Dave regrets to inform the man of his severe phonelessness.
"I'm sorry, but the pants my phone was in exploded due to my underwear becoming very distracting and then causing severe structural damage to a building," he explains, much to the displeasure of the man.
"Well, what good are you then?" he asks irritably.
[Night Watchman's finesse roll: 1-->6-1]
[Dave's finesse roll: 4-1]
The watchman raises his hands menacingly at Dave, but Dave, most fortunately, happens to have had a plan for that event, snapping into action immediately.
[Dave's affinity roll: 4-1]
[Dave's finesse roll: 2-1]
With a nonchalant gesture, he flicks a suddenly-materialized and entirely confusing hogweed at the general direction of the man, rather disappointed when it flops soundlessly at the wall right next to the nasty fellow. The guy stares at the hogweed for a moment, then shrugs and resumes his menacing gestures.
[Night Watchman's affinity roll: 3+1]
Dave wonders what exactly the guy's trying to do when he suddenly becomes aware of a rather alarming clackety-clack behind him.
[Dave's body roll: 1-->5-1]
As he turns around to look, he notices that there appears to be a hole in reality forming behind him, filled with what look to be false teeth! He has only seconds to take in this information, for he immediately feels himself get pulled toward it in a most terrible fashion! And the closer he is pulled, the more powerful the pull! His legs were not meant to take this kind of strain, and so he is taken off his feet, sliding very quickly toward the now-sizable vortex of awful dentures.
* * * * *
Eta guesses it couldn't hurt too badly for Lois to go and talk to the hideous old people with strange childhoods and oddly breezy attitude toward implied murder.
"I... Yeah. I mean, if you really want to. I'd really like to know if there are any around here. Just be careful, OK? I'll be waiting for you right here.""Very well, be back momentarily," Lois says, nonchalantly walking back to the table, and asks the paleontologist a question, looming over the table in a slightly forceful manner.
"Are there any dinosaurs around?"The flow of conversation at the table seems to be interrupted as the five elderly individuals all regard Lois.
"A bit rude to interrupt a friendly conversation like that, isn't it, young lady?" the thin woman remarks.
"I wouldn't know, myself," Lois says.
"Is it?""It is, actually. And honestly, I'm not really feeling like answering your question as a result, miss," the paleontologist remarks, sipping his tea.
"Ah. I see. Do the people with you know, perhaps?" she replies, looking over the rest of the group.
"Of course there's dinosaurs around, silly girl!" the portly woman says.
"There was a whole rain of them just recently!""Oh. What are dinosaurs, anyway?""Think lizards, but more upright," the creepy fellow says, making the paleontologist guy smile a little.
"Do they do anything interesting?""No, not really," the fat man says, and Lois nods. She doesn't seem to have any more questions.
"If those were your most pressing questions, could you please leave us now, miss? I'm getting pretty tired of spending every waking moment being harassed with dinosaur talk, thank you very much," the paleontologist says with mounting irritation.
"Why do people harass you with dinosaur talk?""Probably because they're ignorant. I'm not even one of those dinosaur geeks. I'm actually a paleoanthropologist.""I don't know what that is. I am highly ignorant, though, so that might explain it," Lois says flatly.
"Well, at least you admit it. That's a step up from the regular people. All you really need to know is that dinosaurs are like dogs, bears or elephants. Don't piss them off and don't wander too close, and you'll be fine mostly."Lois seems about to ask another question, but then evidently thinks better of it and walks back to Eta, shockingly unharmed from this latest exposure to humans. The elders look at her as she leaves, but after that it doesn't take them long to return to conversing about whatever topics other than dinosaurs people talk about these days.
"There are dinosaurs, but they're like dogs, bears and elephants, and also like lizards that are more upright," she says to her summoner.
"I have no idea what most of those are, but you probably do, right?" she says, and Eta nods.
"Hold on a moment, I'm going to try something, alright?" she says.
"Of course," Lois replies, and Eta, in a fit of brilliance, gets two matches out of the matchbook and proceeds to strike both of them dramatically, holding them out while Lois looks on.
"I wonder if it's legal to... ooh..." she begins to say, but trails off as she stares at the lit matches. Eta is similarly transfixed, staring at the dark flame that, curiously enough, only one of the matches seems to produce - the other one looks completely ordinary. But before she can devote much thought to this, the blackness of the rightmost lit match fills her vision until she finds herself in darkness once more.
[Eta's mind roll: 3+1]
This time it feels like a different room - for one, it seems to smell vaguely of chlorine, and feels altogether more metallic, with jagged edges and rather precariously placed stuff all around her. Nevertheless, it seems to be not overly difficult to navigate, and Eta eventually finds a lever - believing that this is probably what she's looking for, she pulls it, and the air suddenly begins to smell far different, like something between crude oil and fresh flowers in spring, with an alien tinge to it that Eta cannot even describe - the smell fills her nostrils and makes her feel unsteady, causing her to press her back to the wall as the room, despite nothing being visible, proceeds to spin around her. And before she knows it, she passes out.
1. Render Canned Goods Undetectable
2. Evolve Beans
Magification continumates before our oculings! Much frienjoyment is possessified! Unitary spellbobs in spacetimebeing, yes?
As Eta regains her bearings, she notices Lois staring at the extinguished matches in puzzlement.
"Was that magic? It felt interesting," she says. Eta notices that the ancient waitress appears to be regarding them with a lot of suspicion right now.
* * * * *
John has doubts on whether treading on a roof like this is the best idea, but a leyline is a leyline, even though John's not entirely sure what that means, and so he continues onward.
"Right...so, do you guys think you're up for this, because this looks like some mighty dangerous ground here. Be careful not to take a wrong step, alright?""Luz, I think you'd best be crawling, eh?" Trey suggests.
"Yeah. It'd be stupid to fall off this damn roof after all we've gone through," Luz says, sitting down on the roof and proceeding carefully along with her companions. John's still pretty sure the leyline is up ahead, and also a little... upward? As he and his friends draw closer to the hole, a magical tingle intensifies along his body. The leyline, it seems, is above the hole. And the roof, broken as it is in that area, looks downright precarious.
"I wonder if we can reach it from here... hm..." Luz says, then closes her eyes, beginning to shiver violently and glow a little.
"What the fuck? Luz? What's happening?" Trey asks, but Luz only continues twisting in place, looking like she's having a seizure for a moment until she goes limp again, opening her eyes.
"Wow. So, yeah. That works," she says, looking rather tranquil.
"What happened?""I... sort of aligned myself, I guess?" she says, sitting up.
"Nothing seems to hurt anymore. That's interesting, I guess.""What?""Seems like the leyline healed me. Try it. Try to sense it, reach out to it. It's a bit difficult from this distance, but it's possible."Trey looks out toward the sky doubtfully for a moment.
"Huh. I do sort of get the idea that something's there, to be honest.""A whole lot of something's there, babe," Luz smiles.
"Just gotta reach out and touch it."* * * * *
While
Larry tackles the crucially important issue of fixing himself up with a beer, a problem the bartender, a slender Vietnamese man in his fifties with dyed red hair who seems to have absolutely mastered a rural Northern Irish accent, seeing how one can't really understand more than a few words of what he's saying (though he seems very good-natured, at any rate), is very eager to help him with, providing a pint of Goodness, which Larry finds to be an entirely palatable, if rather strong ale. It nearly distracts him from his leering at the girl
Halesey's chatting up. When the two walk over to the bar, Larry still leers, albeit a bit more discreetly than before.
"I'll have a peach Bellini and a... uh... Chinese Guinness? Make that two," he says, and the bartender nods and says something Irish in response. Moments later, a rather resplendent Bellini and two pints of Goodness are before Halesey, and Halesey sends one pint over to Larry in recognition of his continued achievements in societal advancement. The girl, for her part, seizes the Bellini and drinks it quite quickly, spilling a bit of it on herself carelessly in the process.
"Oh wow, did I need that or what," she says, looking at Halesey, who seems to be enjoying his ale.
"By the way, who's your friend-no, wait, uh... scratch that, who are you again?" she asks a moment after putting her glass down, taking a brief moment to either admire her own manicure or maybe to consider the fact that her hands are shaking.
"Heh, you ever feel like your heart might, like, stop at any moment? I'm getting that sort of feeling right now. Creeps me out. I really need another drink. Something stronger. How's the, uh, beer? Can I have some?"
Author
Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 271016 times)