Muttonhawk

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Cool, cool. I Hope your service provider doesn't sit on their arse for too long. I've heard interesting things about ISP monopoly in the US.

ParaCom: Adversary Inside

Independent tactical decisions of their team mates meant that the siblings found themselves taking a more active role. Someone had been hit, that meant there was a threat to be dealt with quickly.

Anya, seeing Ezri exposed while trying to treat the hit Xue, pulled the smoke grenade from her harness and pulled the pin. "Placing a smokescreen!" She shouted through the radio, before tossing the canister between Ezri and the perpetrating sniper. "Drag him behind something, quickly-"

"-I'll deal with pussy over there," Luc interrupted. In the time elapsed, he had pushed up to a kneel and was pointing a rocked launcher at the sniper nest. It was too difficult to get a good rifle shot from where they were, the place was crumbling already, not to mention Luc didn't have quite enough bullets left to lay down more suppression. "Clear backblast," Luc said calmly before a jet of orange light pushed out the rear of his launcher, quickly dissipating into smoke as the rocket lanced towards the building's second floor.

ParaCom: Adversary Inside

Anya and Luc both took reaction shots against the nearest ghouls they saw. "Enemies spotted, three, they've seen us!" Anya reported over the radio as soon as she had a moment. Still, though, it appeared that the rest of the team had noticed and were charging ahead and around. A number seemed to be trying to move to flank them, so Anya and Luc decided to stay and serve as a distraction.

"We move how we like, corpse man." Luc, having spotted one trying to keep a lookout for any moving teammates, decided to put some good old shock and awe his way with a suppressive barrage of bullets. The sergeant had charged forward without informing them before it was in full effect, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Anya rolled her eyes at her brother's somewhat cheesy callout and held overwatch if any of the other ghouls had smart ideas.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"Kaleeth?" Hearing Kaleeth's voice gave Janius no small amount of relief. He quickly stood up from where he was digging through the ash and charcoal of what was left of the dresser and gave her a tired smile. "It's good to see you healed. We're all fine, but Rhazii suffered some horrific burns. The fight was over by the time we got here, but things were still ablaze. Rhazii's guardian was killed, they was left in the flames, and Ahnasha barely managed to get him out in time. However, Neesa helped to heal him. They say he'll live." Janius sighed and he realised that his smile had quickly faded, "He'll be scarred for the rest of his life, though. Ahnasha and Fendros too."

Janius walked up to Kaleeth and put his hands on her shoulders. He bowed his head to look into her eyes with his own worry. "How about you? Are you alright? Did they treat you properly?"

The Depths of Deception

The breach into the control room was swift and deadly. Only two targets stood in their way and they were unprepared. Shiva, with a less appropriate weapon for close quarters served as a rearguard while the room was cleared. Inspection of the terminals had Shiva stay at the door and cover while the tech-savvy members of the team had a look. They didn't find their data centre, but it was still progress.

As for the coming tactics, Shiva put forth her own opinion, as it seemed the decision was being thrown out to discussion. "I agree with Shuo. These people, despite being ambushed, didn't display much of any combat experience. If the loud way will save us time, then that's my vote. The only problems might arise if they have hostages, then you sneaks will have to do what you did earlier."

Despite having engaged and questioned one, the team had not come any closer to finding out their enemy's motives. It made Shiva uncomfortable to be there.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

With the immediate situations resolved, everyone stood around and looked upon Rhazii until they dispersed. Janius didn't feel as though he could stay still for too long, so he went to what was left of the guest rooms to see if anything was recoverable. Sabine still had a surprising amount of energy, so stuck around to aid Meesei in her treatments. Fendros was silent for a long time and resolutely stayed by Rhazii, but after a while he struggled to keep his eyes open. His standing and watching turned into pulling up a chair and eventually nodding off to sleep.

Apart from a few stone and occasional metal implements, Janius found that the extinguished rooms had been all but gutted completely. It was a wonder that anything survived at all. Among the lost items were all of Sabine's ingredients and reserved potions that she did not take to the battlefield, the pack's bedrolls, baggage, maintenance and camping equipment, and supplies for Rhazii's care, including the two books bought in the previous city. Janius wondered whether he should be worried about losing the books or not, but it seemed at this point that Ahnasha and Fendros had at least given them a once-over, and the pack had since garnered enough practice to manage. They could either find more copies or continue with what they knew.

The short time spent before the pack was either asleep or painstakingly continuing to care for Rhazii was otherwise spent just waiting for Kaleeth and the rest of the cultists' host to return. Janius was unsure whether the cultists would loot the settlement and bring back their belongings, or if they would have to retrieve them themselves, but he, at least, was too tired to travel out there again tonight. He prepared himself mentally to deal with the inevitable rust between irrational worry for Kaleeth's physical condition.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Study means this will probably be the only post for me for the next several hours. Sorry.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Fendros' own worry was mixed with a utterly foreign cocktail of gratitude and ambivalence at Hal-Neesa's actions. He had not expected someone who revelled in death almost every day to have the sympathy to heal their child. He stood in place, looking at nothing. It wasn't until Neesa had left that he had thought to thank her. He would have to later, he concluded, if it wasn't for the vested interest of claiming Rhazii's soul. It that was the case, the situation was just as horrid as it had been all day.

Stepping up to the table, Fendros looked upon Rhazii's body and saw his child in a far better state than they had found him in, but still one that showed painful looking injuries. "Hello there, little one," Fendros whispered to Rhazii, keeping back his own tears. He put a hand on Ahnasha's wrist and his other arm around her shoulder, drawing her into a hug such that she could cry into him and be comforted. He wished the entirety of today didn't happen. He wished they were never tasked to come to this cursed place, and he wished Rhazii could never have been put in such danger. Damn that Khajiit woman for failing to protect him, damn Hircine for bringing them here, and damn themselves for leaving Rhazii alone.

"I have to be forthcoming, I didn't expect her to help like this." Janius observed while looking upon Rhazii himself.

Sabine spoke in response. "She is a vampire and a cultist, but I think she has more heart than we might think."

Janius looked to Sabine directly, "For all our sakes, Sabine, I hope so." Janius took a breath, then turned to Meesei, "Now that the noble and his mercenaries are taken care of, does that mean our business here is almost done? I think it will probably be a good idea to wait to recollect our belongings and heal Rhazii some more, but this place has taken its toll." Janius' eyes flicked to Ahnasha and Fendros for an instant at the end of his sentence. He understood that having Rhazii so injured was hard enough on them, but by the way Fendros snapped at Sabine before they headed back, something must have happened in that dungeon as well.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Again, Hal-Neesa demonstrated her immense magical prowess, but this time in the area of restoration. Sabine was as awed as Meesei was as she looked on. Evidently there was little to no need for Meesei or Sabine's skills in light of Neesa's treatment. As well as this, Neesa's description of her own family forged a true veneer of her as, not just a disconnected and bloodthirsty vampire, but one who still knew what compassion meant. It made Sabine less afraid to be in her presence beyond just having her as an ally of convenience and extortion.

"When did you last see them?" Sabine asked after a pause.

Outside of the catacombs, Janius opted to stop at the throne room and place Fendros on one of the tables before transforming back into human form and trying to rouse him. "Fendros, Fendros, wake up." Janius started by tapping Fendros' cheek and shaking him, before combining the two and hearing the groan of a result. Fendros opened his eyes and felt an immense soreness in his legs and neck. After rubbing his neck uncomfortably and slowly sitting up, he remembered the situation and his face instantly reverted to worry. He looked to Janius, "Rhazii, where is he?"

"He's being treated in the catacombs with the others, calm down," Janius reccomended. "He had some bad burns by the looks, but Neesa and Meesei are both powerful mages. He's not going to die."

"I saw the burns, I have to see for myself."

Fendros tried to get down off the table, but Janius slowed him down with one hand. "Easy, easy, I've never seen you run that fast for that long before. Don't stumble."

"Get out of my way!" Fendros whispered sharply, hitting Janius' hand out of the way and walking briskly to the previously forbidden door. He quickly found that his legs didn't quite respond as fast as he expected and staggered halfway there. He took Janius' advice to slow down from then on, but Janius stayed right behind him just in case.

The two came upon the room that housed all of the injured and spotted the table that Ahnasha, Meesei and Sabine were gathered around. "How is he?" Fendros asked while closing the distance with his sluggish legs. His anger had mostly dissipated from Fendros' outward expression. He just looked exhausted and worried from head to toe.

ParaCom: Adversary Inside

Conversations apparently died down one the dropship began lifting. There were a few words, but it seemed as though most people's way to get psyched for the mission was to remain silent. This was even uncharacteristic for Luc, but he didn't want to piss off his commanding officers on his first operation by falling into another exchange with Anya while sitting across from her.

The trip took hardly as much time as most of them were expecting. Testament to the supersonic flight at the project's disposal. Anya and Luc shuffled out behind everyone else with their guns raised, scanning the area. The paranormals had ripped the place to shreds before they arrived. It was already like a warzone with all the rubble, just a little too quiet.

Anya was the first of the two to spot the ghoul a short distance away, and was quick to report in. "Contact, 12 o'clock, one of them." Anya's report was acted upon before she could even finished speaking as their squad leader, Sergeant Burkley, opted to run to a firing position for a swift kill. He seemed to skip his own advice of calling his shots before taking them, but this particular case didn't have much ambiguity to it.

Luc's movements brought him to deploy the bipod of this machine gun and get prone onto a pile of rubble, overseeing the area they landed in. Anya ran for a wall to put her shoulder to and watched over her sight lines similarly.