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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Falkus" data-source="post: 1888979" data-attributes="member: 22634">Episode two“Giles, this is Ryan,” Ryan said into his cellphone as he drove the team’s van through the traffic of New York. “We’ve got a job, but we’re going to need some backup. You busy?”“Just finished that deal I was doing,” replied Giles. Smooth and confident, Giles was the groups faceman, though he often had other business on the side that kept him away from some of their work. “You can pick me up at my place?”“We’ll be there in two shakes.”A short while laterBraxton sat down in the Roasted Nut, ordering some coffee. Alanna had already arrived, and was seated a few booths away. She didn’t know Braxton was there, and she wasn’t supposed to. Braxton was just there to watch over the meeting. She was drinking from a cup of coffee, and holding some sort of medallion in her left hand.A few minutes later, Steve and Giles walked in. After satisfying themselves that they weren’t being watched by anybody suspicious, they took a seat across from her. She slipped the medallion back under her shirt as they approached.“That was unrelated,” she stated, setting her coffee down on the table. “The attack did not have anything to do with what I want to hire you for.”“Why do they want you dead?” asked Steve.“Let’s just say that there are groups that hate certain people, like me, for what they are,” Alanna replied. She sighed.“You do realize that we’ll expect compensation for this,” stated Steve.“Agreed,” added Giles. “But we can put that off until later. Add it on the bill for the whole business. Tell us about the job you need us to do.”“A, well, an associate of mine, Nieulor, has been kidnapped,” stated Alanna. Giles got the sense that Nieulor was more than an associate of Alanna.“Got a description?” asked Giles, taking out a notepad and pencil.Alanna put a picture on the table of a young man with green eyes and long, blonde hair. Dressed in a nice suit as well. “He’s been looking for something of his that was stolen some time ago. He called me, told me to meet him near city hall. He said he had found it, and would be able to retrieve it within a few days. But he never showed up at the meeting place. That was two days ago.”“Are you sure he’s been kidnapped?” inquired Steve. “Maybe the people hunting you killed him?”She shook her head. “No, they’d make it public, display the body somewhere. They wouldn’t just hide it. I know them.”It made sense, hate groups rarely covered up the existence of their crime. They wanted people to know what they were doing. “What was he looking for?” asked Giles.“I don’t know, he never told me.” She sounded honest enough, thought Giles. “But it was quite important to him.”“Anything else you can tell us?”“Just one other thing. When he called, he was at a restauraunt, it was a, what was the name? Oh yes, the Blanched Escargot. I don’t have anything else I can tell you.”“Well then, we’ll see what we can do. But, back to compensation,” Giles named the price, factoring in the cost of shooting back at the alley.“My associates have access to considerable financial resources,” stated Alanna. “We can meet your price.”“Excellent, we’ll get right on it.”Giles and Steve stood up and left. Braxton remained for a few minutes, keeping on eye on Alanna, so as not to seem suspicious by leaving at the same time. After a minute, Alana left as well, walking right by Braxton’s booth. Odd, thought Braxton. He had a good eye, and judging by some slight scars, it looked like Alanna had had some plastic surgery done on her ears very recently.Later that evening, near the Blanched EscargotThe team was discussing their next course of action in their parked van. The restaurant was their only lead, at the moment.Research into Nieulor hadn’t revealed much, aside from the fact that he was a wealthy investor. Checking up on Alana had turned up a complete blank. The restaurant, however, was a different matter. The research had indicated that the place was currently under investigation by the IRS for certain accounting irregularities, but the exact details were unknown.Braxton and Steve got out of the van, and headed towards the front door, with the purpose of scouting out the place, and maybe gathering some information from patrons or the staff. Giles and Ryan, on the other hand, headed around back of the restauraunt, to check out rear entrance.As they approached the door, three large men in trenchcoats and cowboy hats pushed their way through the door, past the waiter, and into the kitchens.Unusual, thought Braxton. These guys didn’t seem like ordinary thugs. Stance was more like bodyguards, really.The restauraunt was pretty bare, not too many customers, and the staff didn’t appear to be particularly energetic. Steve managed to get them the best seat in the place, however, by sleeping the waiter a fifty dollar bill. The waiter was a bit suspicious, instantly realizing that the pair weren’t there for food, but he didn’t care, so showed them to their seats.As the two scanned the menus, and looked around the room, a single shot rang out from the kitchen.Followed by several more shots, a long burst of machine pistol fire, some inhuman screams of pain, a few more shots, more machine gun fire and another scream.The waiters and customers, of course, panicked and charged the main door en masse.“What the hell?” Ryan muttered, as they neared the back of the restaurant, his hand reaching towards his holster.The backdoor of the restauraunt burst open, and out came one of the thugs, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. But what was more horrifying was his face. His hat was gone, revealing a brutish, furry face with large pointed ears, one of which had been shot away.Despite this, Ryan didn’t look his cool. “You’re not going anywhere!” he snapped, grabbing the thug by the coat. Whatever it was looked at him, and then collapsed to the ground, expiring from its wounds.“Jesus Christ, what the hell is this?” muttered Giles, dropping down to examine the body, and finding a Colt Python and some ammunition. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t human.Meanwhile, Steve and Braxton, after the panicing customers and waiters were gone, crept up on the kitchen door, and looked inside. They same a man disappear behind a closing hole in the wall, and three bodies on the ground. Two of them were the thugs that broke into the place, and the third was a normal human lying dead against the wall, with a Mac-10 in his hands. Loud French cursing was coming from the pantry, where the chef had locked himself.“What the hell went on in here?” asked Steve rhetorically as Braxton took the revolvers from the corpses.“These things, they aren’t human,” Giles stated as they walked in through the backdoor. Ryan was agreeing.“What are they then?” replied Steve. Steve was no conspiracy theorist; he liked to keep his head rooted in reality.“I’ve of heard of things like this,” continued Giles, as he searched through his extensive knowledge on the arcane and the supernatural. “Bugbears, I think they were called. Magical monsters-”“And they call me mad,” stated Braxton, who was poking around, trying to figure out how to open the secret passage that they had seen close. “What's next, wizards?”“I have to agree with him. You’re sounding real crazy. Monsters and magic, c’mon,” added Steve.Giles stubbornly stuck to his beliefs. “And then Alana. Ever hear of elves? She was short, Braxton mentioned it looked like she’d had surgery done on her ears.”“You’re crazy,” Braxton said, as he pushed in on a loose brick he found.Meanwhile, Ryan was talking the chef out of kitchen.“What happened here?” he asked, once the man finally calmed down and left his hiding place.“THOSE BASTARDS!” shouted the Chef, angrily, gesturing at the dead man. “They assured me when we made this deal that nothing like this would happen! Sons of bitches!”“What are you talking about?” asked Ryan.The chef angrily pointed at the open passage. “Them, those smugglers. They said that it would be quiet when I agreed to let them set up here. That nothing like this would happen. You do what you want to them, I don’t care what!”There were sirens in the distance. “We’d better get out of here before the cops arrive,” commented Steve, quietly as the group stepped away from the chef.“Take the passage?” suggested Giles. “They’re getting close, we might not be able to get to the van without being spotted.“See if we can close it from the inside,” said Ryan.Braxton stepped inside, and looked down the dark staircase inside. Lights flickered on over his head. “Clear,” he shouted out. “And it looks like I can close it from in here.”With that confirmed, the team entered the dark passage, closing the door behind them as the police cars pulled up in front of the restaurant.Their guns came out, and they slowly started moving the staircase, Braxton and Ryan taking the lead.Best quote:Giles: “Look, monsters and magic plainly do exist. The truth is out there.”Ryan: “And the government’s keeping it under wraps and spying on us through the TV.”Giles: “Now that’s just plain crazy talk.”“I think you’ve been playing DnD too much. There’s no such thing as magic.”</blockquote>

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