brickyardbabe
Forum Replies Created
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@Mercy Congratulations on the complications! Good luck with the visit and (especially) the chemo. I know that’s awful. Let us know if there’s anything we can do?
@Obidancer I…don’t think that would be a good idea. We’re having hell’s own time just keeping up with Waltz, and we’re only sorta-kinda keeping up with IC 2077. We seem to be able to for now-ish, but the continuing gov’t shutdown is making things harder and harder and we’re having to turn farther afield for work and spend more time just managing panic attacks and finances and such at home. Honestly, I don’t know how much longer we’re going to have time at all, if this doesn’t end soon.
Of course, WW might suddenly end here in the next couple of initiative passes anyway…
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Ha! Death before discussion!
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We’re *spending* it fast. If we burn it, you’ll know, trust me. 🙂
Will put the rolls on OP, linking to roll history at the top to save us some time and url coding.
It really wasn’t supposed to go this way…
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So are we, for the same reason. And Calista is magically delicious. Other than her commlink and her wings, she doesn’t have a single thing with so much as an on/off switch on her person.
Edit: Colibri is on OP with a sheet now. Her non-battle gear and knowledge skills aren’t up yet, but everything relevant to the current situation is.
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Putting up their sheets may take too long, but as soon as we’re both home I’ll link an HTML version for Colibri and Ryoko while we transfer. Ryoko, at least, can probably done offscreen. Fox can correct me if I’m wrong, but her primary function right now is squelching alarms and calls and editing security footage. If she gets jumped by the other decker, she’ll throw down, of course.
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Something hot and primitive uncoiled in Calista, a bone-deep anger at the prospect of being ordered- not just ordered, but compelled– to do anything. That part of her life was over, her escape paid for in blood and tears and lost memories and a shattered psyche that was only now beginning to heal.
And this woman, this insolent, puffed-up little sorceress, this child thought that Calista would bow to such an insignificant, fragile, mortal little speck as her.
Calista held her ground. As soon as things had started to go sideways, with Colibri on the roof, she’d begun burning blood to empower her sorcery, and her eyes glowed a hard, vicious crimson with her stolen power. The mageling’s command washed over her, tugging at her mind, but Calista was stronger than that, her will too strong and her spells too puissant for Lace’s command to take hold, and Calista’s voice was a flat, hammered-iron tone as she responded.
“You…presume to command…me.” The pretty ingenue was gone, and an utterly inhuman horror had taken her place, one that walked like a girl but absolutely was not. “You would order me around like some common slave, would force me back into bondage even for a moment?” Calista shook her head very slowly. “You should have learned from what you know, what you deduced, what Robyn had told you. Now…” Calista’s hands came up, “you will never get the chance.”
Calista opened her mouth, and the monster sang as she stepped back into the role of Anguish, a person she had thought dead until this moment as she channeled her power. She didn’t aim to stun, or to hurt, or to kill or paralyze. No, her only desire in this moment was to make Lace suffer, and her perfect voice rolled up through the aria in Maria Mercurial’s ‘Who Weeps For The Children’ as her power lashed across the room, bearing down on Lace with the force of a hurricane.
Spoiler: -
Oh, eight hits is great! Just not great enough. And it does push one of Cali’s buttons (being commanded and unable to resist is a big fear of hers).
No, no I would not have. But I would have had the sense not to be caught alone with a vampiress either, I hope.
Okay, so now that there’s got to be an ass kicking in the offing, I’ve updated initiative for everyone but Fox, who is rolling at the other end of the couch as I type this. Calista’s first action is going to be fast and nasty, running up a huge dice pool for Agony against Lace. I’ll put the rolls behind spoiler tags so as not to clutter up this thread.
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Sweet!
Poor Lace. I tried to be civil. And she’s got to go and (fail to) use her commanding voice power. The only non-lethal spell I have is Agony, so she might be a bit worse for wear when she gets where she’s going. Provided, of course, that her team doesn’t stick the landing.
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Calista glanced at the focus, then back up at Lace’s face. How to play this? She could probably drop the young woman in her tracks, but that didn’t seem like good business. It would be much better for everyone involved, and a great deal less lethal to Lace’s undoubtedly-responding team, if the girl were to walk out of here under her own power. If she wouldn’t, then so be it, but it seemed prudent to at least give Lace the option before Colibri, Fox, and Ryoko summarily murdered her entire bodyguard detail.
They would, too. Cheerfully.
Calista raised her hands, palms outward toward Lace, a universal gesture of nonthreatening “wait” and told Lace, “I’m sure. By now, I assume your bodyguard detail has realized that you’re an extraction target for a hostile team of shadowrunners.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “They are, of course, correct. I’m afraid I’ve been hired to bring you in alive. However,” she tilted her head, “that stipulation covers you and you alone. I’m sure your detail is frighteningly competent, the best that money could buy. I’m also sure that they’re your friends and allies. Mine is equally skilled, and particularly so in violence, harm, and murder. Finally,” Calista smiled, baring her fangs, “If you know Robyn, then you know who I am, what I can do, and where I learned to do it. If we fight, and we will if you don’t ask your team to stand down, I can beat you to death’s door and then make you just like me. Are you certain you want to risk that, risk compromising your position in society, with Silk, at school, and with your friends by becoming one of the Infected?”
Calista let the silence stretch into a pregnant pause, then said, “I want to talk, really. I think we may be able to come to an arrangement that doesn’t involve any bloodshed. But if your team moves, or you wait too long, I can guarantee that your friend outside, at least, is going to be sliced into cutlets so thin you’ll be able to see through them if you hold them up to the light, and any matrix support is going to be eating jello in a mental hospital for the rest of his life.”
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Following Shrike’s gaze, Alessandra considered for a moment. While she didn’t look like some eldritch abomination, her figure and her hair would be easily remembered, and her mode of speaking would mark her as an outsider, by her accent if not her elocution. After several seconds, she spoke up. “I can make a reasonable illusion.” She offered. “However, if someone else is also skilled, I might be of more use stealing a car, as in a backwater like this, it might require knowledge of older automobiles.” She looked at Haydee appraisingly. “Haydee, darling, do you have the usual facility with sorcery that most spirits possess?”
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Calista courtesied again and gave a little, bell-like peal of laughter. “It is no matter, milady.” she said, smiling just a touch. “I did not come entirely unaccompanied either, and I am certain my companion will feel the same way about you as yours does about me. Perhaps they can keep each other company, no?”
Calista’s mind raced. The conference room was good. Skylights were there, rappells were there. They could get the hell out of dodge in less than sixty seconds. The conversation with Robyn was going to just be fucking delightful, but that was a bridge to burn when they got to it. They weren’t going to simply hand Ms. Smart over to the corp without talking to her in a less socially-loaded situation anyway. Plenty of time to figure out cutouts and workarounds then. In the meantime, however, they were going to need to deal with the companion, and figure out the best way to take Elizabeth down quietly. The latter they could play by ear, but the former was going to be up to the hitters in the team. Which, admittedly, was everyone. Who stayed outside would probably depend on the others. Calista would cheerfully bow to their operational expertise.
To Lace, Calista waved a hand at the door and said, “An’ it please thee, I would follow your lovely self, for I fear that this is my first visit to the Opera House. Have you any requests of me for our merry little dalliance?” Her cadence was stilted, slightly formal, and her accent rose just slightly more to prominence. It was, in short, how one would expect a vampire to talk, and Calista wondered if Lace knew enough about her to see that she was playing to the stereotype. She very much doubted Lace was completely in the dark about her identity, especially if she knew Robyn socially.
To the team, she sent +Lace and I are headed for the conference room. She’s got a bodyguard, and she knows I have one. Now would be the time for me to pick up a tail to wait outside- and be ready to disable her escort. Ryoko, you might want to get ready to squelch commlinks and the like in the area. If anyone else wants to be in the room, they better have a shit-hot cloaking system. Lace here is sharp as hell, so for danger’s sake it might actually be better for me to go in there alone.+
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Yep! Autorappells are in the boardroom skylight!
In re: maw, while Fox and I are happy to join it, I can’t guarantee our posting schedule (as you’ve seen). Being a government contract worker, the state of politics in the U.S is making it very difficult to do simple things like paying rent, so we’re having to resort to other means, and the pressure and time involved are seriously hosing up our posting schedules.
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Calista’s eyes widened fractionally at the familiar greeting between the two women, and then again at the salutation.
Well.
Drek.
This was looking bad, very bad. Her life was about to bite her job thoroughly in the ass, or vice versa, and she didn’t really see any way to forestall the coming collision. She wouldn’t just walk on the job. That wouldn’t be fair to the friends who’d come to help see it through, or to the woman who had helped her put a life together over the past half-year. Foxglove was her best friend, and she wouldn’t abandon her, not even for this. She loved Robyn, and didn’t want to complicate her life further, but while Robyn might be angry, the Johnson might be lethally upset. There was a chance to salvage things if they snatched Lace. There would not be if they let the job go.
But this still sucked hellhound shaft.
Calista replied with an inclined head and neck, more a subtle bow than a nod, and her hands moved automatically through the complicated salute of Valerian House. “A pleasure, lady Lace.” She said softly. “You have placed me correctly, though I have spent enough time in other places that my accent is something of a mish-mash of sounds, these days.” Her smile was wide and apparently genuine, and her golden eyes were bright as she looked Lace up and down, striking a balance between obviously checking her out, and showing that she was trying to make it not obvious, and failing.
After a few seconds, Calista told Lace, “It would be my very great pleasure to speak with you further, miss Lace. However, if you wish to ask pointed questions about my origins or my nefarious activities,” her eyes twinkled, “then perhaps we should retire to a more private locale, or at least a more private room?”
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Both!
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Alessandra’s not infected. She’s just a psychotic blood mage with infected minions.
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Ahhhhh. Yeah, I keep forgetting to put it up >_>
They may know each other, but Alessandra is not a fan of Harlequin, so they may be ideologically opposed.
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+Thank you darling! Let me see what I can do. Wait one. Goddamn socialites…+
Thanks to her teammates’ warnings, she was ready when Lace swanned out of the crowd, moving just so in order to flow between dancers and conversationalists without appearing to try. Calista recognized the maneuver, she’d done it herself, many times. She watched the girl approach from the corner of her eye, noting the designer dress, the gamine form, the easy smile…and that her escort had stayed behind. Now that she knew what she was looking for, Calista was able to put the woman’s movements and the man bird-dogging her into context.
+Great. She’s got at least one friend. Looks like we’re not the only ‘runners with biz tonight.+
As Lace drew even with Robyn and Calista, the banshee put her hand on Robyn’s arm and kissed her on the cheek again, then turned and offered a courtesy, dipping her head and bending her knees, spreading her short skirt with her hands. It was a peculiarly old-world gesture; no one curtsied anymore. Her tone modulated to be as pleasant and non-threatening as possible, she told the newcomer, “Good evening, ma’am. A well-wisher come to congratulate my lady love on her performance and her success this evening? I can leave you two alone if I am to be underfoot.”
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Alessandra smiled slightly. “A long time ago, when I was but a wee immortal I tried striking out on my own, in what would later be Greece. As it turns out, having no resources and no food makes it hard to accumulate a loyal coterie of one’s own.” Her eyes grew distant, remembering those first, awful days after the end of the horrors, when all she wanted was to get away. Everything was pain in those days, pain of the body, pain of the soul, the pain of memories that would be indelibly branded on her mind for the rest of eternity. She had run, fleeing the Blood Wood, fleeing Alachia and the ritual of thorns, her world consumed by what she had lost.
Tossing her head, like a horse getting rid of a particularly bothersome fly, she returned to the moment. “I learned a few useful tricks very quickly. Amongst them is the ability to multiply existing food. I cannot create something from nothing, so I will need a template from which to work, but I can at least make the rations for one person stretch to accommodate all of us. Will that help?”
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That certainly works for me. Any guidelines about how Alessandra/Ilario should appear?
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We can probably go with that. Question before I go on a spree here, though: Mercy seems to have vanished, likely due to something medical. Are we on hold vis a vis any threads with Mercy in them for a bit, or should we go ahead? I can have Calista extricate herself from Robyn for the moment, for example.