[joe15552]

Convinced that it is not Digger that is dislodging boulders, but some kind of paracritter, Devoted begins floating out of the dust cloud and towards the landing on the 34th floor. As he begins the trip, he calls a third spirit off standby, Fenris the wolf (force 4 beast spirit). Via telepathic link, he tells Fenris to destroy the paracritter. Devoted informs the group via coms, "I am traveling to your location, Ruckus."

[inca1980]

Machete mutters to himself, "La chingada...supongo que ya debo decir algo" and locks the climbing gear in place so he can just hang suspended.   He then takes off the glove on his left hand exposing the gecko grip just in case the line gets cut and grabs the wall.  A little blue flame can be seen coming to life as he flips on the pilot light to his Shiawase Blazer and get's it ready in his free hand.  

Machete looks down at Devoted and his spirits rising out of the cloud of dust.  The team hears his flat gravelly voice over the comm, "Spell-slinger, try to get those spooks to tease him out so that he starts flying.  They're our best bet for killing it.  Stick and shocks if you got'em ladies; he's hard as pinche rock.  We're best off locking-down in place and dodging rocks until he gets sick of it and starts swooping rather than face to face with that thing on the landing.  Oh, and if you can hit it with any type of crude iron, that would help too....oh and one more thing....it's a gargoyle if that helps at all...."

[joe15552]

Devoted relays the information to his spirits, via telepathic link, that the paracritter attacking the group is a gargoyle. He also adds that a good tactic against the gargoyle would be to lure the gargoyle into the open. He then transmits via coms, "I have informed the spoo... the denizens of the other realms, of the target and tactics."

[AJBuwalda]

"That's not a half bad idea, Machette." Ruckus locks his climbing gear and whips out his modified M23 which he affectionately calls Charlene. He positions his feet so he can easily move around within the reach of the rope. "Let's rock, people!"

[Kontact]

Code, having grabbed the rope with his tail swung his body to the underside of the of the sloped pillar so as to avoid any more of the falling debris.  Startlingly, he was greeted by the sight of a column of flame rising out of the smoke below, followed by a ghostly, gaunt and hungry wolf, followed by the sharp cut of jumping into the GM-Nissan Doberman drone still waiting on the ground floor.  Everything was white and swirling with the dust of pulverized rock, but as he.. it.. aggressively backed up from the center, the place again took focus.  Somewhere up there, was a target.

Meanwhile, Digger, having gone hand-over-hand to reach the landing, thudded down onto the chunk of standing floor.  The whole structure, the whole world seemed to shake with his landing, but he didn't care.  double-timing it to the wall, the shake and sway of the "ground" beneath him seemed to matter less and less the closer he got to the outer windows.  Actually, it was shaking less near the walls.  An encouraging sign.

Machete and Ruckus held their ground in the relative cover of the diagonal supports, as if daring the beast above to try and knock them off their perch.  It did not disappoint.  Another plascrete block, this one about the size of a minifridge, tumbled from the hole overhead and smashed into the main column a couple floors up before falling to the dust below.

Devoted, hearing the crushing sounds of falling stone as he floated out of the smoke cloud in his faded-yellow hazmat suit, some of the smoke swirling up to follow him him, got the feeling that bunched up with the others was potentially not a good place to be.  The spirits, meanwhile continued their ascent to the top at speed.

[Kontact]

Code shifted the doberman's stance until it was resting almost entirely on its back treads.  Now pointed upwards, he trained the machine's sensors on the 3m hole in the ceiling above where the Gargoyle was just barely visible.  The smartgun system sent a load of ballistic data to the ready machine, painting a mark over Code's sight right at the edge of the opening in the ceiling.

As Machete watched, ever-wary, the Gargoyle emerged into view and threw a chunk of plascrete the size of a Troll's head at the pillar of flame which, with a quick zig continued its rapid ascent to the top.  Meanwhile, out of sight on the 60th floor, the beast spirit appeared, causing the Gargoyle to turn slightly in order to keep it off his back.

[Kontact]

With a practiced action, Ruckus brought his rifle up to aim at the agitated beast above his head.  Giving his goggles a moment to focus on the beast, he put the dot right on target and loosed a fierce burst of jacketed rounds right into it's chest, trailing up to its head.  He felt the ascender's teeth dig in as the rifle's kick traveled down his frame into the climbing harness.  The beast still stood.

It glanced down, with an expression of malice and fled from the mouth of the hole.  Unseen, the Spirit Wolf lunged at the retreating monster, ectoplasmic teeth meeting unyielding stone and coming to no effect.  The beast above was gone from sight.

[Crossbow]

Digger huffs into comms:

"I got some iron for him. You guys that jamook busy, I am moving to flank, up close and personal like."

Ducking and shading himself from the setting sun, the dwarf rockets up the structure.

[etherial]

Through his open channel, CodeMonkey's voice broadcasts: I thought the point was to get it to come out into the open so we could all shoot it. There are safer ways to play Whack-a-mole than shooting *up*.

[Kontact]

High above the team, the Gargoyle tried to use its superior knowledge of the cubicle maze to regain the advantage of surprise.  Much to its surprise, that was not happening.  The Beast Spirit was again at its heels, while, above it, the Air Spirit materialized as a whirling mass of wind and ice.  Before the Gargoyle could react to the new combatants, the Wolf at its feet opened its mouth wider and wider as a howl escaped from inside it.  Not the howl of a dog or any other living creature, but the howl of a winds from a gaping hollow, hungry for the whole universe.  It was only an instant, but it was an instant of pure terror that dragged on and on until the only thought left in the Gargoyle's mind was "RUN."  It shifted and turned, just as a blast of freezing wind crashed down where it was standing only moments before.  The insistent teeth of the wolf spirit again clamped down on its stony flesh, but again it ran on unscathed.  It ran crashing into the southern window, dislodging the whole pane of Plexiglas from from the wall frame as it bolted out into the sky.  Two shots rang out into the dying daylight.  Someone from the southern building was now firing on it.

[Kontact]

The assault continued as the gargoyle attempted to flee further away.  Ruckus sighted it flying out the space between the buildings and lined up a shot through the burnt out windows.  Just before it passed from one window clearing to the next, Ruckus fired.  The bullet whipped through the air and the gargoyle flew right into it, catching it right beneath the jaw, shattering both the skin and the bullet.  At the last moment the creature's head snapped back and instead of the slug fragments traveling into its brain or eyes, most of it passed out its mouth and into its sinus.  It flinched and spasmed a bit in flight, but continued on.  The rising mass of the Fire Spirit spit out a gout of flame which reached the creature's retreating feet, but it didn't seem to effect it any.

[joe15552]

As Devoted floats below Machete and Ruckus, he holds out his hand-less right arm and points it at the gargoyle. A stern and serious look comes over his fair features as he grasps his stubby right forearm with his left hand. It looks as if he might be bracing for some kind of pain, but a smile comes over his face. Not a smirk or a grin, but a gentle smile of an almost pious nature.

[Kontact]

Visible only to him, a surge of arcane energy surged from the phantom fingers of Devoted's missing hand and shot straight through the ether towards the swirling black of the retreating gargoyle's form.  It connected with the foul thing, only to somehow be beat off by the manic flapping of its hateful wings.  The assault was still not over as, from above, a blast of cold black, which could only have come from the tempestuous Storm Spirit, was quickly joined by the angry blast of the Fire Giant from below.  The two forces saw a sparkling interplay across the astral, which breathed and sweltered all around for a moment before the Gargoyle dove down and down, away from the Beast above, but closer now, to thee.

[Kontact]

Ruckus kept his sights pinned to the creature as it plummeted away form the jets of fire and ice above.  He traced its path calmly as it zoomed past window after window on its decent and fired off two shots, through one opening and then the next.  The first bullet smashed into the creature's ear canal, taking off a chunk of its skull and sending it no longer diving but falling out of control as wings spasmed and strained to stop the fall, but failed to have time enough even for that as the second bullet caught the out of control gargoyle right in the divot of its lower spine.  The mangled form of the Gargoyle no longer even attempted to right itself as gravity pulled it down to the waiting pavement of the courtyard below where it crashed with a sound like wet bricks.  Machete still keeping his mind on the climb noticed a glint from the scope of the sniper in the southern building as the man traced the creatures fall, but, moments later, it was gone.  Code, still physically hanging from the ropes above and mentally sitting guard on the floor busied himself monitoring the upper levels of the building with the blimp's feed, still suspicious as to why no one had yet looted the building from above by helicopter.

[AJBuwalda]

"That's how we do things. Mr. Gargoyle is officially pavement pizza." Ruckus says with satisfied grin. "Now we can climb in peace for a while." With Charlene secured Ruckus unlocks his climbing gear and resumes climbing. He is enjoying his adreniline high of the conquering of that mighty beast.