Da Roolz:
- There are no posting limits, but please post in a timely fashion for courtesy and for flow and stuff
- There is no posting order, but please post ONLY ONCE for each of my posts unless I say otherwise
- This is going to be largely freeform and experimental and stuff. What happens is going to depend largely on what players/characters do. So if you need to stop and confer with your fellow players about what to do next, I fully support that!
- Please PM me any flaws or merits your character has that you think I should know about. If none, no need to tell me so.
- Also, PM me any triggers or scenarios you would prefer we avoid. I don't think anything terrible will come up but sometimes it's just good to know.
- HAVE FUN! Your setting post will be incoming shortly.
ElijahHaha!
Merits: Medium!
Flaws: Prone to quiet- The Flaw tells you to roll Int + Enigmas at a difficulty set by the ST in times of stress, but it doesn't say whether it's to stave off or go into Quiet. On Denver, successes on the roll will be to stave off Quiet.
Phobia (water)
Nightmares!
... oh boy, does he ever have a lot of flaws.
-memory-[Spirit sensing: Spirit 2, taking time and specialty focus, need enough to cover several people]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (5, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
-memory-It's been nearly two weeks since a trio of mages went to Platte River Bridge and altered the events they witnessed there, and allowed some thing to be pulled across the Gauntlet. Since then, the echo of Sally Starling has appeared in mirrors and reflections all over town, but primarily she's appeared around the downtown area. When Elijah spoke to Lucy last, he wanted to find the girl and talk to her. But Sally's appearances have been too erratic. Lucy determined that she would be gone long before they arrived. Their best bet would be to perform a ritual to determine an auspicious time and place to find the girl. The ritual would be difficult, and time consuming, and would require the assistance of Lucy's elusive and mysterious sister.
That leads us to tonight. The place: Crescent Park, a little stretch of park between the greatly diminished Platte River and I-25, just south of the Children's Museum of Denver. The time: nearly - but not quite - midnight.
Lucy arrived just before the museum and the park closed, burdened heavily by her ungainly canvas bag, her lantern, and an old leather portfolio case. She found a quiet place where they'd be unlikely to be noticed by authorities guarding the museum or the late night traffic of the highway, and she set things in place. There is a medium-sized mirror, simple and most importantly smallish and cheap, that she picked out from a thrift store along with the portfolio case. She's propped it up against a tree, with her lantern throwing light and shadows in turn beside it. Then she laid out a blanket so that she could sit on the ground without scorching it, so that she could wait in meditation until the appointed time.
By the time the apprentices arrive, the area around Lucy is several degrees cooler than the summer night beyond. The moon hangs low in the sky to the east, a dark red-orange monstrous eye watching over all.
[Extending once because she's been at this for hours]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah[did he pass this today?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
ElijahHe's familiar with all of this, if only because he's seen Lucy work before. This time, though, he was sober enough to remember it.
He'd wanted to find Sally, because he needed something to do. She never stayed in one place for too long, and like boiling water he could wait all night for her but it didn't mean that she was going to come. She had to come along, she had to be somewhere, and they had to find somewhere that she would stay just long enough.
When he arrived, the area felt cooler. the temperature played against his skin and tingled in his lungs while a red-orange moon watched on. It was nearly midnight. Elijah knew better, now, than to say anything to interrupt her concentration.
-memory-Elijah finds her easily enough, and his approach does not disrupt her concentration. In fact, it seems that she was waiting for him. Her eyes open and she offers him a slight smile. Then she releases the effect that she's been holding onto. Elijah will feel it fall over him like a frosted spider's web, cool to the senses a moment before it melts away.
"Hey," she says. She would invite him to join her on the blanket, but it's not quite big enough for a crowd or anything, and besides it's already crowded. There is Lucy herself, a pair of ornate silver scissors and an array of threads, her rune stones, her own mirror, and a silver lotus bigger than the palm of her hand.
She does not have a watch to check for time, nor does she have an innate sense of time like some mages. But Lucy knows that they're getting close to the right time.
"Are you ready?" she asks.
ElijahWas he ready?
Elijah needed something to do, yes, but not in the sense that he was bored. No, no it was far from it. Elijah needed something to do because he needed to not feel helpless. He needed to feel like he had done something- he needed to feel this as much as he needed to feel anything else. The effect falls over him, like frost, like webs, like Lucy and he takes a seat at the edge of the blanket. His messenger bag falls to his side. He is acutely aware of the watch in his pockets, the breath in his lungs, the impending touch on his palms.
"I'm ready," he replies, he confirms. He knows what time it is. Knows because every fiber of his being knows when midnight will fall because the air felt different. Tasted different.
-memory-Lucy watches as Elijah takes a seat. When he's settled, she nods, and then she re-centers herself. Which isn't to say that she wasn't centered before, but once she released the effect her muscles relaxed. Now, she regains her poise. Chin raising, she speaks to him with an air of kindly authority. A benevolent teacher. Elijah needs a means of not feeling helpless. Lucy can't teach him how she uses magic, not unless he's like her and has an Avatar that works through him. From what she's seen that isn't the case. But she can help him understand how to interact with ghosts, and perhaps begin to understand interacting with other spirits, too.
"As a gateway between worlds, the Gauntlet's always lower wherever I am. I can't make it so that you can touch her like Kalen did, that'll be up to her, and I'm not strong enough to trap her or the thing that came through with her, if it's still with her. But I can reduce the Gauntlet some more so that I can try to hold onto her. Or try to catch it, and force it back through." She does not sound entirely confident in this plan, and is willing to admit it. "I'll do what I can, Elijah, but I'll be honest. My experience and my expertise is in helping lost souls find their way, not so much with spirits."
Elijah[Wits+Occult, do I know things?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
-memory-It's been nearly two weeks since Elijah and Alyssa and Kalen were on that bridge. Two weeks is a long time.
In that time Elijah has heard the voices of the dead around him. Usually, it's the same old same old. "Will you do..." "Can you find..." "That vest doesn't match those shoes"...
Occasionally, though, they say other things. "A bunch of plates broke at my grand-nephew's house." "The sprinkler system went crazy at my ex-wife's place. I didn't do it, I swear!" "Something caused my friend's flat tire."
Elijah"I haven't seen anything like this before," he admits. He's a sharp kid, yes, and a perceptive kid… but it would seem his knowledges were best used elsewhere. HIs eyes were more on the moon and the stars than the world around him when he stared off into the unknown like it was calling for him. Perhaps it was. Perhaps he couldn't help but look to the edges of the horizon and see if the end was coming or not. Thus far, he only saw what had always been there- tenuous and insubstantial.
He remembers the usual commentary. The usual requests to do who-knew-what and the occasional comment on what it was he was wearing (those were the worst, because he usually ended up going back and changing clothes because he was not going to listen to a dead person critique his fashion sense all morning).
"Why don't we just make a disaster that's too good to pass up? Or maybe tumult attracts chaos. I think that spirit has a little mischief in him and where there's an opportunity to make a mess, I don't foresee it passing that up."
-memory-Lucy studies Elijah without seeing him, thinking. When she scryed an auspicious place she'd only had Sally Starling in mind, not the spirit that hitched a ride. In truth, she's been sort of assuming they'll be together. She meant what she said, her experience is more with ghosts, who usually only need to have a final wish fulfilled or business settled or be told in a firm and authoritative voice Go!
Spirits are trickier. Lucy's experience with them has so far been limited. Maybe it wouldn't naturally arrive with Sally, after all. In which case, Elijah's suggestion has more than a little merit.
"Disaster," she murmurs. Then nods. "Okay." She picks up her scissors and a few bundles of thread. Resting the scissors on her knee, she starts braiding the threads together, weaving them into a simple plait as she thinks to her Avatar, This represents...and this one is...and this...
All around her the chill begins to grow anew.
[Entropy 2: Call on Disaster? Or something? coincidental, diff 5-1 (specialty focus), will be extending twice to A) create a decent enough little disaster closeby and B) give Alicia time to post in]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 5) ( success x 2 )
AliciaA little known fact about the young woman often spotted in Elijah Poirot's company is that she has the ability to sense spirits and see across the membrane between worlds. Given the limits of her power and the fact that she can do nothing extravagant and often fails when she attempts to do anything at all this isn't a little known fact because of her secretiveness.
But Alicia can see spirits. Not to the extent and with the same frequency as her friend. She is a troubled young woman and finds it easy to ignore things she doesn't understand or want to deal with. The image of a girl appearing behind her when she's brushing her teeth in the bathroom isn't one of those things.
One thing led to another and Alicia is tagging along with Lucy and Elijah. She is the last one to arrive and by the time she does Lucy is braiding her plait and turning the air around her to ice.
Alicia is quiet as she steps up beside Elijah. Not quiet as a ghost herself. They can probably hear her approaching.
[dex + stealth: i just got me a new dot son let me see how not-loud she can be]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah[do I notice?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
ElijahShe was quiet, let's give her that. Elijah, however, was easily distracted.
Hypervigilant wasn't the right word for it. No, this was more like attention deficit disorder in full swing because he was sitting still and he was paying attention and he heard the sound of tires that almost squealed and then the smell of the trash being picked up somewhere downy he way and then- oh, hey! Look! Alicia.
He grinned, like the world was wonderful and worthy of being excited about- they both knew better, but his expression was one that was full up on the lie. He could live it, breathe it, believe it. That's the thing about Elijah Poirot, he believes his own bullshit. He whispered, "Lucy's trying to draw in chaos to attract a freeloading spirit."
-memory-Alicia arrives to the cold space that Lucy inhabits, but the Dreamspeaker does not notice her. Her attention is fixed on the weaving, and the braiding. She is busy considering what sort of minor disaster might attract a spirit prone to minor disasters themselves. She is keeping in mind how far she's willing to go on a quiet summer's night in a park in the heart of the city, when there are so few other people around her.
Meanwhile, the glass at the bottom of the mirror begins to fog over as the minutes tick closer to midnight.
[Extending!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (1, 3) ( fail )
-memory-[Par o' docs]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
-memory-[soak?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 8) ( success x 1 )
-memory-Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
-memory-Lucy continues her plait, but something goes awry. Her Avatar releases her blessing of power, rips it clear from Lucy's hands. The magic coursing through her shifts, threading its way through her veins like crackling ice.
It should hurt, but it doesn't. Lucy should know what she did wrong, but she doesn't. There are tales aplenty of the ancient gods rescinding their favor for good or petty reasons. Sometimes they are simply fickle.
Lucy gasps at the suddenness of it. The thread falls from nerveless fingers.
A shadowy figure begins to form in the recesses of the mirror's surface.
AliciaMaybe Alicia was about to drop a quip about how if they needed chaos she had just the thing for it. Her Working brings about the scantest sensation of the beginning and the end of the universe and occurrences without order or reason. Randomness. That's what Alicia feels like when she Works. It's what drew her to Elijah in the first place.
Then Lucy gasps. The sound hits Alicia's ears and the smaller girl jumps. Grabs onto Elijah's arm like it's a reflex by now and then she sees the shape move across the surface of the mirror.
"Oh shit," she says. Her voice is tight with uncertainty.
ElijahElijah watched Lucy, but his hand made its way to the pocket and to his pocket watch. He should have opened it, but he knew what the face looked like and knew too much about it to really have to need to. He was looking for something. Guessing and testing. Thinking, thinking, thinking because he had to know when something was going to happen. There was an event the young man was looking for, waiting for some indication that it would happen.
Which was about the time that the figure appeared in the mirror, Alcia grabbed his arm and, he turned her way, as if whatever was in the mirror was something he could very well shield her from- like he could do anything except be a piece of meat between her and-
"Sonofabitch!"
wait.
Maybe this is what they wanted… was it?
[Time 1- okay, seriously, what time is it? +1 diff for being distracted, +1 diff for casting quickly]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
-memory-[The time is now 11:59pm]
Elijah"Almost midnight. Fifty seven seconds..." fifty-six. Fifty-five, fifty-four...
-memory-Almost midnight. Almost the witching hour. Almost time to meet with Sally Starling.
But will the other thing be with her? Will the other thing have been drawn to the snapping of a spell (and was that why her Avatar withdrew her support?)? Will it be drawn to the combined chaotic tumult of the apprentices?
Thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty...
The bottom of the mirror is now fogged completely over, the milk-white coating tapering off a few inches above the bottom of the frame. Above that?
A girl. They all recognize her. She is young and tall, with the kind of lanky, bony physique that suggests she'll grow another few inches before she's done (except she'll never be done). Her shoulder-length blonde hair is plastered down around her skull like its soaked through with water. Her nondescript t-shirt looks equally drenched.
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen...
Sally Starling stares out at them from within the mirror's surface, just as she's looked at Elijah. Just as she looked at Alicia when she was brushing her teeth.
Which is to say that she looks at them blankly. There is no recognition when her eyes fall on Elijah, no sense that she even sees him there now.
Five, four, three, two...
One.
Then she climbs up, like she's climbing up the railing of the Platte River Bridge.
Alicia[perc + alertness: oshit]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
-memory-[Spirit 2, same rote she used for Elijah and herself earlier, but for Alicia; diff 5 -1 (specialty focus) +1 (fast-casting)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (1, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Elijah[per+alert?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
-memory-Sally appears. Lucy knows that they can all see her, but Alicia arrived too late for the rote that would allow the apprentice to interact. Tonight, she'll get to do something for a little while that maybe later in her life she'll be able to do on her own.
Tonight, Alicia can do more than be a passive observer.
Time will tell if this was the right decision. There is a figure behind Sally in the mirror. It is not very large, but the smile that splits its face stretches literally ear to ear, seeming to crack that dark, impish face in half.
And it sees them. It looks beneath the arm of Sally Starling as she starts to climb an invisible railing and that grin goes all the wider.
Elijah wanted to attract it with chaos and tumult.
Elijah and Alicia are chaos and tumult, themselves.
AliciaIt doesn't take an experienced psychic to know that what they're seeing in the mirror is something that can be undone. That if they stand by as observers and do nothing that it will happen again.
The chill come over Alicia with the effacing of the veil has the Orphan shuddering but not from fear or uncertainty. It is a strange thing to have a power placed in her hands if only for a few minutes and she glances over at Lucy to make sure she's still upright before focusing on the mirror.
Oh shit is right. The thing sees them. That grin speaks of ill intent and Alicia is not one to just stand by and let things happen. She's terrified all the time but in her terror she's found a purpose. If they have to die anyway she may as well not die a coward.
She steps away from Elijah's side and waves her arms like that's going to make her bigger. Like that's going to make her more attractive.
"HEY!" she says. Her voice rings out in the park's witching-hour silence. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"
[prime 1: heart's blood. trying to get her resonance to flare up to catch mr. thing's attention. the extra quint is a nice bonus i guess? base diff 4, +1 bc fast-casting.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN5 (5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
ElijahHer eyes are blank.
He knows he has to do something, but he trusts that Alicia has her bases covered, that she knows what she is doing because they are both young and prone to making decisions that one may consider questionable. Elijah doesn't question it, though. Perhaps he should.
"Sally? Hey, waitaminute-" only this time, maybe he can say something. This time, maybe things will be different.
He looks back at Alicia, tension riding in his form and readiness there as well. Trust was a dangerous thing, you know.
-memory-This will repeat if they do nothing. It has been repeating for days already. Before that, Sally repeated her death who knows how many times before the Awakened came along and interrupted things.
Interrupted the cycle. Tried to save her when she was already dead but not yet gone. In doing so they started a different cycle.
On the bridge that day Sally spoke to them. She talked to Elijah about her family like she knew that she was gone. She talked about the impending echoing of her final living moments like she knew that they were coming.
Her eyes went blank then, too. For a moment, like her mind simply reset. Then she looked as she did on that warm summer day when she died. Annoyed. A little angry. A lot disappointed. As she climbs up a step that isn't there.
The apprentices can interact with the spirit now, and with the ghost girl on the other side of the mirror. But she's over there where Elijah can't touch her, not like Kalen had.
That'll be up to her, Lucy said.
And the imp. It looks at the pair of apprentices that feel like chaos, and it grins a devil's grin. A hungry grin. It is a small thing, only coming up to Sally's thighs. Alicia can see it's incredibly long, thin fingers. Troublesome fingers. Meddlesome things. They twitch in anticipation as it bends its knees and prepares itself-
"HEY! LEAVE HER ALONE!" Lucy is already moving to intervene.
-to LEAP!
[inits!]
Alicia[ahaha ahaha ahah +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
-memory-Gremlin: +5
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
ElijahAnd that other cycle was worse, so much worse, because that cycle was mindless and hopeless and hauntlingly stuck. His stomach turned. Her eyes were blank when she was coming up on those final moments. It would be up to her if she interacted, but the thing climbing down Sally's thigh was grinning a devilish grin and coming from its rightful place and he can't reach out. He can't touch her, and perhaps it is for the best that he can't, lest they rip some hole in the natural cycle of how this end was supposed to go.
{5+1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (8) ( success x 1 )
-memory-Lucy: +7
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
-memory-Round ONE: WHEREIN I PROMISE NOT TO KILL BABYMAGES
Lucy 16
Gremlin 15
Alicia 14
Elijah 13
Declare in reverse, roll the other way!
Elijahaction: Rote! Instant reaction: Mind1/Time1
Aliciaaction: continue to cast Heart's Blood if the gremlin isn't coming at her, run her ass off if he is
-memory-[Gremlin: Tackle Alicia!]
[Lucy: NOT IF I TACKLE YOU FIRST: Tackle Gremlin, droppin' WP like it's goin' out of style because BABYMAGES! MUST PERTEKT!]
-memory-[Tacklin' the first: dexbrawl diff 7]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (4, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
-memory-[Lucy: Stay up! dex (nimble) + ath, diff 7]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
-memory-[Gremlin: Oh shit! same roll]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
-memory-[and the damage: str+1+5]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
-memory-[Gremlin: Soak??]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 7) ( success x 1 )
-memory-[Gremlin: Still going to try and get Alicia, diff 7 +1 for unbalanced, -2 dice for ow]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 6) ( fail )
AliciaAlicia has just started to turn to run when she hears the Dreamspeaker intercept the shadow-creature. The thump of one body hitting another has her skidding to a halt and turning back around. Heart hammering in her throat. She plunges her hand into her bag to find her switchblade and swears to herself like coarse language is a focus.
ElijahTime1/Mind 1: Instant reaction
description: When the mage expects a certain event, he can focus his attention on it to be able to respond reflexively at the same time.
goal: if this thing sacks Alicia, go haul ass to try and intercept (not sure if it'll work, but he's really, really, really trying?)diff 4 + 1 fast casting + 1 probably distracted, -1 quint (pleeeaaaase) = 5
Dice: 1 d10 TN5 (2) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Alicia[+5!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
-memory-[Gremlin: +5-2 (ow)]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah(new initiative)
[15+1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (5) ( success x 1 )
-memory-[Lucy: +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
-memory-The gremlin spirit leaps from beyond the confines of the mirror's surface...for Alicia. She is an agent a chaos, a creature whose very presence could cause the little acts of destruction it so craves. She would be a much better guide to the living world than a ghost girl. It leaps through the air
only to find a tall, slender Dreamspeaker hip-checking it so hard it does a complete 360. Unbalanced and weakened, it still stumbles after Alicia, but when it tries to leap at her again it misses her by a mile. Alicia, rather than running, grabs up a weapon while Elijah sharpens his mind and his reflexes to protect his fellow apprentice.
Round TWO!
Elijah: 20
Alicia: 13
Gremlin: 13
Lucy: 8
Declares!
Lucy: Tackling worked pretty great the first time, let's do that again!
Gremlin: I hate you all! Run!
AliciaHer hands are shaking as she thumbs the switchblade open but she doesn't hold the thing like she's unfamiliar with it. More like she's unfamiliar with actually using it on something that isn't filled with straw or clay.
Doesn't matter. This thing would ride her bones if she let it. She doesn't want to let it. She wants to end it.
action: STAB. will be spending WP so the blade doesn't go in Lucy's hand.
ElijahElijah has no earthly idea what he is doing. His reflexes are sharp, yes, but he has no clue what to do in a fight. At all. And he is terrible at sports. So, the fact that he decided to kick the thing in its entirely-too-large-and-creepy-wide mouth was probably not the brightest idea he's had.
action: boot to the head.
Elijah[Dex+brawl=3. diff 7, +1 wp? Please?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
ElijahDamage, +4
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
-memory-[Gremlin: Uh??? RUDE]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 7) ( success x 1 )
-memory-[Gremlin: @_@ down for the count!]
-memory-Alicia and Lucy prepare for another round of assault, Alicia flicking open her knife while Lucy pivots lightly and starts to dig in for another burst of speed. The gremlin, seeing that it is outnumbered, and most importantly that its chosen ride does NOT want to be a skin-taxi for a destructive spirit, turns that smile upside down. It starts to turn, but before it can, Elijah is there. Elijah with his quicker reflexes, and fueled by a need to protect these friends of his, rushes it. Pulls back his foot. And kicks the spirit in the head.
That head rocks side to side for a moment. The gremlin's beady eyes roll. Then it topples to the grass.
All is quiet for a moment as three Mages stare at what they've managed to do. Lucy, who has never needed to interact with spirits like this before, grins broadly in triumph. Movement from the mirror catches her attention, though, making that triumph short-lived. Not much time has passed (Elijah knows precisely how much time has passed: two minutes and fifty-eight seconds).
"Elijah, talk to her. See if you can get her attention, but if you can't, that's okay." Sally is a ghost. Something may have ridden on her coattails for the past two weeks, but it doesn't look like it's done her any damage. There is no time to explain that, though. Lucy has work to do.
"Alicia, will you keep an eye on it for me? Let me know the instant it moves. Spirits don't exactly die, so I'm going to see if I can lower the Gauntlet enough to, ah. Shove it across."
[the trick to being leadery is to not sound super leadery in the process: Manip (persuasive) + Leadership (to see how leadery Lucy sounds, PCs are of course free to respond however)]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 4, 4) ( fail )
AliciaLucy sounds as quavery as Alicia feels on the inside but it doesn't matter. None of them are hardened veterans of a War they lost fifteen years ago. None of them can call themselves experienced fighters even if they have broken the noses of hospital staff and survived Technocratic assaults and staved off those who would burn them as a witch.
Will she keep an eye on it.
She's still too keyed up on adrenaline to coax her throat to work. She tastes pennies and her knees are water. All she can manage is a jittery nod. She drops into a crouch beside the creature and holds the blade down in case the thing moves. If it does so much as twitch the blade is going into its wrist.
ElijahHe felt a little like he'd kicked a very destructive coffee table, but his coffee table didn't off settle him the same way this thing did. His heart was pounding and his mind was reeling and it took a good few moments (and he knew precisely how long those moments were, once it timed out to two minutes and fifty-eight seconds- that was long enough) to center himself. He had to talk to Sally- Sally who was stuck. Sally who was still here-
Right. He had to talk to her, even if he wanted to talk to the flesh-and-blood people standing with him. He turned and went back to the place he'd last seen Sally. His voice was uncertain at first.
"Sally?" he asked again. He had to talk to her, she had to pay attention somehow, "Sally, hey," with a little more confidence, "I'm pretty sure we could jump the gates at Elitch Gardens, get you in a private viewing of the place, now c'mon."
-memory-[Sally: percept+alert]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
-memory-Lucy may not be a veterany of the war, but she is a veteran of sorts. She is older, she has been doing this Awakened thing for a few years. But she knows ghosts more than she knows people. Sure, she is friendly and sociable, but beneath all of that the Dreamspeaker is really a quiet little girl who likes following around her more active and outgoing sister. She likes likes people well enough. She likes Elijah and Alicia, and she would like to spend more time with them.
But her will is dwindling. Summer is not her season, even though the night with its red-orange half-moon is. And she is more accustomed to ordering ghosts and lost souls to crossing over than she is rebellious and unruly teenagers. Her requests are truthfully only that. Requests. She needs to be able to concentrate to do what she needs to do next.
That is, return to the mirror propped up against a tree. She is wearing shorts tonight, because it is summer and no one will see her wearing long sleeves or long pantlegs for many more months. When she kneels before the mirror, the sparse patches of grass that touch her skin crackle and turn black. Holding out her arms, she closes her eyes, and she prays.
Dusk handmaiden, please...
Meanwhile, the gremlin remains motionless on the ground with the girl it would have used crouching over its prone form, watching (perhaps wishing?) for any movement.
And Elijah speaks to Sally Starling, who has climbed onto her railing and is looking out. On the Platte River Bridge she would be elevated enough to look to the west.
If we can't go to Disneyland I at least wanted to go there.
Elijah remembers. Elijah speaks to her. "...sure we...gates at Elitch Gardens...the place..."
Sally begins to lose her balance and for a moment it seems like she's still going to fall. Elijah is talking to her and she's still going to fall into a void and disappear. Just as she starts to slip, and topple forward, and start to fall
her hands snap down onto the nothingness where the top rail would be. The teenaged girl lifts her chin and looks out from the mirror at Elijah.
"Did you say we could go to Elitch?" she asks, and her face is transformed with a desperate hopefulness.
-memory-[oh right, and this Spirit 2: Move the World Walls, coincidental, diff 5 -1 (specialty focus (lit lantern)), -1 (Natural Channel), local Gauntlet would be 8 so she needs 8 successes good luck Lucy you're going to extend forever]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Elijah"Yeah," he said, trying to catch his breath and he wasn't quite ready for this. He couldn't quite keep himself from seeming more than desperate and hopeful. Elijah smiles that easy smile, but it's tinged with absolute exhaustion. He's tried whatever he can, given almost everything he has, and he has no idea what else he can give but the truth. A promise that they would try.
"Would you be cool with that?"
Oh god, Elijah? Why did you say that? He wasn't sure if he could get over the gates. He wasn't sure if he could successfully break in and get her a tour of the place, but god damnit, he said he would. He gave his word, and he had to get her some resolution. He had to.
AliciaAnd Alicia is in the same state of breathless uncertainty that Elijah is in though she spends most of her time in that state and still has not grown accustomed to the way she feels as if she's holding her breath and breathing too fast in turns. In her hand the switchblade shivers and she doesn't want to take her eyes off the thing lest it move but she doesn't want to take her eyes off the mirror either.
She's already broken into one building with Elijah this year. Might as well help him break into an amusement park too. Her solidarity is a silent thing but the silence is enough. If she wasn't going to help him she would say so.
-memory-Lucy does not notice the apprentices planning to break into an amusement park in the middle of the night. Or if she does, she doesn't let it break her concentration. She has already had a working go awry tonight and that was only a lure. This one is a necessary thing. Chances are they could let the spirit free and it would only continue to make minor incidents happen. A flat tire here, a broken sprinkler system there. But they can't risk it trying to hang onto another person.
Sally's attention is on Elijah's just as it was the day they met. They all have their work to do, and Elijah's is to talk to her, and to be his kind and empathetic self. He's tried a lot tonight, both apprentices have. Alicia has hurt herself in hopes of sparking her resonance and gaining some Quintessence in exchange. Elijah knows precisely what time it is (12:10am and counting). And Lucy is lowering the Gauntlet in hopes of sending a wayward spirit home again.
Would Sally be cool with going to Elitch Gardens in the middle of the night with a handful of living strangers?
The smile that transforms her face would be a definitive yes, but just in case she says, "Hell yes!" She looks around herself, looks around the frame of the window that is her portal into the living world. She's never been trapped in reflections before, so she doesn't know if this will work. Reaching out, she places her hands on the edges and starts to pull herself free.
First comes to the top of her head...
[extending! -1 quint to keep the diff down]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
ElijahHell yeah she wants to go!
Elijah laughs, and the sound is pleased, but he sounds tired. The young man sat down and tossed Alicia a look back. He ran a hand through his hair, and he was fast approaching the moment where a cigarette? Sounded more than fantastic right now. A good drink, a long nap, and…
And vaulting a fence, avoiding security guards, climbing into little rooms where they power up the rides and turning Elitch Gardens into their personal playground sounded pretty fucking fantastic right now. Exhaustion turns to mischief and he looked at Lucy.
"You got this, Sally, c'mon," he assured her.
AliciaThe sound of Elijah's voice draws Alicia's eyes away from the downed creature. She swipes her hair back behind her ears quick with one hand while the other stays hovered over its limbs and she lets herself watch the ghost-girl's escape though she is still so keyed up that it will take little provocation to bring the knife down.
No one could accuse her of doing anything other than holding her breath right now.
-memory-With Elijah's encouragement, Sally continues to pull herself free. Her head comes up, then her shoulders.
A cigarette is sounding pretty good to more of them than just Elijah. Lucy, kneeling in a patch of now scorched grass (frost-blackened and killed), could definitely use one, and a hard drink, and twenty-four hours to just sleep and recover. She isn't thinking about that, though. She continues to pray.
And Alicia continues to crouch over her prisoner, blade ready to sink into its wrist should it so much as move. It's such a strange looking thing, the gremlin. Its head is large, with ears that taper at the ends into points like an elf. It's torso is slender and angled strangely due to the curve of its spine. Its arms are long and thin and it's hands. It's hands are the length of its arms all over again. The fingers are long enough to wrap twice around the wrist of a girl like Alicia.
The fingers of one of those hands twitch once.
[Extending! Gonna try to hold onto Lucy's final WP so I'M TRUSTING YOU NOT TO HURT HER, KAHSEENO, and spending another quint to keep her diff down]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 9) ( success x 2 )
AliciaAll it takes is the twitching of one of those fingers to snap Alicia's attention back to her ward. She yelps though her heart wants her to shriek a yelp being quieter than a shriek and she not wanting to shatter either Lucy's concentration or Sally's determination so it's nothing more than a bit of air jumping out of her throat before Alicia slams the blade down through the thing's wrist and leaps back from it.
Of course she lands on her ass and sits akimbo-kneed in the grass afterwards. She isn't an expert swordswoman. Yet.
-memory-The spirit twitches and the hyper-paranoid mage reacts instantly. Her blade cuts through the layer of what would be skin in a living creature - but spirits aren't living creatures. Not in the way that humans understand living things, anyway. They are beings of thought, and of energy. And so when Alicia cuts into its wrist it does not bleed in the way of ordinary things. There is a pulse of energy released, and that arm grows a little dimmer by comparison to the rest of its body. Soon enough, though, the rest of its body begins to fade as the energy of it is released.
And all the while, Sally continues to pull herself free. Only she is less the girl from the Ring - all jerky, unnatural movements - and more a healthy teenage athlete trying to pull herself free from quicksand. When she's out up to her hips she holds out a hand toward Elijah, neither afraid nor unwilling to seek aid in her own escape. He takes her hand and together they get her out to her knees.
[extending again please please please please please just don't botch! spending another quint!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (5, 5) ( success x 2 )
ElijahWe have established before that Elijah Poirot is not an athlete. Unless what one calls what he does on weekends and week days on countertops and closets and in various precarious positions athletics, because if it was then the young man was certainly attempting to train for a freaking decathalon, complete with the potential for things like muscle strain and accidentally breaking expensive pieces of furniture.
He smiled, pleased beyond pleased, "hey, it's good to see you again."
AliciaIn time the body of the bodiless thing dissipates and Alicia is able to scoot forward to retrieve the switchblade from its temporary burial site. It slides without protest from the earth and she uses the pad of her thumb to swipe the bits of dirt from the blade before closing it up again. She'll have to give it a better cleaning when she gets home.
A glance to Lucy confirms she's still Working. Channeling. Whatever it is the shepherdess thinks of her magick as Being it's letting the teenage girl climb free of the mirror and grab hold of Elijah's hand and put her feet on solid ground again.
Alicia watches the two of them and looks as if she wants to smile herself. Uncertain even as she feels that hope she knows spurred Elijah into coming out here tonight. Uncertain of everything but not yet resigned to a lifetime of darkness. She knows Elijah is stronger than he thinks he is. Maybe she's glad he doesn't think himself to be strong. He gets in enough trouble as it is.
"Elitch, huh?"
-memory-[doodley dooo dex+ath]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
-memory-With Elijah's help, Sally braces one sneakered foot on the bottom of the mirror's frame, and then finally pulls herself free. She is a tall girl, an inch or two taller than Elijah. Had she lived, maybe she would've rivaled that swimmer they've all met. With a flick of her head she tries to toss her wet hair back from her face. It falls limply against her cheek, but she doesn't mind. She's going to Elitch Gardens.
"Yeah, you too." Freed from the mirror, she looks around the dark and empty park, the Dreamspeaker kneeling, the spirit that grabbed her slowly but steadily disappearing. That's where her eyes lock as they go wide. "What-"
At the start of her prayer, Lucy exerts her will. She emphasizes her desperation with a push and then halfway through she remembers who - or rather what - her Avatar is. She is a goddess. A minor one, and a forgotten one. If she had a name once it has been lost to the ages. Alicia does not believe in gods, but Lucy does, because she has faith. She has faith and she puts that faith into her Avatar, and she is rewarded.
The Gauntlet through the mirror is reduced sufficiently. Lucy opens her tired eyes and sighs with relief. Then she turns and sees Alicia righting herself, her knife stuck into the wrist of the spirit as it slowly starts to fade out. Her eyes go wide, too, but for a different, if equally frantic reason.
"Shit! No!" Once upon a time Elijah guessed that Lucy was a dancer. Now he gets to see a little of that talent come into play. She rises and pivots in a single swift, graceful motion that melts instantly into a long-legged leap for the slowly disappearing spirit. In almost the same moment that her front foot hits the ground she is dropping into a crouch. She takes hold of what's left of the spirit by neck and hip and twirls, hurling it quickly through the mirror's reflective surface. And when we say through that is exactly what happens. The body of the spirit glides through the dark mirrored surface. With a quick snap of her fingers, Lucy releases her effect. The Gauntlet will begin to repair itself. The fogged surface of the mirror begins to fade.
And finally Lucy feels like she can relax. Her spine curves in a graceful arc as she bends over, hands resting on her knees, hair swinging in a curtain of maroon curls against her cheek. She catches her breath.
Elitch, huh?
Sally's eyes did not cease to be wide. The thing that latched onto her two weeks ago, that interrupted the repetitious echo of her death and created a new one, just went sailing through the air, past her, and back into the place where she had been. She looks from the mirror to Lucy, jaw slack. To Elijah she asks, "Did that really just happen?" And to Alicia. "You guys saw that, right?"
ElijahHe has to focus, or else his mind will not do what it needs to do. Elijah is a creature with a short attention span and a ping pong ball consciousness- he can't stay in one place too long. He needs something to focus on, or else he wasn't going to be able to get anywhere. The spirit creature disappeared into the mirror where Lucy threw it, and he is reminded again of how remarkable his companions are at that juncture. His eyes widen, jaw dropped and-
Did he really just see that? Really?
He looked back, and there was delight on his features. Tired delight, yes, but delight none the less, "yeah, no, that totally happened. We break reality sometimes, it's not a thing."
it's totally a thing.
AliciaThe swiping of dirt is a short-lived task for so soon as she yanks free the knife the Dreamspeaker stirs from where she was knelt and darts forward to grab the creature by the neck. It jolts Alicia out of her sense of returning normalcy. She gasps and steps back to give the taller woman room to maneuver and vows silent to herself to never again take the knife out of the stilled creature without the more experienced spirit-worker telling her it's okay.
So her question takes on a wry edge. After all that weirdness they're still going to the amusement park.
She feels for Sally. She doesn't understand her but she feels for her. Now that she's back on her feet Alicia gives Lucy a glance stained with apology and comes to stand so she is flanked by the other Orphan and the Dreamspeaker.
"Don't listen to him," she says. "I saw that. It's a thing."
-memory-Sally looks at the trio like they're aliens from another planet. Which isn't a bad thing, really, not the way that she looks at them. Elijah tells her they break reality sometimes and it's not a thing. This is what he tells a girl who died seven years ago and has been going through the motions of that day ever since.
Alicia casts a look of apology Lucy's way and when Lucy looks at her she offers a wry smile in return along with a shake of her head. "I'm sorry," she says. "There wasn't any time to explain." She does not seem like she'll explain now. Probably because she's tired, not physically but mentally she is exhausted. She's expended much of her will tonight. They all have. And still there is talk of visiting the amusement park.
Breaking into it, rather. Lucy grins.
Sally starts to grin shortly after, but her grin is more in response to Elijah's delight than to the other Orphan apprentice or the Dreamspeaker. It's not their fault. Sally is a straight teenage girl whose life had been spent being good and playing sports and not really paying much attention to boys, and now in her afterlife here is a goodlooking boy only a few years older than her. Smiling at her, and talking to her, and talking about breaking a whole helluva lot of rules.
"We're still going, right?" she asks. "To Elitch's?" And then, "How?"
"I can help with that," says Lucy, and she returns to her blanket, falls/sits on it a little less lightly and gracefully than she might have otherwise, and scoops up her small curving mirror, her rune stones, her scissors.
She asks her Avatar to help her find the path of least resistance for the teens, both living and not. Please. It's for a good cause.
[Corr 2/Time 2/Entropy 1, coincidental: diff 5 -1 (specialty foci) -1 (taking time)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 3) ( success x 1 )
Elijah"Of course we're still going. We might have to jump a few fences, but hey," he said with a grin.
There it was, that grin. That grin that said everything was going to be fine and everything was fucking fantastic because life was here and the world was bright and beautiful in its own right. They had a fucking theme park here, and it wasn't Disney Land but it was close enough, and the place could very well be their own private playground if they played their cards right and they managed to avoid the security guards for the time being.
"I figured we all just pile in the civic and… y'know… go. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, don't stress," he tried to assure her.
He didn't know if anything bad was going to happen, but he knew breaking into a theme park probably wasn't going to go over too well.
-memory-[tbc in the forums!]
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