Bad Dog
"For crying out loud, Rook, include your weapons this time! I don't care you need to take them apart and fully clean them afterwards, I'm not getting in trouble because you don't cover up the scent of oil and gunpowder! Again!" Hound, worthy of his handle, practically growled at the street sam while spraying scent-neutralizing deo all over himself. The troll rolled his eyes in turn, but did dutifully apply the deodorant all over his gear.
While the mage and street sam prepared for their infiltration, Sugar checked her make-up and outfit. The decker, Owl, showed her footage of the secretary who she was disguising herself as, so that she could make sure every hair was in place. If they were less stressed, they'd joke about each other's runner handles, repeating the same conversational moves. Not this time, not with the stakes high enough.
The plan was simple. Sugar would go in posing as the secretary, to distract the guards, letting the others sneak in through the courtyard sidegate. They already had hacked all they needed, so the only problem was the hellhound patrols. A cayenne approach would only raise the alarm here, so instead they had to hide their scent. Once they got into the courtyard, the ward would make sure the critters were stuck outside.
When the spydrones gave the signal clear message, they started executing the plan. It was pretty much going off without a hitch at first. Sugar acted as the intimidated secretary having to plead with sadistic security, probably already planning to leak the use of the disguise to get them fired for their failure once the job was done. Hound and Rook began infiltration, using astral illusions to hide their presence from any patrolling watcher spirits.
By the time they were near the building, two of the hellhound groups had gone past their tracks and completely ignored them. The third, however, was the unfortunate charm. Owl gave them a headsup to make haste, as the beasts were sauntering in their direction. Fortunately, their advance hacks had worked just fine, letting them through both the gate and the doors without setting off any alarms.
As they snuck through the corridors, making their way to the lab they needed to plant forged data at, part of Rook's AR display showed footage from a spydrone in the courtyard. He could see the hellhounds come up on where the ward was, its location known to him because that was where Hound had temporarily dropped his spells, having had to recast them after they were past.
He knew how this would work. Dual-natured creature walks towards proper ward, grumps, turns away. Or bashes itself unconscious trying to break through. Not this time. In horror he saw part of the group just go straight through. "Uh, Hound, I thought wards blocked hellhounds?!" He quickly slid the ARO over to Hound's image link.
Hound turned to him in irritation before checking the footage himself. He cursed. "Normally yes! Wait, fraggin' typhoid drek... Owl! They're warhounds, you blithering idiot! Alright, Rook, change of plans, move! Owl, get ready to pop the sprinklers! We're going to need to clean our tracks!"
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