Heading into the park, Uruk-hai cut a deal with the local gangers, as Harlequin began a ritual to create a portal to take them onto the metaplanes. Passing through the portal, the Runners found themselves on a greyish grassy plain. Harlequin warned them that both magic and technology would work unpredictably here - he also warned them that this plane was infested by the Invae. He would be able to shield them from the more dangerous insect spirits, but it would be up to the Runners to protect them from any others that happened upon them.

 

The set off heading in a westward direction, an hour or so later, three true-form Beetle spirits burst out of the ground attacking them. For a time, things looked a little dodgy for the Runners - Barger taking a deadly would and Iceface and also being badly injured. Eventually however the spirits were destroyed.

 

You lose it here; you're in a world of hurt:

Harlequin started to reply in Russian, when suddenly he doubled up and collapsed to the ground, a scarlet stain spreading on the thick snow. One of the two policemen began shouting into his radio mike, while the other raised his assault rifle threateningly. Fingers rushed forward to cast heal on Harlequin, meanwhile Iceface and Uruk-hai leaped forward and with a swift series of blows took out the two cops.

As thick snow began to fall, Barger stepped forward and picked up the unconscious Harlequin. Iceface and Uruk-hai quickly stripped the two cops of their greatcoats and hats and hastily donned them as a disguise. Rather than leave the two unconscious cops unprotected in the freezing snow, they wrapped them in a couple of blankets.

Only then did they look around, taking in their surroundings. They appeared to be in a small park, ahead of them to their right they could see an ancient walled fortress illuminated by the moonlight peeking through the snow-laden clouds. Behind them a frozen river gleamed whitely, while ahead of them a broad boulevard led past some old stone buildings. They began walking down the street, but as the sound of sirens began echoing through the night air, they quickly looked for someore to hide and diverted towards one of the stone buildings. The building had a brass plaque next to the antique wooden door – but as the writing was in cyrillic, none of them could read it.

Uruk-hai shot out the lock and the runners dodged inside into the building finding themselvs in a wood-panelled hallway - just as a convoy of police cars, blue lights flashing, sped past outside heading towards the park. While Barger kept a careful watch out into the street, the others laid Harlequin to rest on a long bench next to a huge aspidistra plant.

They quickly spread through the building to make sure it was empty and quickly confirmed, that they were indeed in Russia, and that despite having travelled 5 days to get here, it still appeared to be the 2^nd November. The building appeared to be some kind of local government building, judging from all the literature scattered around. The computers were all dead, courtesy of the worm that caused the System Crash. Uruk-hai located the building’s canteen and began heating up tins of borscht – the first warm meal they’d had in days. Iceface found a map of the town they were in – apparently Nizhny Novgorord - on the wall of one of the offices.

After their first hot meal in days, they managed to get Harlequin semi-conscious who told them they had to get to St Cyril’s. The map didn't show anything they could identify as St Cyril's - but it did show an hotel a couple of blocks away. Figuring they should find someone there who spoke English, Uruk-hai and Iceface, donned the police greatcoats and set out into  the biting cold -  accompanied by Running Wolf in wolf form. They made their way there quickly and Uruk-hai secured a room (though he declined the offer of a girl)! He also managed to ascertain from the night porter, who fortunately did speak some English, that St. Cyril’s was a monastery about 30 miles to the north of the city. In short order they all decamped to the hotel room, via the fire-escape, and got a couple of hours of much needed rest.

Later, just about dawn, Uruk-hai went out into the snowy streets of the city and stole a car. They all piled in and Fingers began driving,  heading a in a vaguely northward direction. By some miracle, and by following the convenient Russian tourist board signposts, they made their way to the winding road that apparently led up to the monastery. About a mile up the road, however, they had to abandon the car in a snow-drift and made the rest of the journey on foot. The trip took it’s toll on an already exhausted Barger – particularly as he had to carry the semi-conscious Harlequin - and by the end of the trek the troll was in a bad way from cold and exhaustion.

As they neared the wall of the monastery compound, Running-wolf, scouting ahead could smell some of her kinfolk on the wind. These were no ordinary wolves however, but Fenrir wolves. Warning the others via her link with fingers, Iceface and Uruk-hai edged through the snowy forest and ambushed the wolves, killing all four with silenced weapons before they could react. Next to the monastery they spotted a parked transport helicopter. The Runners quickly  checked out the chopper, but the engine was cold – whoever had arrived here had been here a while.

Get Me to the Church on Time

As Fingers moved forward to examine the wooden gates to the compound, Barger warned the others that he could sense huge amounts of mana building up in the air, in the ground beneath him and in the threatening looking snow-clouds gathering at the peak of the mountain above them

Uruk-hai also moved forward to the wall of the monastery compound and levering himself up, peered over. In front of him he could see a courtyard in front of what was obviously a church, behind which a cluster of other old but anonymous buildings lay scattered; to the left a walled area was filled with graves, mausoleums and other monuments to the dead. Seeing no sign of life, he levered himself up over the wall, only to meet a high-velocity sniper round coming the other way!

As the orc fell back, a scarlet stain spreading in the snow around him, Fingers rushed forward to cast Treat. Barger and the others also moved forward, but while most took shelter behind the wall Running-Wolf leaped gracefully over and burrowed into the deep snow in the courtyard.  Iceface managed to spot that the shot came from the bell-tower and Barger, after placing Harlequin down on the ground cast a powerball there, half destroying it. Iceface quickly clambered over the wall as Fingers cast a lightning bolt at the gate, as the now recovered Uruk-hai flipped up over the wall and dovetailed into a combat-roll on the other side. 

Burrowing her way through the snow, Running-Wolf made her way round to side entrance of the church. Meanwhile after Fingers used magic fingers to ring the bell in the tower, hopefully distracting the sniper, Iceface and Uruk-hai moved up to the front of the church, Uruk-hai fired his grapple gun up onto the roof and began rappelling up. He smashed the stained-glass window above the door and Iceface lobbed a couple of grenades in. Running-Wolf made her way round to the side door, which was unlocked; cautiously she moved into the sacristy and through the open door that led into the church could sense four figures hiding in the pews. She passed the word back to Fingers telepathically.

Outside the wall, Viking lumbered forward and crashed into the gate a couple of times until the bar that held it, already weakened by Fingers’ lightning bolt, shattered. Fingers dashed into the courtyard, calling out a warning about the men in the church. Too late! Uruk-hai swung through the broken window and into a hail of bullets. As he clattered to the floor finding shelter under the pews, Iceface dashed round the corner heading for the sacristy where Running Wolf waited. Barger rushed forward and shouting “incoming” tossed an MRE pack through the window, hoping to distract the waiting gunmen.

Iceface arrived in the sacristy as one of the Winternight fanatics tossed a tear-gas grenade in the general direction of where the badly wounded Uruk-hai lay. As Uruk-hai frantically pulled on his respirator, Iceface too the opportunity to send two mini-grenades from his under-slung grenade launcher slamming in to the fanatic, Running-Wolf took the opportunity to launch herself over the pews, ripping into one of the other gunmen, who collapsed under the ferocity of the wolf’s assault.

Out in the courtyard, Viking unlimbered Ole Painless, and fired off the entire drum at the door of the church which disintegrated in a hail of splinters. Uruk-hai popped his head up over the pew and fired off a couple of shots and then Iceface fired off a three-round burst at another of the fanatics, before he suddenly staggered and collapsed as a round took him in the chest – the sniper from the bell-tower had made his way down and joined the fray. Though it was not for long as, unfortunately for him, he swiftly drew the attention of Running-Wolf.

After the dust had settled, Fingers and Barger rushed frantically around trying to heal their comrades as best they could. Harlequin, place in the warmth of the sacristy told Barger they had to recover a special key from the abbot’s office. Unfortunately when they finally located the abbot’s office, though it wasn't difficult to spot where the key had been (within a cabinet on the wall that contained a  bas-relief of the monastary) the key itself was long gone!

A Grave Situation

Uruk-hai and Barger spent some time in the abbot’s room, puzzling over the missing key and what it might be the key to! After some time searching around and comparing the physical layout of the monastery with the bas-relief in the abbot’s room, they suddenly realised something odd. Rather than the church being the centre of the monastery complex as you might have expected, the centre of the complex was in fact a large mausoleum with a cupola in the graveyard – the tomb of St Basil!

The quickly gathered up the others and headed across to the wrought iron gates that led to the graveyard. As they crossed the snow-covered courtyard, Barger shouted out a warning that the entranceway might be mined just as the ever-impetuous Uruk-hai threw open the gate and stepped on a claymore! Fortunately for the orc, the snow dampened the blast and thought he was thrown back by the explosion he was otherwise unharmed.

While Fingers edged her way round the perimeter of the graveyard, near the mountainside. Barger clambered over the wall, assisted by Viking, only to find himself face-to face with another explosive booby-trap affixed to the side of the raised grave in front of him, freezing in place he called a warning to the others. Uruk-hai and Viking quickly hatched a plane – they went back into the church and took the stone font off it’s plinth. Gingerly the inched it into place across the front of the device and shouted at Barger to leap to the side. The device detonated, but the heavy stone font contained the bulk of the blast.

After that Uruk-hai commenced minesweeping operations, firing his SMG into the snow ahead of them and clearing a path to the tomb. When they finally got there – the heavy bronze doors were slightly ajar, although something was blocking them on the other side. They each peeked in through the gap, seeing a large sarcophagus in the centre of the mausoleum, the walls of which were covered in mosaics depicting the life of the saint. Barger could also see, with his thermographic vision, the criss-cross beam of infra-red beams in the space between the door and the sarcophagus.   

Uruk-hai climbed up onto the roof to see if there was any way in up there, perhaps through the cupola, while he did that, Barger and Viking forced the doors open slightly further to see if they could see whatever was obstructing them. It turned out to be two dead Winternight fanatics, next to which lay a light machine gun. The two appeared to have been frozen sold, their faces locked in a rictus of agony. Barger decided to peek astrally – as well as the glowing elven runes which suddenly appeared on the sarcophagus, he could see a large ice elemental perched on the roof and warned the others. He launched a lightning bolt at it, which had no effect other than to drop him unconscious from the drain. Fingers took him to Harlequin, who although badly fatigued himself, raising himself up on one elbow he drew a knife across his thumb and squeezed a drop of blood onto Barger. He muttered something in sperethiel casting a spell that revived the unconscious troll. Unfortunately the blood-magic seemed to take whatever energy Harlequin had remaining and the elf passed out.

They decided their best bet was going in through the cupola and Uruk-hai began bashing away at it. In short order he had demolished it and dropped down onto the floor near the sarcophagus. They could see that the ceiling of the mausoleum was covered in a sheet of ice – presumably the ice elemental Barger had warned them about, but  it did not react. Joined by Viking, they tried shifting the lid – to no avail. They began looking for a clue in the mosaics on the walls but found nothing. Barger and Iceface began trying to translate the elven runes  that were only visible on the astral, the language although clearly related to the sperethiel that Iceface knew seemed vastly more complex, but they managed to find a reference to a stick or staff and suggested to Uruk-hai they find a mosaic coatings a staff. Uruk-hai quickly located a mosaic showing St Basil holding a bishop’s crosier - in the centre of the crook a single tile was missing. A search of the area located a heavy gold ring in one of the Winternight fanatics hand - rather than a gemstone it had a small stone tile mounted on it. Uruk-hai inserted the tile into the mosaic and the lid of the sarcophagus swung down, forming a ramp into a rocky passageway below. Viking suggested trying removing the ring to see what happened. As he did, the lid of the sarcophagus swung up, but the ice elemental on the ceiling suddenly reacted dropping down and attacking. The elemental was swiftly despatched, though Uruk-hai was badly wounded in the process. Once Fingers had healed him, the Runners made their way down into the passageway.

The passageway led to a huge set of ancient-looking wooden gates. Peeking astrally, Barger could see wards inscribed in an angular runic script on them. The wards felt incredibly ancient but any power they had once had had long-since faded. 

The Horror in The Dark

Applying their normal solution of brute force to any problem, Viking and Uruk-hai shoulder-charged the ancient gates which gave way with a huge cracking sound as the ice which held them shut shattered. As the runners deployed into the huge cavern beyond, facing-off against the two huge ice elementals that waited there, Running-wolf recoiled in horror as her astral sight was confronted by the twisted diseased  corruption that infested the astral space in the cavern.

Once the two elementals were dealt with, the Runners had time to survey their surroundings. The walls of the cavern were covered with dwellings connected by stairways carved into living rock. Passageway ran off in all directions, hinting at other caverns beyond. A frozen stream - once the water supply for whatever community had lived her, ran through the centre of the cave and off down a large passageway to the north.

At Barger's suggestion they followed the river, emerging into another slightly smaller cavern, this cavern had actual buildings carved out of the rock, looking vaguely classical in style. Across the cavern a jagged scar of a fault-line bisected the floor to those with astral sight they could see the pulsing mana of a ley-line below. The astral space in this caver was even more corrupted in the last, and the stench of blood magic was strong in the air, borne out by the corpses of thirteen Winternight fanatics on the ground before them, their hearts torn out.

On the other side of the fissure, in front of the largest of the ornate buildings they could see a cruise missile in a cradle. Peeking astrally, Barger, Fingers and Running-wolf could see that the missile, the focus of so much foul magic, had an astral twin that pulsed evilly with the powerful blood magic infused within. They could also see that it was guarded by two powerful frost spirits. They could also see that the missile, it's warhead destabilised, was leaking radiation causing the corruption in the astral space around it.

Unable to see the frost spirits, Uruk-hai charged forward, leaping the fissure. As he did so he noticed a figure standing in the shadows of the building. The figure emerged, revealing himself to be Magnus, the leader of the druids who had accompanied them on their ill-fated trip to Scotland the previous year. As Magnus strode forward, his body shockingly exploded in a welter of gore, emerging from the ruin a hideously mutated form  covered in  suppurating sores confronted him. The orc's mind was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of horror and fled back to his comrades.

Meanwhile, Barger slumped to the ground as he astrallly projected himself to confront the frost spirits. As Uruk-hai ran towards them, Running-wolf noticed that his aura was somehow suppressed, he was under some kind of compulsion. Warning the others, she launched herself at the orc before he could get a line of fire on them. Iceface leaped to help, while Mouse tried to get a narco-jet round into the frothing orc.

Suddenly, Harlequin,whom  Mouse had been supporting, suddenly leaped to his feet - saying "enough of this mummery". Turning to the remaining runners he said - "will you give me your power?" As they agreed, he began casting a spell, binding threads of power between them all. As the power coursed through them the Runners, were re-energised and healed. As a sword appeared in his hand, Harlequin teleported across the fissure and charged the horror that.

Running-wolf shifted forms and projected, to help Barger, Fingers watching Barger confront the spirit, attempted to wrest control of the spirit from it's summoned - and succeeded! She instructed the spirit to attack the other one. This enabled Barger, accompanied now by Running-wolf, to assault the astral form of the bomb with ferocious intent.

Iceface, Viking and a now-recovered Uruk-hai, charged forward to try and help Harlequin.  Realising that nothing they had on them would affect the loathsome form engaged in melee with the elf, they quickly searched the bodies of the Winternight fanatics, discovering each had a clip of incendiary ammo. Loading up with this they began pumping fiery rounds into the creature. Their hunch was correct as the creature reeled from each hit. Harlequin grinned at them and redoubled his assault, his glowing sword biting deep into the creature's loathsome hide.

Taking advantage of the distraction Mouse and Fingers headed for the missile. As Mouse hacked in to its circuits - discovering that it was on the point of detonating, Fingers cast analyse device in an attempt to work out what to do to disable it. Between the two of them and doubtless aided by the fact that Barger and Running-wolf had destroyed it's astral twin, they just managed to shut it down before it exploded.The horror howled in fury, as the two runners tipped the inert missile into the fissure, placing it beyond reach. The creature's howls were short lived, as weakened by the incendiary rounds slamming into it, Harlequin suddenly thrust his magic blade deep into it's twisted form.

Aftermath

Taking the chopper parked outside the Runners headed back to civilisation. Civilisation was still in big trouble, the matrix crash had been slowed somewhat as Lofwyr used a killswitch ( which no-one even suspect he had) to crash chunks of the matrix, protecting it from the ravaging of the  jormangund worm. various governments had fallen, rioting was continuing unabated, and  back in the good ole UCAS, President Haeffner had been assassinated by his own bodyguards.

Eventually - as things quietened down over the following weeks and months - the Runners returned to Seattle to enjoy their reward. One piece of bad news greeted them however. Joe's Bar had been burned down in the inevitable riots that had swept Seattle in the aftermath of the crash. Joe had taken the insurance money and retired to Denver.

Realising the times were a-changin', Barger bought William's old garage in the Barrens and using his cool five mil set himself up in some style as a local gang-lord.

Mouse enjoyed her retirement in a new luxurious house. Occaisionally she kept her hand in, doing some legal consultancy work on the net & keeping in touch with how it’s changing, but no more Mr Johnson jobs as it involved being shot at too much!

Uruk-hai and Viking, pooled their money and bought an island in the Caribbean, resigning themselves to a life of sun, sand, sangria and a generous selection of the local maidens! 

Running-wolf left her cred-stick lying around somewhere (along with a mess of others), and sought out Harlequin one last time. With the ancient elf's help,she returned to her home metaplane.

Iceface disappeared into the shadows as silently as he had once appeared. 

After several failed business opportunities & spending some two years in jail (on several charges) – having handed himself in through a fake third party and pocketing the reward money. The Louse set up a nightclub just shy of the Barrens and is actually making a pretty penny or two. The club “The Cantina” is a runners bar and Louse makes a penny or two off his old trade – obviously, it’s barely legal!!!
 
The Crash led to many opportunities of blowing things up and with his unique psychological complains Albion harkened to the clarion call of destruction and was personally responsible for just shy of a Billion new yen of damage to the city. After 6 months on the run, Lone Star eventually got their man. Albion (mad, but not stupid) avoided the chair by pleading insanity and effectively was thrown into the funny farm with a sentence longer than the Roman Empire hanging over his head. After four years of drugs and poor treatment a much more bitter and twisted Albion blew his way out of the farm (having build a horrible part magic/part domestic chemicals explosive device) and is believed to be hold up in the Pully up Barrens doing odd jobs for anyone that doesn’t want to kill him on sight (can any one say Hit Mage?)
 
Having retired from the running game the good Sister Body Count moved to Japan and currently teaches English in a girl's school.  She keeps in touch with contacts in the Shadows – but more to keep informed of old enemies coming looking for her than for a want of employment.
 
Bushmaster was last seen leaving Johannesburg just before the Crash – said he was heading into the North Country to do some hunting. He never came back – did he die out there or not? Only time and the bush folk can tell.

Fingers, took her five mil and went into the consulting business. If you're ever hired by  Helping Hands^TM you know who you're working for!

Col. "Howlin'Mad" Mike, set up a front company  in Switzerland running mercs into the various hot zones that periodically explode across the world. In the aftermath of The Crash he made a mint!

Arman was last heard of somewhere in Amazonia - only the trees whisper of his whereabouts.