[Mind Shield for Justin - he did this earlier in the day so taking his time. Diff 4 -1]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 8) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[extending +1 -1 (focus)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 7) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[one more]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Fr. Echeverría[Watch the Weaving. Diff 4 -1.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 4, 10) ( success x 2 )
Fr. Echeverría[Extending it for giggles.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 5, 10) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[Justin custom rote: Pain Mastery. Life 2 / Mind 1, diff 5 -1 (focus) -1 (practiced)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Entropy[extending +1 -1 (enduring resonance)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 6) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[one more tiiime]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 9) ( success x 2 )
Serafíne[Sera - Mind Shield. Difficult 4-1 (taking time)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 5) ( success x 2 )
Serafíne[Sera - mind shield extending Difficulty +1 -1 for focus]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Fr. Echeverría[mind 1/matter 1 - stoicism! won't be able to spend wp for as long as it's active.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 2, 2) ( fail )
Fr. Echeverría[son of a bitch. nvm.]
Entropy[Oh right I need to roll for Annie - Mind Shield]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[extending]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[Pain Mastery]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Entropy[extending]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[Rolling for Jim: Distort Time on Sera (increasing speed/number of actions per turn) definitely vulgar, diff 6 -1 (focus) -1 (resonance)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[sorry, diff 7 that should have said, so that was a final diff of 5 but same result]
Entropy[Pan's turn - same deal]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 5) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[extending +1]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[last try]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[And finally Justin]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[extending]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[Burned a WP to hold off Paradox till he's done - rolling for backlash]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Entropy[ouch - soak time!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4) ( fail )
Entropy[paradox is not Jim's friend. He is at 5 bashing and now has a Flaw to slow down all his effects by a turn.]
EntropyIt was well past sun-down by the time the four of them were ready to leave. Each in turn spent time preparing as best they could for what was to come. Possibly Jim or Sera had attempted on the previous day to divine the outcome of these events, but if so, their efforts had proved fruitless. None of them knew what they were walking into - if Brogan and whoever he had with him might actually be caught by surprise or if the cabal was simply lying in wait for someone to step onto their turf.
When Justin and Annie returned from the woods and were joined by the others, Jim spent another few hours working his Will on them - until Time seemed to slow (for them) and anyone looking on would have difficulty keeping track of the the trio's movements. Annie declined the man's help - and by then there wasn't much energy to spare. But these effects cost the Cultist. They'd all feel (especially Pan, who could see the threads of paradox weaving around Jim's head as he cast) the impending blow, and sure enough, when it hit, it bowled the man over onto the ground, where he coughed up a splatter of blood.
But he would live, and that was more than could be said for sure about the rest of them.
So they left in the direction of the cabin where Pan had encountered Brogan, moving quickly through the trees. The distance was about three miles, but in the end they didn't have to go even that far. There was something in the woods ahead. Something that resonated so strongly they were all able to feel it about a mile away. And the closer they got, the stronger the sense of fear and foreboding became, clutching at them like cold hands from the ground sapping their momentum.
But the four magi continued anyway. And soon Pan would be able to see the dark, shadowy threads of someone's Will at work in the distance.
No, it was two Wills, each working distinctly apart from each other. One flickered with a fervent energy not unlike one of his own kind, if it had been twisted to something altogether wrong. Fervent, Awed and Maddening. The other... the other he and Serafine both knew well by now.
There was a light there as well. A deep orange glow flickering through the branches of the trees. Fire. And as they approached, they would see the shadows of large objects hanging from the trees.
Bodies, hanging upside-down, with blood dripping from their limbs.
Fr. EcheverríaThat they would have gone at sunup but he did not go alone and the others had preparations to make and effects to cast and he promised he would not go off alone. He told her he wasn't going and he told her he wouldn't go and he spent all of Friday gone but he did not go alone. He went further away and was loathe to go further away but if he dies tonight he cannot leave his flock without a shepherd.
He came back. He waited. Now they're moving through the trees and he is not a shield for them nor is he a beacon but he tries. He stands in front of them and holds a hand out to signal that they've come close enough when he feels them there.
He can read the threads of what the Fallen are doing but that doesn't mean he can make sense of it. The others would have to worry more if he could make sense of it. He crosses himself when he sees the bodies.
"I don't know what he's doing," he says in a low voice not completely buried in whisper, "but he's focused somewhere else. Maybe he's distracted." He turns to address the Verbena: "Are they dead?"
They: the bodies hung upside down.
SerafíneThe Verbena are prepared for this moment, all grim determination. Runes and blood and woad; Justin with a fucking katana strapped to his back. The weapon with its resonant grotesquerie has drawn Serafíne's gaze repeatedly since Justin appeared with it at the cabin, her expression stark and vaguely sick. Once or twice she nearly asked him if that thing was necessary, but she swallowed those thoughts sharply when she say the gun harness and retreated to the steps leading up to the deck, to sit there with her barefeet on the warm wood, listening to the movement of the river, eyes closed, breathing deep and steady, trying to find some measure of peace in her body, or at least some sense of awareness, some feeling of control.
Two days ago, maybe, she informed Jim that she was totally stab someone in the eye if they ever fucked with him; and yet, one imagines she has only ever wielded a sabre against another opponent in full kit and then with the fucking rules in mind. There was the time with the wooden swords and the fantasy LARPers back in NC, but they wanted her to be the damsel in distress and she wanted to be the night slaying the dragon and anyway those were wooden blades. Riflery yeah, but the targets weren't even fucking human shaped - just bullseyes and though she knows how to use her fucking Glock and may have frequented a gun range or three, well. Custom targets of the Death Star or fucking Boba Fett rather than the human silohuettes.
--
Serafíne is quiet. Long hair pulled back from her head and French braided to tame it. Low-heeled and thoroughly practical combat boots. The bodies - Christ - make her steal in a sharp breath, and she just stares, throat swollen, aching, for several long minutes before glancing away. All her breath comes out in one long exhalation. She didn't know she'd been holding it this whole time. She steps closer to Pan, unconsciously remaining as close as she can to his shadow. Or rather that sense of radiance he sheds, particularly when faced with these atrocities.
She waits for the Verbena to answer about the fate of the victims, then swallows hard, her eyes sweeping across Pan's profile. "If you stay back here." A sharp breath out, wavering. " - I could go see."
What Brogan's doing. Why he's distracted.
He did ask her to drop by.
Entropy[Life scan by Annie]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[Oh let's do a spirit scan too because she would]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
Entropy"They're dead," Annie responded, and to Pan her voice sounded much deeper and slower than it ought to, like molasses sliding along the ground.
And then, "but there's three people in that clearing who aren't."
Three, not two.
The Verbena's jaw ground shut as she focused her senses, casting out into the area ahead, searching for signs of...
"Goddess, fuck. We need to stop what they're doing now. They're summoning something."
Entropy[mystery awareness roll]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Entropy[x2]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Entropy[And while they're approaching - another mystery arete roll (don't worry it's not targeting anyone)]
Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 3, 3, 9) ( success x 3 )
Fr. Echeverría[I may throw up on you.]
SerafíneWatch the Weaving Dif 4 -1 for specialty focus (pain)
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 4) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[that should have been diff 4 because I forgot about the damn domino effect so he's extending]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[Sera is unable to determine the effect being worked by the unknown Nephandi - but she'll know that Brogan is working a whole host of complicated Mind effects - that he has shielded his mind from prying eyes, and that he's focusing his Will... on something but it doesn't seem to be any of them. The fear effect that gets stronger as they approach - that's him too. This new effect though - that she doesn't know.]
Fr. EcheverríaThis is what the Bible has to say about situations like this:
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
It's more of a guideline, really.
-----
So the Cultist comes to stand in the shadow of the priest and in his shadow she cannot see his face. She can see the outline of the handgun where it comes to rest in the hand whose wrist has been entwined in a wooden rosary and she can see the palm of the other hand where he keeps it held out so that they do not try to run past him.
It shakes in the darkness because he is afraid. He isn't going to turn around but he's afraid and there isn't much he aims to do about that. He would do no more for a stream against which he walking beyond let the water wash over him.
He bids Annie look, and she answers. Goddess, fuck.
At that he looks back, and he winces.
"Madre de Dios," he says, a quick prayer that does nothing but blow off steam, before he drops the hand that kept them back and starts walking again, faster now. "Stay behind me."
SerafíneIt's more of a guideline, really.
No words of wisdom in Serafíne's head. The background rhythm of something lingers there and while they're standing, while the Verbena is surveying the - corpses, they know that now, corpses - she draws in a deep breath and breathes it out, bites down in her inner cheek past the point of discomfort, until the pain is sharp and clarifying and bright enough to push her outside the porous boundaries of her mind.
There's blood in her mouth then, washing thinly with the sour saliva that collecting at the back of her mouth. Breathes out quietly to the others that she does not know what he's doing; just knows, as the priest does, that Brogan is doing something else she cannot do or understand.
She is fucking sober, Sera, and if she thinks about this, any part of what is happening to her right this fucking second she's going to start shaking, so she's not thinking about it, she's just walking, the hum of awareness in the back of her mind. Fuck, she should check the - the thingies. The thingies with the bullets in them. The ones that go in the fucking gun so she does that while Pan's holding them back and look, they're there.
Jesus Christ. Funny that she doesn't believe in him, but that's the name she curses with, in the back of her mind, Pan utters a genuine prayer to Mary the Mother of God and gestures them forward. So she's there beside him but probably they should spread out, right. She hopes Justin knows how to use that fucking katana she wants nowhere close to her person any time ever with the oily, sadistic resonance it bleeds off into the cool night air but she bumps the priest smartly with her left hip before she spreads out, another potential target, not hidden behind him.
"If you die, I will fucking kill you." So quiet and low he may not hear it, really. But fuck them all, it's Serafíne's own sort of prayer.
Strange, even when her mind cannot remember the pieces of it, her hands remember how to hold the weapon. Maybe a bit movie inspired and the weight feels alien and oleaginous though nothing feels as grotesque as the close in sensation of Brogan's complex, warped weavings.
Summoning something. Fucking hell.
EntropyPan told them all to stay behind him, and Justin and Annie both afforded the man with a bemused look that suggested they had no intention of doing any such thing.
Except that, well. Pan could move a lot faster than they could. So as it turned out, he didn't have any trouble keeping ahead. Not far behind him, Justin and Serafine half walked, half jogged over the forest floor, weaving through trees and hopping over rocks and roots and fallen limbs. Annie brought up the rear, jogging to keep up with the supernaturally enhanced movements of the others. As they drew closer, she pulled her shotgun off her back and held it ready.
Justin did the same with the katana. The fact that he went for the blade and not one of his two pistols was a fairly good indication of his current mindset.
So they moved in, and they fanned out, though the two Verbena stayed close enough that they could work together if they needed to. But only a few moments later Annie's voice rose again in a frantic whisper.
"Two now. The third one is dead."
After that, they probably sped up. As they neared the clearing, nothing jumped out or swooped down to attack them, though it was all-too-likely that a man of Brogan's ability wasn't easily surprised. And finally they could see past the circle of flames that enclosed the two Nephandi and their mystery guest. They could see all of it. Men and women hanging from the trees. Fire. A burnt clearing covered in dark, muddy pools of blood. And at the center, a single tree with another dead man hanging from it. Bound, with his throat freshly slit. A flicker of his patterned resonance still lingered in his wake.
Another will-worker, but no one they knew. A technocrat, perhaps? Or someone who felt like one.
Another man was beneath the tree, cowled in a black robe. As Pan drew up to firing distance, the man dropped the robe, and they would see that it was the wild-eyed Nephandus from Jim and Serafine's vision.
But when he opened his eyes, they were solid black. And his mouth sprouted fangs as he opened his mouth to snarl in their direction. Then he doubled over and... his body began to change, growing and twisting itself as sharp spines sprouted from his skin.
Brogan was there too, of course. And he was sitting crouched in the mud amid a circle of candles with his eyes closed like he couldn't even care less that they were there.
Fr. EcheverríaThey are not so powerful that they have sneaked past the Nephandi. They could not save the blood or the flesh of the people strung up for the ritual and now that they're there the ritual appears to be underway and the priest isn't so delusional as to think that if he keeps the others behind him he can save their blood or their flesh or their souls but he still goes ahead of them like he would have stood between his flock and anything come to do them harm.
(The things come to harm his flock are the things that come to all men in time and he does not stand between them so much as he holds their hand and when the time comes takes their contrition and their confession and wipes clean their brows so they stand before their Lord with clear conscience. Sometimes he lets them soak his garments with their tears and he tells them they can bear the pain drawing up the tears like blood and they believe him. Sometimes it's a lie but most of the time it's not. And that's all they ask of him.
The people behind him are not of his flock.)
And the hood comes back to reveal the face of a monster and the beads of the rosary click as the Singer draws up his weapon and takes a stance that speaks of faded dusty practice. He says the words that would be granted with unction if the rite were to be performed as prescribed but they don't have time and he may not even believe that this foul soul will queue up for judgment since this foul soul has already sent his Avatar screaming through the Caul but that's not up for him to decide so he says the words anyway and they ring through with the fear that he'll miss or the fear that he'll take another life or nothing more profound than Fear stood in the face of this thing rising up out of the darkness in front of them.
[prime 2 - boltvulgar no witnesses, base diff 6. -1 diff spec focus, -1 appropriate resonance. spending WP because fuck it.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Entropy[Isaac takes 4 agg prime damage]
SerafíneThere is far too much for Sera to comprehend now, and she's moving too quickly to grasp more than the immediate. The garish flare of the ring of fire, the bodies hanging from the trees as warning or promise or sacrifice. The woods are dark and vast and there's a sky above the broken, blood-stained trees, the stinking mud; and she steals a glance up at the sky just once, oh - just once. And she's not thinking, now, she's refusing to think and anyway time's bending around her so that her heartbeat is shifted from the ordinary beat of the universe.
Still she can feel the fear resonant from Brogan at the center of the clearing but my god fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him, the beat in the back of her mind. Nearly like one of those mantras Jim has been teaching Leah: how to find your own somewhere in the quiet center of your self. How to pull it out and focus on it and her center is this fucking combination of fuck him / and something else that is brighter and sharper and more fierce than she can really name.
So she levels the pistol she has never in her memory leveled at another human being right at the creature throwing off his fucking robe and turning into something - what, fanged? and guess what, angels. There is not as much of a crisis of conscience when the person you are shooting has black eyes and he's turning into a - a -
whatever the fuck that is.
SerafíneInit: +6
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Fr. Echeverría[ah hell, +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[Justin Init +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (4) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[Annie Init +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (9) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[Brogan Init +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (1) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[Isaac is still shifting]
EntropyAnd the order is:
Annie 15
Serafine 12
Pan 11
Justin 10
Brogan 8
Entropy[Brogan declare: Countermagic to undo Jim's effect on Pan]
Entropy[Oh also Jim is doing things! He has just completed his scrying and is now able to cast stuff]
Entropy[Justin declare: KATANA THE THING, 2 SPLIT ACTIONS]
Fr. Echeverría[shoot the thing however many times jim's timey-wimey effect will let him.]
Serafíne[Shoot Isaac 2 times (time effect!)]
Entropy[Annie Declare: Shotgun Brogan 2 times]
Entropy[No, wait, she doesn't have a time effect. I am a moron. Shutgun once]
Entropy[Dex+Firearms]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[Damage 8 + 2 (holy fuck)]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[The bullet's damage is absorbed by the kinetic energy shield around Brogan]
SerafíneDex + Firearms on Isaac 1
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
SerafíneDamage
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Entropy[Isaac soaks!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
SerafíneDex + Firearms 2
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
SerafíneDamage!
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[One more time]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Fr. Echeverría[pew pew!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Fr. Echeverría[damage!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[Isaac is dead]
Fr. Echeverría[THANK YOU JIM]
Fr. Echeverría[-1 WP to switch targets to brogan. i believe he's at 3 now.
+1 diff for more shooting]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 8, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Fr. Echeverría[damage!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Fr. Echeverría[damage take 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5) ( fail )
Fr. Echeverría[shoot!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Fr. Echeverría[damage]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Entropy[Soak from Kevlar vest]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Fr. Echeverría[last shoot]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[OH NO WAIT THESE ARE PRIME BULLETS forget that]
Fr. Echeverría[HAH HAH SUCK IT KEVLAR]
Entropy[Brogan takes 3 agg]
Entropy[Justin spends a WP to switch to Brogan. Dex+Melee -2 for split, +1 diff for changed action]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Entropy[Damage Str+3+3 -2 from shield]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[Brogan soak]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[Brogan is at -4]
Entropy[Second split -3 +1 diff]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[Not enough, boo]
Entropy[Second action: Split -2 +1 diff spending WP]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Entropy[DAMMIT FORCES SHIELD]
Entropy[Second split -3 +1 diff]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[John switches his action to Seven League Striding the fuck away from here and -1 WP and +1 diff. He's also at +2 from the domino effect because he's crazy.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 5) ( fail )
Fr. Echeverría[HAW, HAW.]
Entropy[Jim will roll his init now - not that it's likely to matter +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (10) ( success x 1 )
EntropyAnd the order is:
Annie
Jim
Serafine
Pan
Justin
Brogan
Entropy[Brogan declare: No really this time Teleport?]
Entropy[Justin: Ok maybe full actions this time Katana x 2]
Fr. Echeverría[Prime Bolt on Mr. Brogan because that worked last time?]
Serafíne[Sera - Shoot Brogan x2]
Entropy[Jim countermagic on the Forces effect]
Entropy[Annie is also countering the forces effect]
Entropy[Arete]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (5, 6, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Entropy[Jim's turn]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Entropy[The kinetic barrier is no more]
SerafíneDex + Firearms
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
SerafíneDamanananange
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[soak]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
SerafíneDex + Firearms 2 Spending WP cos I want you not to teleport.
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
SerafíneDamanananange
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Entropy[soak]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Entropy[Brogan is at -6 (4 agg 3 lethal)]
Entropy[Pretend that says 3 agg]
Fr. Echeverría[prime bolt
same math as before. spending WP again. he'll be at 2 after this.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Entropy[Brogan is so dead, man]
Fr. Echeverría[PARADOX TIME]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Fr. Echeverría[soak it you fat bastard]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 7) ( success x 1 )
EntropyAs was often the case with these things, the fight was over in a matter of moments, but for the people involved, it probably seemed far longer than the minute or so it took them to lay waste to the two powerful Nephandi. After running ahead, Pan was able to fire off a blinding bolt of pure prime energy - and it struck the snarling monster in its side, boring through its twisted flesh to rend into its pattern. Moments later, Annie dove in with her shotgun, leaving the shifting beast for the others to slaughter, but her attempt to shoot the Adept in the chest was spoiled by the man's kinetic barrier.
It only took a handful of seconds for Pan and Serafine to finish the beast off with a shower of rapid-fire bullets. It stood up tall and roared, and the sound changed from that of a man-beast to something wholly alien and unknowable - like the hollow vacuum of space might sound if such a thing were possible. The voice resonated low and thick and then swallowed in on itself as the creature fell to the ground, torn to shreds and oozing black blood into the ruined earth - dead. Whatever it was in the process of becoming, they would thankfully never know.
Without a living target, Pan and Justin turned their attention to Brogan, still sitting at the center of his circle of flame. Pan fired a couple of his prime-charged bullets, but only one of them made it through the barrier and burst through the man's vest to land a proper hit. Moments later, Justin's katana (no - Kira's) sliced through the air at a deadly arc, but his attack was slowed by Brogan's effect and the wound it opened up on the man's back was much smaller than it should have been.
Back at the cabin, Jim's scrying ritual finally succeeded, and he immediately set to work attempting to undo the Adept's defenses from a distance. Annie added her own Will to the mix, and within moments the shield disintegrated.
That was the moment when Brogan opened his eyes and looked at them - when the threads of his Will began to coalesce into an attempted escape. He should have looked afraid, but he didn't. If anything, he looked... at peace. Almost smug. And he said, "You can't stop it, you know. You're already too late."
Then Serafine fired two bullets into him, and Pan followed this up with another bolt of holy light, and Brogan fell to the ground in a wasted heap, his skin charred and his vest torn completely open to reveal the bloodied mess they'd made of him.
For all that power, still human after all.
Fr. EcheverríaMaybe later the others will realize the priest intoned in Latin as they Worked for it sounds so similar to the Spanish that he speaks they could usher it out of their cognizance beneath the shelter beneath which all foreign tongues congregate and the cadence of it was steady and stoic enough to speak of a religion they none of them have any use for.
It is that intonation and the God to whom they do not pray that brings down fire from the sky before the pastor lifts up his weapon, after he lowers it again, and the fire chars first the shifting man and then the one who would rework the world with his own hands.
He may have already. They can't stop it. Father Echeverría kills him anyway.
And after he kills him the big man stands breathing heavy for the effort of speaking and casting at once and the weapon and the rosary hang from the same hand. He wipes his mouth with the back of his right hand. Four spent casings lie dead in the grass around his feet.
"We alright?" he asks, like someone might have got hurt when he wasn't paying attention.
Serafíne"What does he mean."
Did she jump through the ring of fucking fire? If so, Serafíne has no memory of doing it. The ground is damp and treacherous beneath her feet, sucking mud sloshing over her boots, gleaming dark and dull. The damp isn't from some recent rain but from the blood of the victims hung from the trees, draining to the ground. Nothing here seems real; none of it - it all feels like a hallucination, some piece of pageantry torn out of humanity's darkest memory. The bleak depths of one of Dante's circles of hell. Likely whichever circle to which the Church would ascribe a girl like her.
The gun is hot; is heavy in her hand, and now that the moment has passed she is shaking for real, cannot suppress the tremor that radiates down her arm. It feels dull and ugly and the gunpowder is acrid against the coppery tang of rotting blood. Sera forces herself - forces herself - to remember the fucking safety and thumbs it on, feels it click into place rediscovers that she's breathing.
That she hasn't yet thrown up.
"What did he mean - "
Oh, Sera is bright and wild-eyed and breathing heavily and the only thing that roots her in place is that moment where the fucking bastard falls over, skin sloughing off from the damage of the priests prayer (he will answer with fire indeed) like pork cracklings.
She just spins in a circle: Pan. Annie. Justin. These cursory glimpses that retur to the priest looking taut and afraid, marches up to him pulls his right hand from his mouth like she expects to see blood, inspecting the back of his hand as if he might be trying to conceal that from her and does not trust him not to lie but no.
No and no and no.
Spins in a moving circle around the now quiet clearing, hung about with corpses, staring through the dark march of the charred ponderosa pines like she might espy whatever's coming for them next.
Two beats. Three. Four.
--
And then, if all remains quiet here, no threads of dark Works, nothing threatening to break through the strange, glassine piece of the haunted, broken place - she spins in an arc with a choked off breath and starts to fucking run, flat out for the cabin.
Serafínelife/mind scan dif four (pain focus, not specialty, + WP)
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
SerafíneDex + athletics running so fast.
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
EntropyWith Brogan's death, the circle of fire around them dimmed, and then finally extinguished. Curls of acrid smoke rose into the air from the charred ground. Justin stepped forward and knocked over the candles with his boot, crushing out their baleful light beneath his heel. Then he raised the katana into the air and brought it down with full force onto Brogan's lifeless neck, severing his head from his body.
He did the same to the other one - the beast.
Just to be sure.
And then he plunged the sword into the bloodied ground beside it and left it there.
What did he mean? Serafine asked. And Annie turned to her with an alarmed expression. "Leah..."
"Run! Don't wait for me, just go!"
And run they did. Serafine first, followed closely by Justin. And whenever Pan chose to follow.
Back, back the way they came, to a picturesque cabin in the woods where they'd left behind a girl with an apocalyptic fate.
Fr. Echeverría[HOLY SHIT NOBODY DIED IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE]
Entropy
Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.
-Mahatma Gandhi
----------
It was only a few minutes later when the others returned to the cabin: Serafine and Pan and Justin rushing together through the front door, and Jim limping out of the forest behind them. The Cultist’s time distortions drained away once the effects were no longer necessary, but his paradox-inflicted wounds would take longer to heal. An irony perhaps, that he’d been the only one among them to return injured, but his sacrifice had been the thing that had turned the battle in their favor.
When Justin pushed through to the living room, he took in the state of those present – that they were each alive and (physically) unharmed. More than likely it was someone else who asked the questions (What happened? Are you alright?) He was too busy staring at Leah. At the tiny seedling in her palm. Gazing uncomprehendingly as he took in the sight and the feel of her.
Because the Leah they’d known was not the girl who sat before them now. Her fractured, uncontrolled destructive energy had transformed itself into something new. What had once been the embodiment of entropy and decay was now a thing of balance. Cyclical. Life, death and rebirth. The end of things, and the beginning.
Before he’d died, John had told them they were too late. That there was nothing they could do to stop what was to come. Had he been wrong? Had they altered the course of fate? Or had the end of this story been written long before it had even begun? Maybe it had never been a question of will versus destiny. Maybe each of them – Shelby, Jai, Brogan, Jim and Serafine, Pan and Annie, Shoshannah and the others – maybe they had each been right and wrong in equal measures, and the vast cycle which they’d all found themselves a part of was greater and more complex than they could imagine. Or maybe it was just a simple matter of a shattered girl who’d found the strength to begin to heal.
None of them would ever know the answer to that question. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps the question itself was moot. They would each believe what they wanted to believe.
----------
Afterwards – after Annie had finally joined them at the cabin and they’d all had time to process what had happened – she and Justin left to return to the macabre scene at the clearing where they’d confronted the Nephandi. Even in the wake of an event that could only be described as a miracle, there was still grief. Still trauma. Still the bodies of the dead to be cared for. Unknown men and women who’d had names and families and hopes and dreams of their own. Innocent people whose last moments on earth had been the stuff of nightmares. Perhaps it was some small measure of comfort to those yet living that they’d managed to save the lives of many, many more. But probably not - and that was alright. A person could feel grateful and guilty in the same breath. That was often the way of things, with violent conflict. And the lives of those people – the ones they didn’t know, the ones who’d died – they mattered.
Maybe others went with them, or maybe they went alone. Either way, when they got to the clearing, they found that someone else had arrived before them. Three others whose names and faces they didn’t know, but who carried the resonance of patterns and clarity and technological vision. One of them – a tall, dark-skinned woman – pointed her gun at them and said, “Thank you for what you’ve done. Now please… go, before I change my mind.”
Behind the perfectly put-together cool of her demeanor, they could hear the sound of something breaking. A weary, restrained grief. (So they were human after all.)
So the Verbena turned and went back the way they came, leaving the technocrats to do what they did so well. And if any others had joined them and thought to voice an opposition, they would not be given an alternative.
----------
The next day, they left the cabin.
Days passed. And Leah did not return to the person she had been. She was still human – still flawed (still a sixteen year old girl.) She still became angry or sad. And it was clear that in many ways she was still heavily scarred. One could not simply snap their fingers and wash themselves clean of their experiences. But what Brogan had predicted was true (if in a different manner than he’d meant it.) She had become her true self. Not a being of unchecked destruction, but a human girl. A girl with the same potential for great and beautiful (and terrible) things that all of the Awakened possessed.
A funeral was held at the chantry for the mages who had been lost. Jai Khan. Rebecca Howe. William Parker. Lisa Eddison. Apollo Lux (known to his family as Jack Pierce.) Shelby Harrison.
Jake was there. As were other family and friends of the cabal, both Consors and Awakened. Pan, Shoshannah and the others were invited. It was their choice if they wished to attend.
Leah, though, was not there. She watched from a distance and cried for the people whose lives had been ended at her hands. And she did not return until the guests had gone their separate ways.
Not long after the funeral, Pan would find an envelope waiting for him on his desk. Inside it was a key to the chantry house, along with the pass-code for the library and a letter written in Annie’s rough scrawl.
You’ll have to forgive me for not saying goodbye. I’ve never been any good at it. I’m taking Leah back to Texas with me. She said she can’t be here anymore, and I guess I understand that.
Look after the house while I’m gone. I better not find the place trashed when I visit.
You’ve got my number, if you need anything.
-Annie
And whoever visited the chantry would find this: a single folded piece of paper that said only,
Thank you for giving me the chance to live.
----------
Found yourself in a new direction
aeons far from the sun
can you come? would they come to greet you?
let you know you're not the only one
Can't keep hanging on
to all that's dead and gone
if you built yourself a myth
you'd know just what to give
unto your lives
oh, let the ashes fly
help me to name it
help me to name it
-Beach House, "Myth"
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