[Crossbow]

"Hey Ruckus, tie yourself off to the hairball and the flying mage, then follow me up.  That way if something happens to one of you, we got somebody keeping you from a highdive."

Digger then begins climbing the area around the central pillars, making the climb easy and trying to keep everyone in sight.

"Wait up there hombre!"

[joe15552]

Ingmar stares blankly at Digger, and then seems to realize something. "Yes, that is a good idea. Tyr's strength can hold me and others that are tied to me. I do not want to assume your faith in the gods, but if you do not trust your climbing skills, then you should secure a line to me." Ingmar takes his climbing harness out of his backpack and puts it on over his hazmat suit... gasping a little at the harness's tightness around his groin. Looking at the way the harness is worn on him may inspire thankfulness that climbing equipment manufacturers take into consideration that the users of their product may be new to climbing. He has not floated more than a centimeter above the ground, but it seems that whatever force is holding him up is rather steady.

[AJBuwalda]

"Let's do this, mates. This wall ain't gonna climb its self." Ruckus says fiddling with his climbinggloves. Than he starts to follow Digger up the skeleton. Relatively easy climb as far as he could see; we should be fine.

[etherial]

CodeMonkey climbs up alongside Ruckus, hand over hand over foot.

[Kontact]

With Machete's silent insistence, the team pressed onwards and upwards towards the first landing, and the top.  The going was relatively fast with Digger scrambling up the column to grab a support beam, pull himself up and do it all over again.  Every ten meters or so, he would clip his lead rope to one of the support beams' cross-bars.  At this speed the team had covered the first 8 floors in a little over thirty seconds.

On the 34th, Digger could see the landing over to the left, looking much like it had on the trid mock-up CodeMoney had made earlier.  The difference of course being how rickety it looked up close and in person.  There wasn't much debris on it, and the slope as floor bowed out to the sides, suggested why.  It was about 10 meters out, but could be accessed by climbing hand-over-hand on the skeletal support beams of the floor above it.

Meanwhile, down below, the van's sensors pick up someone sprinting out the sky-scraper's door to the next building over, a spartan 50-story office complex, probably made sometime back in the late 30s.

[joe15552]

Seeing Digger is taking the lead in the climb, Devoted chimes in on coms, "Digger, let me know if you reach a stable landing. If you find one, I will relocate there." Even though his teammates are navigating the climb easily, and all is peaceful around him (so he believes), he can't shake the feeling that something is definitely dangerous about the situation. If Digger doesn't find a landing soon, Devoted may have to traverse into open air, something he doesn't feel comfortable doing, but he definitely doesn't feel comfortable meditating alone next to a pile of crap with a human hand in it.

[Crossbow]

"Hey Floater, and the rest of you joiks fa that matta, what part of STAY CLOSE TOGETHER AND TIE YOURSELF OFF TO THE OTHERS is confusing ta you?"  Digger shouts back from eight stories above.

"I am making dis as easy as possible, but I can't babysit you all night, you if you got such a problem with your personal space that you wanna go splat, be my guest."

The dwarf's frustration in not seeing the creature he expects is evident.

[Kontact]

Suddenly the reason for Machete's silence becomes evident as a hint of movement from above becomes prelude to a tumbling block of plascrete the size of a coffee table.  It misses Digger by a couple meters and slams into the floor below with a deafening boom.  A dust cloud shoots 20 meters up into the air as the continued reverberations lend a moment of quiet to the scene. 

Machete and Digger both see it, poking its head out from the cracks up above, an inhuman face with a horn jutting out of the middle of its forehead and an ear-to-ear grin full of nasty teeth.  The head disappears again in a flash.

[joe15552]

Shaken and scared by the huge plaster boulder that just fell to the ground, Devoted now believes that Digger is intentionally dislodging boulders and directing them at him. Since he thinks an objection would only lead to more rocks being thrown at him, he decides he will try to be a harder target to hit. He calls his storm spirit (force 4 air spirit) from standby, and communicates to it via telepathic link. Devoted requests that the storm spirit continuously use his powers of concealment to conceal Devoted and the storm spirit from all matters of detection, astral or physical, but to allow the storm spirit to detect Devoted and to allow Devoted to detect the storm spirit. (of course, Devoted cannot see the storm spirit unless he is astrally perceiving, and he is not astrally perceiving.) Devoted waves his left hand in front of the face of his hazmat suit trying to wave the dust away and see the climbing group through the dust cloud.

[Crossbow]

"Okay, THAT was no dragon." Digger pipes into the comlink.

"Looked like a big ass butt-ugly troll of some kind."

[AJBuwalda]

"Holy shit, that was an nasty looking critter. Gentlemen, I believe its hunting time. Lets haul ass up there and give it an ass-whooping of a lifetime." Ruckus says with a smirk on his face. He climbs further with renewed vigour; his hand is itching for his M23. He is looking around for a stable platform from which he can better defend himself.

[joe15552]

Hearing AJ's message on coms, Devoted calls from standby a Fire Giant (force 4 fire spirit), and communicates to it via telepathic link. He informs the Fire Giant that the team is under attack, and he requests that the Fire Giant fight on the team's behalf. Devoted chimes in on coms, "I have requested the aid of a denizen of the other Realms of the World Tree to help in the hunt!"

[etherial]

CodeMonkey begins casting about for a place to stash his meat body and warms up the Doberman.

[Kontact]

This time, a desk came flying out of one of the holes above.  Traveling too far, it crashed into the supports overhead, cracking in half and lazily falling to the floor 12 stories below with a halfhearted crunch.  If that had been another block of plascrete, everyone would have been pelted with hunks of pseudo-rock.  This was definitely not a situation which would resolve itself.

[AJBuwalda]

"Go, go, go! We need to get to that paracritter son of a bitch ASAP." Ruckus yells as hit adreniline starts pumping.