Texas Hold'em 2078 [IP]
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Texas Hold'em 2078 [IP]
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Seeing Al struggle with this, Preston called to Ichante “Al is trying to fix the controls on the orb, you looked at the instructions for the focus or whatever it was, do you remember how it all worked? He needs to reverse the flow to power the portal or, well, we’re fragged.“
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Ichante scrunched up her face concentrating, stepping entirely unconcerned over Noir’s prone form. Then, she snapped her fingers indicating towards the orb. “Give me the control rod.”
With a swift and surprisingly sure hand, she pulled the power focus out of the orb. “I need to deactivate and reactivate the focus.”
Strange lights played along the focus when she put it back. Almost immediately, the focus stopped getting hotter and the bgc began to increase slightly. -
Preston stares at Ichante for a moment and then in the voice of bored tech support workers everywhere– and that of the software that emulates them — asks “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?.
He smacks himself in the forehead, and demands “How did I not think of that?.
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Al had listened carefully to Noir’s chant, trying to catch which of the Tsk Twins she named in her ritual. He wanted to know which of them was still out there, in case….yup, there she went, out like a light.
So now they were going to explode any second plus the the Witch with a Fix was on the ground bleeding out of her ears. Perfect.
But Preston and Ichante were up to something. On the hacker’s advice, the diminutive elf neatly plucked the Orb’s control rod from its socket and…”Well abra fuckin’ cadabra, princess. Without a team, they ain’t no dream.” Busily congratulating himself on his adroit choice of coworkers, Al allowed himself an inward sigh of relief that the odds of suddenly vaporzing and of being trapped here forever had both suddenly abated substantially. However…
“We’s still one shedim short of a shoe-in,” he said, kneeling down next to Noir to assess the damage.
“Ya reckon you could use the name ta bring the last freak in yerself?” he asked Ichante.
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[Morning, Thursday February 3rd, 2078??; Pyramid Metaplane…?]
Jazz felt completely out of her depth and she was very glad that the others seemed to know what they hell they were doing because this was so far out of her comfort zone she might as well be on another plane of existence…and was! No doubt they would feel the same if exposed to the beauty of the Resonance but just now that was a small comfort. When Ben disappeared as a result of whatever tinkering Al and Ichante were doing she whispered
“See you soon little brother!” and then returned to her appointed task of watching their backs and trying to ascertain how Mowgli was faring in the Real…
Spoiler:#54
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The interference noise had diminished somewhat and Jazz finally received a clearer picture of her drone inside the cellar. In the chaotic last minute nothing had tried to attack the drone. Mowgli had continued on its mission to secure the cellar, scanning methodically every corner, nook and other potential hiding place. A review of the records showed, that whatever this shedim possessed right now had managed to sneak by the drone and back upstairs.
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Without waiting for Ichante’s answer, Al set about doing what he could for Noir. With the signal back – and little likelihood of being hacked – he hooked up his compact medkit (wishing for the better one in his truck) and switched on the wifi. The sine waves on the brain scan told him without listening to the stern warnings from the autodoc program that she was in for a good long sleep, and waking her would do more harm than good. But he didn’t have to wake her to stop the hemorrhaging that was on the verge of killing her.
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* Oleg: Al has more heart than sense, attending to the already dead when we could join her soon enough
* Eliza: We need to see if Ichante has what it takes to put the Shedim back in its corpse
* Gamma: But which corpse? The human remains, or the goat remains?
* Coleman: Maybe she could make sure it was the human one, maybe it would be stuck there, but the old arrangement lasted for millenia, why mess with it?
* Monkey: With the monofilament chainsaw I can get the goat off the post and beyond being a ‘corpse’ right quick!
* Eliza: Becky might be able to handle that more neatly.
* Monkey: Naw, I GOT this, heh.Preston stepped over Sam to get to his duffel-bag, calling out saucily to Becky as he did so “Hey Dazzling & Deadly, think you can butcher a goat faster with your sword than I can with my chainsaw?” He tried to waggle an eyebrow at her, without much luck. At that point he pulled out the chainsaw, started pulling off the guards and chuckled a bit manically.
Straightening up with his finger on the starter he swished the tool around a couple of times then looked at Ichante and reminded her “Compact and Curvy, I hope you got the savvy to put the genie back in the bottle, if you know what I mean. But make sure to hold your mighty mojo until the goat doesn’t count as a corpse anymore, and we have the human body positioned back like the others.” Then he started up the chainsaw, letting out an ear-piercing wail as the many molecular wide fibres slashed the air and the electric engine revved up at his command.
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Stabilizing Noir hadn’t been too big a deal – computer-guided placement of localized coagulants had done the job nicely, and been relatively non-invasive, not to mention quick. She was still in a world of hurt, but she was no longer circling the drain.
Preston, on the other hand…the man was maniacally slashing away at the dead goat with wild abandon. Certainly, it was a job that needed doing. And certainly, it was the right tool for the job. But the guy was changed.
He’d surprised Al more than once over the past twenty-four hours. The guy came off all passive and quiet, and then when the need arose he would man right up. A wise hawk hides his talons, as they said in Japan. Al had respected that. And the guys brains. But now it looked like the pressure had gotten to him – he was nothing like his usual self.
“You all right there, hombre?” Al called to the blood-drenched decker. “Jist make sure ya don’t touch none o’ them, ya hear? Even stuck on them spits, reckon they could still have some tricks in ’em.”
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Becky chanted with Ichante feeling that it was a terrible idea but it needed to be done. She had a very rudimentary understanding of magic, but she knew the basic of channeling the mana and manipulating it, so all she needed to do was to empower Ichante. How hard could that be? How painful is the backlash of such a powerful spirit going to be… Sam could do that – and die.
“What are you doing?” asked her mother.
“What needs to be done,” Becky replies
She changed the name with persuasiveness and touched the vacant dead body.
Ritual default + edge: 10d6t5 3 -
Spoiler:
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There was power as Ichante chanted, and as Becky repeated her words, her demands for the spirit to reappear that massive power went also through her. Becky was no stranger to drain, but she never experienced it at quite that intensity she felt her insides being cooked by energies, but it was over soon – and she was still standing. The wounds were not as bad as she thought – if there was some diety it was looking up to them.
The deed done, she looked at Ichante “How are you feeling? Are you alright?”
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Ichante hands the orb back to Al with look of disappointment on her face. “Here. I thought you’d be more experienced with phallic symbols. But maybe your control rod and orbs don’t work either.”
She turns her attention to the task on hand, which is accomplishing something out-of-her-league magically while simultaneously staying conscious enough that Al won’t fondle her butt if she suffers a massive stroke.
She takes a moment to study Noir, trying to determine whether the swaying is part of the ritual or just due to the fact that Noir has a pathetic physique. Ichante flips to the astral for clues on the best way to approach things.
“Alright, Ts’Raskari, how about you and me go round and around?” she says with a jut of her chin.
Ichante kneels, then decides to sit cross-legged. That gives her a broader base to avoid tipping over, and also protects her butt from Al’s wandering digits. She closes her eyes and stuffs her hands into her jacket pockets, finding two healthy fistfuls of reagents. She pulls them out – feathers, beads, reeds from a woodwind, a pinch of tobacco from a peace pipe – and crushes them in her palms. Her fingers begin to move rhythmically as she starts to hum; she opens her hands slowly, bringing a little piece of the Dakotas to this ancient plain.
Her humming grows as she starts to sway, imaging a strong Sioux wind bringing sweet mana to replace the sour. The humming builds into crescendo, which crashes down into a song after she reaches her high note.
“Wakantanka tokaheya cewakiyelo
Tunkan unsiunlapi!
Lena cic’u welo
Tunkasila wamayanka yo
Le miye ca tehiya nawajin welo
Unci Maka nawecijin na
Wolakota wan yuha wauwelo!”She claps with her singing. It’s clear that she’s used to using a drum but she makes do. The same could be said for the ritual as a whole, which feels sideways and tangential. Instead of throwing a stone into a lake, she’s skipping it across the surface. Still, the magic seems to have an effect. She feels it in her lungs; when she finishes singing, she coughs, roughly at first, then violently. There’s blood on the back of her hand when she draws it away from her mouth. Her left eye is bloodshot from a burst blood vessel. She spits something out that looks … bad, like something that’s not supposed to leave the body.
She looks up to Becky, who managed to do the whole thing standing and who looks completely unaffected by the experience. Well, so much the better. If Ichante’s legs give out on her, Becky can carry her away with the impromptu massage she might get from Al.
“It’s done,” she says, not directly answering Becky’s question. She gets to her feet and looks around to study the integrity of the thicket and the ritual’s effect on the Sleeper.
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[Morning, Thursday February 3rd, 2078??; Pyramid Metaplane…?]
“It’s over? You’ve done it?” Jazz demanded, temporarily unconcerned about the obvious note of stress and fear in her voice “Can we get the frag out of here now then?”
Spoiler:#55
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Preston was still cleaning off his chainsaw, humming tunessly, when Ichante stood back up. He quickly shoved it into it’s carry case to deal with later, fist pumped, then cheered “All done? Nice job Ichante! She slings spells and sings songs, she looks so fine and talks so tough, and oh yah, she kicks spirit butt! Big thanks to all you mojo masters for putting the bad things back in their place and locking down baby-dude. Now can we get out of here and back to somewhere near with beer, or maybe a bit stronger? I feel a celebration coming on!”
Spoiler: -
Jazz was a stand-up kid, but this had all been a bit much for her. Whereas for Preston, this had all been a lot much for him, apparently.
For Al’s part, with Noir stabilized, the ritual had given him a chance for a contemplative smoke. Ichante had done her job, and weathered it better than Noir. Granted, the black-clad detective had taken on not one but two of the things, but Al still thought Ichante had handled it better. Pretty telling, considering how much Noir had obviously thought of herself.
Al had been surprised when Becky jumped in. He knew she was one of those elf-type Satanists, adepts they were called, like some of those limp-wristed freaks they let play pro ball in some leagues now. But he’d been pretty sure those sorts didn’t summon demons. But then who ever said the forces of the Adversary needed to follow rules? He didn’t know if her chanting along had been a tangible or just a moral support for Ichante. But he suspected tangible, for the simple reason that She had shown up – all white fur and disapproving eyes – and tried to get him to join in. He took her point – a lot was at stake, his coworkers and (distant second) the world – but although he knew the voodoo gods readily granted him the powers of conjuration, he had always refused to use them. His eternal soul was just too high a price.
But then She tended to see things differently. Just as She’d tried to tempt him back at the Chukchi with all that witchsight nonsense, she’d offered much power here if he would just lend a hand. And, to be fair, he’d watched Ichante closely – had she wavered…well, he’d tried to convince himself that summoning some extraplanar abomination out of the real world and in to some rotting corpse in this fake world was more like exorcism than summoning, but he’d known that was a rationalization. So give up his soul to save his coworkers?…hell, assuming he hadn’t lost it already all those years ago in the middle of the Pacific…well, he never had to find out what he’d do, because ichante sailed through without a hitch.
He was no expert, but the last meat-stick resumed its twitching, so he figured that the others were right – they’d done it. Plus the fake friends were all gone, Baalzebaby was a mere infant now, and the thing on his chest no longer felt like it was about to go Orbageddon on him. The voodoo gods had grown a little distant, but that was par for the course on these Horror Hunts.
“Looks like y’all ladies done all right,” he said. “Jist gimme a tick here an’ we’ll think about blowin’ this meat-sickle stand.” The True Names of the freaks had been the key, and Shrike must have left them inscribed there for that very reason. And if these idiots hadn’t given them to Noir, tney might not have pulled this off, since they were in a language no one could any longer read.
Preston’s goat-butchering had left a hell of a lot of blood around, and Al used it to finger paint the three True Names they’d learned – BASHINAPAL, TS’RASKARI, and SK’TPOTL – beneath the original inscriptions at the bases of their Golden Spears, carefully spelling them out phonetically in Roman, Cyrillic, Katakana, and Arabic scripts. If it turned out to be different ones that got loose next time, maybe someone could still use these three names to compel the freaks to give up the names of their escaped buddies. Wiping his fingers on his fatigues, he took out his microwelder, set it to low, and quickly glazed the drying blood onto the obsidian surface.
“Enjoy the next ten thousand years, assholes,” he said.
Then, to his coworkers, “What say we go see about closin’ that portal?”
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Becky grinned and said – “Good!” with a sigh of relief. She did not know how conjurers did it on a whim. To place oneself in harm’s way with the option for serious injury or even death. It was too crazy for the physical mage whose source of power came from within rather than from the outside.
Then her mother faded into nothing, and Becky felt heartbroken. Her face red, her heart twisted and squeezed and tormented. She wanted her to be real more than anything, there were so many things she wanted to say. She was a fake, and yet so real. Becky was heartbroken as her mother faded into nothing. It felt like losing her all over again. Looking at Al she replies “Let’s get back to reality… This nonsense was enough for a lifetime.”
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The Sleeper had indeed returned to the size and shape of a new born baby – and still the waves of energy came of it like a pressure washer. The thicket was working again and Al’s handywork looked like it would stay around for quite some time.
Looking back across the red sands, the team saw something they had been warned about, that nonetheless was quite worrysome:
The portal was gone. The only thing remaning were some flickering motes in the air, now that the magical pressure from this side had eased.It would require some very delicate tuning of the orb to get enough juice flowing to reopen it…
And of course they still had to get down from this pyramid again. -
“Heh heh. Well, yeah, I said let’s close the portal but reckon I meant once we was on the other side!” Al groused to no one in particular.
He patted the Orb. “Well Princess, yer so good with phallic whatevers, s’pose it’s fair ta say ya got yer work cut out for ya now. If this thing’ll even do it from this side. I’ll allow the first question is, assumin’ it does work, do we gotta be at the same place the portal just was, or will anywhere do in this place? Ol’ Al’s fer tryin’ the original spot, if only ta git away from this here freak show. Then, if we can’t get her open, well, I guess we’ll jist have ta face it….yer classic ‘last two men an’ four hot women on earth’ scenario. “
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“I like that scenario! Of course I’d like it more with food and water. Oh and some Simpagne and a good sound system. ‘Boom-chaka-waka-boom’ chummers!” Preston accompanied that last with an attempted eyebrow waggle that mostly made it look like he was stifling a sneeze.
He shoved the chainsaw case into his duffle bag, then pulled out his survival kit, and out of it pulled his emergency blanket. Laying it out on the ground, he suggested to Al “Let’s not let the sizzling hot Sam freeze to death before we get her off this obsidian nightmare. We snug her up in this to keep her safe until she wakes up all safe and grateful. Well, hopefully grateful.”
Once they had Sam secured in the safety blanket, Preston bowed to Ichante and said “She’s all yours, lovely lady, to whisk away on a magic chariot or however it is you do it. Now let’s all get down from the mountain, at least the sand is warmer! Once we are down, we should record what we learned and I’ll leave it on a link on the bottom tier, just in case anyone has to deal with this again in the next decade or so. Becky, can we hand down gear and people to you, one level at a time?”
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