IC 2077 Pt 2
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IC 2077 Pt 2
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Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhere
As soon as Sian sees the spell forming, she calls on her own sorcery, digging into her Counterspelling pool. Since there appears to be only the one opponent, the cyberzombie’s spell receives everything she can give. She does not know if her Cleanse has cleaned her F5 Counterspelling Focus, but she pushes it forward, just in case.
290
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Al let his rifle drop on its sling and shot a hand out to help steady the thrashing weapon. As he did so, he said, “All that juice, an’ he went for the disarm move. Coulda jist as easily tried ta toss you over the edge….What say we not play this one like ya did them soldier boys back inna pyramid?”
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Through clenched teeth I answered Al, while I tried to stop my rifle dragging me with the sling over my shoulder into the Abyss next to me. “Considering he just stopped one of my best shots with a spell even before I pulled the trigger and at the same time is able to telekinetically assault me,… yeah maybe we should try talking. And by we I mean one of you…”
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Still with a steadying hand on Shrike’s weapon, which seemed to be struggling against them with a life of its own, Al raised his other hand in a placating gesture. “Whoa there, otherwordly kemo sabe. No call ta git ornery. That’s jist my friend here’s way o’ sayin’ good mornin’. Name’s Al Guthrie. What do I call you?”
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“We are Lethe/Burnout” the two names being somehow uttered simultaneously…
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“So what? Yer two folks in one? Yer fergetful Satanist on the one hand an’ yer overcooked cyberaddict on the other? Makes no nevermind ta ol’ Al, paragon o’ nonjudgement that I am. But on account of I only got one mouth, reckon I’ll jist call ya LB. That okay with you? So LB, I ain’t been here long, but so far I ain’t impressed. Scenery ain’t nothin’ ta write home about, not many folks about fer company, ain’t seen a single Nuke-It Burger, an’ I’m guessin’ the trid reception leaves somethin’ ta be desired as well, which’d be a dealbreaker fer me. Which brings me to the hunnerd-an’-twenny-eight-thousand nuyen question: What percisely is it yer doin’ here?”
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I perked up at this name and stopped trying to line up another shot.
As discreetly as possible, I whispered to Al: “I remember a cyberzombie called Burnout. He targeted a servant of the late Dunkelzahn. At the time it was rumored that he was possessed by a powerful free spirit, enabling him to apparently use magic. But that was about 25 years ago. According to my master he had turned against the bloodmages of Aztech and therefore against the Horrors as well.” -
“Roger that, baby,” Al rasped back. “Matches what we seen o’ this cat, an’ goodness only knows how time works down here…Feller with that sorta history could well be on our side o’ this thing.”
He spoke to Shrike out of the corner of his mouth, but his eyes stayed on their new acquaintance, waiting for a reply.
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[Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhere]
“I walk the Divide and stop those who would bridge it…are you ones such as those?” It lifted a third arm from within its hooded cloak, fused in to the hand was something like a heart, a real chambered one with severed valves rather than a love heart, the whole thing shaped in a dull metal. To those who could tell the power of the artefact, for that is what it was, was immense…tendrils of mana from the edge of the chasm pulsed through it like blood “I smooth the mana spikes that you foolish mortals try to build… I cannot stop Them but I will delay them for as long as possible. If you come to disrupt that work I will cast you in to the abyss, if you do not then you must leave, your presence can only disrupt the balance further. No matter your intentions They will see you…and they hunger…”
And indeed the pressure of their gaze could be felt by even the most insensitive here, and the whispers continued…power, so much power for the taking…
#98
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Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhereSian grimaces at the power of the artifact heart displayed by the creature in front of them. Personally, she is shunting the whisper of offered power off to a dark corner of her mind. She already has more power than most people of any race and does not feel the need at all for more of it. Besides, as tempting as it might sound, offers like this are usually too good to be true and there is always a payment that is too high to make. She is fairly certain that her current companions feel much the same and does not worry about them, but she has only known the three that went the other way for a short time and who knows…………………..
Sian stands off to the side and ready as she waits for one of the others to say something first.
291
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“Well then, spike-smoothin’ kemo sabe, that is one righteous cause ya got there. Let ol’ Al assure ya that we’s a hunnerd-an’-ten percent in yer camp. Fightin’ the same war, right, but on diff’rent battlefields, see? Jist like yer stoppin’ the freaks right here at the source, what we’s aimin’ ta do is track down them there foolish mortals ya mentioned an’ kill ’em cold dead. Trick is, much as we appreciate yer dustin’ the spikes, our plan was to use said spikes ta triangulate the real-world locations o’ them same foolish mortals. They done got extra sneaky of late, see? Hard ta find. So if you could jist show us exactly where ya done smashed up the most recent spikes, we’ll be headed back where we come from with promises to send pizza an’ porn back yer way soon as we can.”
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I debated to keep my mouth shut or to risk enraging the fellow – with the witches brew inside me I quite obviously decided to go for the latter:
“Yeah, you wouldn’t happen to know from where exactly the last few attempts were launched? Also, how did it look when the Trapmaker was called over to Boston? Did you miss a spike or what?” -
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhereSian smiles and nods at Al’s words then shakes her head as Shrike adds some of his own wisdom to the mix. She sighs as she thinks of other times the Nine Killer has, well, said something grating when different words might have worked better. Still, she keeps her own council, but stands ready to assist if the guardian creature gets angry and attacks.
292
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[Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhere]
The zombie shrugged, a curiously human gesture for something so otherworldly
“They are clever, they know that someone is here trying to foil their attempts to cross and they made three bridges simultaneously, we are but one and could only choose what appeared to be the greater threat. The bridges are gone now and it is regrettable that one as insidious as the Trapmaker has crossed, but now it is in the hands of mortals to curb its predations, we can do no more. We believe this is the second of the Greats that has returned and you must guard against them but they are jealous of their power, we do not believe they will actively seek out others to cross over. That threat comes from those mortals foolish or deranged enough to heed their calls.
This place is a metaphor for the distance between worlds, I am not sure how you expect to find the correlation with the mortal realm” and indeed the almost featureless plane doesn’t seem to have anything recognisable from the real… “and I cannot tell you where the bridges were being built. You may wait if you insist, find the next spike that develops and cross back at that point to the mortal coil and trust that you are in time to thwart the foe…?”
#99
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“Waitin’s cool, long as I don’t miss my shows. Or run outta beer. So which o’ the other ‘greats’ done already crossed over besides the Trapstermeister?”
Al asked the question despite there being no possibility of the answer meaning anything to him. He congratulated himself on his open-mindedness and readiness to learn new things.
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[Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhere]
“It is rumour only but we believe that the Ebon Queen’s nemesis Ysrthgrathe has made the crossing, we can be but thankful that that one prefers a single victim at a time rather than the wholesale wanton destruction that is the hallmark of their kind in general…”
#100
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Despite myself I made a slow whistling noice through my front teeth. “That is one big rat to slip through. As for the triangulation, any information could help narrow it down: At what times did they create the spikes? Many ritualists try to complete their circles at midnight. Was there backspill from the real world as far as astral polution was concerned? I’m told that Azlan has a different flavor than Asamando or the big leylines. What tradition did the ritualists have? Did they all use blood magic? Were infected mages involved? Master Shedim? In what direction where the spikes formed? Did they have a certain orientation that would indicate it followed one of the major leylines?”
I had to consult the notes I had gotten from Puck before I continued:
“Did you catch what languages they used while doing their rituals? Were any localized spirits involved like Engkanto or Shirime?” -
[Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhere]
“We are perhaps not the scholar you would have us be, our memories prior to this place are hazy at best and although we cannot be sure of the exact passage of time we have been busy in the two decades of your time and there has been a dearth of magical theorists to talk to about the finer points of metaphysics. Time and location here are mutable, we recognise the feel of Aztlan and several of the spikes have definitely originated there, including the most recent one. Blood magic taint is also usually felt in order to generate the power to create a large spike but the Aztechs are not the only ones with access to those rituals. We do not think we can aid you much more in your quest. Stay if your souls can sustain you here, watch for the next spike and then chose how to act…or more likely go back to your world and watch for the signs in the real…
There is perhaps a third option, there were rumours of an artefact, a mirror, that might have the powers that you seek, to determine where mana levels are dangerously high…”
#101
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“Well, it looks like we’s sittin’ around fer a spell, then. Heh heh, sort of an extraplanar stakeout, if ya will.”
What he didn’t say – he trusted this freak enough to chit-chat but nowhere near enough to tell him any secrets – was that the the mirror option was already being pursued somewhere in South America by another team. A team that had gotten its marching orders in the same meet that had put him toghether with his current crew. A team he was itching to join once they got done with this silly job…and not because he wanted to stop the Horrors.
“But hey, one more thing. Ya said ya knew about these super-Horror infiltrators from rumors….” Al made a show of looking around the barren landscape in all directions. “Rumors from who, exactly? Yer sayin’ there’s more weird folk wanderin’ around down here we should be prepared ta run into? An’ if so, how about a racin’ form so’s we can tell the freaks down here from any o’ yer friends…”
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I smiled. Al had picked up on the point about the rumors too. Staying around here was probably still not a very good idea. I had studied the theory quite extensively, but without actually being able to see the astral, I was probably the second least qualified person around here to actually identify the spikes. So far everyone seemed to hold up quite well, but that could change quite rapidly.
Still, the boss had send me here and we had learned a few interesting things already – it would be a shame not to at least to try a bit more.
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