Smoke Flowers IC

  • gilga

    Member
    January 26, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    “No shit Sherlock” She lifts Brownwen, and moves with what appears to be impossible speeds, “Nice fighting… Though bombs would kill it anyhow” she says, but it is not a compliment. More of an acknowledgment of skills, the walls and parts of the ceiling collapsed from the bomb but at the speed Rebbeca is running they are too slow, and Becky sorts of runs around them. “You got it? Wow…. nice move” she says when they are finally out of the pile of rocks that used to be a building.

  • aria

    Organizer
    January 27, 2020 at 8:52 am

    [Evening, Day One, Autumn; Inner Temple Gardens, Londinium]

    The cacophony built, the drone of the zeppelin engines drowned by the swoosh of rockets and the resulting explosions, in turn drowned by the chatter of machine gun fire and the tolling bells uselessly warning of the attack. Underpinning it all were the terrible screams of the trapped and dying…

    As Becky carried the blood soaked Batshit away from the scene at impossible speeds it was as if they’d both suddenly run in to an invisible wall as the binding spells wrapped around them both and a disembodied voice boomed out over the din

    “DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE SO EASY TO STEAL FROM US?!”

    ***

    #22

  • gilga

    Member
    January 27, 2020 at 12:42 pm

    Rebbeca does not bother to answer noncorporal voices; in fact, hearing such voices is a bad omen, but she draws encouragement as Batshit behaves as if she hears the voices too. At least she is not going insane, yet noncorporal entities are difficult to cut in half with magical blades.

    The binding spell is stable, and she is awed as few mages can cast it well enough to stop her. The different planes, different rules – or perhaps their opposition mage is just that good. Rebbeca can see the broken walls, and debris assembles as numerous bodies, probably spirits but perhaps another spell.

    Without thinking it, Rebbeca casts the levitation spell, and they make reasonable speed despite its limitations thanks to the movement. That spell is quickly countered, and the two fall down – but their action was fast enough, and they are outside of the area of effect for the binding spell. Seizing the opportunity, Rebbeca grabs what appears to be an old bomb and drops it to the floor, a thermal smoke grenade – or at least what a thermal smoke grenade should be in this place.

    It does its work, but with all the slowdown, the two fighters are standing back to back where the walls and furniture lash at their general direction tossing spoons, forks, butter knives, and old English teacups.
    It is evident that whoever it is, cannot precisely see them (or it can see them but cannot aim properly). However, there is some mighty mage nearby, and exiting the smoke may make the two dryads visible again.

    “Any plans?” She asks as she casually dodges a beautiful archaic lamp with the candles still burning inside.

  • adamu

    Member
    January 27, 2020 at 12:43 pm

    Al had still been huffing and puffing his way up the last flight of stone steps when Batshit went out the window. By the time he’d reached the landing, all he saw was Becky cursing and then levitating herself out.

    With the elf girls gone head-first into the fray, Al had seen little reason to give up a prime overwatch position. He’d unslung his rifle and taken in the scene below. The kid held her own for a brief moment, then got herself shish-kababed. No shot to take though, as Becky was then all over the thing like that little green guy in the old Ewan McGregor movie. He watched her tear the thing to mincemeat while Batshit put the thing’s master down and got the dingus.

    Al congratulated himself on his master strategizing and leadership, which had allowed him to secure the artifact without firing a shot. As the girls moved out of the courtyard, he went back down the stairs to rejoin them at ground level.

    Rapidly navigating the passages with an unerring sense of direction he came onto a wide, domed room. He was on the circular balcony that stretched around the room a storey above the floor. Down below, he saw Becky carrying the hurt Bronwean. They crashed into an unseen barrier, and when they tried to change direction, they found that the barrier hemmed them in on all sides. Cue the B-movie villain’s gloating taunt….he was also on the balcony, but across the space from Al. He and four foppishly-dressed feral troll-looking things with the posture of bodyguards were focused on the dryads. They hadn’t noticed Al…or the others…where had Zag gone off to?

    Al wanted to shout something Shakespearean like, “Did YOU think it would be so easy to….not get stolen from, by US?”

    But before he could speak, Becky had Satanized the pair out of the trap. He sorcery only worked for a moment before the guy slapped her back down with an abrupt thrust of his bejewelled hand, but it was enough for her to make it to the next room. The Anton LeVey-looking asshole with the rings all over his long-nailed hands had to lean over the railing to direct his sorcery at them – a rather undiginified pose, but effective as an cacophonous clatter of cutlery exploded from the next room.

    The guy had made himself into a plum target, though, and Al took cover behind pillar and sent a bullet winging its way toward the guy’s forehead…only to see it bounce off what appeared to be the same sort of barrier the girls had been trapped in. Well, the thing wouldn’t hold up forever, he thought, but by the time he squeezed the trigger again, the four beast-trolls, all maroon velvet and ivory lace frippery, had surrounded him.

    Except now it was three beast-trolls.

    Al worked the bolt action to take another shot as the girls worked to stay alive amidst the mealstrom of metal. For his part, while he shot, Al made sure the guy knew where he was, shouting, “Leave the ladies alone, asshole. What say ya try yer Shaolin Satan Style on ol’ Al’s voodoo-fu?”

  • beta

    Organizer
    January 27, 2020 at 4:54 pm

    Frag, Bronwyn had the artifact, Becky was with her, Al was who knows where and they hadn’t set a meeting point outside. Worst of all was that he had only himself to blame

    Indecision had gotten him here. He’d started climbing down the wall after Bronwyn, but then had seen Becky going down faster with magic. He’d hung tight for a moment to see how things were going to play out, then concluded that he should go re-join Al as the dryads had things in hand. But the salvo of rockets and bombs had literally shaken the house, forcing him to simply hold tight for a while.

    When he’d finally made it back up to their starting point Al was gone! Zag started heading off after the man, only to get quickly turned around in the maze of rooms. Didn’t these people know about long straight corridors? Maybe he could find an outside window and drop to the street and hope to find the others when they exited?

    Then he heard a gunshot nearby. Thankfully Al had thought to send out a signal!

    He rushed through what seemed to be a gallery of marble heads and came out on a circular balcony. There was someone who looked like a villain out of central casting … and there was Al with three hulking brutes closing in on him. His job was clear. He took a few powerful strides, through himself into a foot first slide slide along the polished wooden floor, then grabbed an upright from the railing and used it to pivot his momentum in and up. His foot caught the monster’s thigh just above the knee. It hurt like hell, the thing seemed to be made of muscle — but physics was physics and the kick still knocked the thing off balance, on one foot, precariously leaning against the oak railing.

    Zag rode his remaining momentum to get one hand up on the railing, then to twist himself around in a back kick — it didn’t have his full power, being supported by his shoulders rather than hips, but it was enough to send the figure tipping over the railing. It seemed to happen in slow motion, complete with a desperate grab for a handhold, but then time sped up again and the figure plummeted to the floor below, landing on its side.

    Zag vaulted himself off the railing and back on the floor in a fighting stance, only then taking a quick glance to check on the fate of the fallen figure. Of course it was getting back up … and of course it had landed only meters from the two dryads.

  • adamu

    Member
    January 28, 2020 at 12:07 pm

    Their faces might have appeared feral, but they acted more in keeping with their civilized attire – if the beast-trolls had stayed clustered around their protectee, Al would in no time have picked them all off and then started brazenly bombardng Baalze-boy’s barrier with the raw physics of high-velocity rounds. So they shoved him into a screened alcove and came after the threat – i.e. Al.

    Apparently, now that he’d started his dweomer, the freak didn’t still need to see the girls, because his ass was cowering in corner, but all hell was still breaking loose with the silverware in the next room.

    Meanwhile, two un-shot beast-trolls were rounding the bend on Al’s right, and the remaining un-shot beast-troll was careening around the curve of the room’s periphery to Al’s left. Oh what a sight they were, lace finery flapping about them and poncey buckle-shoes click-clacking as they came.

    Al was as good a multi-tasker as anyone, but with each of these things at about four times his mass, three at once struck him as quite a lot. Which was when Zag swooped in with his African dance fighting or whatever it was, prompting Al to congratulate himself on his teamwork skills. Zag took one of the two on the right, sending it down hard to the marble floor. With one still inbound from each direction, Al took advantage of the breathing room provided by Zag to scramble awkwardly onto the balustrade and leap. Arms stretching like they were on a rack, he just caught the chandelier. The momentum of his jump carried him across the space and he let go at just the right moment. He landed abdomen-first on the opposite balustrade – which hurt like a… – but rolled forward back onto the landing. He jumped to his feet, grabbing for his rifle which had gotten twisted around awkwardly on its strap, trying and failing to make it all look cool.

    Crouched like a rat in his little hiding place, the dastardly villain barked a disdainful guffaw. To which Al replied, “Laugh all ya want, ya eunuch-lookin’ toad, but yer there, yer bodyguards is way over there, an’ ol’ Al’s right the fuck here. That’s a bad recipe fer the magic-user.”

    “Au contraire, my diminutive annoyance. It’s a bad recipe for you!” The robed, goateed form rose to its full height, arms stretched high above a sweating shaved head. Flinging his arms and whole upper body toward Al in a herculean physicalization directing his mana flow, he shouted a Word of Command that shook the marble pillars, sending a wave of green energy at the tiny Arkansan.

    And nothing.

    “Well?” Al said, standing unmoved and unscathed. Actually, it had hurt like hell, but his pa had said for him never to let them see him bleed. And, to be fair, it hadn’t hurt as bad as, say, getting kicked in the balls. He’d been kickd in the balls before. More than once. More than twice. Now that hurt. On this day, however, he’d known the voodoo gods would never let a guy like this make them look bad. So he’d kept a cocky smile on his face and raised his eyebrows bemusedly as the mana rolled over his protections like a fat man down a jello Slip’n’Slide at the Fourth of July BBQ..

    “Like I said, my voodoo fu’s stronger’n yours.” The man’s mouth was open in an astonished O shape. Al stepped rapidly forward and thrust the end of his rifle deep into the aperture, making the doomed sorceror gag. But before he could pull the trigger….

  • gilga

    Member
    January 28, 2020 at 12:54 pm

    The conversation is cut short by the massive troll that falls right next to them into the smoke. Rebbeca runs, and skillfully pushes the mage with her entire force, kicking him outside of the smoke, and casting the physical maks spell to make him look exactly like her. She ignores the bruises and pain for numerous tableware. One can do so many at the same time. The attack lands true, and the simple ruse works for the brief moment as the tree other trolls in the heat of combat each use the opportunity to shot magical lightings at the mage who dies instantly.

    Rebbeca turns back to Bronwen, and finds her fighting with what appears to be a stone giant, its incredible blow misses Bownwen by a hair and smashes the entire wall behind her. If such an incredible force is not enough, the smashed wall begins to reassemble itself again in roughly a humanoid shape.

  • electric_muppet

    Member
    January 28, 2020 at 1:17 pm

    The two stone constructs worked in close unison, hearding Batshit into making a mistake as she dodged and wove around the massive fist as the rained blows at her.
    Finally she found herself on one knee as the massive fist raised over her. She steeled herself and let out a bellow of hatred and defiance at the thing.
    Maybe it was her genetics, or. Maybe her will to live, maybe the amplified manasphere helped her mentor; what ever it was her below sounded like an entire regiment of very fearsome monsters shouting the defiance all the constructs shied back in fear and horror turning to protect themselves from the perceived threat. Beccie, Zag and Al both experienced feelings they would need to reconcile their psyche’s with. The strangely dressed man muttered in shear fear, “great gods what did they create”

  • gilga

    Member
    January 28, 2020 at 5:52 pm

    Rebbeca is felt with artificial red that distracts her and causes her to lose concentration on the spell, turning the now dead mage back to his former look. She hoped to keep the illusion for a few extra seconds to cover their escape, but it would have to do. The giants back off for a while, and running away suddenly feels like the best option. Rebbeca runs away and exits the building, almost instantly.

  • adamu

    Member
    January 29, 2020 at 12:58 pm

    …but before he could pull the trigger, he was thrown off balance by some sort of animal bellowing that tickled at the base of his brain and left the unmistakeable aftertaste of Satanism in his mouth. Wondering what new abomination had been foisted upon them, he figured he’d better finish baldy off quick. But the devil-worshipper seized the moment of Al’s hesitation to unskewer his mouth from the gun barrel, swiping at Al with some wickedly lacquered fingernails that were long enough to make Al seriously question the guy’s sexuality. Al had to practically do the limbo to pull his throat out of the way of the nails. Passing by his face, he saw that they were coated in something he guessed he didn’t want in his bloodstream.

    Exasperated, he dropped his rifle and grabbed the guy by the throat and the crotch, lifting him off the ground with a strength that belied his diminutive stature. At which point the guy played one more card, whispering some hissing syllables and transforming himself into a huge snake in Al’s hands.

    “Big mistake, asshole. Ol’ Al’s been a’handlin’ since the US was of A, an’ you ain’t got nothin’ on a true swamp-reared cottonmouth. ” With that, Al adroitly rapped the thing’s head on the stone balustrade and that was that. It turned back into a fat, bald, robed guy whose pate was split open and brains were spilling out.

    Al looked around, then ran to a nearby window, where he saw that the girls had got away with the dingus. Looking back across the domed space to the balcony opposite, he shouted, “Ya all right over there, Zag baby?”

  • electric_muppet

    Member
    January 29, 2020 at 1:24 pm

    Batshits eyes bulged in surprise “where the hell had that come from” she watch beccie move fast. Good idea but this. Was going to hurt.
    But it didn’t “what the frack is going on!” as she comprehended the full extent of her injuries, which were none, she was fully healed. This was freaky.
    She moved to the gate to the street.
    “Al! Zag! Come on let’s go! Hurry before the fire really starts!”
    After what was an eternity they showed up
    “why you still here young’un” Al called “guwon git gone”
    “oh hush and hurry up” she bellowed back “come on hustle!”
    Bickering they ran down the main road through the milling crowd”
    Finally they got to the river
    “frak it we gonna have to swim, your wounding that water will be a dead touch” Al cursed looking at the dryad. “you OK you hold in there?”
    “I’M fine, no really, no really look at me I’m fine. Look not a scratch”

  • beta

    Organizer
    January 29, 2020 at 5:35 pm

    The animalistic growl had made both Zag and his two hulking opponents hesitate. Given that he was already out-numbered Zag had less to lose from a new threat so re-focused more quickly. He scuttled back several steps then pulled out one of the bottles of brandy he’d pocketed earlier, and smashed it on the ground between them. He growled “Step in it and I light it up!” They seemed to hesitate at this idea — Zag didn’t know if they feared catching fire or just struggled with words of one syllable — and he used that to dash away to the staircase, or more importantly to the banister along side the staircse.

    Sliding down the polished wood banister turned out to be every bit as much fun as they made it look in the trids, and he managed to flip himself off before running into the post at the bottom. The brutes were still at the top of the flight, and Zag simply started running, trusting that he’d be quicker and more agile and could leave them behind.

    Fortunately he found the others outside, and they made it to the River quickly enough. To the river, but not to a boat. As they looked around for something they could use for a raft, or a boat they could commandeer, Zag heard a familiar growling roar and looked behind them. “Oh frag, are those drek-heads STILL chasing us?” The hulking brutes looked happy to have trapped them against the river, but having seen the talents of his team mates Zag did rather feel that the brutes were the ones charging into a trap.

    Anyone got a loaded gun left? Or do we have to chance getting blood on us?

  • electric_muppet

    Member
    January 29, 2020 at 5:52 pm

    “here let me” Bronwean stepped forward and shouldered her rifle and took careful aim at the first brut. Her shot took it in the leg and it twisted in pain. Her fingers a blur her reloaded and aim at the second one; hitting it in the hip. She kept the steady stream of bullets.
    ‘go on someone hit them” she shouted

  • adamu

    Member
    January 30, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    Al was relieved – and surprised – to see that the kid wasn’t actually injured. And being manhandled by the behemoth hadn’t hurt her shooting skills any, either.

    “Looks to me like yer doin’ jist fine there, ace,” he chortled as she riddled the pursuing beast-trolls with bullets, ruining their lace and velvet finery. “Reckon I’ll find us a ride.”

    Al was a great swimmer. But the Thames was a toilet at the best of times, and he didn’t like to think about what sort of Awakened bacteria might have colonized the river in this weird version of unreality.

    With bombs starting to fall, traffic was scarce. And lifting the hem of his skirt wasn’t going to do it…pointing at a passing skiff that was ignoring other cries for a ride, he said ta Becky, “Fancy playin’ the damsel in distress, Precious. Sometimes ya gotta take one fer the team, right?”

  • gilga

    Member
    January 31, 2020 at 3:07 am

    “I miss my body armor” she comments bluntly, and then rolls her eyes and says “Fine… hide”

    Playing, cute and alone and desperate she waves for a ride. Perhaps it is easier to be an altruist when the person in question is an exotic dryad in a revealing dress, but she gest them a ride in a short while. “Thank you so much dear sir… I am forever in your debt. she says as the rest of the team gets out of their hiding places, armed to the teeth, and some are bloodied. Rebbeca steps confidently to the boat and says “You are a hero hon. she says and seats next to him.
    “So do you have a wife or anything…? she says flirting.

  • electric_muppet

    Member
    January 31, 2020 at 1:31 pm

    Bronwean kept up the rain of bullets, she went through her entire repetour of trick and dirty shots. Finally one of the things succumbed to the hits, spilling luminous fluid and Iccour over the river Bank. Finally
    She reached in to her cartridge case, found the first of her two armour defeating rounds snapping it into breach and bringing it into her shoulder in one fluid graceful motion and put her first shot through the lead beasts eye slit. It stopped dead and fell flat on it’s face even as the last metal creature hurdle it’s falling corps. Not that she noticed as she repeated the beautiful, arching dance. The creature reached her just at she brought the muzzle up and fire.
    The effect was a bit extreme, as it removed the back plate and spewed the luminous innards of the poor zombie the length of the street.
    She remover her shako and wiped her brow
    She skipped down to the boat beaming from ear to ear
    “wow, that was a rush”

  • beta

    Organizer
    January 31, 2020 at 9:11 pm

    With the Dryads taking care of business at the river front and on their back trail, Zag took his time to appreciate what a hellscape the metaplanes could be. Pollution, air raids — why did the magical types make such a big deal of these places?

    Once Becky had lured a boat in, Zag was quick to spring to the side to hold it there, giving a hard glare to the boat’s occupants to discourage whacking him with an oar or any other such foolishness.

  • aria

    Organizer
    February 3, 2020 at 12:29 pm

    [Late, Day One, Autumn; Lighter on the Thames, Londinium]

    The lighterman and the boy who was obviously his son given the familial resemblance didn’t need any further urging once the well armed brigands took over his vessel and he was happy enough to steer away from the north bank until he realised that they wanted to cross the river to the south

    “You want to go inna that?!”

    And indeed the southern bank now seemed to be a wall of flames as the conflagration from bombed out buildings took a steady hold. Overhead the zepplins continued to drone, hidden now in the choking smoke, which was probably just as well as the small boat would have made a tempting target for one of their fore gunners…

    ***

    #23

  • electric_muppet

    Member
    February 3, 2020 at 1:04 pm

    “oh yeah, and sooner rather than later, if you don’t mind” batshit grinned.
    “we better hustle before those things combine and cause a fire storm”
    She sat back on the seat. “wonder what she meant by the lower levels. Is it something like the orc underground back in emerald city?”

  • gilga

    Member
    February 3, 2020 at 1:42 pm

    Rebbeca nods her head with a gorgeous smile, as if saying “Yes, we are crazy.” she waves briefly as the ship gets away.

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