to metal spikes. It seems like someone has something to hide here."

I detected three rooms, each of them incredibly protected, you guys have any ideas on how we should disable these? I am not walking there myself and getting purposefully shot again by the way." She finished, visibly concerned with the entire situation. "If those rooms at the top of this two story house is that heavily bobby trapped, then that means they're guarding something damn valuable. Hence my initial apprehension."

"I did mention that gangers are working with this criminal syndicate right? Not surprised by the weapons at all. That Crossbow's must be damn expensive. Look at that thing, carbon fiber frame and composite materials all around. Must cost a little fortune getting this thing set up like that."

---

After Faye was done pointing the city that the portal went to, using Amanda's map, she directed her attention towards Micheal just as Amanda asked him to summon Ulross. Expecting some other ritual like the one he made earlier, Faye kept observing him with an expectant stare. The moment Michael simply turns and shouts, calling Ullross at the top of his lungs, Faye couldn't help but start laughing. While it wasn't exactly what she was expecting, it was definitely amusing. Especially watching his companions' antics.

"I wonder if that too is a traditional ritual of some kind." Faye asked Michael, laughing.

Just after the 'summoning ritual' was completed, Amanda called the group, saying that she had some bad news to relay. Unfortunately, Astfridur and Dura were reassigned to another mission on America, meaning that they would sadly have to quit the current team. While losing two team members that soon after meeting them was sad, just as Amanda said, there wasn't any possibility for her to appeal the decision, so they would have to make do with a reduced team. Not that it should be too much of a trouble, after all, Faye was almost sure that among the members, she probably was the only inexperienced one.

"I wouldn't lose maybe the only chance I will have of hugging you!" Faye said with a mischievous smile as she suddenly hugged Astfridur, before turning to Dura and giving her a hug as well.

"Good luck on your mission!" Faye said, waving goodbye as they departed from the group.

Moving on, Amanda showed the team a transport manifest, with a very recent entry for a house just outside Frankfurt, which could possibly be related to the smugglers.

"I can help! I may be inexperienced, but I am pretty confident in my abilities." Faye said with a confident smile.

"If necessary, I do have some tricks I can use if we meet some enemies too." she finished, looking towards Amanda with a mischievous wink.

As they waited for the rest of the team to arrive, having taken Michael a second, this time a bit more proper 'summoning ritual' to call Ullross, Xaviron arrived, entering the building and greeting the team as he mentioned that he had to solve an urgent matter on the office, having arrived just now. His presence was definitely a good thing for the team, especially since he did seem to have quite a lot of experience with these type of jobs, mainly intelligence, which was one of his specialties.

"Hey there Xaviron! We are just waiting for Ullross before going." Faye said, waving towards the Half-elf after he finished.

Just as she said that though, she saw Ullross walking towards the group.

"Aand here he is. I wonder which one of your 'rituals' worked the best." Faye said, waving towards Ullross before leaning towards Michael, teasing him with a giggle.

---

It didn't take too long until they arrived on the compound Amanda mentioned before, which was definitely a fortunate thing for Faye, who was known to grown bored incredibly fast. Curious, Faye was just behind Amanda as she entered the building. The very moment they opened the door though, a bolt suddenly flew towards them, making Faye jump behind Amanda, startled.

"Whoa! They trapped even the front door?" Faye asked, surprised, looking towards Amanda, who had just caught the bolt.

Unfortunately for the team, especially for Faye and her infinite curiosity, Amanda was quick to relay to the team that the building was filled with traps of the most varied types. Listening to Amanda's explanation with a shocked expression, Faye looked over her shoulder towards the interior of the compound.

"That's ridiculous! Why use so many traps? Is that some kind of fantasy dungeon or something?" Faye asked, walking towards the door and carefully putting just her head inside the compound, looking around, trying to find any other trap, without much success.

"Well... I would be glad to use my abilities to help in any way, but as long as the traps are magical, which I'm afraid none of them are, I will not be of much help trying to locate or even disarm them." Faye said, giving a step back and looking at the group again.

"At least if we trigger a grenade trap or something with a timed explosive, I can just blink the explosive outside of the compound... Or at least to another room. Won't be pretty but in an emergency it might save us... Well... Honestly just you guys, since I can just blink outside if something happens, from being exploded." Faye said with a shrug as she looked to the team.

@ReusableSword@13org@Kumbaris@Martian@King Cosmos



Michael grinned, "Sometimes you just want to be heard across a wheat field. And who knows which methods worked best?" He can't help but chortle a little trading five fives with his godly clingers. As things were finished at the warehouse, Michael and the gods finished loading up his kit into the car. With everything ready it was time to board up again and off they went

At the gangers house
A short time later

Michael got out looking about the locale. And traded looks with the gods. Micheal shook his head sadly. Whiskeyjack coughed then knelt and began to pray. Manabozho can be heard whispering , "Guess these places are in the white man's world too huh?" Micheal sighs and grabs his tomahawk in hand just in case.

As they reach the door he takes a single step out of the middle.of the opening. And he winced as he hears that twang. But shocked as Amanda catches the bolt. He chuckles "Damn boss lady good catch." The three gods clapping and Raven holding up a 10 score card.

Mike hums as the dangers are listed off and groans "Just like the crack dealers houses back on the Rez." Whiskeyjack pipes up "The one at the lake comes to mind. Walls, a watch tower and..." Micheal blinks "A control room with ways to deactivate we of the traps. If this place had one may make it easier boss lady." He calls to Amanda "Think we can try and see if there is one? Back on the Rez it was dug out ad a bunker near the house. It could be an option."

Micheal looks hopeful. It sure made it easier to keep the RCMP Major Crimes units entry and clean up easier that time. "Back during a drug house purge a few years back. Who knows. May turn out like that here."

Amanda was not optimistic at her current situation. She's got a house ridden with traps and no visible way to disarm them outside of manually going in and making sure it's defused. Not a proposition she likes anytime soon.

But then she heard about Micheal's proposal, and her interest was piqued. "A control room? Alright, I don't think there is anything we can do here other than find that supposedly missing control room, but assuming we don't find it, or it doesn't exist in the first place. We have to go in manually and disarm each traps individually. Xaviron? Morgana?" She asked the Elf agent and the Scientist. "Do you have experience disarming traps manually? I know it's a bit of a stretch for your skillset, but I think that you two should try and disarm these traps manually, I myself and Micheal here will look around and see the outside of the house. While Faye and Ross will be on lookout, this is a house with traps, and we don't know if the owners of this place will be happy with OMR agents snooping around."

She turned towards Micheal. "Alright. So let me see what's outside the house." She said, looking around and meandering through the house's grounds, noticing nothing, but nonetheless seeing an oddity. She quickly returned to Micheal, presenting her findings. "Alright, so there's nothing out of the ordinary here, just some mines in the backyard and trees, but I do notice that this house is only paired with that house on the left side." She pointed towards the other house. "And for 500 yards there's nothing but fields and trees. Should we take a look at what that other house has to offer?"

She's really hoping that her intuition would prove correct again, that the 2nd house here has something worthy of investigation (hopefully with a control room present). It's going to be a pain in the ass seeing Morgana and Xaviron try to jig out bomb defusal on the fly, and possibly having to activate her energy shields every 5 minutes or so.

@Martian@ReusableSword@King Cosmos@BigPapaBelial@13org

Morgana stared blankly at the android, waiting for her to say something else or to reveal the real plan to them. She continued to stare even after Amanda had turned away and began walking towards the other house with Michael; it was a few seconds after that that Morgana realised that Amanda had not, in fact, been telling a joke.

“Excuse me?”

No, she was serious? She wanted Morgana to try and manually disarm traps and explosives that she knew nothing about? Who exactly did this team think she was? She was a researcher, a lab rat, a scholar; a few days ago she had been cooped up inside a library reading research papers on the Rigidity of Gender Norms in Scandinavian Magic Systems, not hunting down terrorist organisations. She was not, and never had been, a field agent and she was certainly not a bomb disposal expert.

Turning her head, Morgana looked at the trap-laden house she was tasked with disarming and decided she did not much like the thought of dying inside of it. The door was still open and Morgana approached it; instead of walking inside she instead stopped at the wall next to it and used her hand to wipe away at the dust and dirt to make a clean spot she could work with. She would not be passing that threshold, no matter what Amanda or anyone else said, but maybe she could do something to make a safe path through the traps a little more evident.

She wore her gloves again and with her left hand she traced a sigil on the back of her right, activating yet another hidden circuit that caused the tip of her index finger to begin to glow. Pressing her finger to the wall of the house Morgana drew a perfect circle on the space next to the door, her finger leaving a trail of light like incandescent ink in its wake. Working quickly she filled in a pattern, circles within circles and shapes within shapes, the spaces in between filling up with words and symbols over time as she created a formula half from memory and half from scratch. It would take her about five minutes, maybe ten, to complete the design but when she was done her magic would fill the house and highlight the passage of people; their footsteps, their hand prints, any contact between a living being and the contents of the house would be illuminated like a heat map. The traps would still be there, they would still be hidden, but perhaps this would let them navigate the building as safely as its usual occupants did.

@Martian@Kumbaris