"I could be mistaken. You know how rumors are?" He didn't want to outright lie to the Counts, as he might be able to detect lies. To be safe, Nosferatu knew he had to at least give him a kernel of truth to every question and response.

"Was this Chiraben working with anyone? Who else was there besides us, PU and this Proteus hitman? I didn't see anyone else, but that doesn't mean that we were alone with this ziplover."

This was fun. With little effort Tom circled around some of his slower and more defined comrades. Tom hadn't realized... or maybe he'd forgotten... how liberating it was to be water in the ocean. It was more like flying than swimming, but he could still feel the mass of the ocean so it was like moving through jello without being restricted by it. He'd have to do this more often.

The only annoyance was his senses weren't especially well attuned for this. He could turn on the flash light and see better, and be seen better, and see who could see him, but he decided to hold that card for later.

Restricting himself to the others speed he moved off a bit from them and drifted towards the circle.

Below the surface in the frigid waters off the shore of Denmark, Sean, who was swimming without a light anyway so as not to alert anyone that might be below, smiled. When he saw the spiral of lights below he sent a small amount of quantum into his body and like an octopus among the rocks he simple faded from sight. Then he moved closer to investigate what this could be.

Count O took another long draw of his cigar, "I'm not sure if I should talk with you about that. Didn't Geryon tell you anything about Bahrain? We had a deal running there... but maybe he had his reasons not telling everybody what was going on. Chiraben turned out to be just a lucky pick, from my point of view, but I believe Geryon doesn't agree with that.", he looked at Nosferatu and asked, "I got the odd feeling that you have something else in mind?"

Gray looks something like a silvery flatwork as she undulates easily and quickly through the water. When the faint glimpse of light is seen, she heads for it without hesitation. As it resolves into a spiral of light, she slows to a more cautious speed, but continues moving towards it.

Nosferatu chuckles slightly. "Having Geryon debrief you when he's in a bad mood, is like having an enraged bull read you a bedtime story."

Nosferatu really needed a drink. He was going to have Rebecca surrender a pint of her blood, for his consumption, after meeting with the Count. Sometimes only the real thing helped calm the nerves.

"Something doesn't add up about the whole thing. It almost seems like there is someone else after Caroline besides Proteus and the players we are aware of. An 'independent' player."

"Of course it is equally likely that I am crazy from drinking too many arterial cocktails."

"I hear you.", chuckled the Count and listened to Nosferatus assumptions.



"Either that or you're very insightful for a Nova Vigilance bully.", the Count took a last draw from his cigar before killing it in the asher.

"You've got to check your loyalties first, Nosferatu. You're about to tread on uncharted territory and that can get you killed really fast. And now that I realize that you're more than just muscles for NV I'm starting to ask myself how useful you could be to me...", he smiled at Nosferatu while he stood up from his desk.

"So you think there is an 'Independent Player'? Tell me about him.", the Count nonchalantly rested against the heavy wooden desk of his crossing his arms and legs.

(He is using Persuade on you with 7 successes on his roll)

The Fool likewise goes suddenly invisible, save for the ripple of water.

As he approaches the glowing lights he signals to the others through the comm.

"My God, It's full of stars..."

To himself or someone unseen he asks,

"Perchance could it be,a Chrysalis, we find under the Sea?"

"It...It just seems like everytime we get close to Caroline, she is snatched away from us by some ziplover. It could be DeVries or the Aberrants....I'm not even sure that it is an independant...I'm probably just frustrated."

"Who is he? He's someone with an interest in Caroline..or Corbin maybe. It could be he want's to learn about Chrysalis. Of course, you know more about these sorts of things than I do. I'm just 'brainstorming'."

Nosferatu realized that there was a reason why the Count was good at what he did, and that if he wanted to keep his secret, he had to leave. "Is there anything you wish me to convey to Geryon before I leave?"

(Spending a Willpower point to shrug off Social attack)

Callum finally slides the helmet over his head and locks it into place, looking up he wonders if Void is going to join them or not. Why did I even bother with this damn boat? Sighing he flops backwards into the water and begins to swim downward his eyes acclimating to the darkness that he finds so comforting. Indeed were it not for the multiple atmospheres of pressure and the potential for drowning Callum believes that he would find this quite peacefull.

After a short time he too sees the lights and hears the Fool's comments. Nutty as a peacan pie festival ... he thinks as he swims towards the light.

"Wait, my bloodsucking friend, before you leave you should know I got the answers to your questions. Now are you willing to offer me something in return? Quid pro quo, you understand?", The Count smiled his cobrasmile again.

As the diving team closes in to the unknown circling lights every technical tool started malfunctioning sporadically. Depth meter showing impossible readings aswell as GPS-Systems. Even The Fools suit sporadically phased in and out of invisibility mode.

Getting closer to the phenomenon the extend of its size revealed itself. The spiraling stars reaching about 100 Feet in diameter which at distance only appeared as being the size of a silver Dollar coin. It is at this moment that the team realized that they were sucked in by the phenomenon...

"Nepal?"

The Fool rechecks the reading on his GPS, but it's not fluctuating like the rest of his instrumentation.


"From frozen depths to Everest's height we may endure, ere we enter the spinning light."

Tom yells,

"It's a warp gate leading into space." Tom tries to hold his distance.

Sean pauses for a moment considering whether to hit his teleporter or not, which he hopes is still operational. After a moment he decides to see what is on the other side and hope and pray that the little device can get him home again, or that someone from Omega can. "I'm going in." With that he continues to fight the current, but only to slow himself enough to see what he is getting into holding onto hope that he can teleport out at the last moment if something goes wrong.

Gray Goo tries to hold her position to see out as best she can, changing her shape to something vaguely octopoidal, and paddling furiously with a wide range of flippers and appendages. A warp under the water leading to space? That seemed...dubious. There had to be some reason for it. A gate like that would require quantum energy to maintain...

Interesting timing then, wasn't it, that their team arrived in time to see it. How long had it been since the plane crashed.

Hm.

She prepares to dive through if it looks like its shrinking, otherwise tries to hold position.

Tom yells out,

"Fool! You're the pre-cog, what should we do?"

Nosferatu turns back towards the count. "What is it you think I can offer you?" Nosferatu might just get the information he needed afterall. But at what cost?

"You are the one with the 'eyes and ears'. I'm just a vampire. I drink blood, take souls, and have a small coven of followers who want to be like me." He gave the Count an innocent toothy grin.

The Count nodded at Nosferatu and said, "Splendid, then we have an accord. Fortunately for you my request has a lot to do with what you most likely want to know. Your so called independent player is not alone. Actually he has at least 5 Nova followers. He refused to join us though his friends were very much inclined to.", he changed his stance and walked through the room.

"My request concerns one girl in his entourage. I want you to convince her that her place is with us. I leave it up to you how you manage that.", the Count looked intensively into Nosferatus eyes with a smirk in his face.

"I believe I can manage that. Do you happen to know where she is?" Nosferatu relaxed inside. His cover was secure.

"What is this 'independent's' name, and will he let me just walk in and convince her?"

The Counts mood obviously improved and he proceeded to answer Nosferatus questions, "He uses the monicker 'Newton' and I suppose it won't be that easy as you described. You must know - he was here and talked to Mal and went away. Mal explicitly said that he shall not be touched but I suppose that does not extend to his friends.", a wicked grin briefly flew over the Counts face.

Rather non-chalantly given the (literal) gravity of the situation, The Fool replies,

"The Fool does not exist, inasmuch as as the rest of this place...we are but the dreams of dragons. The Cipher is merely the placeholder for that nothing that is something that the mind cannot grasp. That being said, if you must address that which is not, you may call that sweet nothing, Jack."

"As to your question, the visions granted by the gods are ever cryptic. Suffice to say that entering the light before us shall not harm us...yet we shall not escape unchanged."

"The Tower must crumble and fall, ere the Star should rise."

The Fool, living up to his tarot namesake teleports directly into the center of the "galaxy" in what must be an act of either divine faith or diabolical stupidity.

Tom pauses for a long moment, then without realizing it's been said before remarks,

"It's a leap of faith", and attempts to follow.

Not being quite blindly trusting he also gets out his light and prepares to turn it on to shift that way if need be.

Having less to fear than most from space, Gray Goo watches the others. She hasn't much in the way of faith, but it IS curious. She lets herself be drawn through the portal.

Nosferatu didn't like the odds. "You want me to walk in to where Newton and his friends are staying, take on 5 others like us, yet leave Newton untouched, and then convince one of them that they should join us?" Newton shook his head. "And what's going to stop them from turning my ass into a vampire pretzel?"

Nosferatu leaned back, eyeing the Count warily. "Do I get to take a Nova Vigilance team with me? Or is this to be a suicide mission"

"A suicide mission?", asked the Count bemused. "That's what you think my request is? Well, I suppose it'll turn out to be one if you intent on taking her by force.", the count walked around Nosferatu like a beguiling snake.

"You are a Vampire after all... seduce her, my bloodsucking friend. Maybe I can even help you a little. For instance - her name is Lily."

Suddenly the Count changed his stance again and donned a more business like attitude. "I suppose I owe you some answers. You can think about my request in the meantime, though I expect no less than a try to obtain her for us. What is it that you want to know, my friend."

In the meantime...

The team dived into the vortex getting sucked in with more force the closer they got to the center of it. As they got sucked through the portal they felt as if their bodies got stretched almost as thin as if they were cloth. Once the team got pulled to the other side a huge cavelike room expanded in front of them. The first few meters of the cave were rough wet stone but walking a few steps into the cavern the floor changed into paved concrete which resembled much an airport runway. The noise in the cave was deafening as huge amounts of water spilled out of the warp behind you which flowed to the sides of the runway and into undefined darkness.

Looking back as the other's come through the warp one by one, The Fool checks both his GPS and internal compass, verifying their location.

As the team fills the room, the diving bell retracts from his head and the slick wetsuit and flippers return to his usual acoutrements.

"Where can I find her?" Nosferatu said, as he understood what the count meant by persuasion. "And what if Newton doesn't want to part with her."

Nosferatu stood and looked at the Count as if he was a meal. "And what is so important about Newton that Mal would tell us not to harm him?"

Tom looks at The Fool checking his GPS and then he glances up at the stone ceiling and shakes his head. It's an odd sight, Tom's head and chest are above the surface of the water and below it he simply ends. Tom looks around and checks to see where the light was coming from, then he reaches out with one watery hand and...

*pop*

Water rushes to fill in the empty space where he'd been (or is that *not* been) a moment ago and a droplet outline of his upper body falls into the water.


(MC shift into Air form please.)

"Where she is I cannot say, because I don't know.", the Count contemplated.
"As far as I can tell Newton wouldn't stand in her way if she decided to part with him. It's up to you to manage that."



The Count changed his playful predatory demeanor and the room felt as if it got several degrees colder. "He knows how to find and get Caroline and Mal is convinced of his ability to do so."

Gray Goo pauses to get a feel for the surroundings. She notes with distant satisfaction that the water spilling into this place is draining away. That was a potential getaway route if things went badly.

"Any idea where we are?" her voice emanates from the formless silver slick that's rapidly congealing into a vaguely feminine silhouette.

Great! Just Great! Nosferatu knew he had a mission to do, and it now conflicted with Divis Mal. The game just got a lot more dangerous. He felt queasy.

"How am I supposed to find her? I am not a bloodhound, nor can I track a quantum signature."

Nosferatu wanted to see what kind of reaction he got from the Count.

"Does Mal know that Newton may intend to harm Caroline once he finds her?"

"If you can't do it, find someone who can, Nosferatu.", the Counts mood got worse with each passing second.

"I don't think that Newton wants to hurt her. I fear he wants to study her. Our only chance to free Caroline though is to wait for Newton to make an error... or force him to make an error. Anyway - that shouldn't be your concern. Get that girl for me."

Callum flopped out of the warp and rolled to a stop, the heavy helmet and SCUBA tank making it difficult to move. He was starting to wriggle out of the harness for the tank when the warp belched forth the boat which he was still teathered too. "Little help," he called from beneath the raft, his voice muffled by the heavy rubber.

"I'll find her Count, no need to get agitated." He hoped the others were having better luck finding Newton than he was.

"If I did get into a physical conflict with Newton, by accident of course, can I defend myself? Or is his life more important than mine?"

As Gray Goo's features form, pressing out of her now humanoid body like a relief map and color spreading over her to complete the illusion, she goes to haul the raft off of Callum.

"Bond, I presume?" she inquires with a little smirk.

"I suggest not getting into 'physical conflict' in the first place, Nosferatu. I'm not sending you on a suicide mission. I want you to be successful. Newton is useful to us and I strongly believe we can take advantage of his plans. He just doesn't want to be part of the club. He's a teenager anyway, albeit a very clever one."

The Fool begins to explore the cave, walking into the darkness and meandering up the sides of the walls in an eerie defiance of gravity. Even his clothes seem to fall in whichever way he finds convenient.

Tom drifts around the cave trying to see if there are drafts/air-currents.