3359/Counting Up To Zero

Counting Up To Zero
Date of Scene:	08 November 2015
Location:	The Secret World <TSW>
Synopsis:	The signal is tracked to an old Soviet bunker in Transylvania, and the man behind the curtain is revealed. Part two (and finale) of The Broadcast arc.
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, 40, Staren, Riva Banari, 513, Wuyin Tsai, Inga, 886, 900

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Wuyin Tsai has posed:
            THE BROADCAST
        Tier 3: Counting Down to Zero


The source of the signal has been found. It isn't on Solomon Island at all.

Thanks to a little legwork in equal parts by Staren and Dave Screed (who still refuses to meet or speak to Multiversals, on the basis that they're not insulated and could be one of /them/), the signal has been traced to its source halfway across the globe. This does not seem to bother Wuyin; after all, Agartha connects all places and times, so it should be a simple enough matter of finding the way there.

It's only been maybe an hour and a half since the encounters in the Black House and in the (now redecorated) Solomon Island cemetary. People have had a chance to rest and recuperate while the tracking and triangulation is done, but Wuyin seems hell-bent on getting this taken care of now instead of later. It is not a task for another day. Who knows what kind of damage will be done if they sit on it?

The correct Agartha portal looms ahead of the group. The knothole-portal shows a shimmering sight of dark trees and secluded farmlands, and of /things/ moving in the darkness just out of sight. It's hard to make out anything specific. Who knows where they'll actually end up?

Wuyin steps through first. On the other side, a tunnel opens up, barricaded in one direction and opening up to the exterior world in the other. There's a sound of buzzing bees amidst the dense foliage around the Earth-side Agartha entrance, and the gentle, honey-colored glow of an Anima Well, visible to those with even the most basic of magical senses or aptitudes. The Agartha entrance is in the side of the tunnel, tucked just out of sight.

Outside, a road winds downhill into a sleepy little village. In the distance, fog shrouds the night-covered land, obscuring the view -- but the sky and stars can be seen from here. The fog is normal, natural mist. There's nothing horrible about it.

Within it, though...

Without preamble, Wuyin walks up to a truck abandoned at the top of the hill. It looks old and rusted, with a flatbed on the back with wooden fence-like sides and dirt covering the bed. He pulls the door open with a squeal of metal, and immediately starts checking it over. "This might work. I doubt the source is going to be nearby."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa had made ready to follow the singal, it wasn't from Solomon island it was elsewhere in the world. Thankfully she had endured the crazy haunting and now they were in Europe, she'd never got a chance to go there before but? Well this wasn't a for fun trip and she never liked being in Agartha for long if she could help it. She's very happy to be out of the portal. She's looking about as Wuyinb has just arrived she does pause to look at the bees and moves ahead.

"Nothing out of place with the local weather so far...but hold on let me help you with that."

She's a mechanic first and formost and just starts going over the truck with Wuyin to see what they can find.

Inga has posed:
After a few hours, Inga is fully recovered. At least physically. While waiting for Wuyin and his technology types to locate the signal, Inga had waited and mentally checked out. She'd sat, spinning yarn on a wooden drop spindle, her hands moving mechanically while her eyes stared into space. Who could know what prophecies where spinning.

Once it was time to go, she put her spindle away, took up her staff, and followed Wuyin through the portal. "Where are we?" she inquired, looking down at the misty village below.

Inga rose an eyebrow at the truck then, lips pursing. Well, it was better than running the whole way.

Lancer of Black (886) has posed:
     Despite the odd events of last time's adventure, Lancer of Black is still all too happy to come along with Wuyin's quest. They may have found the source of the signal, but not its true nature, not its arcane significance, and not whatever secrets it might hold. As a favor to Thomas, Lancer had promised to find out, and Lancer is not a man who makes promises lightly. The last promise he made ended with a man having his arms torn off.

     He lived.

     He probably wishes he didn't.

     Nor is Lancer the sort of person who can allow supernatural horrors to dwell within his sight. As a Knight of the Dragon, it is his duty to exterminate the Enemies of Christendom, the Evils that lurk outside the Gates and would batter them down to reach the good and honest people within. While in his life he never faced monsters, it took only one look to see that the creatures of this world were within his purview to strike down.

     Besides-which, there was the witch and her pagan charms. She may not have been a Christian, but she was an ally, and so Lancer felt some level of responsibility for her. A good person on the wrong side is still a good person, after all.

     But none of those thoughts run through Lancer's mind as he steps out of the portal of Agartha.

     The hills, the trees. The natural mist. The sky, the stars, the sleepy little village. The power that swells inside him as he crosses the threshold and feels himself burning from the inside with a strength he has not felt since he was conjured. There is no mistaking it, no mistaking those glorious hills, no mistaking the rolling plains. Like returning to an old lover, the Lord of Execution, stoic and noble in all things, falls to his knees in shock and awe, his golden predator's eyes wide.

     Wallachia.

     Wallachia!

     "I am home," the Impaler Voivode murmurs, "I am home, Wallachia. By the grace of the Lord, I am returned."

     Lancer crosses himself and lowers his head. He murmurs something very low under his breath, a brief prayer of thanks, before he rises, as if his shock had never happened. It is the way of the nobility to do such things, to push aside such public displays as though they had never happened.

     Before, he had followed this quest as a favor to Thomas, and out of a desire to see the world clean of Evil.

     Now it is personal.

     Very. Very. Personal.

Staren has posed:
    Staren's tests confirm that whatever just happened doesn't seem to have messed with any of his other stuff, though it may have corrupted his support AI. After archiving the corrupted copy for later study, he loads a fresh copy from this morning and is good to go. His armor didn't sustain any substancial damage from ZOMBIE COMBAT.

    When at last they can see, Staren looks down at the village, around, and up at the stars. "Shame we can't reach any GPS satellites... any idea where we are?"

    STaren follows Wuyin up to the truck to help. He's not a 20th-century vehicle mechanic, but he does have a lot of tools to apply to any problems they identify.

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    So back to Agartha, and then through another portal once again. Even seeing the immense branches and boughs of the great tree from within the planet, Yukihana Masamune seems in awe. After the events within the graveyard however she has decided to keep something of a distance from the Impaler Lord, the kitsune still moves with the group regardless, arms folded in the sleeves of her kimono.
    Scarlet eyes take in the new scenery, head tilting as Wuyin finds the rusty old truck.
    "I do believe he just said where we were." She notes in a whisper to Staren."

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva's chasing along with the others. She's in for a penny, in for a pound like everything else she does. When Lancer arrives and Riva suddenly makes the mental connection, she kind of gasps. "Welcome home, Lancer."

She wanders forward a bit, and pulls out some binoculars, looking out from the hill. "Hrm... Looks like it's become a bit of a fixer-upper in the meantime." She comments. "But it looks nice." She turns to Wuyin and leaps into the bed, prepading to help Inga up. "Let's get this rolling, There's no need to waste time.... Though are you sure this is going to run long enough to get us there?" She says, drumming on the roof of the truck.

Inga has posed:
The wisewoman turns toward Lancer, brow drawn together curiously. Wallachia? She has never heard of it. The landscape is pleasing, though. Lots of trees. Home? This is his place. It must have been some time since he'd seen it. Inga swallows a lump in her throat, thinking of her own home, wondering if she'd ever see the place again, and even if she did...if it would be unrecognizable from what she knew. However the Bees did it, Inga sadly does not know how to time travel.

She looks to Lancer with sympathy. She hoped he would not have great horrors in store, but feared that migh be the case. If these were his people... "Let us go. If the signal is here the people could be in trouble.

Inga was near enough to Lancer to hear his words and to feel sympathy for him. Near enough, too, to be pulled into the tide of his fate. Inga's eyes widen as she looks down at him. "This is your place. This is....Order of the Dragon, oh, gods..impaler," she whispers, taking a step backward from him.

Riva is there, so Inga takes her arm, allowing herself to be moved over toward the truck bed, her eyes still fixed on Lancer.

Finna (513) has posed:
    "It's all rusty!" Complains a white-furred fox who hops up onto the truck's roof right after Wuyin yanks the door open. Finna has been in fox form since going throught he portal, apparently more comfortable in animal form at the moment. But she's still quite vocal! "Do rusted cars work? I've only seen shiny ones moving!"

    This, if nothing else, shows what she knows of mechanics. NOT MUCH.

    But she's drawn out of her confusion by... more confusion. Seeing the powerful spirit over there, Lancer, fall to his knees, is enough to get her hopping off again and prancing over to the warrior. "We're in your domain, spirit?" This concept doesn't seem to bother her at all, but she does give Inga a glance, head-tilted. The little fox hops up onto Inga's shoulder, whispers...

    "What do you know that I don't?"

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin gestures at Lancer by way of answer in regards to their location. He's checking wiring, possibly to start it. Wuyin looks out the dirty windshield and says to Kotone, "See if everything is in order, please?"

As it turns out, it is. A couple minutes later, and Wuyin has the truck started. It rumbles with the pleasant sound of a vehicle that will make them have to walk far less for the duration of their quest. Wuyin gets in the driver's seat and makes sure everything is in order. It seems to be.

"The signal is trouble wherever it is heard," he says. Wuyin sticks his head out the window, looking back and gesturing at the back of the truck. He fishes a rag out from somewhere and wipes off the windshield as best he can. "Trouble here... is..." He takes a slow breath.

"In Harbaburesti," he says, in that peculiar, off-kilter lilt his voice gets when something else speaks through it, "dark days fade into black, endless nights." Wuyin puts the truck in gear. There's been plenty of time to get everyone in the back, and they had all best be in or move quick. He's going down the hill, into the village.

The dirt road leads into the village, and old and dilapidated houses line it on either side. Only one headlight works; it's enough. They wind their way downward, towards what looks to be an old inn. Suspicious men look out from the front door. The road turns into a 'T' intersection, with what looks like a large palisade gate on their right and a guarded gap in a fence on the left. "People huddle like medieval peasants, trying to ignore the yowling shrieks from outside, trying not to think about what moves just beyond the feeble reach of their lights. They mutter words like 'strigoi' and 'moroi' and 'nosferatu' while clutching blood-caked rosaries."

He turns to the left, accelerating down the road and the hill. Dark eyes belonging to what might be a cluster of children (it is not, the ones with good night vision will say, but he still won't stop) turn to the truck, but back away from its passage. He passes the guards, who are too stunned someone is going out to stop them. They clutch rifles, with blades hanging from their belts.

The truck goes downhill, into a narrow pass between the hillsides, and turns right along the edge of an abandoned field. Ahead of them and to the right, practically against the gates of the village, dark shapes move amidst scattered firelight. They're shaped like humans, clad in completely-concealing heavy clothing, but don't move quite right. They pay the truck no mind, occupied with... something else.

"An army of loathsome hungers," he says. His grip on the wheel is white-knuckled. "Siege engines looming at the forest's edge." A few of the things move to the edge of the hill, watching them. Only the attentive will spot them. Scouts, maybe. His head tilts, and he looks in the rear view mirror directly at Lancer of Black. "War has come."

The road stretches on, passing between shrub-shrouded farmlands. Wuyin gasps for breath like he'd just won a race. He manages to get his phone out of his pocket, thumbing it on blindly. "Check the -- the signal. Radio. Must be here somewhere."

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor has had better days. She's had better weeks.
    The big sister is mostly just along for the ride right now, eyes closed as she takes in the rumble of the truck, the jostling of the road, and the Speaking that Wuyin is doing.

    The Sister's eyes are dark and sunken, and she's resting on Riva's shoulder. Not a good day.

Staren has posed:
    You might think Staren would make a big deal about seatbelts, but he doesn't. Once it's clear the truck is working, he climbs right in back, standing with his hands on the roof as he peers ahead.

    "'Yowling shrieks?'" he echoes. "'Nosferatu...'" Well, at least he knows /that/ word. He gives the guards a curious look.

    After the bees finish their narration, he asks, "Wait, where are you going, anyway?" He got so caught up in the scenery and trying to understand the message that he forgot what he was doing. "Oh! Right." At least noone can see how embarassed he is given his helmet and current position. He checks the data recorded on the drive so far, and points. "That way." He might even be able to give an approximate distance.

Lancer of Black (886) has posed:
     Lancer has never ridden in a truck before. He expects the experience to be not unlike riding in a carriage. He knows what cars are, thanks to the Holy Grail, and he understands modern technology well enough to get that cars are basically the evolution of carriages. Trucks, therefore, with their spacious backs, are also like carriages. Wuyin has even traken up position as the driver.

     He is entirely wrong.

     The bumps do not suit the dignified Servant. The dirt road rocks and rolls, thumping and bumping along. His lance, settled over his shoulder, bounds up and down many times, smacking him roundly on the shoulder with each motion. No, Lancer does not care for this form of carriage.

     But nor does he complain. The Servant is noble and stoic, as usual, as if his outburst of shock, awe, and joy had never happened. He takes the truck ride in stride, unspeaking, unswerving. There are more important things to see, after all. Harbaburesti is a glorious and wonderful place, a balm to his soul after many years, and as the mist washes over him like an old friend he greets it gladly. There is even a smile on the Impaler Lord's face as they bump and bumble their way through the village, a wistful smile of times well-spent and well-remembered, times firmly cherished in those memories still precious to the Hero's soul. The smile persists right up until he sees the not-children turn their eyes to the truck, right up until he sees the things that stand against the gates. Right up until Wuyin looks him in the eye.

     War has come.

     War is not new to Wallachia. Lancer of Black was baptized in it. His very legend comes from an act of war so abhorrent that those beyond Wallachia's borders believed it could only be the work of a devil. But the creatures he sees are not men. Never has the Impaler been at war with that which is not the work of humankind, as far as he has ever known. He has fought the devils and the monsters of the multiverse, but that is different, so very different, from seeing it in his own homeland.

     Siege engines looming at the forest's edge.

     It is fortunate, then, that Wallachia's once and future Voivode is a siege engine unto himself.

     He hugs his spear a bit tighter, his golden predator's eyes locked firmly on the things that walk like but are not men.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa sees Lancer's reaction and remains polite, it's the man's hone even if it';s from another world. She could understnad going homne even if this was another iteration of home it was still one's home. She seems concerned for the moment not about Lancer but it's clear he's home and that does get a smile.

"Right lets see here if I can get this thing up and working."

A few min pass. Kotone looks up from her work.

"It's operational lets get moving I even got the thing hot wired."

She moves and will ride in the back as she looks out over the countryside.

She thinks for a moment.

"Yet those things do exist here don't they?"

The ride is otherwise uneventful for the most part and she wonders about the Bees they certainly have an idea.

Then she sees the seige engines and the strange people. Then the comment hit her.

"Undead on the move but not mindless husks like in Kingsmouth? God help us all."

She sees The war has come and she checks her weapons now once more she knows they will be need.

"There's a lot to do...I promise you this Lancer? I'm in for the duration with the problems here."

She looks out for a moment trying to picture this happenin to New Port or Vancouver and she just shudders.

Inga has posed:
"War has come," Inga repeats, bouncing along in the back of the truck bed. Indeed, it is not dignified, but neither is struggling to keep up with everyone else when they run, so she will deal with the truck.

Inga's eyes, distant and dazed, look out into the darkness.

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    Even when piling onto a truck, Yukihana maintains dignified poise, settling in out of the way for others to pile on. At least until it moves and she's jostled around squeaking like a mouse stuffed in a tin can and shaken mercilessly. Her ears pin back, splaying slightly when Wuyin slides into that oddly cryptic tone of speech, his words not seeming to bode well in the least.
    She begins to muse that she may not like it very much when Wuyin does that.
    But her musings are interrupted by glowing eyes in the darkness. She's a little too distracted by those to think of the guards.
    "War with... Who?"

Finna (513) has posed:
    Finna, in fox form, scrambles back and forth. The bumps and jostling doesn't seem to bother her. Her legs bend and sway naturally has little problem keeping balance even without much weight to keep her from slip-sliding across the truck bed.

    "There are... CREATURES... out there. Stick close, people, whatever you do. Don't go it alone."

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva has access to Google here. And with that she can point out important things.

Like what Wuyin is talking about, even though she can tell Lancer knows. Someone doesn't get that look on their face just from that. "Strigoi. Moroi." She says as they travel. "Those are old local terms for the dead who walk. Ghosts who rise from graves. Or more specifically..."

She glances to Lancer, and back to the others. "Vampires."

In the meantime, she tries tuning her phone herself, trying to lock into the signal so Wuyin can focus on driving. "Just be careful, stick together. I've never been here before and we don't have the time or ability to go fight and win any wars right now."

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin nods at Staren's direction. He follows the road, and then turns left onto another. This one worn, but paved. It's cracked and pitted, but it's a far sight better than the bumpy dirt road they were on a moment ago. Every now and again, it looks like something is watching them from the woods, or from beyond the hedgerows on the abandoned fields. Gold-glinting eyes are barely visible when they're there at all, but whatever they belong to is both big and doesn't want to come out to meet them.

The truck stops at the base of a huge concrete edifice. A ramp big enough to drive multiple cars up side by side leads to a busted chain link fence gate. Beyond it, a road turns sharply left and goes further upwards, towards what looks like some kind of bunker crossed with an observatory. It's probably Cold War-era, but most people in the group wouldn't recognize that. It also looks abandoned... but maybe not quite so much, recently.

Wuyin gets out of the truck to proceed on foot. He gets his phone and taps it till he has the tracker app he used earlier up, a pulsing green circle visible on the display. It's a lot like Riva's in that respect. There's a steady 'beep... beep... beep...' that gets faster as they get closer. Nothing stops anyone from getting up the incline, and once they've taken the turn, a rusted blue metal door greets them. It looks like a side building. The main entrance must be further ahead, but judging by the size of the place, it would have to be heavily fortified.

He points his phone at the door. It pings wildly. Wuyin glances between Staren and Riva for confirmation. "This must be it. Screed called it 'the Lonely Patriot.'"

The handle is attached, and it doesn't seem to be locked. This time, though, he lets someone else go in first.

Lancer of Black (886) has posed:
     Vampire.

     The word alone sets Lancer of Black on edge. His knuckles whiten around the lance on his shoulder, and, were it not his own, it might crack under the pressure. Vampire. The poisonous word that had stained him so completely, he could feel it even now gnawing, clawing at the innards of his soul. A Noble Phantasm born of a lie, born of a sick delusion. *Vampire*.

     But was it a sick delusion, here? The people of this land acknowledged him - knew him. He could feel it through his power. He knew, /knew/, that they remembered Vlad the Impaler. The dark shapes, the wandering monsters, the devil-creatures lurching along in the misty night. Was it so inconceivable that there be somewhere, some version, of Vlad the Impaler who truly was...? Who could really have been...? Who...?

     He wants to scream. He wants to roar with fury at the mere idea. The merest seeping poison of doubt is a sickness of the mind, a sickness that lingers and festers as they drive. He wants to shriek out to the heavens that it cannot possibly be so, but he knows - he /knows/ - that it could. The celestial spheres contain many secrets, many tests, many twists and turns.

     It is not unfeasible that here, Stoker's Poison was not a lie at all.

     The thought wells up inside his magically-made lungs, swelling them near to bursting. But it made sense! It made too much sense! The Dragon-man's prophecy, when he looked at Lancer! The nightmares stumbling through the darkness! The huddling peasants! The guns, the blades! The children with odd eyes! The fact that even now they knew his name, knew him as Lord of Wallachia!

     No, no, no, no, no!

     But...what else could there possibly be?

     Lancer's face bears little of this internal struggle as they pull up to the heavily-fortified building. It is good that they do so. It gives him something to take his mind off his own nightmares, off the image of himself clad in the symphony of the night, wielding arias of sorrow to torture the living.

     If that was so, Lancer decides - if it was *possible* in the wide, wide worlds that a Dracula who truly was an immortal blood-soaked hell-monster lived - then...

     Then he would fight that monster with everything he had. Even if it meant...

     No.

     ...maybe.

     Lancer does not hesitate to open the door. Even if he's attacked, at least it is something to do.

Finna (513) has posed:
    "From rusty car to rusty place!" Finna's still in fox form as she hops off the truck and paces towards the building Wyuin's pointed out. She's not so interested in the front door, that's often the WORST way to get into a possibly dangerous place. And so as she starts looking for another way in. A vent, perhaps a cracked or broken window... just in case the front door happens to be trapped.

    Then Lancer just BARGES IN.

    So much for that.

    Hair raised, Finna focuses all her attention just in case something flips out at them! She is ready for ANYTHING!

Inga has posed:
Inga is likely at the back of the group as they walk up the incline, obviously struggling a bit with the hill. She's making her way though, leaning on her staff as she needs to.

Lancer is the one to open the door. Inga is already with that. She begins channeling her anima, ready, not sure what they could be facing ahead, but some wards would likely be appreciated by /some/ people anyway. And if that failed, well, there's always lightning, acid blood, blood spears... all manner of things!

Staren has posed:
    Staren hops down from the truck, following. "Why is there a /bunker/ outside a rustic little village?" Staren considers possibilities. "Someone from somewhere else either hid something here... or wanted somewhere to hide. 'The Lonely Patriot'? Sounds like a tavern. Who /names/ a bunker like that?"

    Aaand the door's open. Staren looks around. Once again, they're going underground and he's the only one bringing along his own air supply. Hmm. Oh well, it's usually not mattered before, right? Most of them wouldn't want to suit up anyway.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor's got an answer for that as she shuffles out of her spot and sticks close to Inga and Riva. "A lot of the number stations had fanciful names, Staren. Russian Man, Linconshire Poacher, Attencion, a number of them had very distinctive characteristics to them to help ensure that the station you're listening to was in fact the one that was supposed to be transmitting to you."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is on edge she knows there may be problems here they will hve to deal with but is she ready to deal with things like this? She does pauses at the bunker she seems to know the rough style it's clearly Russian and very old.

"Lonely Patriot?"

She nods once seeming to get it but the door is unlocked? Oh she's not happy about it, she is uneasy. She follows Lancer in and she's flicking on the flashlight on the bayonet lug of her rifle. She looks to be wary as she moves in.

"This might have primative computer systems then again it might be too old fror that I can't tell. Quiet place like this? You could hide some black project resarch base here in a bunker like this."

She looks over to Eleanor for a moment.

"So it was the same here too, Eleanor? Same thing happened on my world... I wonder what else is in comon hummm."

She then gets quiet as she starts to look about as they move in.

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    When the truck comes to a stop, Yukihana seems ill inclined to get out. Clutching her katana very tightly, and wary of the golden eyes in the night, there is a brief glimpse to Vlad's predator eyes before she finally decides maybe it would be better to join the others than hide in the truck as much as she wants to.
    Her gaze turns to the bunker now- though she's certainly not the first to approach it- and certainly dares not get any closer to Lancer, even while wholly unaware of his internal turmoil. "Perhaps we should--" Lancer opens the door.
    "-Knock."

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
The door opens.

The interior is dark, a state breached by Kotone's flashlight and little else. The room is large, apparently opening ahead and to the right. It's tough to see, though --

-- until something ignites the barrels scattered around the room. With a burst of light, barrel-fires spring up, providing flickering illumination from the interior of old oil drums and who-knows-what else. It's not much, but it's enough to see by, if not clearly.

An enormous bulkhead blocks the main passage inward. It would take truly superhuman strength to breach it; the thing must be solid steel and more than a foot thick. Off to its right, another room opens up adjacent to it... a room flooded with red light, shining from somewhere behind the lazily-turning fan-blades set in round openings near the ceiling. It's cold in here, but the air seems hazy...

There is a static hiss, and spectres manifest. They glide through the air, becoming visible in the red light, their bodies lined in a haze of electronic snow. Three or four of them go in through the front wall, over the group's heads, and weave through the side room and beyond, vanishing again with a louder crackle-hiss of interference. Particularly keen ears will pick out numbers, andlessly droning, amidst the noise.

The ghosts vanish. The haze goes with them. The light, formerly red, is merely the firelight of the barrels. Following the path they took leads to a breach in the interior wall, bypassing the bulkhead and moving into the confines of the arterial tunnel beyond.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva charges along with the others, simply shrugging as Eleanor clarifies for Staren. "They were supposed to be Cold War things, right? That narrows it down, really." She follows the others in, the charged action from Lancer no surprise to Riva. He wants something to take his mind off of how bad off his homeland apparently is.

But she, like Lancer, knows that she's going to be back. Unfinished business is the worst business.

Once they enter, Riva looks around the area, and frowns. "This is a pile of crap. How is this place even ruuuu-AAAH GHOSTS." Riva yells, pulling her guns immediately. However, the ghosts seem unconcerned wit hthe group, instead with the odd noise. "Well... This is pretty spooky..." She mutters.

Inga has posed:
Inga continues on, following the others as the enter this 'bunker'. It is a rather depressing place. Not helped by the fact there are actual ghosts. More ghosts. Inga reaches to touch the iron of her necklace. "They sound...like the noise the radio makes sometimes," she comments. She knows nothing about radios really, but she's heard static before at least.

Inga stays near Riva, in case they need to run. They've got a system now. The system is Super Strong Riva carries slow Inga.

Finna (513) has posed:
    Perhaps places just LIGHTING UP with CONVENIENT FIREY DISPLAYS is normal for some people.

    But not Finna.

    Her body FREEZES UP like a panicked cat as the place all but WELCOMES THEM. "Creepycreepycreepy..." And yeah, the floating spectres aren't really helping.

    Her opinion COMPLETELY matches Riva's. So Finna steps lightly through the place, focusing her senses and spirit as sharply as possible for ANY kind of danger.

    "We hit pay dirt this time. No more roaming around. Why was this stuff showing up at Solomon Island though if it came from here?"

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor.... seems oddly at home with this sort of thing. At least the worndown rusty crap and crumbling infrastructure and spooky maybe not there ghosts. She shuffles into her medic's bag and pulls out the regular sized pipe wrench, the wrench bit at the end frosting over as she grabs the handle.
    "Shortwave signals can travel very very far. It's the atmosphere, it bounces the signals more than once and you get propogation that can travel for thousands of miles"

Staren has posed:
    "'Number stations'?" Staren echoes. He doesn't know what those are. His helmetlight joins Kotone's flashlight in illuminating the room. And then... LIGHTS! Something mystical going on. And then... GHOSTS! Staren hesitates to fire. Can he hit ghosts? He doesn't want to bring the place down with heavy ordnance... also, they seem to be static ghosts, What's up with that?

    He looks around warily for a bit after the spectres leave. "Uhh... are you sure following them is a good idea? ...Yeah, I guess we don't really have a choice, huh."

Lancer of Black (886) has posed:
     It's hard for ghosts to spook a ghost. Lancer looks at the wraiths like sad, distant cousins more than creepy enemies. He walks along through the bunker, unworried. The firelight, though...that concerns him. Someone's living here.

     Lancer immediately starts checking for traps. Mostly, he's just keeping an eye out, but every now and then he stops and pokes odd-looking objects with the blunt end of his spear, testing for tripwires, pressure plates, and other things. The Grail's updated information has been made most useful.

     "You are already walking with a dead man. Walking with more cannot hurt."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa looks about and eyes the barrel fires for a moment she lowers her weapon slightly and keeps pressing onward she's falling back on what training she's got some XCOM as she moves to keep her wits about here there's something horrible lurking in this bunker and she dreads what it might bet. Yet here she goes because who else aside herself and those here would deal with this. Then comes the ghost and she nearly fires off a shot but she's able to just control herself enough she looks quite spooked though.

"So...we're not alone the dead are not settled here I like this situation even less..."

She gives Finna a look and ponders she paused at one bit of painting on the wall it was faded and cracked. Yet she knew the symbol.

"That symbol this was a Soviet Union instlation. Who knows what was going on here is the cause or if this place was just used by something else..."

At Lancer's note that he's a dead man she just kinda stiffens a bit becoming very doll like in her posture for a moment.

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    A building of stone and steel. How so very different it is from the small homes of Hagane Town, and the creaking wooden spelljammer The One-Eyed Jack. Yukihana is more intrigued by the walls and bunker itself once inside, than anything else, when no attack comes as soon as everyone is inside.
    It is perhaps the spirits that make her squeal, practically in the same time and tune as Riva.
    But when they vanish, she is left, ears pinned back, tail bristled and tucked between legs, sidling somewhat closer to Finna as a result. No matter what Vlad says, walking everywhere around here regardless of with who has her prettymuch on edge.
    Perhaps she regrets coming now. But at least she's not bolting back to the truck. "Is there not any place on this world where the dead do not roam?"

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
"Most civilized places, they do not," Wuyin says quietly. He has his macuahuitl out, walking along. "The dead are not supposed to walk. It is distressingly common in this line of work, however."

Lancer's TRAP SENSE finds one dead ahead: a spot where something feels distinctly /off/. All he has to do is pass something into it, and...

BOOM. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. Explosions, small ones at floor-level, rip across the room. They're enough to throw someone off their feet, but for an Elite, it's hardly ruinous. Annoying, maybe. Painful, sure. Embarassing, if someone had wandered into it.

The tunnel continues on, deeper and deeper. It opens into smaller chambers now and again, and the static spectres flit this way and that at odd intervals, passing through walls and inevitably going towards the center. The numbers and the static gets louder and louder each time they appear. They pay the group no heed. The attentive, though, will spot something important: their numbers are increasing.

At last, the tunnel ends in a door with a knife switch on the wall next to it. Wuyin moves ahead and throws it with a crackle of electricity as it makes contact. The smaller bulkhead slides aside, and electric lights flicker on on the other side. There's a stretch of tunnel ahead, leading to a second small bulkhead door that's already open. He waves everyone forward, watching their backs for any opportunistic monsters, and follows after that.

The moment the last person is through the door, both slam shut with an echoing clang. The lights fail as one, plunging the room into utter darkness.

Yellow eyes open. Silhouettes, a deeper black that stands out within the pitch blackness, are starkly visible. They look like children. They stare, and whisper, but the words are little more than a garbled hiss of static filling the mouths of whatever they are.

The lights come back on a moment later. Nothing is in the passagway. The doors are both open.

In the distance, beyond a dark stretch of tunnel, the shape of a tall man in a dark coat can be made out standing amidst the lights of countless monitors.

Inga has posed:
Inga is grateful she is in the back this time, as explosions happen as a trap is triggers. Inga hates those. She winces at the sound, reaching for her knife, waiing to see if anyone was hurt. Inga would of course, offer a healing spell to anyone who needed it.

Once Wuyin opens the door, she passes through, still sticking close to Riva. The lights go out, yellow eyes stare...an instant later they are gone, leaving Inga feeling distinctly unsettled. She shivers, grip tightening on her staff.

Her eyes focus on the man at the end of the hall. Her immediate urge is to throw lightning in his general direction, but she does not. She waits and watches. Will the Bees have anything further to say?

Finna (513) has posed:
    Okay, now the radio has Finna pressing a bit closer to the nearest warm body that's NOT Lancer. Which happens to be Yukihana. She brushes up against her leg, doing her best to hide just how much she does NOT want to be around Lancer now.

    EXPLOSIONS go off ahead. But she's not worried.

    Chances are, that can't stop a guy who claims to have killed TWENTY THOUSAND MEN. And if it does... well, she won't complain. It might be punishment.

    But her steps get jagged and spaced out, as periodically she stops to listen to the strange sounds or stare at one of the spectres.

    She SNARL-HISSES when the lights go out, leaving her staring at the distant eyes. Finna's JUST about to activate her Anima when - ... it's over?

    "... Oh screw THIS. The spirits in here are just trying to scare us!" And it's WORKING.

    She breaks away from Yukihana in no time at all, bounding ahead instead.

    Right towards the man. "This place is hardly fit for the dead. What're the living doing here?"

Staren has posed:
    Staren does flinch when Lancer remotely triggers the trap. That would have been bad to walk into.

    More static spectres. "What is /with/ these things?!"

    And then... DOORS SLAM. BOSS ENCOUNTER!

    ...With... children? Small silhouettes, blacker than black... "The Filth?" Staren raises his weapon, but doesn't fire as long as they make no moves...

    And there's nothing there. "Ugh. Everyone else saw that, right? This is like some creepy horror movie..." He never liked horror movies anyway. After a few adventures like this, he's not sure he /can/ like them...

    A man. Or just a silhouette.

    "John?" Staren asks uncertainly, as the group approaches.

Lancer of Black (886) has posed:
     Lancer has seen cannons before, of course. The Ottomans had brought gunpowder with them, and Byzantium had responded in kind. Still, the explosion surprises him. His spear whirls upwards in a sudden, smooth motion, as if readying to defend the party against the cannonballs. He promised, after all. He wasn't here to do them harm.

     Lancer takes his promises seriously.

     Deadly seriously.

     But it turns out to be nothing but sound and fury. There's a little chuckle that escapes Lancer's throat at that. It was an intimidation tactic! He was an expert in those. It's arguable that he's the greatest expert on intimidation tactics in human history, given...

     Well, given to what he just admitted.

     Not confessed. Confessing is for people who do bad things.

     Still, when the door slams, a feeling of supernatural unease creeps over Lancer. The yellow eyes confirm it, and he's about to stab them with his spears when they vanish. Staren's question prompts a nod from him. "Yes. I saw it. I-"

     The man.

     "Be wary!" Lancer tells Staren. He's clealy on edge, and not just from the man. This bunker is getting small, cramped, and underground, bringing up very unpleasant memories from him, memories of iron bars and stinging whips and pounding fists...

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    This place is not doing Yukihana any favors when it comes to scares. Explosions too, are scary things, but by this point she's so preoccupied with the dead, that when the traps go off, shee doesn'y cry out again. She simply covers her ears with a wince of pain and a jump from the shock. By this point, Finna being so close is not minded at ALL, and she near cringes when the other fox departs. But with a sigh, she manages to regain her clam for what best she can. This is absolutely RUINED when doors slam and everything goes dark. And then there are eyes... There are eyes everywhere. Yellow and sinisher, whispering hisses of static laden terror.
    When the lights come on, Akayuki is in Yukihana's hands, the pink steel of the large katana gleaming, held in perfect stance, albeit in trembling hands, eyes wide and wild, ears pinned back with agitation.
    It is a very, completely undignified look, and with a nervous cough, she slides her blade silently back into the saya and swishes her tail once at the sight of the assumed man up ahead.
    "That is who we are looking for... Yes?"
    Someone please say yes.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is now looking out into the depths of this bunker of Godless Russian Science. She thankfully does not fall prey to the explosions but she sees whomever is here had made preperations. She will be even more on guard the deeper they get and she's getting the pickups over her cybercom. The cyborg is more and more unsettled by this. The talk over the comm doens't help her much.

"Well it's working pretty darn well Finna!"

Then stat

"The Flith...? Staren be carful."

At that moment she locks down all her systems from remote contact she'd not eve thought this might be flith based.

"If it's the flith be ready ..."

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
The tunnel opens into a hallway. It might still be subterranean, but it is definitely a hallway; it's squared like one, rather than rounded like the tunnel in the rest of the place. Two people could fit down it side by side comfortably. It's lit by electric lights, but there's a grey sort of haze to everything, like the world was a step or two closer to black and white.

There's a quiet hiss of static everywhere... and, more noticably, the sound of old radio programs going off from four different directions, in four square, high-vaulted chambers attached to the hallway, two to a side with wide openings leading into them. The two on either side open into one another. There's some kind of broadcasting and monitoring equipment in each room, lining the low parts of the walls. All of it's on, and plugged into shortwave radios carefully set out on metal tables in front of each of the four banks. Behind that, monitors or windows show what might be the station's power plant, glowing with a pale violet light.

"John?" The man has a distinctly Russian accent. "No, I am not he. John..." He lifts a too-thin hand, his coattails drifting this way and that on a breeze that nobody else feels, and touches his chin. He holds up his hand, extending a long, narrow finger the color of bone. "Ah! The voice from Tokyo! He could not be here tonight. He sends his regards to a, erm, 'Chuck,' I think. But I also think maybe once word gets out, he will come in person, yes?"

He turns around. Any illusions that he was alive are immediately dispelled. His body is far too thin, too angular, to be alive. His face looks more like a detailed mask with a too-wide mouth, moving almost unnaturally while he smiles. His teeth are black as coal. He extends one hand, and a cane or short staff of some kind floats up and into it, topped with what looks like a very old-style microphone.

"I," he says, touching his free hand to his chest, resting it on the surface of a black, oily-looking mantle draped over him, "am the Presenter. You must be here for the show! Ah, but --" He raises that hand again, as if he'd just remembered something.

Static spectres slide into sight, flickering and then stabilizing in front of the banks of equipment on either side of the group. Two manifest in each room, four to a side. They slowly drift towards the hallway in the middle.

"The living," The Presenter says, with a touch of sadness in his voice, "cannot, I am sorry to say, listen to this evening's broadcast. So if you would be so kind as to, eh..." He waves his fingers in a circle, "...die?"

The Presenter swings the microphone at the ground. The spectres move inward from both sides faster, lunging with hazy hands that leaves exposed flesh with what feels like a horrible flash-burn. At the same time, violet energy races across the ground and explodes upwards, filling the hallway with cold, numbing energy, and terrible, malicious light.

Inga has posed:
Could this be connected with the Filth? Inga would not be surprised, but she certainly hopes not. She has no desire to speak with the Filth again, ever, even if she knows it is inevitable.

The man. She knows he's not alive. But that does not mean he is not dangerous. He has spoken to John. Wants him to come...so, how to kill a ghost? You don't. You banish it. "Odin's bones," Inga curses, specters surrounding them, the air growing numbingly cold. Time for some wards.

Inga draws her knife and uses it to slice into her wrist, opening the vein so that she'll have plenty of blood to go around. She wards those who she knows to be mortal, first. Crimson is flicked around in a shimmering mist, delivering protection and a boost to healing.

Now she needs to think.

Staren has posed:
    As soon as it's clear that this man isn't human, and that he knows 'John', Staren jumps to a conclusion. "There's more of you? Living messages?" Still, he watches and listens nervously as The Presenter continues his schpiel... and then the real fight begins.

    They're surrounded. Staren's not sure if he can hurt spectres, so he targets the Presenter. Manifesting magic wings and hovering just over the ground as the violet light washes past underneath him, he levels his arm at The Presenter and fires the twin particle beam cannons at him. Maybe it will do something? They're going to have to figure this stuff out mid-fight...

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva is skeered really badly. However, one thing that makes people get moving is a good old fight or flight response. With a yell, Riva begins shooting Anima bullets at the back, trying to help keep spectres off the flanks of the heroes as much as she can.

This isn't pleasant at all. "How the hell are they even doing this?" Riva yells from behind.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is going to have to pester more about John later though the mention of Tokyo? That leaves her very worried given what little she's picked up about Tokyo's current state on this Earth is. She braces her self a she looks at the presenter and she narrows her eyes.

"No..."

but then the dread feeling comes she feels the flash burn even though her real flesh is almost all long dead. She shivers as she now starts looking for something.

"There's got to be something around here?!"

She stars looking about for a moment the Zombies however get her attention she opens fire with her weapon trying to bring the things down...

Finna (513) has posed:
    Cold, grasping magic rips at Finna's life from the floor... but the little fox responds to this by LEAPING SKYWARD and switching to the ceiling. A few spectres manage to raspingly graze her flesh despite her efforts to twist around them, leaving her shivering. But in a handful of seconds Finna's shifted back to human form... STILL stuck to the ceiling. Right above the Presenter. Despite all the discomfort and pain she doesn't lose concentration. A few waves of her arms in preparation... and she thrusts both down. Silvery strands of Essence silk grasp for the Presenter. Her goal is simple.

    HAUL the guy off the ground and maybe break whatever strange necromantic magic he's got. And if not, then make him a sitting duck for EVERYONE ELSE.

    "HEY BONES. Find a better way to greet the living or we're gonna find out what happens when you die twice!"

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    So no. That is not who they had come to seek. Not who they came to seek at all. This 'presenter', with his corpselike appearance and the announcement that the living cannot partake is worrisome enough.
    Asking the group to die seals the deal.
    By now, Yukihana has been about as scared as she's going to get. The gauge is at full, and the needle tap-tap-taps at the end og the metaphorical gauge. Instincts kick in- and with the doors sealed there is to be no flight.
    Once again Akayuki os drawn, the pink-steel blade glowing a chill blue while a corona of heat forms along the edge as she is gripped by chill terror and the passion of desperation all at once, the very blade coming to life to match its owner as one. There is no more delicate japanese maiden where Yukihana Masamune stands. Now there is a creature in the wild grip of instinct and terror, and yet even still a master with the blade in hand. Though hands shake, the stroke aimed at the nearest phantom on approach would be enough to cleave a man wholly in twain as she hisses, uncontrollable and primal.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Staren's energy weapons hit the Presenter, knocking him back a couple of steps. Smoke rises from where he struck him. It looks like he /is/ a solid object, and shooting him is a completely legitimate tactic. By way of response, he sweeps his microphone stand scepter upwards, sending a ripple of hazy, static-filled air back at Staren's power armor, carrying on it sparks of the same violet light. The power armor is actually a detriment, here; something like that is bound to be full of the kind of equipment a sonic attack /wants/ to transmit through. Better not have your radio on!

"The living have no place in this show," The Presenter calls with a laugh. "Message? I am the Presenter! These messages are /mine/ to send!" The static spectres strike, and Riva and Kotone strike back. Anima-powered rounds do wonders to tear into the ghostly enemies, but solid slugs do little more than poke little holes in them. It's like Kotone was shooting at a sheet. Technically, it's hurting them....

Yukihana and Finna rush into the fray with two different goals in mind. Finna actually manages to take hold of the Presenter with her Charm and lift him off the floor, leaving him open for a few seconds, while Yukihana instead strikes one of the ghostly apparitions coming in from the sides... and /does/ cleave it in twain, ripping the creature apart. The static spectre's two halves ripple, a stunned look on its face momentarily becoming peaceful as it fades in a haze of electric snow.

"Tsk tsk," says the Presenter, actually waggling a finger at Finna, even while the silvery lines suspend him in mid-air. "You can't kill something that's already dead!" There is an honest-to-God laugh track, which might be the worst offense of the evening. "Besides --"

There is a FLASH of vivid violet, a pulse pushing outward that sends anyone it hits for a loop for a couple of seconds. The Presenter is simply not there anymore. Instead, he's standing in one of the rooms on the left side, twirling his microphone and pointing it at the radio. "-- I'm just getting warmed up!"

Static spectres flow out of the shortwaves. Instead of filling the room he's in, he opens his mouth and sucks them into his black-toothed maw, consuming the creatures. A haze of grey light fills the wounds he's been given, and they start to solidify into... well, if not flesh, whatever it is he's made of.

The other three radios, Kotone would notice, /are/ creating more ghosts. They pour out and rush in, grasping and tearing at the life force of anyone they can get their insubstantial hands on. There are better than a dozen of them, now, and, well who knows how many more are coming?!

Lancer of Black (886) has posed:
     Lancer did not know what he expected to find. Himself, the vampire of his nightmares, given form by another world? Some demon conjured from the depths of the darkness? Certainly not....certainly not this. This thing. This oily, unnatural thing. This thing threatening death on those around him.

     Lancer does not hesitate for an instant. Superhuman speed and superhuman strength blend together as Lancer plunges forward, stake gripped tight in hand. He is angry. He is very, very angry. He is angry at himself, angry at the other 'himself', angry at his lack of faith in Vlad Dracula, angry at his lack of faith in his own name. What a weak-willed man! There were so many possibilities. So many options!

     Lancer lunges. His stake goes jabbing forward towards the thing. The dead things are ignored - they're targetting the *living*, after all, and Lancer hasn't been among the living for six hundred years. Oh, no. He remembers quite well how he died.

     "You are correct," Lancer sneers as he jams the stake towards the man's head, "You cannot kill something that is already dead."

     "But I can make your life a living hell! Kazikli Bey ~ Lord of Execution!"

     There is no explosion of stakes this time. No storm of spikes fills the room, no destructive force erupts from the ground to magically skewer the presenter and his spooks and his radios. No, as far as anyone can tell, Lancer intoned his Noble Phantasm and it did nothing at all, as he drives the spear right for the Presenter's head.

Staren has posed:
    Staren leaves the Presenter smoking! Someone points out they might not learn much if he dies, but he doesn't seem like he's planning to tell them anything unless /they/ die, so...
    Staren tries to dodge the now-airborne attack, only for spectres to go through his armor and freeze him. /Geeze/ that's cold! The distraction makes it hard for him to control his flight. A sonic attack screeches over his helmet -- he turns off the sound too late, and crashes to the ground.

    "Not trying to kill you..." he croaks out, aiming an arm and firing four micromissiles that try to ram into the presenter's flesh(?) and explode. "Trying to destroy you..."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is not doing much against the ghost she gets that she listens somewhat to what the Ghost to Ghost host has to say but she's more intent on the radios. She's rushing awya from the fight her weapon's stopped and she's noe tyring to get to one of the radios and turn it off and if not she'll crush is using her hand given all the strenght her cyborg body gives her? She should be able to do that if it comes to it.

"The radios! The Ghosts are coming from the radios!"

Finna (513) has posed:
    Even in a situation as dire as this, Finna seems to appropriate a bit of humor. "Is that so? My ancestors killed things that were never born! Sure you wanna bet on that?!"

    Lunar Essence whirls and ripples, igniting from Finna's flesh as she spreads out her stance and arcs her fingers like claws. Upon her forehead the mark of the moon shines, but it's quickly subsumed under the intense glow. In no time at all her whole body's engulfed in a bonfire of light... of which only her vulpine eyes, sharp teeth, and silvery claws shine through. Muscles flex...

    And...

    WHOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!

    If a single word could encompass what follows, it might be PINBALL-BLENDER. Okay so that's two words.

    Lunars break rules like that all the time.

    With an unearthly snarl, Finna blurs through the room quick enough to kick up a very noticeable gale-like wind. Back and forth, back and forth. She bounces from wall to wall to ceiling to floor without any consideration from gravity, a whirl of claws and fangs. Her presence is nothing more than an incandescent shape and looking straight at her is probably a bit blinding.

    These dark-dwelling ghosts might not appreciate that.

    They'll appreciate the Claws of the Silver Moon a lot less, chances are!

    And so the Lunar works at whittling down the numbers of spectres.

    But after a bit of that, she changes course. Those mighty claws are turned on the radios. Everything with a speaker she can!

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    Driven to the depths of pure primal instinct, the kitsune screeches. A chattering, gekkering, guttural sound as she follows up on the first strike. Heedless and uncaring for all the phantoms sap her strength with their chill touch, for a long moment she concerns herself with falling into the flow of her sword kata, so trained and second nature as to be seemingly ingrained into this out of control frenzy as well.
    Her heart surges, controlled by fear and forced to fury she only dimly registers other voices as pink steel flashes and flashes and flashes again at every phantom that so much as gets in her path.
    But this surge of such an intense and uncontrolled state cannot last indefinitely. Her strokes begin to flag, her breath labors, before she draws it in- and expels it in a white gout of foxfire a the closed radio, on realizing the are in fact the source of what she is so desperate to be away from right now.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
The Presenter is in the middle of healing himself. He's focused on drinking in ghosts like they were getting poured through a funnel. Staren is the first to try and interrupt him, dropping micromissiles into his body and blasting sizeable holes in his flesh. He stumbles, and then reaches out again, consuming more of the static spectres and stitching the holes back together, albeit slower than before. As a result, it is not difficult for Lancer of Black to get to him; he's distracted, after all.

And, as it turns out, Vlad the Impaler is very good at impaling enemies without killing them.

The stake pierces the figure's head, entering just beneath the brim of his hat. It doesn't go all the way through, and for a second, it looks like he's simply going to heal around it. "Heh heh hhghk--"

Spikes start to explode out of the Presenter's undead body. Its clothing bulges weirdly and bursts at the seams, spears bursting forth from within. One spikes his leg to the ground, and another one pierces the opposite leg from the first. More drive out of his chest and into his arms, then from his arms to his hands, shattering fingers and ruining whatever could have been solid in this poor soul's form.

And yet, he does not die. The Presenter struggles to turn his mask-like face to Lancer of Black, the back of his head cracking and breaking as he turns enough to get an eye on the Servant. "C-clever trickkhh, but you are nnno Vvv--"

Kotone destroys the first radio, crushing it bare-handed. It shatters, a construction of metal and plastic that can't stand up to augmented strength. The ghosts nearby wail and come at her, but they seem less substantial near it, only managing glancing blows instead of full-on contact.

Finna's mad rush and her silvered claws end four of the spirits before they can get into position. More start to flow outward from the shortwave, but she gets it during her frenzied attacks against anything remotely electronic. One of the rooms is savaged by a Lunar's fury in a way that almost any given garou from another world would approve of. The tide is stemmed there, but not wholly stopped; there are still two more.

One more, after Yukihana's panicked powers get through with it. The foxfire melts it into slag, igniting spirits as it burns across the room. They catch like dry paper and burn away like the same, wafting on the hot breeze as little more than spectral ash. The source of her fear -- or rather, the source of the sources of her fear -- has been destroyed. She can breathe... /slightly/ easier, now.

The last one is in front of the Presenter. Ghosts boil out and attack the Impaler instead of rebuilding the Presenter's body, tearing at the mana that makes up his body to try and make /themselves/ more real. They don't get far; an anima-wreathed macuahuitl slashes through the air, hitting the nearest ghosts full force and knocking them aside as Wuyin finally moves in. In the same motion, he hacks one of the stakes off as it emerges from the Presenter's body and snatches it up in his other hand. Twirling to strike down another phantom, the (unconfirmed) Dragon attacks with his left hand at the same time -- but attacks the radio, driving the stake through the top.

The Presenter looks on in horror. A look of clarity passes over his false face. "I... I did it. I..."

His body fades away, breaking apart in fragments of violet light until it is no more.

Staren has posed:
    This is not a good day. Staren has been deafened and numbed. He struggles to stand, and his allies end the fight.

    He stands there, breathing, listening to the ringing in his ears.

    and then the infernal BEES do their thing. He doesn't need working ears to hear over his head radio, which he just turned off Morg dammit! He holds his hands to the sides of his helmet uselessly and doubles over. "Augh, not again!"

    ...At last his head is quiet again, except for the ringing. "...So there's /more/ of them." Staren speaks very loudly. He almost has to shout over the ringing. "Turning people into things. Not as agressively as the Filth, but trouble all the same. We should destroy all of them before they can hurt anyone else."

    Any comments that he should use his indoor voice, or any comments at all, are met with the query: "WHAAAAT?"

Lancer of Black (886) has posed:
     The Impaler Prince is pleased that his ludicrous trick worked. He wasn't actually sure it *would*. He'd stabbed a lot of things, but never something that wasn't, at least a little bit, real. So when the stakes explode out of the Presenter's body, there's a little bit of satisfaction present. He watches the man/thing suffer as he rips two stakes - his own and a second - out of the monster.

     Evil men suffering brings him great pleasure.

     The pleasure lasts only for a moment. Wooden stakes are of little use against the ghosts - they are spirits, and while the Presenter may not be alive, he wasn't entirely un-solid. The ghosts tear at Lancer of Black's mana, ripping away at his clothes, at his face, at his beard. Wuyin's timely strike drives them away as Lancer stumbles backwards, blood flowing from his face and his side. He's a Servant, so it's not lethal, but...

     But not lethal doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

     Lancer leans on the twin stakes as the buzzing starts. It's an infernal thing, a thing he can't stand. It throbs in his head, in the back of his mind, as he tries to bend some of his mana to regeneration. No dice; it's like a curse. It will probably wear off in time, but...

     But for the moment he must simply bear it.

     Lancer straightens.

     "Agreed. If there are more of these, then it is our duty to ensure they cannot harm anyone else."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa crushes the radio in her hands and lets the remains drop to the table she's about to turn to go after the others but in a fury of Elites not holding back. She halts though when the Bees start going again and she cups her eats for all the good it will do. She looks over to Lancer.

"I agree we need to kill the radio star."

Yukihana Masamune (900) has posed:
    Huff. Pant. Pant. Pant.
    It is over, then. Yukihana is still holding her blade, knuckles white for a long moment before her grip relaxes. It's an even longer moment before she remembers to return the pink-steel sword to the saya, and once that is done, she promptly, quietly lowers herself to her knees, lays herself on her side, and curls up into a small ball.
    The fox is done, folks. At least for a little while anyway. It takes some time before she dares push herself up to seating, only registering the cryptic message of The Buzzing so dimly.
    "S-stories tell... Of when a man dies, how if he puts all his mind and being into one last thought, he will linger after death until it is completed. I never put much stock into the stories of ghosts and phantoms before now but..." She trails for a beat, her next words little more than a croaked whimper, "What manner of man would slay himself just to try and contact the dead...?"

Finna (513) has posed:
    Finna finalyl comes to a halt when there are no more ghosts to deal with. She didn't have much opportunity to see the punishment being meted out... but in the aftermath...

    In the AFTERMATH, she once again is blasted by an explanation from those wacky bees.

    ... One that leaves her.... just as confused now as when she started. The still-glowing Lunar blinks a few times as her anima dies down to a sliiiightly less-intense blaze...

    "Uhh.... thanks? Didn't understand most of that... hope SOMEONE did..." Wars, radios, and weirdos obsessing over numbers? It's way over her head. "Aaaargh, why can't these puzzles be something I can follow." The foxgirl grumbles. "Everyone alright?"