[joe15552]

On the way down the stairs, Devoted stops moving. He suddenly feels very uncomfortable about coming any closer to the elf, so he shouts to the group, "We need to get out of here! The bugs are attracted to the Elf!"

Feeling helpless and knowing that running from a spirit in the material realm is like trying to run from a bullet, he watches Machete, hoping he will know what to do.

[Kontact]

Discarding his empty flamer, Machete swung the shotgun in his off hand to snug against his shoulder.  His hand racing to find the trigger, he fired at the giant bug that seemed to be everywhere around him as it buzzed menacingly.  The shot went wide, over its head, splashing off a wall in the distance.  Devoted meanwhile, seeing that his companions had no hope of extricating themselves from this combat, decided that enough was enough, and, gathering a large amount of energy from the astral, he launched it, visibly cracking the air as it traveled to its target, only to shimmer across its skin harmlessly.  Harmlessly, but not without effect.  The insect tuned, almost as if it had melted into itself, and started a bee line straight towards Devoted's position.

Meanwhile on the lower level, Digger turned his artful dodge into a powerful swing straight through the center mass of the insect he had engaged in combat.  It passed through once again, separating the creatures ectoplasmic form, but, this time, as it pulled itself together, it was noticeably diminished.

[Kontact]

The recently cleaved bug swung itself at Digger, striking with everything it had.  Digger, coming off such a huge swing had only moments to react, and did so, dropping down and away from the mad thing's imposing stinger.  It brushed by him, leaving more than a touch of disquietude in its path.

Meanwhile, above, the wasp which had previously been striking at Machete was instead striking out towards Devoted at rapid speed.  While it was bearing down on him directly, Ruckus stepped out of the hallway, leveled his rifle and fired a short burst directly into its center mass.  The creature's form tumbled, ass over head, losing definition all the while as it dissolved into a quickly-evaporating mess and was gone. "Fragging things thought they could sneak up on m-"  His words were cut short by a cough as Ruckus collapsed, the sound of gurgling blood backing up in his gas mask came through clearly to Machete's well trained ears.  In moments he was still.

[Kontact]

Machete didn't have time to care about Ruckus' problems when there was still work to be done.  Seeing the first wasp collapse into nothingness in front of him, he instead rushed to the edge of the balcony, swung his weapon over the top and, sighting the bug just three meters below his smartlink's camera, blasted a fragmentation round straight through its abdomen.  The thing collapsed like gelatin, losing definition and spilling onto the still burning ground where it disappeared.  The calm was almost immediately interrupted by the advance of CodeMonkey's doberman drone still trying to fire on the bugs trapped in the elf's barrier.  Machete could hear the click-click-click sound of its empty SMG as it moved in standing position toward the balcony rail.  Machete made a move towards it but was hit with a searing pain in his chest.  A fire raced through his veins, making him stumble and gasp.  For a moment he thought about what must be happening inside him - about what happened to Ruckus.  He had heard tales of this venom, a magical thing that killed you from the inside.  There was no cure, but there sure was pain.  He gritted his teeth and dropped to his knees.  The fact that he was still alive was refreshing, but more so was the painkillers he'd managed to apply with his medkit.

Below the mad elf continued talking to the large materialized wasp.
"Ah, so that one's a magician!  No wonder your panties are in a bunch!  You thought you could use him, eh Melissa?  He'd make you a queen?  Maybe get rid of me?  Hmmm?  Did you forget, you tramp!?  This is my production!  I don't care what exec you slept with!  Without me, it's curtains for all of you!  I was glad when they got you, Melissa!  I could have found you then!  I could have saved you from that sad-shit understudy!  I didn't want to!  And look what he made of you, you buzzing idiot!  Ha!  You can't even do that!  You can't even remember what a worthless cooze you were!  You!... ah..  Oh."
The elf looked up remembering your presence.
"Well... finished already?  That's good.  That's nice.   What were we talking about?  Ah yes!  GETTING ME THE FRAG OUT OF HERE!"
The materialized wasps still beating themselves against the barrier paused for a moment and began circling around inside the shimmering sphere, only throwing themselves against its wall occasionally.
"Oh, sorry sorry..  I'm not used to screaming like that.  Though there was that one period where all I did was scream..  I couldn't even tell I was doing it after a while.  I don't know how long back that was though...  I had completely lost my mind by that point.  Ha hahaha!  It could have been years!  I.. try not to go completely mad too often..  It's like a vacation - The more often you go, the less special it becomes!   ...Anyway, enough of that.  Introductions!  Hello.  I'm Holland Green.  I am a millionaire, and I am trapped here by a hundred fucking wasp spirits."

[joe15552]

Devoted blinks at the Holland with confusion. He doesn't even bother to sort out the conflict in his mind about the possible sexual relationship between himself and a bug spirit, it is just best not to think about such things, at least that's Devoted's philosophy.

He moves to Ruckus's body to assess the situation. He accesses the medkit strapped to his leg to find out if there is any signs of life left in the guy, and he waits for instructions from the medkit.

[Kontact]

The angry beeping of the medkit's various systems made it plainly obivous as the stain forming on the ground.  Ruckus was stone dead.  His internal organs had swollen and ruptured and his blood was so acidic that it was melting through his vein walls.  In the hallway, CodeMonkey was slumped against the wall, breathing but not moving.

[Xzylvador]

Devoted listened to the heartless, monotonous beep. Tears welled up in his eyes, he tried to fight them back but didn't succeed immediately.
"He's dead.", was all he managed to whisper in subvocal without his voice breaking up.
He knelt next to the lifeless body, placed the tips of his fingers on Ruckus' head and recited a Finnish prayer to Tyr and Odin, praising the strength he'd shown in life, and to Freya, asking the Valkyrie to safely guide him to a better afterlife. He prayed with his back to the rest, hopefully hiding his tears long enough for him to gather himself back together.
He had trouble convincing himself that people like Ruckus would find a place in Heaven, Valhalla or whatever kind of afterlife Ruckus had believed in... According to the teachings he'd received his whole life, people like Ruckus were more likely to end up in hell. But somehow those teachings seemed too black and white... the Gods would have the wisdom to see the difference between all the shades of gray that formed the world.

[inca1980]

"La chingada..."  you hear Machete whisper through clenched teeth as he comes over to stand over Ruckus's body.  He kneels down next to him on one knee and bows his head.  He then makes the sign of the cross on himself and proceeds to carefully look through Ruckus's pockets and when he finds something he could use he inspects it and puts it in his pack.  When he sees the other teammates looking at him, he pauses for a moment and looks up.  "What?.... hey, this guy's gone off to a better place my friends and left us in this shithole to fend for ourselves.  When we find those bottles of wine we'll toast for him but right now let's grab  his gear and move.  As much as I'd love to help Mr. Holland, unless he can help us, I don't give a fuck."  

That's the most you've heard him say the whole run and it's obvious he's a little shaken and trying to hide it.

[Xzylvador]

"To the victor, the spoils." he muttered quietly more to himself than anyone else. "Only here just surviving for an hour is a victory... and we're not winning."

Devoted stood up and straightened himself. "We failed him. The least we owe him is not to leave him here as a snack to the next ghoul or gargoyle...", he threw a glance in the direction of the skeletal elf surrounded by spirits, "or something."

[Kontact]

The elf identifying himself as Holland seemed staggered by the lackluster response to his words.  And by "seemed staggered," that is to say he actually physically staggered backwards in confusion.  As a man used to entertaining himself, it seemed the change in audience was taking time to adapt to.
"Good lord!  Have.. Wait.  I get it!  You're from a world without the concept of money!  Incredible!  As unexpected as this is, I'm certain that it must be the only explanation!  So very curious...  Allow me a moment to digest this new information.  I trust you won't mind if I continue to shield you from certain death while I contemplate what currency you might use in this amazing new world of yours."

[Xzylvador]

Devoted bit his lips and balled and released his fists slowly. For all he knew, the eccentric elf had known about the wasps' ambush in advance but hadn't given a warning just to get some entertainment. He'd heard the madman's promise of millions, but that could just as well be mad ravings like everything else that had come out of him.

[Crossbow]

Digger walks back in from the hall, dragging the rigger with him.  After dumping him near the medkit, he turns back to the elf.

"Eyyy-YO!  Money works just fine in these parts, although barter is better in the immediate vicinity, I got a bank account on the outside the Zone too.  What we don't have is a freakin' clue as to what exactly it is ya want us to do?  We didn't come to rescue you, we didn't even know you wuz here, so we got STUGATZ we can do for ya at the moment, any ideas?"

[Sentinemodo]

CodeMonkey from the relative safety was jacked into the Doberman. From the close to floor position the world looks differently, and there is that need to just stand up on the back legs. But he just zoomed in registering the picture of the mad elf.

Once that is done he flipped to the blimp.

Jacking into the flying drone isn't safest thing. he recalled the manual. First, watch for the wind there is a splitsecond moment noone is steering the drone. If the drone hovers close to hard objects, there is a possibility of crashing. Secondary watch out for sensory overload. ... Whoa!!!, that is scary, one second a doglike crouch and in the other the overhelming 360 degree visual feedback with hawklike zoom and that itching of the legs/engine/the thing below...

Code took a full circle around the tower, then zoomed windows in the nearby tower that was hosting the sniper trying to spot him and jacked out. Back in AR he tasked the drone to fly to the top of the tower fast taking a random turns on the way up to avoid any potential shooters or gargoyles. The goal is to assess number of floor left to the top and general condition of the sections. He left the visual input in the open AR window.

Busy busy busy he muttered to himself reloading the clip in the Doberman's Ingram.

[Kontact]

The top of the tower stood tall as it had when Code first sent his blimp circling it.  The tapering end of the sky-scraper with it's little curling divot made it look a bit like a flower bud, as if it would one day open up.  Of course it wasn't designed to do so, only to appear as something naturally beautiful and toweringly magnificent.  He could easily recognize the solar glass on the side of the building as a source of power, so, hypothetically there was electricity available here.  Actually, that hypothesis was confirmed earlier when the blimp was shocked by a sort of external security and had momentarily shut down.  The extent of the electricity available was still in question.  The elf had also had a small quartz lamp lighting the room in the middle of the set, so at least some of the power must be available for use inside the building.

Code pondered this as the blimp drifted lazily around the upper floors.  He tried to overlay the building plans Mike had provided in order to get an idea of what was up above them.  The 90th floor contained the last of the smaller personal rooms that one could logically assume were dressing rooms of some sort.  Above that were a few more meeting rooms and offices, but above that were the executive suites.  That's were the real haul would be.  Art, jewelry and all manner of expensive trinkets could be there.  Rounding the building to where the divot was found on the west side of the 100th floor, he saw at least one good reason why a helicopter team had never come in here to scavenge.  The landing pad indicated in the building plans was completely gone, sheered off entirely, with what looked like a blast door covering where the entrance/exit would be.  That was the sign of a lockdown.  Someone must have hit the panic button and sealed it off.

The southern-adjacent building where the sniper had fired from showed no movement from this height and angle.  The southern building itself was a pale, blocky, utilitarian structure, oafish when compared to the Cross-sim tower.  As noted before, most of the windows seemed to be smashed out, allowing for the terrible Chicago winds to tear through it.  The street would probably provide more shelter than those wind-swept upper floors.  Lowering the blimp further to investigate it, Code saw a more interesting sight on the ground between the two buildings.  Where the Gargoyle had fallen, there was a small crowd of people gathered around.  One of them, holding a long rifle, was addressing the others, though, he was too far away for Code's blimp to hear anything said.

[Kontact]

Up in the tower, the bizarre elf laid down on the floor and started to move his arms and legs as though he was making a snow angel in the thick dust.  "If you can't do a job, farm it out.  I don't expect- Woah, look out!  Ms. Busy-bee is on the move!  Best to duck!"

The large wasp Holland had been shouting at earlier had turned away from the supine elf as he'd been talking and was focusing its attention on Devoted.
"Watch out magic-bag!  She's got the hots for you!  Don't you open yourself up to her!  She will ruin you just like she ruined the remake of Native Son!"