Sid[doo de doo]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )
Kalen Holliday[Oh. While I'm reminded. How long is this relative peace lasting? (Nightmares)]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
atrox ultioRULES (Full credit to Kai via Damon, whose rules I have shamelessly ripped off and modified for my own purposes):
1. There is no post order, but please only post once for each post I make unless I say otherwise.
2. Post quickly! Posts within 10 min and declare/roll in 2 minutes or less. Today these are hard-ish (like, "needs Cialis" level) deadlines; I will give a warning if we start getting too late and then we'll start skipping.
3. You are free to multi-task, so long as you can abide by the above strictures.
4. This scene has potential risk: spiritual (my soul is on fire!), psychological (oh god, their soul is on fire and that's horrifying to comprehend!), physical (my head is on fire!) and social (I don't care if you're on fire. ...what, why do you look angry?). If you decide you want to bow out based on that I am completely fine.
5. Please PM or IM me with anything you want to be off-limits; phobias, triggers, themes, etc. Also PM with any relevant Merits or Flaws (Nightmares, Phobias, etc.) or any active magical effects (wards, Life enhancement, et. al) your Mage has going on your person. If you need to roll those, or Nightmares or the like, do so now. If none of these apply, no need to PM me with "None"
7. Please keep track of your own health, Quint, WP, etc.
8. Setup post coming now!]
atrox ultioOur setting today: the Santa Fe Arts District. The time: just around dusk. The sun is setting in the sky, painting the canopy of the world in vibrant colors. Tonight, those vibrant colors seem strikingly red for some reason. Who knows why the colors end up exactly the way they are on any particular reason. Well, in truth scientist know, and they would be able to talk at length about how the reflections of this and that and the earth's atmosphere and the landscape and whatever. But they'd be missing an important factor: sometimes, something spiritual is in the air. And that can flavor even something as vast as the sky. Whether that's the case tonight or not remains to be seen.
We open our scene not on the main thoroughfare, but off on a side street somewhere. This is not far from the restaraunts and bistros and art galleries and the rest that dot the main strip of the area. The shadows are just a little bit longer here, but it's not desolate and full of murders or muggers or mugging murderers...at least, any more than the rest of the city. There are a couple shops, more out of the way mom and pop sorts of things than glossed-up affairs. This is where our heroes find themselves.
Kalen HollidayKalen is out in search of more things to put up inside the library he's building. Because nothing says 'I am so into this virtual library' than keeping a whole host of physical books and hanging original artwork and antique maps everywhere. At least Grace hasn't had an invention. Yet.
He looks up at the sky, he is always looking up at the sky, and there is that reddish tint to it. Unsettling. Unearthly?
He takes in a slow breath and then breathes in again, hoping to catch some sense of whether or not he should be concerned about that reddish glow. It could just be a very macabre sunset.
But...in his experience, it never ever is.
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1
LeonhardBrowsing the air, Leonhard considers the red and thinks of stars he hopes are long since faded from power. Rarely anything but the slightest of astrologers, he had been lax lately, and not in the way Gustav might have him believe. These streets had, however, drawn him back. Cupcakes aside, ranging through the area as the dark began to make its claim had seemed more likely to grant him some new sight or sense of whatever had been behind that last incident, indeed that last stirring of disgust if he were honest. Disgust at abuse, and at the cowardice he discerned behind it.
As ever, or at least as usual, he is moleskin jacket atop denim, gilded only by his pace. A look here, a look there, no sign of the stirrings that had befallen this area so recently. Still, it had been worth a look after visiting the galleries, checking on works, checking on exhibitions. He pats the magazine against his leg as he strolls, turning a corner, considering calling it an evening and heading back to Pasaran.
But.. Isn't that... Kalen, seemingly as a-hunting as he. He smiles, and waves the magazine, quickening his pace to shorten the gap between them.
[Per+Awareness]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
SidWhy is Sid here? If asked she would not be able to say. She's been trying to stay out of the city lately, there are just too many memories here, sweet things that have turned sour all thanks to one terrible conclusion of a conversation.
She started off somewhere else, downtown maybe. Campus perhaps. And then she started walking and when she started walking her mind tuned out the world around her, turned inward, and there it stuck. Turning over thoughts and possible pathways and on and on and on until
she blinks, is vaguely aware that this is not an area she's familiar with. That moment of awareness drains away when she realizes where she is. Close to Santa Fe, too close. Place of another memory that, like a popcorn kernal jammed into her gums next to the back-most molar, she just can't dislodge. Her legs are tired and her feet are probably blistered - Vaans weren't meant for long treks. And yet, here she is.
Putting one foot before the other. A memory of a dark day with someone she thought was her friend playing on endless loop.
SerafíneThere's a gallery off the main drag called Common Grounds. Well, it is not so much a gallery as a co-op shop/gallery/whateverish place where known unknowns and unknown knowns can show work and sell handmade scarves and rough-hewn tables and savagely painted canvases and twisted garden sculptures and spiritual sculptures. Local artists and fair trade shit, with direct arrangements with a few artists and artisans in Mexico and points south. A fair amount of religious work too, not the stultifyingly conservative bullshit of American praying hands, but the sort of religious shit that feels challenging, even revolutionary.
The proceeds get funneled together with the proceeds from a small thrift shop, attached (which is closed at this hour) to provide support services for immigrants, legal and illegal, the victims of human trafficking and the like. One of Pan's parishioners has a few pieces there and Sera and Pan are leaving the store and Sera has wrapped a batik day of the dead themed scarf - black and wind, loosely woven enough to be see-through - around her cropped leather jacket and half-see through dress and as they walk out of the store Sera's sliding her arm into the crook of Pan's arm, all intimate, and she's a bit quiet today but sometimes she is quiet, and for reasons that are opaque she is not wearing Insane Heels, but a pair of well-worn Doc Marten's at the bottom of her fishnetted legs and she breathes in as they exit, and looks up.
Between the long shadows of the buildings.
"Look at the sky."
Murmured.
SerafínePer + Awareness.
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 3 )
Fr. EcheverrÃaDoesn't take a repetition for the big priest to heed her. The easy way he lets her take his arm like he's a gentleman and the easy way he walks beside her doesn't speak of romantic entanglement. But there is affection between them. Love. He thinks of her as a daughter. Strangers can tell that just by looking at them.
So she murmurs to him and he hears her and he looks up at the sky. Doesn't think of science when he does. Doesn't think of God moving over the face of the water in the first days either. All of this started with a single note.
He breathes and doesn't speak yet.
[perc + aware]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Sid[what the hell it's a oneshot so i should at least try, percept+aware diff +2 for out-of-it]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
atrox ultioThe area is, as side streets tend to be sometimes, void of regular foot traffic and it is just these Awakened few who have found their way here. Some of the shops are open of course, though even some of them are closed for the night and the ones that aren't are winding down. It can't be coincidence that the vicinity is this deserted, can it? Of course it can't. These are mages, and in their world so few things are truly coincidential. The shadows cast by the buildings cover them all in a peculiar way as they begin to coalesce together, wreathing them in shade.
Footsteps pound on the concrete. Breaths come hard and fast. Those steps are heavy, coming from someone who is no slight individual. It's the sound of a large man, the kind that you look at and say "I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley" if you were to see him on the bus or in a coffee shop. And oh, look where those footsteps are sounding from.
A dark alley.
It may not be the footsteps that the Awakened hear, though it may when they pay attention. And it's hard not to pay attention when that Bitter Wind blows down the street, tingling against their sixth senses. It has a sharp taste to it, sending a chill of relentless, cold anger through their bodies and bones. And then they hear a man scream from that alleyway.
"OH GOD, SOMEONE PLEASE!"
SidSid is not paying attention and yet there is a part of her mind that is always open. Always receptive and perceptive. Slowly sensations filter in. The storm. The light. The inspiration. The visceral.
The Verbena blinks. Blinks again. Is that...Sera and Pan. And over there...Kalen and Leonhard. She frowns. It's not unusual for Awakened to find themselves drawn together. She doesn't understand it but Sid stopped trying to science her way to an understanding of things that aren't meant to be understood. Green things grow from her touch and Mages flock together seemingly at random. But it's never really random, is it?
Footsteps. Sid breathes in and she straightens, a sleeper waking from deep slumber. A swimmer making their way to the surface, no longer drowning. It takes time, time enough for her to see a man running, and that frown deepens. He is coming with a bitter wind, with some strange sensation on the air, she can sense it, almost taste it.
Then someone screams.
Humming, she looks for harmony with something.
[Watch Dat Weaving, yo, diff 4-1 (practiced)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kalen HollidayHe's starting to smile, perhaps a little guardedly under that ominous sky, to respond to Leonhard who refers to him as family in a way as though it were nothing. Or possibly everything. Both? Kalen isn't really in a place to do more than admit he doesn't really understand.
But then that scream. The sense of the other Magi. Sid. Serafine. Pan.
Thank God Pan is here this time. He adores Serafine and Grace and Alexander. But his world is half-swallowed by eternity and dreams and he doesn't want to be the scariest thing the others have going for them. One crippled Flambeau is hardly terrifying.
That he cannot conceive of himself as frightening says something about the world he sees.
He flashes Leonhard a quick, grim smile and starts for where that scream came from. Of course he does.
LeonhardGod's probably blinking, thinks the Jerbiton - and all too wrily for his own liking. The air of Bitter Cold is not pleasant, and it strikes him poorly. Perhaps it's a failure in the moment but he does not think so much of frostnipped Alpine memories so much as nights in flight from the Pogrom, the Enemy, the stinging cold of something akin to hate. He glances to Kalen, meeting the Flambeau's grim smile with pursed eyes.
Yet, the Somebody Please, the running man, it has set him to motion as well. "Hey!" He calls to the large man fleeing the alley, though his legs are carrying him close behind Kalen's. He is suppressing his accent, though it is hardly a chore after so many years in Colorado. He gestures with the magazine towards the alley as he calls for whatever response the large-set man might have. "What the fuck, man?"
What the fuck, man? So gentile, but efficient enough.
SerafíneSera wraps her arm all the more tightly through the crook of Pan's elbow. It is like they are woven together, like she has braided them close. She can feel his immediate reaction, the instinctual tension in his body and she gives a sharp, side-sweeping glance at his profile. All aslant. If he starts running, he'll have to drag her with him.
"Let's look and See who's there. I'll look for the people; you look for the Work?"
Somehow, she is humming a half-remembered song beneath her breath.
It is the fucking BeeGees, so we are all in trouble.
(Mind 1 / Life 1 scan.) Dif 4 -1 (focus)
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 4, 7) ( success x 2 )
Serafíneyou guys I'm'a get on a different computer. I will BRB.
Fr. EcheverrÃaPan is in fact here. With he and his congregation halfway through Lent he's looking drawn but not worn. This is a time of sacrifice for him and the other believers. He's wearing all black today. Has a jacket on over everything. No collar. He only wears collars during rites.
When he starts to step forward to put himself between Sera and the alleyway approach it to stop whatever is happening before it can get out of control the Cultist tightens her grip on his arm. He doesn't fight her but he does tighten his arm in turn and drag her with him.
A suggestion.
"Okay," he says. Reaches into his pocket to find his rosary and worries the beads as he prays for sight.
[prime 1: watch the weaving, -1 diff because practiced]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Leonhard[[Amendment of previous post:]
God's probably blinking, thinks the Jerbiton - and all too wrily for his own liking. The air of Bitter Cold is not pleasant, and it strikes him poorly. Perhaps it's a failure in the moment but he does not think so much of frostnipped Alpine memories so much as nights in flight from the Pogrom, the Enemy, the stinging cold of something akin to hate. He glances to Kalen, meeting the Flambeau's grim smile with pursed eyes.
Yet, the Somebody Please, the running man, it has set him to motion as well. "Behind you," he notes to Kalen, the younger magus having left the starting blocks just prior to him. Must be getting old. Great. But there is a spring in his step. Something of the Alps yet remains, it seems, however changed the company.
atrox ultioSera extends her perceptions out and, of course, she senses the five of the mages here and their physical states. But of course she's probably more interested in that alleyway. She feels one lifeform with a sentient mind, running down it with his (because it is a he, she can tell) muscles screaming and lungs burning from frantic exertion. And there is another form...not human. Something else...something cold and angry and single-fucking-minded...chasing after him.
atrox ultioKalen and Leonhard are approaching, Pan is bringing Serafine closer and Sid is in the general vicinity so she has full view as she--like the priest--watches for the strands of Quintessential energy that would indicate another Awakened doing Awakened things. With the two Hermetics moving the quickest (and without focusing to do magic), they are the ones that he nearly bumps into as he bursts from the alley, running like the hounds of hell are on his traul.
He is a big man; he's a very big man, actually. It's always hard to tell when someone is running as frantically and flailing as he is, but they might be able to estimate him at about six two, maybe six three. And he's built like a bruiser, the kind of guy that you would expect to bounce at a biker bar where things get rough on a regular basis. He's dressed that way too, in a leather jacket and jeans with a T-Shirt reading emblazoned with some local band or another across it. His hair hits just past his shoulders; in many ways he looks like your stereotypical biker.
But bikers don't run like this. He nearly careens into Kalen, nearly knocks him over. Seeing people seems like a sudden relief, although the panic and fear hasn't left him. "Oh god, you've got to help! I can't get away from it!"
He doesn't slow down as he says it; he rushes right by them and falls to the ground finally when he trips going off the sidewalk. There's a hard, cringe-worthy tumble into the street; he's gonna need to have some medical care. If he gets out of this.
And, of course, there is something else. They hear a pair of...are those hooves? And a low, angry growl as the thing begins to emerge from the shadows. They see the head of a--
Wait a minute, how did a deer get this far into the city? And since when do deer GROWL? But it's not a deer, and that's clear as it comes further out of the shadow. The grey fur of its head, punctuated with a pair of antlers, melts into an avian body with similar-colored wings. And a pair of powerful deer legs are what carry it forward.
And the eyes. The red eyes, glowing like coal embers. It hisses, looking at the five of them. But mostly at the biker.
SidNothing is Happening, nothing is Working. Except for those others. Sera and Pan and herself. The street becomes becomes lighter, verdant, liminal as each Looks and each Sees and what Sid sees...
Doesn't matter what her feelings might be regarding the others. She alters her direction. One step before the other, slow, steady, testing the waters. And another, and another. Until Pan is flanked by a Verbena and a Cultist. "Kalen," she calls but quietly, just wanting to get his attention. If she does, she looks at Leonhard, and tips her head toward their own small group. A silent gesture of Come here. If shit is about to hit a fan, it's best that they group up, yes? Instead of someone crippled shuffling off into the mouth of darkness all alone?
She reaches into her bag for a folded blade which, once out, she unfolds. Lightly digs the point of the tool into the forefinger of her right hand, stopping when a droplet of blood wells up. Rubbing it with her thumb, smearing the red across her fingers, she looks for other Patterns. If she needs to ruin someone or something's Luck today, she will need a target.
"No workings but ours," she says, because greetings are for suckers and for people who are not Awake to the dangers inherent in an ability to reshape the universe with a Will.
Before she can start looking for those Patterns, however, she sees them. Sees the big man running out and looking for assistance, help from a thing he can't get away from. Sid watches him with steady eyes whose distance only seems to add to the sense of agelessness in them. Then she looks at the alley and she digs past the layers of sadness, pain, guilt. She finds that coil of fear - fear for her companions, her friends, these people who aren't really family but who are as close to one as she'll likely ever be again - and she twists it.
"That can't be good."
[Charging up some Unlucky Bastard: Entropy 2, diff 5 -1 (such practice), dropping a WP, threshold for 1 (target) +1 (effect) +1 (scene) +3 (max unluckiness) = 6]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Sid[she is targeting the antlered thing!]
Kalen HollidayKalen's jaw tightens when he gets crashed into, but he manages, somehow, to stay on his feet.
His eyes trail the biker toward the street then into the street. Move back toward the alley at the sound of hoofbeats. His eyes widen, very slightly as he takes in the sight of the creature, but all he says, very softly, is, "Of course."
And then he takes a deep breath and starts to murmur softly in Enochian.
[Forces 2-Redirect incoming kinetic energy because that thing probably bites almost as hard as it claws....; D=4; WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
LeonhardThere are days when your average Jerbiton might, just might, wonder exactly how it is they are no longer a Major House in the Hermetic Order. Why, perhaps, they've seen decline since the Schism War, the Massasa War, the Ascension War... Why, when in all those years, things have grown evermore extreme, desperate, accentuated in the imbalanced humors of bile and spite and the trench warfare of hubris-ridden Enlightened conflicts, one after the other, upon the other...
Yes, there are days when such a Jerbiton might wonder, why is it that we no longer sit so high in the Order when the world in would serve so clearly needs a defter touch.
And there are days when a huge bastard-beast of a thing chases a biker into such a Jerbiton, who can only think to say, "Flank it, might slow it, I'll get him back."
He moves to scoop an arm, perhaps both arms, at least one of his own grabbing into the armpit of the fallen biker, muttering to him, "Quiet."
[Occult+Int: Any idea what this thing is? Please set Difficulty for Roll]]
LeonhardDice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Fr. EcheverrÃaAs they come upon the alleyway the Cultist and the Chorister stand beside each other. No intention for the latter to release the former. If he can serve as an anchor or a focus for the younger woman then Pan will do that for her.
That creature comes out of the alleyway after the biker and he draws a breath of surprise but he doesn't flee or cast out God's wrath through his own Will. Not just yet anyway. He doesn't know what it is or what it's doing here. Doesn't know if the biker may deserve whatever is about to happen to him.
Presumption of innocence being what it is he'd like to believe that he doesn't.
He lights a cigarette and contemplates the situation through the smoke.
[entropy 2: lighting the path. aka Hey God How's It Going Buddy Should I Get Involved In the Next 30 Seconds or What? -1 diff practiced, -1 quint.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 5, 7) ( success x 2 )
SerafíneThe information Sera has for Pan is - well, hardly matters anymore; he can feel her breath quickening, a quiet moment of alertness as she breathes out sharply and tells him quietly - "Two. One human. One fucking mad, not human but still alive.
I have no idea what the fuck it is."
beneath her breath. She's a little bit drunk, Sera. That first blush, where the first glass of wine hits and heats your veins and there's a pulse to the night and a way the world is drawing itself together, woken out of the errant fibers of her muscled heart - and then indeed the biker comes careening out of the alleyway and here they are, arrayed on the street.
Sera breathes out sharply as that man comes careening out of the alleyway and sees what follows and feels what follows the timestream is always somehow, living, livid in the back of her throat. Pan's beside her but she hardly sees him; just holds on, and (tries to)
melt
the seconds around it. Like candlewax.
Time 3: antlered thing. Slow your ass down. Dif 8 (-1 focus). (-1 quint). + WP.
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
atrox ultioThe creature looks at the five of them as they gather, and each of them do things. Sid unleashes the power of Entropy, which settles on the creature like dust from Atropos' scissors that cut the lines of life. Kalen prepares to shield himself for going in close against the creature; ah, Flambeau. Always trying to play the protectors, they are. Pan asks for divine guidance; Serafine slows its reaction times, making it a bit sluggish. And Leonhard...he thinks back to an older time, when he read something that may help. They're piling up on it, and while it is moving a touch more deliberately it is still moving forward, glaring balefully at them.
And then it speaks, in a low bass, punctuated by its hiss. "Leave. I just want him."
The biker is now backing his way up on his hands and knees, like a crab-walk with a terrified look in his eyes. He has no idea what is going on, clearly. He just doesn't get it, what this thing is or why it's after him. But he looks like he's been running for a long time.
atrox ultio[[SID NO RELEASE EFFECT Ignore my cool Greek mythology reference]]
Leonhard"Bygone. Peryton. Punker here must have invited its... ungh... you could lay of the pies..." The harrowed expression on Leonhard's face comes into being not from fear but moral quandary. Moral confusion. Frustation, however tinged with something altogether enlivened for some reason. He can scarcely keep his eyes off the antlered thing before them all, but scrabbles to get the Biker back, retreat, buy time and life. Time and breath. Damn, he thinks, damned, he knows... In Latin, he continues, caring not the merest of figs for how pretentious it may seem at first glance, but somebody's unlikely to speak Latin and he's got a beard and a Peryton after him... and Leonhard almost watches as the biker makes his own way backwards now. Almost. Eyes on the lesser beast, the Peryton.
"Seeks vengeance," comes the hurried, harried Latin explanation. "Murderers, of the innocent. Never stops. Tenacity and vengeance given a most resolved flesh. But we mustn't kill it. It's a Bygone." And unspoken but present is his reluctance to allow a death, even of a biker murderer. Even on the say-so of one of the True World's remaining bastions.
Yes, there are Jerbiton who might sit with Merinita, with Criamon, and bemoan their lot. And then there are glimmers, however morally confounding, that point to the world of Wonder that they would reclaim. Perytons. Damn.
"Are you so sure," the Jerbiton asks of the Bygone, returning to English, the force of Truest Nature. "Is there no chance that he might... be innocent?"
SidThere is a part of Sid that, when she hears this thing is a creature of vengeance, wants to let it do its thing. Is she not also a creature of vengeance? Did she not return to her home to exact a five-year-old revenge on the people that hurt her? Reminded them of her existence, let them know that she is in fact alive, brought her enemies' attention back to her?
Murderers. Murderers deserve what's coming to them, but.
Sid is also a murderer. Well, not really, but she's let people die. She has nearly killed and for a time thought she would kill again. She's not that person anymore, she's changed.
Her eyes are on the biker man as Leonhard speaks, the corner of her mouth twitching like she might smile at the use of Latin, which she understands. If she was going to smile, though, it doesn't resolve into one after all. Her expression is grim.
To this...bygone...she says, "Even if he's not innocent. Are you sure he can't....for lack of a better word," a quick glance up at Pan, "repent? Do you think he can't...I don't know. People learn. People change."
Sid[oh yeah, still charging, because just in case. +1 diff]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
SerafíneSera seems somehow so far away and so very present, her arm still tucked around Pan's, though somehow that's loosening without her really being quiet aware of it. She's swallowing notes against the back of her throat and her skin is porous and she sometimes measures moments as heartbeats; the constant pulse of the universe against the back of her mind, the song you cannot forget and never entirely remember and that's what she is shifting around the Bygone. Changing around him. Pulling into and then peeling out of focus.
She can feel it in her breastbone; she can feel it between the chambers of her heart. The hidden stars and the visible horizon, tick and tock, just softening around him.
They're talking. She doesn't understand Latin; she doesn't know what this thing is but it just wants him, that man who has fallen in the street.
Does she remember turning her head to look at his body sprawled on the asphalt, or the reflection of the changed and failing red sun sprawled against the horizon in some oil-streaked puddle in the gutters,
or is that another tangible moment or two or three away?
"You need to go."
(Extending the time effect. +1 dif. WP again.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 7, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Fr. EcheverrÃaPan is a murderer.
One could argue that he's done his time and served his debt to society and is now free to move through it without judgment but Pan also has the distinction of being a recovering addict. You get your veins introduced to needles and know what it is to get yourself loaded into a cop car with your buddy's blood caked into the creases of your knuckles while your baby boy screams from his crib at the back of the house and people tend to stop thinking of you as worthy of much of anything though.
Could say it's in the past, this murderousness, but Serafíne has seen him put a bullet into a living thing. That living thing had gone through the Caul. His Bible preaches the extermination of evil.
At the question of penitence Pan catches Sid's eye. Yes that's the word. He takes another drag off the cigarette to keep the ember going just in case he needs it and starts to step his way towards Leonhard and the biker.
Sera says he needs to go. Pan isn't sure if he agrees yet.
If the creature does not charge them then the priest takes the long-haired man by the arm. They're the same height. The same build. The priest stronger than he looks. And unless the biker offers up resistance the priest intends to put the biker's back to the wall so he's hemmed in while the priest crouches and asks a couple of questions.
Kalen HollidayLeonhard asks about innocence. Sid asks about repentance. Kalen wants no part in a discussion about any of that at this particular juncture.
He takes a breath and looks back to Pan. Sure, there are whole sets of hierarchies for who he was trained to answer to, and those mostly end with Leonhard. It doesn't matter. He looks back to Pan and watches Pan move for the biker.
He turns his eyes back toward the creature, studying it now less because he wants to know how it might die and more for wonder. Because...seriously...wonder.
[For the LOLs-Int/Occult]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
atrox ultioThe creature may be relentless, but patience is not a virture and it steps forward with a low growl rumbling once more. It isn't launching itself into assault yet, but it's getting close. It looks between the five of them, around its prey in a general manner, you get a sense behing those angry red eyes that it's appraising them. How to approach the battle.
"We are never wrong," it says to Leonhard, as if the very thought of them being so is an impossible one to conjure up. The antlered head, those points so razor sharp, swings in Sid's direction. "And blood must be paid by blood. Repent? There's a hiss that sounds distinctly like the emotion behind what might cause a human to snort. "The soul burns for vengeance. There is a debt, and one way to pay it."
Relentless, bitter air. Now it's starting to come together.
As for the poor biker, his eyes widen when Pan hauls him up. Surely the priest isn't going to deliver him to the thing. He starts to struggle but then when he sees Pan's moving him to the wall and not to the fucking murderous talking deer-bird-thing, he doesn't quite resist. Yet.
"What the fuck, man?" That's all he gets out immediately. This is too fucking weird and terrifying for him.
Kalen HollidayKalen's attention stays on the creature now, taking in the way it advances, the way it studies them.
And so, being what he is, he takes a step between them. He doesn't care to hold off a creature that is rightfully vengeful. He does take issue with it eating his friends in the process.
"Their worlds are, in at least some senses that matter in this moment, not so absolute. Patience. They are dedicated to justice, if not vengeance. In the end, I do not believe they will stop you." His voice is soft, but clear enough. And, despite the phrasing, that is much more request than command.
Yeah...mark Kalen down for siding with the Bygone in this situation.
Fr. EcheverrÃa"My name is Father Francisco Echeverría. I'm a priest. All these people, they're the only chance you got of getting outta here if you ain't done nothing you gotta atone for. If you lie to me, I'm gonna know, and I'm gonna walk away."
Pan points the streaming cigarette towards the creature that will have at him if he walks away and pins his attention on the biker.
"Other than you're being chased by that, tell what you're running from."
LeonhardProtect the Sleepers, they know not wha... No, not enough. Not for those that murder and deny the first stage of truth and wonder: breath. Not enough, those bendy Protocols. Not enough. So, it is to the Code that his instinct reverts more naturally. He had been avoiding this. The Protocols were always so much more of a referee than a judge, but he has his Oath, there went his Word... and still he comes up a blank, trumped by the scenario. Trumped. Kalen moves, says what he says, it fits, it works, it would even get a nod from the Jerbiton but for his own internal frustrations. (I won't see a Bygone again for another twelve years, and this biker puke-in-purse is the cause?!)
There is absolutely nothing, nothing, in the Code (there never really is, not often enough!) to cover this and to pish with the Peripheral Corrigenda even being considered... Consider breath, Leonhard. Consider life, Leonh... Life and death and murder andhere'sanidea, the thought runs before he can stop it. The thought runs all the way to his tongue. His eyes flit from Kalen, to Sid, to Sera, unable to see Pan now, back to the Peryton with his arms outstretched. Not in welcome, not in grandiose prideful gesture, but in inclusive address to the mighty Peryton...
"You are never wrong," he repeats, acquiescing only to fact, to truth. "You are never wrong and your quarry is never innocent, but in your tenacity, in your resolve, your success in meting what is... ah, deserved... you must have been confounded in the past. So long a time, so many murderers like this pig. Have you never been confounded? I expect so, though I do not find it comforting; I merely state the inevitable frustrations you have met in your time, and ask: is there no compromise? Can half a life be taken by two? A third by three? More by more, a burden made an offer to your purpose?"
He turns to the biker. Venom now. Pan speaks to him; Leonhard speaks of him. "Especially since you can be sure of a reckoning for him beyond your own purposes."
SidSoon as Pan moves off to move the biker, Sid goes not to follow, but to stand between the creature and him. Guarding the priest at least so long as he chooses to interrogate the man. She will move aside if or when he decides to, but only then. Unlike that night at the Chantry with Thakinyan staring down, she can protect him with more than just her paltry human body, with flesh and blood and bone.
"That's not true," she says quietly. "There are lots of ways to pay a debt. Lots of roads to choose from." She's stalling, really. Buying Pan time to talk to the biker.
Sid[damn it woman, stop forgetting this. last roll i hope!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
SerafíneSera asks about nothing; neither innocence nor repentence and her heart is beating; hammering in her chest and Pan unwinds himself from her, stalks over to the biker, lighted cigarette in hand and starts to haul him against the brick and she gives him a look, half-following, her leather jacket a bit askew, the straps of her cocktail dress dark against her tanned skin and now she's in motion; less frozen, now she remembers how to move-in-place and move-in-time even though there's only so much she can take in the
birddeerthing
announces that
we are never wrong
and reminds her of something; of someone; of a myth she remembers. Of threads and scissors and fates and Fates; the thread of moonlight through leaded windows.
Sera wants Pan to get him out of here a bit urgently, but everything is spongy and she doesn't remember whether she's told him that or no, but they're at the mouth of the alley and the girl in the cocktail dress is trailing the man-in-black and the moment feels frozen and fracture and she probably doesn't speak because she still has most of her attention on the moment, the pulse of the moment, the places where the pulses meet and where her senses begin to blur. There's a plea in there, in her body and in her body and in the wordless and rather - well, fucking wordless and helpless appeal in her eyes as she looks at the others, and then she rounds a bit on the Bygone, impatient, bitter, cold and angry. Everything, everything that she is not.
"That's such fucking bullshit!" Just an outburst. Perhaps enough to bring its attention to her. "Such deterministic fucking bullshit. What the fuck - "
[Extending time-slowing effect on the Bygone. +WP]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (5, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
atrox ultioThey're starting to take sides now, or at least two of them have. Kalen is taking his side with the peryton, for his reasons. Sera has sided against it. And they're all positioned between themselves and this creature, magic thrumming through their persons as they stand off so that Pan can get to the bottom of things, after a matter. Sid and Leonhard, they speak to it and try to find compromise, or buy it time. We'll get to that.
The biker--let's call him John, because John is his name. His last name is Fletcher, but that's not important right now. Anyway, John is being confronted by the impossible, but he's not completely without his senses. He hears the right words, and he understands that this thing is trying to kill him because of a murder he committed, years ago. And Pan is asking about it. He watches the priest for a long moment, uncertain about--well, about all of this. But the thing, it knows. And now the priest wants to know so he can...help? Pass judgment? Who knows; either way, it's his only chance.
"T...ten years ago." He's looking at Pan, not the others. Certainly not that thing. "It was...I was high. Completely methed out, and I was trying to score because I was strung out. It was right down here, actually." He's just realizing that now. It hadn't even occurred to him before, what with the fear and panic of something that should not be running him down.
"I knew a guy, he dealt down here. I was gonna rip him off and it was all going okay. I got the stuff and started to run and he came after me. I had a gun...I went to shoot him and missed..." He can't look at Pan now, his eyes dropping to the ground.
"There was a kid. I didn't notice him in the alley before. Didn't see him until he was already gone. And then I was running away. I got my life back together at that point. Knew how wrong I'd done. Tried to find someone to do right by the kid and I work with charities now and shit, but..."
Yeah. He knows what he's done.
Leonhard tries to reason with the creature and Sid argues that there are other ways to pay a debt, but this is a Bygone. Humans, they have choices that a creature like this doesn't. It has a singular purpose, and as it steps closer--yes, it gets closer, hissing threateningly--they can see the shadow of the creature. The form of a young child, entirely unlike the shadow it should case by its form. "There is no confoundment. The spirit seeks vengeance. I must and will deliver it. Step aside now."
LeonhardA sideways look finds its way to Sid. It is not a glance, this, though it doesn't remain for long. A look of regret; the Bygone will not be dissuaded. It is a regret that claws behind those brown eyes so briefly looking to Sid, perhaps even into her own, perhaps not, but they pointed that way for a moment. Yet, even though Leonhard's head then turns back to the Peryton, even though there is that movement, that is the only movement he makes. His arms are still outstretched, passive, saddenned. Far more confounded in purpose than the Peryton ever could be, and far more confronted by morals, he might think later if he has the chance, than the biker. Damn.
The Jerbiton's gaze seeks the eyes of the Peryton, whether they meet his or not. The shadow that falls from the Bygone lends his eyes to profound regret. Sorrow. No tears; he is too frustrated behind those eyes, and too set upon what pain might follow. It is a regretted stand, but a stand nonetheless. Kalen was not wrong, his eyes might say to the Peryton. He was not wrong in what he said. This will not stop you but I cannot allow you, sweet Bygone, sweet hidden proof, however much I might wish it so... I will not move but I will not strike.
SidSid bends and twists and braids the threads of Fate around the creature, preparing just in case it does decide to change its target to them. To her friends. And she tries to stall a creature that she doesn't know until...she doesn't know what. Until the biker is deemed deserving of this fate? Until it attacks one or all of them?
Sid doesn't know. She just bends and twists and talks until she can feel it, that effect. That ball of twisted Fate ready to drop down over the creature. Make it harder to hit them or harder to chase them or harder to she doesn't know. She just makes things harder for other people. Will make it harder for this creature if she has to. If it won't be swayed off its path, maybe the spirit that's sent it can be.
It steps forward and Sid doesn't move. "And what will that do?" she asks. She is not talking to the creature now, but to its shadow. Or to it. Is it the same thing? Hell if she knows. "Do you think it'll make you feel better? I can tell you that it won't." Leonhard looks her way but she doesn't look back at him. Her eyes, so dark and brown and filled with forever, fill also with tears. "I can tell you that there's no winning in revenge, there's only ever losing."
SerafíneSo there is a kind of ellision, a lacuna, a space between. Sera is facing the Peryton, has Pan and the biker in her periphery and is aware of them all. She is breathing; shallowly. Hears the man's confession and sees the shadow change and feels something bright and painful beneath her skin. Leonhard, arms open -
- and Sera is rather breathless now. Hears the man's confession and remembers another story and remembers a story without a name or a beginning or an ending. Just a bridge, and then another wordless chorus. Somehow her arms have crossed in front of her, tight beneath her breasts. This happens midstory but she does not remember drawing herself up, tightly wound, nor does she remember loosening them.
Somehow Sera is in motion, though. Walking toward the peryton, perhaps past Leonhard? She stands right the fuck in front of it.
Oh god this is going to hurt.
- then sinks to her haunches, heels coming up, balanced on the balls of her toes in her combat boots. Reaches out and cups her hand in the shadow-of-a-child cast by the bygone-of-vengeance.
Close to the hooves.
Sera knows nothing about Spirit or spirits. The only myths she remembers are the ones that twist the gut, that stick in the back of the throat, that make one's heart beat, with regret, love, loss.
"Listen to him, listen to her," she murmurs, her hand in the beast's shadow, aware of its heaving flanks, aware of the shadow cast against the ground, aware that she has no means of reaching across to the other side, except her voice, and entirely aware that that cannot really be enough. "Hear them." A glance, up the elegant, shiver-cold beast's frame, piecemeal.
"We will find some other way to make this right."
"Please. Let go."
[Mind 2: empathic projection on the peryton. Peace. Difficulty: 5 -1 practiced. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Fr. EcheverrÃa[mind/prime 2: hope's birth. IDK if absolution is an emotion. -1 diff practiced, -1 spec. focus. spending WP.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 7, 7) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Fr. EcheverrÃaIf the biker is Catholic or Protestant or Buddhist or an atheist or doesn't give two shits about religion or his soul or any of this it doesn't matter. He starts to speak. Starts to confess. This is the only chance he's going to get. The priest has already told him that. It's not a proper confession and they're skipping over penance and an act of contrition. In an alleyway where a former meth addict killed a child with a missed shot it's closer to last rites than anything else.
Francisco Echeverría has no room to judge anyone for anything they've done ten twenty thirty years ago. He doesn't judge. That's not his job. He casts aside the cigarette and removes his rosary from the pocket of his jacket and begins to whisper. The whispering goes on:
"Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis (sespensionis) et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges."
As the others begin to pass their own judgments and take their own stances before the Bygone the priest makes the sign of the cross before the sinner. All of them are sinners. It's the biker he's hoping to allow to forgive himself before he either dies or flees the alleyway for the last time.
"Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."
Whatever happens next is up to the Bygone but the priest doesn't walk away.
Kalen HollidayKalen hears what John says. And he believes in redemption. Given the choice, he'd leave him to live and repent. He is not unforgiving. He does not believe in a universe without forgiveness.
Or justice. Which is not the same as vengeance. But there are only so many left to stand for the innocent left. If this creature's will and his do not align here (ad make no mistake, they do not), he is more willing to let a man die here and let the peryton move on to its next (and hopefully more just) quest.
There are acceptable sacrifices. Sacrifices. They were never meat to be easy. Never meant to be without cost. John is an acceptable sacrifice. Pan and Sera and Sid and Leonhard are not.
The choice is not without weight, but it is easy.
He walks up to where Sera is, kneels beside her, and wraps his arms around her. As long as she doesn't set herself at the peryton, he thinks the beast will simply fling itself past them. Pan will leave it be. Sid and Leonhard...seem to be not about to actively intervene.
Sacrifice.
atrox ultio[[Peryton's WP resistance roll. Will need 3 successes to continue on its path]]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
atrox ultioA peryton, it is said, does not stop for anything until vengeance (not justice) is served. It is not a creature of justice; this is not about balancing the scales for it. This is about the spirit inside, the soul of a young child that was ripped from life far too soon just because he had the misfortune to be wandering in the alley while his mother was off doing...well, let's just call it something something else. That spirit was so young and it didn't understand what was happening to it. It was alive and then suddenly it was just a memory of pain, a scared and hurt and angry feeling that has haunted this alleyway for a decade now.
Until the creature heard its cry. Heard it from so far away, as the man who turned him from a living, breathing boy named Alan whose favorite thing in the world was the feel of sun on his face into a feeling, a spirit, a memory. And even that was not the case; no one remembered him. Not even his mother could remember him, long gone herself from an overdose (suicide, really, even if it wasn't purposefully so). But John Fletcher, he did. He remembered Alan, whose name he didn't know, every day of his life. It haunted him, no matter what he did that was good. And when he cut through this alley tonight, those memories gave Alan's spirit a voice, and it called. And the peryton heard.
There is nothing that can stop a peryton. Reality says that. But these five, they do not hold to the rules of reality. They bend and twist and mold them like clay, even when there are consequences (and there are, and they'll be felt). And so Serafine beseeches not the creature, who has no choice, but the mind of the spirit inside. And somehow, she reaches through to it, past the perytron's red glaring gaze. And she tells it one simple thing:
Peace.
For a memory of a boy that knew nothing of pain, peace is an unknown concept. But it bleeds in, and hope prevails just as Pan is terrifying poor John with what seems like Last Rites (but in truth give him hope and forgiveness). That bleeding peace, like the blood in the sky, seeps through and allows Sid's words to be heard. Lets the look in Leonhard's eyes be noticed and felt. Sees Kalen protecting Sera, in an act of selflessness.
And the red glare in those eyes grows, seems like it might explode with the heat of a volcano...and then vanishes. The shadow returns to that of a--
Well, as natural as a two-legged giant bird with a deer's head's shadow might look. The creature's eyes, now a soft brown, look surprised as it looks over the five of them. This has never happened to it before. And it may never happen again.
But it happened here and now.
atrox ultio[[Edit: "For a memory of a boy that knew nothing BUT pain"]]
Kalen HollidayKalen does not see the creature's eyes change. Not with his head dropped down beside Sera's. He does not close his eyes, but his world is more a world of breaths than of sights. Sounds.
He breathes in and there is no leap. No rustling of feathers as the creature springs.
He breathes out and there is stillness.
He breathes in again and there are no hooves skimming past him. There is only the scent of the creature and Sera and the concrete that holds echoes of the past and a child's blood.
He breathes out. Stillness.
He looks up and the creature is there. Still.
He smiles and lets his head drop again to whisper into Sera's ear, then releases her and rises slowly.
Kalen Holliday"Has anyone ever told you that you are fucking incredible?" Those are the words. The tone might say something else. Something more intimate. But those are the words.
SerafíneSera is shaking; up close, Kalen can feel that. When he wraps his arms around her she thinks he's going to try to drag her away and there's a resistance beneath the frame of those tremors that is small but determined. She can hear Pan praying and feel the brilliance of his resonance and her throat is a bit raw and - up close - Kalen can hear her singing a bit. This melody that is more spoken than sung and is so sotto voce that he can hear it only because he is right beside her and the truth is she isn't precisely looking up and everything is charged and Sera,
sings. Quietly. Keeps singing as the moment shifts and changes. Watches the shadow change where it cuts across her forearm. That's when she turns, closes her eyes, and dips her head to rest her brow on Kalen's shoulder. Listens as he murmurs to her, opens her eyes close enough that she just sees him piecemeal. The thread of his pulse in his throat, before he pulls away.
She hasn't gotten up yet. Looks a bit dazed, really.
And reality is probably about to sucker punch her.
LeonhardOther than the arms which lower at his side as if wilting, bereft of purpose, Leonhard cannot move. The event has an impact upon him, and one which defies even Will, he realises. The flare of the peryton's eyes and the way they turn to brown are uppermost in his view. Regardless of his sense of Resonances, of the sound of breathing, the other sounds of the broader city farther afield, it was the eyes... the eyes... Somewhere in himself, brutal as it may seem, he almost mourns the loss of that red, that density of purpose. Perhaps the peryton will not long stay so neutered, and he hopes it will not, however much it must mean another murder. A quandary, but one with a purpose. A paradox of life, given the flesh of a Bygone.
He thinks of those killed for their Vis, boiled and battered down into Tass. Centuries past, this was common he muses. Centuries past, there were buffaloes like a carpet of hide... So few remain, and their eyes turn brown when denied. And he cannot move, watching the peryton that remains and wondering how much of it is sufficient to the peryton that may yet be. That may yet survive.
And of the four Mages? Pride, and... he with the Resonance of Inspiration himself... Inspiring pride to be more accurate. Gentle. Resolute. Prepared. Traditions.
"You might want to fuck off now," he growls without turning to the biker that had wrought so much. Protect the Sleepers they know not what they do, until they do, and look what that has subsequently also wrought. This was no victory of peace, he thinks. Not in the long run. Not enough, anyway. A lauded moment in his heart, yes, but one of disdain for certain possible consequences. He turns to the biker. He does not move. He looks only to the biker. The biker.
Serafíne(This is Sera's Mind extension. Difficulty +1 for extension; -1 for focus.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 4, 7) ( success x 2 )
SerafíneAnd Sera's divination. Time 2. Dif: 5 -2 for merit.
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
SidSid stands still when Sera walks past. She stands still when Kalen makes his way forward, lowers himself, wraps his arms around the Ecstatic. She stands still as Pan prays for John. She stands still and she stands guard, because she may not seem like it, but if the creature can't be reached well. She will continue to stand between it and its mark until she can't stand any longer.
They seem to have gotten through to it. The shadow changes, the eyes stop glowing, turn brown. Sid does not immediately release the effect she's worked around her, not yet. She is watching it, this thing. This creature of vengeance, committing what it looks like to memory. Because, she knows (thinks), someday it may come for her. Or for one of her friends. Or someone else another night.
The blood colors seep out of the sky as the sun continues to set in the west, and Sid lifts her chin. She relaxes, lifts her glasses an inch from her face and she scrubs away the moisture there. And she releases her Working, lets the threads of Fate fall back into whatever order they had been in before.
She looks at Sera and Kalen. Safe. She looks to Leonhard. Safe. She looks back at Pan. Safe. Then she's not looking at anyone, her chin lowered and her gaze to the ground a moment.
They are all busy with their own workings, their own thoughts, their own whatevers, maybe they won't notice when the tall, quiet redhead begins to make her way away. Not toward the shops, but to the east, toward the neighborhoods with their small squat houses and their overgrown and overrun lawns.
Kalen HollidayHe's starting to rise, to pull away from her, but she catches his hand in hers. There is one thing they haven't done. One last thing.
One last thing they gave to an Archmage that they could give to a boy.
He settles back beside Sera, wraps one arm around her and catches up a handful of grit from the concrete. Dirt. Ashes. Little bits of broken glass. Perhaps even the shards of dreams.
He is relatively sure those are what he feels biting into his skin.
He breathes out, sends that dust and those dreams shards off into the air. Watches them for a few seconds and then breathes back in and lets his eyes close.
[Time 2/D=3 (5-2); WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Fr. EcheverrÃaYou might want to fuck off now.
The priest shoots the Hermetic a look that very clearly says Shut the fuck up but doesn't open his mouth to rebuke him. Just puts a hand on the biker's elbow so he can guide him away from the Bygone and the spirit of the child his poor aim killed. A murderer about to lead a murderer away from vengeance.
"Come on," he says. "We gotta talk about your penance."
And maybe do a little bit of converting. He doesn't know if they'll have time. The younger man looks like he needs stitches.
LeonhardTo say the Hermetic is stirred by the look from Pan wouldn't be entirely wrong, though it is not a bristling or a response in any way insistent that, yes, the biker can indeed fuck off now. Catching the look from the corner of his eye at best, at best, he is really only looking at the biker. Looking at living proof that penitence costs those that support it. A coddled soul is not enough, he knows, and the peryton's smell draws him back to it. Not often you get a Bygone barely feet from you, after all.
Penance. The biker can be coddled in his penance; it is the peryton he considers. Purpose.
atrox ultioJohn flinches at the growled words from Leonhard. The man has been pushed now, toward the ends of reason by this strange and nearly deadly occurance, but he recognizes a look of judgment, and he understands. He turns his eyes to the ground, doesn't see the look that Pan shoots the Jerbitron. And then he's being pulled and guided away by the priest, and he goes.
Serafine and Kalen separate the veil that makes time a linear thing, search back into the past. They see Alan, a young boy of maybe six. A bright boy, warm and friendly, who had the distinct misfortune of being born to the wrong person in the wrong circumstances at the wrong time in the wrong location. Any of those things changing may have meant he lived, but such is the way of fate. He had bright, intelligent green eyes and a ready smile, and he was also naive even for a boy of his age. He was an inquisitive boy who liked exploring this dangerous world he lived in. It only stood to reason that eventually it would result in his early end. He didn't have a lot of friends and there was no one who would help his mother (who would stick their hand out for a heroin junkie?), so he came with her when she needed to score. That brought him to a nearby building and then he heard something in the alley and, innocently, went to look. And there it was. They will remember him like no one else will.
Sid moves to quietly slip away, and the peryton looks at her a moment before it notices Leonhard looking back at it. It shifts its head to the right, regarding the Hermetic. There is a look that might, if you considered it just right, be one of respect. Maybe it's not; maybe it's the light. And then, without a word (because what is there to say?) it shifts and folds in on itself, becoming a crow. The ferryman of the souls of the dead, flying up and away into the blood red sky.
And the mages are there alone, like none of it had ever happened. No blood, no violence, no dead body. Not anymore.
atrox ultio[[Paradox oh please die roller hate me Two Level 2 Sphere effects, +1 for each because Sleeper]]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
SerafíneSoak!
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
atrox ultio[[Oh one more]]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
atrox ultio[[Enjoy Reality Slamming Your Bits in the Door, Kalen!]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
Kalen Holliday[Soak]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 8) ( success x 1 )
Sid[Life 2: Sid Sid how does your garden grow? Life 2 vulgar unf yes. -1 diff appropriate resonance+Green Thumb. Extending once.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Sid[and again]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Sid[raise those diff +1 I am dumb and never remember the vulgar stuff. So...actually no change I guess. carry on!]
atrox ultio[[Paradoxicalagilisticexpialidocious!]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 6) ( success x 2 )
Sid[soak!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
atrox ultio[[And exeunt for the ST!]]
Leonhard[[Wonderfully engrossing scene, thanks all of you!]]
SerafíneKalen's kneeling. Sera is crouched, balanced on the balls of her feet, forward a bit, the dress with its criss-cross lacing creeping up her thighs; and there's Kalen rising and she reaches for him and grasps his hand and he can feel something in her; some urge to action, some sense of dislocation that feels - resonant, right? Some liminal memory in the air around her. They have done this before.
Sera is still singing, beneath her breath, beneath the skin of her breath. It is quiet. Kalen kneels beside her again and her hand laces with his and she tightens her grip and back, and back, and back they go and the moment is shimmering into itself, is melting into its constituent pieces, is replacing and repiecing itself.
There is a boy. There is always a boy and she does not hear his name in the past and she will never remember it,
but she will remember him.
By the time they surface, the peryton is gone. Sid has slipped away. Pan is witnessing to a murderer whose confession sounded to her ears so much like -
- Sera comes up for air. Her nose is bleeding. Her hands are shaking a bit.
She rocks back onto her heels though, tightening her grip on Kalen's hand enough to help her to stand.
Glances at Leonhard and the empty alley and the street left behind, and then at Kalen, and has no idea what to say. He's already walking away. Footsteps a soundless sort of echo, more a retreating resonance that paints the night in an oddly receding surreality.
If she closes her eyes tightly enough she can hear, perhaps, the rumble of Pan's voice as he witnesses to the ex-addict around the way. Feel his light like an X-ray right?
She tells Kalen, "Thank you." What else can she say?
Kalen Holliday"Anytime," Kalen says softly. He reaches out, not to touch her face but to catch her nose between two fingers and press. He seems unconcerned about the blood, or really the fact that she is bleeding. He knows all too well what a life-threatening amount of blood looks like. "Be still."
