John doesn't really like the overwhelming negativity from the night watchman. Quite uncalled for, to be honest.
"You don't have to be such a fucking prick about it! You... you prick! If you guys still have anything to throw at that asshole, that would be great," he says, moving Luz slightly further away from the nearby vortex with Trey's help, a process that Luz definitely does not enjoy from the sound of it.
"Yeah, I'm the prick here! You bastards haven't done a thing wrong!" the night watchman rants back, completely failing to notice a couple tasty yetis creeping up on him from the side, about to cross the boundary to his ruined classroom. John figures that now's as good a time as any to try and detonate some methheads!
[John's affinity roll: 4]
John feels sweat begin to pour down his forehead as he stares at the methhead closest to the watchman, and his ears begin to ring as the methhead begins to shake violently! The tension rises for but a few moments before the methhead, poor unlucky fellow, seems to realize that he is going to die in the next few moments. His expression is somewhat stoic, though with a tinge of pain and sadness. Before John can think about this for too long, however, said methhead violently explodes!
[Night Watchman's body roll: 6-->5]
The night watchman, however, seems to have foreseen something like this happening, given how the lead-up was not exactly subtle, and dives to the ground immediately, and only gets his back pelted with methhead blood and bits for his trouble. He lays there for a moment, probably hoping nothing else explodes, before getting right up again, looking shocked at the event that just happened.
"Holy shit, you just killed that guy!" he says, then looks at the methheads lying around him on the floor.
"Crap.""I think he's gonna make a run for it, guys!" Trey says excitedly.
[Trey's affinity roll: 1-->4-1]
He thrusts his hands out, but the only result seems to be an unstable wall of canned goods that appears behind him.
[Trey's body roll: 2-1]
"Goddammit, why does that never-" Trey begins to say as he turns around, accidentally touching the wall behind him, which promptly falls on him, eliciting a great deal of muffled screaming as he is buried in it. That's... probably not good.
Luz, meanwhile, tries something similar, raising her hands at the man up top despite being in quite a bit of pain.
[Luz's affinity roll: 5+1]
[Luz's finesse roll: 1-->4-1]
Suddenly, a wave of washing machines shoots out of her hands, flying out, but completely failing to hit the classroom the watchman is hiding in, instead hitting at least one of the yetis in the next room, the ceiling of the watchman's classroom and a couple of methheads, squashing them in a most painful-looking manner. The watchman looks around at the destruction surrounding him, then quickly unlocks his classroom door and bolts out of sight.
Uh... partial victory? Though some of the yetis do look pissed, John thinks. The ones that aren't furiously fighting the slimes, that is.
* * * * *
Larry, as he hurtles into the land of potatoes, tries to somehow stop his accelerated flight!
"Fuck your potatoes! Help me out of here!" he shouts to
Halesey even as he is practically on potato hell's doorstep. He tries to grab onto something and stop his encroaching doom.
[Larry's body roll: 6-->5-1]
Fortunately, there does seem to be a manhole on the way, which Larry grabs onto, the cover having been pulled off seconds earlier, and he pulls himself closer with inhumanly painful effort, partially opens it and slides into the manhole, glad that it seems to have a ladder at least. He begins to pant with exertion, but then catches a whiff of where he currently seems to be, and thinks better of it.
"Shit, I keep forgetting that happens. Must be why they didn't want to vortex this church up themselves, eh," Halesey says, and thinks of how to help his good buddy escape the physical neighborhood of the vortex.
[Halesey's body roll: 4+
1]
He guesses this would be something that's better considered from a slightly further distance, and, with the help of his loyal retainers, is carried to a much safer distance from the vortex. Problem is, he can't really go and get Larry without being basically right next to the gaping, potato-filled hole in reality, which would bode ill for him or at least his mafiosi. On the other hand, Larry does look quite safe right now. Maybe a wall of pigeons might help?
[Halesey's affinity roll: 1-->2]
Halesey concentrates, and suddenly a huge host of pigeons begins to fly out of the manhole Larry seems to be in, disturbing the man most immensely!
[Larry's body roll: 3-1]
So much so, in fact, that Larry begins to lose his grip on the manhole as the pigeons, in all the glory of their high-pressure flow, begin to push him out of there! Larry does the best he can under the circumstances and tries to distract the vortex!
[Larry's affinity roll: 4+1]
A large pile of hats appears slightly atop him, slightly counteracting the flow of pigeons before it is sucked into the vortex as well. But Larry is not fully out of the manhole yet, so he guesses... mission accomplished, sort of?
* * * * *
Having received a somewhat fragmentary explanation of things as well as a classic drug dealer's pitch,
Eta nevertheless continues being polite to these fellows.
"The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Pilton," she says, taking a look at the match. It looks pretty much like a normal match, though the tip's a little unusual in color - she guesses it might be some kind of party favor as well as a match - at any rate, it doesn't seem like she could inhale something overly horrible unless she sticks the match up her nose or whatever, and she'd presumably have more important problems in that scenario.
"Alright. I suppose the right thing to do would be to give you the benefit of the doubt and try this out. Although I really don't see how-" she says, striking the match and becoming rather surprised when she notices that the flame it produces appears to be completely black. And not only that, it seems to be sucking in heat rather than producing it, and darkening its surroundings visibly. Eta, not sure what to really make of this, merely stares into the flame.
[Eta's mind roll: 3+1]
And the match burns darker and darker with every moment, the two men soon disappearing from Eta's view. Her fingers grow insufferably cold within moments, and she inadvertently drops the match, as frostbite is certainly not something she was hoping to obtain today. But she isn't sure if it is now too late to reverse the change, or whether the match has even gone out at all, as the darkness does not abate. She can see nothing at all now, no matter which way she turns. In fact, turning only seems to make things worse, as she soon forgets where everything might have been. Or still is, rather. Confusion overtaking her, she steps in a direction, awkwardly poking with her umbrella to ascertain the dimensions and shapes of the things around her.
Oddly enough, the ground feels soft now, and squelches a little as she walks on it or pokes it. As do the walls. And there seems to be fairly irregularly-shaped furniture in the way, which further reinforces the thought that she might not, in fact, be where she was. A slight panic comes unbidden, and she begins to more insistently poke her surroundings until she finally comes upon something harder on one of the walls. This, unlike the rest of the room, feels like it's made of plastic. Intrigued, Eta pokes it some more, the tip of her umbrella eventually pushing on something that makes an ominous click.
Suddenly, everything is bathed in a pure white light, blinding the unsuspecting Eta like a toddler looking directly at the sun for the very first time, the pain of sudden illumination making her reflexively close her eyes. But before she does so, something trickles into her brain through her eyes - not a sight, but a thought, strangely enough. A hint and a link, a choice and a remark.
1. Lawyer Wave
2. Amazing Beaver Bolt
Coglaturnations! Choosify a spellification! Only a unitary individuality, yes?
As she opens her eyes, she finds herself back in the alley, both Kermit and
Dave looking to be as normal as previously, along with the rest of the alley looking unchanged. She does seem to have dropped the match, resulting in it going out. Dave does look worked up about something, though.
[Dave's affinity roll: 2-1]
Said excitement appears to be entirely fruitless, however, as things consistently fail to happen no matter how hard he mutters. Kermit is the first to notice the ending of Eta's first journey.
"Oh, hey! You're back. Any impressions?" he asks.
Author
Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 271045 times)