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Post by Beelzebibble on Dec 3, 2015 12:48:12 GMT -5
Sunday the 15th 1:24 pmNatalie's cell phone rang. The caller's number was unfamiliar. She glanced at it, almost as if trying to intimidate the device into yielding more information about the caller. After another plaintive ring, she flipped it open. "Whoever you are, I'm not buying and I'm not interested." "Natalie? This is Terrian. That's you, isn't it?" "Sorry, but Natalie said she'd be out for the night. Something about beating up a bunch of identical guys or something." Her grip tightened on the phone, the case creaking audibly. "Okay, cool, you're Natalie. Look, don't hang up. I'm sorry for jacking your number -- Sly gave it to me 'cause he said he wasn't going to be around. I didn't store it on my contacts list, I promise." "It's like having a gun. It's all right to have it, but if you use it carelessly…" Nat produced a pencil from a nearby table, and snapped it next to the phone. "People might get hurt." "Right, got it, you are totally Natalie. Listen, the thing is -- I don't know if it's been on the news yet but -- there was an attack on a restaurant last night where I was eating. A couple of psychopaths. People died." "You're going to have to narrow it down a bit for me. People die all the time, and I can think of more groups of murderous psychopaths than decent places to eat in Whelkshore." "Well, that's kind of why I wanted to talk... I was hoping to get some people together this evening or tomorrow afternoon, see what we could dig up on these guys. They didn't stick around too long. That's me being modest in case you were unfamiliar with the phenomenon." After a pause, Terrian added, "So -- where are you right now, Whelkshore? -- you think you could stop by my place in Winstone tonight or tomorrow? It's looking like tomorrow from what Jonas and Rhys said." "I don't think I really have the times, means, or patience to stop by Winstone any time soon. It's not like there's anything good up there unless you like corny stage acts and old bars." Natalie sighed, and then switched her phone to the other hand. "But, if you tell me about whoever these freaks are, I'll see if I can remember anything about them. None of them had green hair, right?" "No... no, their hair was pretty normal. I would definitely remember if they had green hair. Because green hair is weird, Natalie. Totally weird. All right, well, listen, if you see some guys who are mass-murdering lunatics just run the other way, okay? And I guess let Zebedee know he's invited if he's around." "Unlike some acquaintances of mine, running the other way really doesn't come naturally to me," Natalie let the venomous words hang, and then resumed, "I haven't seen or heard from Zebedee in like a few days. He said something about Africa or whatever." If Terrian was stung by the comment, he didn’t show it in his response. "Okay then, well, thanks for being a pal about all this, Natalie. I definitely thought you were going to hang up soon—" Natalie didn't hear the last syllable. She already had flipped her phone closed, and tossed it onto the hotel room bed. It bounced, and slid down the comforter, onto the floor. She ignored it, traversing the small room with four paces. She put her hand on the blinds, pushing them aside with a faint rustling. Sunlight poured in, rendering everything bleached and bright. Natalie looked out over the balcony, her eyes adjusting to the afternoon light. Winstone City was not exactly bustling today, but there was still enough traffic to make travel on foot annoying. "Now, to kill time... Until I get a chance to go hit some of those old bars with crappy stage acts." ISHKABIBBLE SCENE TWELVE Nopcsa Assesses the Scene and Gamely Works Toward Mutual Understanding Monday the 16th 1:27 pmThe lobby was not one of the areas in the Hotel Ansonia immediately affected by the handful of explosions that occurred all at once, but the walls and ceiling trembled. Florence was thrown off balance and fired her gun by accident, shattering a window near the front doors. Most of the hostages on the floor cried out, and some of them continued to scream well after their point had been made clear. “Bloody hell was that?” Hugh yelled, shaking his blonde bangs out of his eyes. “Not us, was it?” “I wasn’t aware we were going to bomb the place!” Flo cried. She turned her head. The nearest explosion seemed to have come from the dining hall. She doubted any of the hostages were about to make any sudden movements in this state, and so, though she kept her gun trained on the group, she permitted herself to take her eyes off them and look down the corridor to the doors leading into the dining hall.
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Post by Tout-Perd on Dec 8, 2015 0:54:12 GMT -5
Blaise had not so much as twitched in the entire duration since the reprobate had taken her hostage, and even the sound of guns being discharged nearby had proven insufficient to jostle her. She could feel him exhaling against the nape of her neck, but couldn’t deduce whether this was a deliberate intimidation tactic, some deviant sexual inclination of his, or some admixture between the two. Though her musculoskeletal structure had remained stationary, it would be grave folly to state that Blaise Euler had stood captive idly.
Without the ability or opportunity to use physical gestures or verbal invocations of arcane power, lest she was expeditiously exsanguinated, she’d been forced to resort to an improvised technique. With each expulsion of breath, she channeled her will into it, a shamanistic maneuver common among the most primitive of mages. Though typically only used for pyromancy, Blaise instead used her eupnea as a conduit of her own Empiric Magic. Every exhalation, she’d been slowly adjusting the properties of her captor’s lacrimal fluids, lowering the pH incrementally. Though initially, the changes had been minute, as she’d grown more adjusted to the delivery system, she’d been making much greater progress. She could feel his tears running from his cheeks, inundating the back of her lab coat.
It was then that the explosion occurred. Realizing the opportunity it presented, Blaise focused as much of her mystical power into her respiratory system as she could muster. She exhaled in one steady burst, as if the concussion from the blast had blown all the air out of her lungs. The main behind her gave a sudden hiss in surprise, bringing one of his hands up to clutch at his face.
The mage brought her hand up, placing a digit on each side of the blade poised to rip into her jugular. Channeling her magic through her fingertips, she altered the molecular alignment of the steel to make a plane running through its base incredibly brittle. With a single dexterous twist, she snapped the weapon as if it was dry spaghetti. The brigand attempted a clean stroke through her throat, and only succeeded in abrading a slight scrape across the top layer of skin.
Blaise brought her arm down, interlacing her fingers, and put all of her strength into an elbow strike hammered directly into the man’s solar plexus. As she did so, the Empiric mage dismissed gravity’s downwards pull on him.
Bryan went vaulting towards the ceiling, like a particularly disagreeable balloon. Blaise twirled around him, her labcoat flaring dramatically. She lunged at him, planting a shoe against his flank. With a grunt of effort, she sent him soaring towards his accomplices. As he reached the apex of his flight, about even in altitude with the chandeliers, Blaise allowed gravity to resume. The beleaguered ruffian plummeted into the midst of his companions.
Blaise fell into a crouch, panting for breath.
“I aspire-“ She paused, and inhaled, “that this vexation provides you degenerates adequate cause to reconsider the profitability of this ill-advised venture.”
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Post by Beelzebibble on Dec 9, 2015 16:40:18 GMT -5
The young red-haired clerk couldn't tell whether to be amused or disgusted. Well, that settled the matter. Flo chose disgusted. Hugh, on the other hand, must've chosen amused, because he couldn't hold back a disbelieving laugh at the sight of parched old Bryan springing toward the ceiling in a tangle of bony limbs. His laughter gave way to a winded grunt as Bryan collapsed onto him, sending the garbage bags spilling on the floor. Flo saw Bryan's head come down hard on the coffee table behind Hugh; he sprawled on the carpet and didn't stir. One of the other customers beside the sofa took this distraction as an opportunity to snatch a garbage bag and duck out into the corridor. An enterprising fellow! Not to worry. They'd round everyone back up later. There sailed her hope that the Euler woman's greatest supernatural weapon was the power of database manipulation. She'd be coming at them with something rather stouter than flickering LED screens. Lucky it was, Flo being the kind of lady who didn't need everything to be a doddle all day. "Chief's orders!" she shouted toward Hugh, who was hoisting himself to his feet. By the look of it, he didn't need the reminder. Hugh scooped up the coffee table from behind him, swung it around to cover his body, and fired upon the woman with the outsized revolver from his suitcase. The chief had made this point quite abundantly clear. Any lesser Power who could be feasibly captured would be taken alive. But if anyone showed the sort of chops that sent dirty old men bouncing like India-rubber balls, best finish them off and be done with it. Half-tripping over Sally's crouched and ample form, Flo made for the nearest marble pillar supporting the overhang above the front desk, wrapped an arm around it for insurance, and fired at Euler as well. "Oh don't stop prattling now!" she called.
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Post by Tout-Perd on Dec 11, 2015 17:29:33 GMT -5
The scientist shoulder-rolled to the side as Hugh produced his hand-cannon. As she came up, she extracted one of the test-tubes that were placed in her hair. Blaise popped the cork with her thumb, and poured out a bluish-silver fluid that showered upwards in a thin sheet.
Hugh’s first few shots glanced off the screen of liquid metal, producing oddly lime-colored sparks and bizarre ripples across the surface. Blaise took hold of the apex of the reverse-waterfall, the seemingly random flow coalescing into the set shape, as if it was being poured into a mold. It took the form of a gleaming dagger with a wavy blade, the handle at a ninety degree angle to the rest of the weapon.
“I will inform you that I possess no intention of terminating our discourse,” Blaise responded, brandishing her kris. One of Flo’s shots glanced off of the blade, zipping past her shoulder and punching a hole in the far wall. The next skimmed her upper arm, tearing the sleeve of her coat and leaving a hematic trail. Blaise’s gaze shot to the wound as it imbrued her stainless garb with gore.
“Correction: My pontification will be ceaseless. However, our confabulation will be adjourned upon your incapacitation,” Blaise responded to another shot from Flo by falling in her general direction, as if the room had been turned on its side and everybody but the mage was glued to the floor. She ‘landed’ on the counter’s front as if it was the floor, placing it between her and the criminal.
The empiric mage rested her hand upon the wooden surface, sensing the epoxy that had been used to secure it to the floor. She focused on the edge of her weapon, increasing its hardness and dialing down its friction as low as it would go. Two more shots from Flo exploded through the counter, both barely missing but spattering Blaise with sharp splinters.
Holding her focus as best she could, Blaise took a singular swipe with her blade, unmooring the behemoth chunk of wood. Taking up her own trajectory as Blaise shifted gravity’s influence upon, it plummeted sideways. Blaise surfed the Hotel Ansonia’s front desk into the marble pillar that Flo had taken cover behind.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Dec 14, 2015 16:27:56 GMT -5
Flo had no time to fire a shot, or even to sidestep. The front desk crashed into the pillar with an ear-splitting crack, splintering into a hundred deadly shards. As the madwoman in the coat leapt away, the green marble countertop came completely off the fragmented wood and made its newly-defined gravitational arc toward the back wall. The countertop caught Flo's leg along its way with a wrenching stab - "Flo!", she could hear Hugh cry - and flung her backward against the rack of decorative room keys. She collapsed onto the tiled floor amid the splinters, followed by a torrent of keys falling off their hooks and raining down upon her. The gun slipped from her hand and landed out of reach. Granting as she was a touch distracted at the moment, Flo might otherwise have spotted that a number of the keys, rather than obligingly buffeting her own comely self, twirled upward and outward to various other corners of the room as if proximally affected by Euler's gravity trick. Meantime the marble countertop sailed on past Flo, struck the back wall, and went right about its merry business sliding on, peeling up wallpaper at the fore, until it punched through the side wall like a battering ram and so mercifully departed from Florence Pendlebury's life for ever.
Done its nasty work, though. The pain in Flo's right leg was excruciating. Glaring down through tear-filled eyes, she could see a protrusion that told her plainly the leg was broken. Any attempt to move it rewarded her with a fresh sundering surge. With a shudder, she pressed her back as hard as she could against the wall just to concentrate her muscles away from the agony. If she leaned just enough, she could catch a glimpse around the pillar of Hugh swinging the coffee table over his head down at the spot where the Euler woman had landed on her feet. "Fuckin' gash!" she heard him bellow.
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Post by Tout-Perd on Jan 10, 2016 14:24:53 GMT -5
"In all actuality, the ballistic laceration across my upper arm is largely superficial and is thusly inadequate to justify referring to it as a g-" Blaise was cut off as the solid table slammed into the top of her head. She moved with the impact, getting knocked sprawling to the floor. Had she not, the impact likely would have left her concussed or worse. No matter; she'd survived Locri and compared to that, this altercation would prove downright facile.
That was the final miscalculation she'd allow herself, however. Focus.
The scientist put her palms flat on the floor, and shoved off, tucking and rolling to a crouch, skidding back across the carpet. She raised her gaze in time to see the malfeasant churl fling the furniture at her in an underhanded toss. Raising her dagger, she extended her senses through it- Her enchantment held, the blade still preternaturally sharp. With an effortless swipe, moving with the grain of the wood, she cleaved the table in twain. As an afterthought, as the chunks of lumber spiraled past her, she sent a spark of Empiric Magic into both halves, lowering their point of ignition. As the crashed into the floor behind her, the remnants of the table instantaneously erupted into crackling flames.
Blaise's irises glowed with a cerulean sheen as she invoked a guidance charm, raising her kris. The brute fired at her, and she twitched her wrist, catching the bullet on the flat of her blade, and swatting it out of the air as if it'd been a sluggish tennis ball. Three more shots- Two were close enough that with the right angle- Blaise flipped her blade flat, bracing it against her palm, and raised it to chest level. The projectiles sparked as they ricocheted off the weapon, one bouncing over her shoulder and the other missing her ribcase by less than an inch. More damage to her labcoat, unfortunate. Blaise tilted her head slightly to the left, letting the last bullet zip between her ear and the edge of her jawbone, so close that she could feel its heat against her skin.
The mage locked her steely gaze upon her last standing opponent- He had the range advantage, and she had no cover or way to negate his firearm. She could invoke another guidance charm, but that was a gamble; if she wasn't fortunate, it was entirely possible the next spray of bullets would be in such a pattern that there was no feasible manner to dodge all of them.
There still was one option, though- Blaise channeled her will into her kris, partially returning it to its fluid state. Raising it, she held the mental image of its curve, and directed that into the unwritten half of the weapon. The handle portion shifted into a second blade, giving it the profile of a primitive wing. With a backhand stroke, Blaise hurled her makeshift boomerang skywards. It flew in an arcing trajectory, looping out over Hugh's head. It came curving back as he leveled his gun for another burst of shots- And bisected the chain hanging an ornate light fixture. The chandelier came plummeting down upon the man in a torrent of shattering glass.
Blaise turned away from him, and began stalking towards the exit. She plucked the empty test tube from her hair and raised it over her shoulder without looking. The boomerang sloshed back into the receptacle with a muffled clink.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Apr 1, 2016 12:49:54 GMT -5
The door from the stairwell opened.
By the look of it, the lobby had recently played host to a peevish rhinoceros. Tables were upended, one chandelier had crashed to the floor, the wall behind the front counter was a shambles, and the counter itself had vanished entirely, with nothing to attest to its prior station but a violent cleft in the marble floor beneath. The rhinoceros would appear to have foregone the spacious corridors and instead made its escape by punching directly through a side wall, to judge by the massive hole in the plaster. It was actually a bit amazing that Alpha had expected anything else of the lobby; had, maybe, expected it to remain a recognizably functional place of commerce. Currently the room was serving more as sort of a little museum exhibit of human woe, between the quite possibly dead tangle of spidery limbs by the coffee table, the athletic blonde who'd been crowned with a beautiful diadem of brass and glass and lay regally unconscious in the center of the room, and a feebly stirring female figure up against the back wall, nursing an injured leg.
And, preparing to exit center stage, the woman he suddenly and instantly suspected of playing the role of Peevish Rhinoceros in this matinee. She whipped her gaze upon the newcomers. Alpha sank slightly against the door frame. When you came to think of it, staying downstairs and burning in the garage was an attractive option in its own right.
"I'm very glad you made it," he declared, feeling that he might as well at least get a word in up top, before the combined powers of Fascere's and Parmigianino's champion sparkling orators drove him to swear off the spoken word altogether.
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