Reroll

The aerial survey doesn't show much: It's just a big, fenced warehouse with maybe a little more security than one would normally expect: A watchtower at each corner of the fence, and tire rippers at the front gate.  Not particularly out of line if one assumes they store valuable goods. The power usage reads too high for a simple warehouse, but a lot of manufacturers use warehouses for the actual shells, so again, it is within range of normal.

Scans from the ship match the plans from Ms. Cho: Ground level is a security gauntlet and some actual storage; we even see a truck drive off with crates of the slaves’ products as we scout.  I stow our more real minions, we have a pilot hover the ship in place, and we all head down, invisible, incorporeal, and warded against all detection by our Mythic gear.

Things go smoothly at first: We get out of the ship, and nobody shoots at us as we approach the roof.  I go to stick my head in to look through, however, and bump my nose.

“Okay, what gives?” Ed pushes on the roof, which does not let him through.

Betty glances at it, having a permanent Arcane Sight running: “It's an Abjuration of some kind.  I'm guessing someone had it warded against spirits by a shaman or something.”

I consider, “If it's bound to the material, we can probably simply follow someone in the front door with a little patience.”

Betty nods, “It does seem that way.  Come on….”

We go stand around by the front door (after checking that, yes, it is similarly warded), checking in with our deadman switch periodically, and eventually one of the controllers comes out for a smoke break.  We follow him in, and admire the Native American style artwork all over the walls and doors inside the place (once we're inside).

Betty confirms it, “That's the warding spell keeping this place solid, even for us.”

We follow the smoker in through a metal detector, a backscatter X-Ray scanner, and a close viewing by a few Guardians... whose sunglasses we know scan for magic.  And the guy STILL has to present his badge and give today's code phrase (“Belly Dancing Pamela Parton”).  We follow him onto an elevator (which reads his fingerprint before letting him in), and enters a code into the elevator itself before it takes him down.

“It's a bit excessive, isn't it?” Ed comments.

“Be glad my spells suppress sound, too…” I shake my head, “it's defense in depth. The general idea is that tricking every layer at once is going to be basically impossible: A shapeshifter probably won't have the codes, for instance, and even if they torture the guy for the code they're liable to stop at just one.”

Betty giggles, “And of course, it's NOT working, so if anything, they need more.”

“I'm glad they don't, honestly…” I shrug as we follow him into the control room and he takes his seat.

“Cutting it close, aren't you Carl?” Another controller shakes his head, “Look, you know know it needs two passwords for the maintenance check.  I just got mine in, enter yours now.”

Carl rolls his eyes, types a code into his computer, and I watch as a countdown flips from “00:01:12” back up to “01:10:00” before continuing counting down, “What? It's not like these stupid Corrupted really NEED to live.”

“Look, Carl, I know this new dead man setup sucks; but there have been known attacks directly against US,” the speaker does a big circle point with his hands, “Not just the big disposable brutes: Squishy controllers like us. So you need to take it seriously. If those workers don't get their signal every seventy minutes, those bombs in their heads will go off…”

“Good riddance,” Carl doesn't seem to care much….

“And bye-bye cushy job,” the other guy continues, “have you considered that without any production, this facility is useless, and thus, so are the controllers?”

Carl rolls his eyes, “So we'll be reassigned to the field.  There aren't that many people that can do this job.”

“WHERE CONTROLLERS ARE GETTING KILLED,” the mystery man literally shouts at the clueless Carl, “And the brass STILL haven't caught the Corrupted that's doing it. Someone. Changed. The. Game.”

He pauses, putting his arm around Carl’s shoulders, “Look, man, I get it: We’ve all been touched by the Corrupted menace - I watched a werewolf rip up my pregnant wife when I was just out for an evening stroll, Ed over there had his teenage daughter drained by a vampire while he watched. I haven't gotten YOU drunk enough yet, but such a tragedy is literally a job requirement: You are NOT alone here.  Every single one of us was recruited after a tragedy caused by those evil THINGS… and here we are: Keeping a gross of them alive. But!” Again the mystery supervisor(?) pauses, “THESE Corrupted are making the next generation of weapons that will hopefully turn the tide. We can win this. But we need these idiot THINGS to be alive to do that.”

Carl rolls his eyes, “Yeah, Frank, I put in my stupid code, didn't I?”

“Frank” gives an exasperated sigh and goes back to watching a screen.

Betty purses her lips and turns to me, “How long does it take you to extract a tracker?”

I raise an eyebrow, “About six seconds, provided the target is willing to let it go, which means telling them what I'm doing, which in turn draws it out.” I crinkle my nose, “Why do you ask?”

Betty looks sheepish, “I didn't see a need for a Ring of X-Ray Vision, so…”

I shrug, “Well, if Ed and I work together, it's no big deal to hit… how big is a gross anyway?”

Ed cringes, “A hundred forty-four, a dozen dozen… although they weren't speaking formally, so that's an approximate number at best. But ah… I didn't get it either; I grabbed a metamagic rod instead.”

I pause, “So I'm the only one that can pull it off?”

Ed and Betty both nod.

“Great. Umm. So… plan A…”

Ed considers, “Well, if we blow the controllers up, we have…” he looks back at the countdown, “...a touch under an hour to save them all.”

I nod, “And with Plan B or C…”

Betty picks up, “Then they'll know the facility is compromised: Same applies, with the extra delay of the fight… assuming they don't just hit ‘the big red button’ themselves and kill them all immediately.”  She's not actually joking; there's a red button on the wall, behind a clear plastic cover to prevent accidental presses, labeled “Terminate All Corrupted.”

I consider, “well… plan D did involve them all dying.  So… blow up the controllers, then race against the clock - literally - to save as many as we can?”

Ed nods, “Looks like, you ready?”

Betty interrupts, “Their odds improve slightly if we kill the controllers immediately after the signal goes out.”

I consider, “Good call.  So we wait.”

And we do.

Betty chills out by playing on her phone. Ed paces. I'm a little high strung to do much beyond watch the countdown.

About ten minutes in, Ed comes up with an idea: “How about we get some shadows ready to get the people to you?  Could save some time if the situation is pre-explained.”

I nod, and pull out a shadow from storage… which is immediately sucked into the wall.  I watch as the paintings on the walls shift slightly, and make room for the new vaugly humanoid figure that forms.

I blink, “Well, that's… a thing.”

Betty purses her lips, “Wanna risk a pet?”

I consider, “They're replaceable…” I pull out Betty’s Riding Dog… which stays.

Betty frowns at me, “You had to start with mine.”

Ed chuckles, “Your idea, Betty. Okay, so if we get all nine at this, we have eleven people shuffling and explaining so Kenny can actually fix them. Let's get them out and briefed….”

I pull them out; the Riding Dogs are all fine, the companion vehicles are all fine, but after Ed's Eidolon joins the wall, we have different math.

Ed sucks his breath in through his teeth when he sees that, “Eight explainers, then… fine.  We can do this….”

We brief our intelligent pets as the clock ticks down (the Anthropomorphic Animal spell raises Ed and Betty's up to the point they can follow simple instructions; Mine already can thanks to the Alteration sphere… pity I can't get my library out here…), get them on board with the plan, and set up for the rush.

Carl apparently doesn't get a second smoke break before the next cycle. As soon as they enter both codes and the clock resets… boom. We all toss grenades into the room, turn the people inside to extra-bloody hamburger, the gear into sparks.  I’m again glad I don't eat, and so I can't lose my lunch.

And then it's GO time….