The Found Arcana – Third Interlude [IC]
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The Found Arcana – Third Interlude [IC]
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In the darkness, Bobby can pass for a short but exceptionally muscular ork, one that happens to knucklewalk. Maybe the family is so focused on their son that they don’t notice, or maybe they just don’t care, but they don’t object to Bobby scooping up their son and taking him to the Americar.
The dad comes along; the mother stays behind in her catatonic state. AM drives while Bobby gets in the front passenger seat. The father rides in the back, cradling his son’s head in his lap.
The closest place is a DocWagon clinic in Touristville. The next closest is Redmond General, which is the most modern hospital in the district but which has a disreputable staff with more scandals involving black market dealing, organ-legging, and illegal operations than ten hospitals its size.
Being closest you go to DocWagon first while the father comforts the son.
“Don’t you die on me. I need you.” There’s an occasional heaving sob.
This being Redmond, the DocWagon clinic is build like a fortress. It’s surrounded by fencing and there are ram barriers up to prevent unauthorized vehicle entry. The Americar is met at the front gates by two guards (with a third keeping close watch nearby) wearing full-body armor and assault rifles that aren’t exactly aimed at the ground. They see the teenager in the back seat.
“Does the patient carry a DocWagon contract?”
No.
“Is the patient insured?”
No.
“Payment must be made in advance. Five hundred nuyen.”
The father looks at you desperately. “I don’t have it but I can pay you back! I have a job! I’ll take a loan from Andrew! I swear on my life” He looks desperate.
The alternative is to drive to Redmond General and test your luck with the staff.
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There is a brief delay, but then the guard frowns as apparently the gorilla on the passenger seat transfers 500 Nuyen
Bobby refrains from grinning as that might raise the tension further…
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The guard frowns at the gorilla but doesn’t comment on it. This is Redmond and the dude has seen some drek. This is atypical, sure, but with SURGE and all the other strangeness of the Sixth World, who is he to judge? Or maybe he’s just a pro.
The ram barriers are lowered and AM drives through. She pulls up to where ambulances unload their patients. They are met by two strong orderlies who lift the boy out of the backseat, place him on a gurney and wheel him inside. The father follows.
Bobby shifts his weight uncomfortably in the confining front seat. It would be even worse if he were a troll. He has slightly more appreciation for the travails of the larger metahumans and how poorly they fit into the standard architecture and engineering of the world.
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<< I think we are done here. How are you AM, are you hurt? Has the car taken any damage?
We’ve got to get back. Jawsey is all alone in our headquarters with no power to see opponents coming and total chaos in the streets. And we made quite a few enemies among the populance. Someone might be out for payback. >>
Bobby had refrained successfully from saying what he actually had wanted to say: “Let’s go and geek the boss of the Crimson Crush while most of his men are away.”
It was what the adrenaline junky in him wanted to say – and quite probably a terminally bad idea.
Spoiler: -
After exiting the building, AM applies the medic kit to the boy trying to stabilize him. She asks Iktomi for help, and mainly follows the instructions. She has partial success at best, and they decide to get to a hospital.
Spoiler:******
AM raises an eyebrow when Bobby tosses the 500 Nguyen for medical therapy. “Pay us back when you have it.” she says, and hands the father her card. “Give me a text once your child is stabilized so that I can stop sustaining the spell that protects him.”
AM does not want to appear tough on the father, but nobody gives things for free, and it is not the message she wants to send to their neighbors. They don’t have to collect the debt, but like everyone in this world, they expect something in return.
She responds matrix, not certain how her voice would sound with the years of the great ape.
>> Car is undamaged, minus the bloodstains on the back seat. The lights went out as I drove away, and everyone was too overwhelmed to notice an invisible car in the dark with such a distraction. The hardest thing was not to run over the Brain Eaters. I got really scared, they sprayed our walls as I approached the cars, and they were windows breaking, and loud noises. It was terrifying, Yakuza is so disappointing for allowing such violence. I mean, it is our home.
You are right though, let’s go fetch Jawsey and decide what to do. I am thinking we need to call the Yakuza, I mean we are paying them to keep the peace.
She drives back to their home, as the two speak.
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The man takes AM’s card and swears eternal gratitude. AM gets a text about 20 minutes later that the boy is in critical condition but stable. The father begs her to sustain the spell as long as she can.
The Americar is fine except the back seat is bloody. Not “Marvin got shot in the face and now there are itty-bitty bits of brain matter everywhere” bloody, but “Mr. Orange bleeding out from a belly wound” bloody.
The HQ is a mess. There’s a giant hole in the roof, the garage door is pockmarked, most of the windows have been shot out, and there are dozens of holes in the walls and ceiling. The strong winds race through the broken windows and rob the place of its heat.
A good portion of the neighborhood is going through the same thing: covering broken windows with plywood or sheet metal or anything they can get their hands on, tending to the wounded, mourning the dead, and so on. It’s late November so it’s chilly, but the mood just makes it feel that much colder.
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Once they are back in the hood AM says “I’ll go heal anyone that is wounded, and then I’ll join you. You stay with Jawsey, it should not take very long.” She walks the streets, and looks for wounded to heal. While usually keeping to herself, she can save weeks of recovery with few seconds of maintaining the blessing. It gives her some confidence and comfort and delays having to see what a mess the HQ has become.
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Bobby nodded: “Take care. I’ll see if I can fix the hole in the roof.”
Bobby did just that: He found the emergency blankets in his surival kit and scrounged up some broom handles and tent poles as well as a helpful spray glue and made his way to the roof.
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It took a boost from AM, his full power as an adept and the contents of a full roll of tape as well as a can of glue to seal the hole before the rain came, but Bobby managed to do it without making it worse.
It had helped, that the water from the buckets had nicely cleaned the part of the roof where he had had to apply the glue and that his new power had told him exactly how long and how much pressure he had to use to create the strongest possible bond.
Now Bobby was lying on his cot trying to go back to sleep, so he could get rid of the Mana burn.
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AM walks the streets and follows cries for help. “Healer – I can fix gunshots” she declares and treats anyone that wants it. It turns out that the Crimson Crush caused quite a bit of collateral damage, and at least several wounded. She sustains the growth spell and intends to sustain it until there is not much choice. Exhausted, she’ll return to their own problems and the hole in the roof. She’ll bless Bobby, and join the team in cleaning the place.
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Since Bobby seemed comfortable on the roof, and Jawsey wasn’t, he focused on cleaning up inside, using spirit help to find all the bits of glass and getting rid of them and scrubbing up the floor around the brakes.
Once he finally lay down on his matress he realized that there would be no hot water to soothe his back in the morning, and he wondered how long it would take to get basic services back up and running?
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Bobby does an admirable job on the roof while AM exhausts herself, battling through the background count to mend as many cuts, breaks, and bruises as she can manage before Wakan Tanka takes as much as she has to give. She returns home to piece together some fitful rest.
Jawsey and his summoned spirit get to work on the broken glass. He soon finds himself ‘helped’ by the HQ’s motley collection of second-hand drones that Mato proudly acquired from one of the Brain Eater’s tinkerers:
There’s the Aztechnology SafeNSound, a wheeled home safety drone that has the capability to sense fires, smoke, carbon monoxide, and other hazards. It’s busy trying to alert the Central Home Node, which is offline due to the lack of power, so instead it wheels around the place blaring noisy warnings and providing inaccurate first-response fire suppression to things that are not on fire, like Jawsey.
The there’s the GM Mr. Fix-It 2071, the classic assistant that provides tools and advice to home-hobbyists, which is past its prime. It’s software and firmware are both out-of-date. Although you wouldn’t think that advice about plumbing and carpentry would change that much over time, the suggestions that it’s providing Jawsey sounds a lot like automotive repair, or maybe targeted toward HVAC systems.
Last but not least is the BusyBuddy, a compact cleaning drone with two caterpillar tracks which vacuums, wet/dry sweeps, mops, polishes, and shampoos an extensive <font face=”inherit”>variety of floorings. This one actually works great! It’s very efficient in finding and cleaning up </font>minuscule<font face=”inherit”> splinters of shattered glass. The downside is that the previous owner had a sense of humor and installed personality software that made it perpetually grumpy; it constantly complains about its assigned task, alternating its muttered objections with laments that reflect its existential despair.</font>
<font face=”inherit”>The drones eventually exhaust their battery supply, and with no power to the building (or the block) they will not be able to recharge. Who is going to repair the damaged transformer? </font>Ostensibly<font face=”inherit”> that job would fall to the Brain Eaters, who supply and maintain most of the illegal taps on Gaetronics transmission lines, but first you’ll have to see if any of them survive the night. Maybe, following your intervention, there will be ten or twelve that wouldn’t be alive otherwise.</font>
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Spoiler:
When Bobby awoke, he felt as good as new. He had slept not nearly enough for his taste, but it allowed his body to heal the manaburn. It had helped that there was still no power and most of the irritating LEDs were dark. Grogily he got up to take on the day – after eating whatever had to be eaten first before it spoiled in the fridge without power.
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. “can’t hold my liquor.” Am responds to the invitation to try the whiskey. Knowing her shortcoming seems to be a problem, “…but there is no harm in an apple.” she says and grabs one. Something feels very odd about this place, and AM’s rational mind feels suspicious. Providing so many people with such extravagance costs a fortune, and who gives so much for free.
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