John is stirred into proper action by James' affirmation of Mary's presence, and moves out to investigate.
"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let us look for clues!" he says, tumbling down the hallway in search of a front desk of some kind. James tries to help John, but the man seems just too friendly with the ground to be properly separated without a lot of effort. They move along through the hallways, but find no evidence of a front desk - just a whole bunch of doctor offices of varying specialties, diagnostic rooms and treatment rooms, plus some supply closets and the like.
They do, however, find the main staircase! Signage near it seems to indicate that the front desk is, peculiarly, upstairs somewhere. But to get there, John will need to somehow navigate the stairs.
* * * * *
Halesey, adjusting his stratagem to perhaps unwisely include less potatoes, tries to reform his shield!
[Halesey's affinity roll: 6-->4]
Having a reprieve from the angel's assault, however momentary, seems to have been worth it, for he is now well-protected once again. And he appears to be in quite the dire need of the shield, for the angel, evidently realizing perfectly exactly what the relation between Halesey and these mooks shooting it happens to be, ignores the firing squad and begins charging right at him!
[Finesse: Cassowary Angel vs. Mafioso Firing Squad: 4+2 vs. 5]
[Cassowary Angel vs. Halesey: 3+1 vs. 1+2]
The angel leaps over the band of mafiosi wonderfully, its vortex head bobbing at a respectable distance from the others and its course slightly thrown off by the distant humongous potato vortex still pulling at it, and lands a swipe on Halesey's shield, sweeping away a good portion of it with a deft slice.
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 2]
A maneuver such as this leaves the mafiosi gawking - how can they contend with a foe of such superior acrobatic skill? Their surprise makes them entirely forget that they should probably shoot this great and ancient, though bleeding beast!
[Finesse: Halesey, Angel, Mafiosi: 2+1, 1-->4+2, 6-->3]
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 5]
[Cassowary Angel's body roll: 3+1]
But this lasts only a moment, as the mafiosi cease gawking and resume firing, hitting the angel several more times! The angel shows signs of slowing down visibly, though it still has some fight left in it - fight that Halesey intends to take away with his next spell!
[Halesey's affinity roll: 6-->6]
Suddenly, the rarified air of the moon splits, and light from the dankest strip clubs of the nastiest neighborhoods of New York City fills the area as an inordinate amount of mafiosi wielding all manner of high-powered assault weaponry spill out, forming two lines of thirty men each, the space between Halesey and the angel altering to make space for this regiment of hardened criminals. Immediately deciding that this wacky bird thing in front of them, the frontal line crouches down in sync, and both lines take aim at the creature before them. And then they begin to fire, filling this once-quiet heavenly retreat with a deafening din of gunfire. Massive amounts of lunar dust are kicked up as the bullets hit the ground both distant and nearby, and the angel begins to hiss incredibly loudly as well.
[Mafioso Regiment's finesse roll: 1-->4+
2]
And yet, as the dust clears, it becomes increasingly apparent that these people Halesey's summoned have managed to hit... zero times, it looks like. Even the angel looks positively befuddled by this turn of events, though it does not seem the type to look a gift horse in the mouth, and charges forth.
[Cassowary Angel's finesse roll: 6-->6+2-
1]
[Cassowary Angel vs. Halesey: 6+1-1 vs. 6+1]
And despite performing yet another gravity-defying (or at least that's what it seems like before Halesey recalls that it's only operating at .167 G's around here) leap over the entire regiment of mafiosi, the angel charges at Halesey, but the desk shield manages to hold its own very well against the creature's violent attack, its internal layer only getting a little chipped due to some canny dodging on Halesey's part.
* * * * *
THE DUNKER does not really feel like helping Joanie, given the way doing so has already given him more than his own share of gunshot wounds, and so he just opts for a little privacy while he takes stock of the situation.
[THE DUNKER's affinity roll: 1-->1+2]
So he summons a wall of paper right between himself and the two idiots presumably lounging somewhere in front of him - a wall that, unfortunately, sees fit to topple on him immediately. Perhaps his sense of balance needs a little work. Also, he thinks he's got a few papercuts on his face now, which feel rather nasty in their own right. He ponders this for a moment before realizing that he probably should evaluate how his gunshot wounds are doing and whether he needs to, say, actively try to not bleed to death.
After a quick inspection of his wounds and finding that they hurt rather terribly now that he's not under the effects of a pronounced adrenaline surge, he feels free to assume that he's probably dying, because that way he can only be pleasantly surprised by being wrong.
His thoughts are interrupted by three gunshots from nearby which abruptly cut off the choking noises of Bart. Then a few footsteps are heard, and then the sound of a watermelon both hitting a human body and discharging a significant amount of electricity.
"Ow! Fuck! Can you make these stop? We need to get out of here!" Joanie says to him from close by.
* * * * *
Feeling that his work here is done,
Dave figures they can go do this war thing now, and asks the underwear master if they can go siege now.
"Why, yes. Somebody else will have to clean this up. Let us move!" it says, whistling loudly to the air. Within two minutes, a whole bunch of underwear knights on strange, shifting fungal beasts surround it, together with two extra fungal mounts for both it and Dave to ride on. Despite not having ridden before, the mount seems most receptive to Dave, and carries him together with the other fellows over the new thylacine river and out into the wilds - they ride down the smut-stained brick road for quite a while, passing through a whole hogweed forest before coming out on the other side, where another fortress, not at all similar to the one Dave rode in from, much more organic and spirelike in structure, stands defiantly despite a whole host of very much armed underwear creatures surrounding it - atop its walls Dave can see some type of nonhumanoid creatures, black as midnight and bearing a peculiar resemblance to his mount.
"That is your target, wizard friend," the underwear master says.
"Succeed in getting us inside the walls of that fortress, and you will be gifted with lands, titles and wealth. Fail, and you will have proven conclusively that you are of no use, and that is most certainly not a good thing. Do we have an understanding?" it asks quite seriously.
* * * * *
Eta begins to mellow out a little as the knowledge rush begins to wear off.
"Yeah, I understand what you mean. I felt that too. Who knows? Maybe it was just luck on my part?" she says, gazing at the floating cheese for a bit before deciding that there is simply little else she can do for it and closing the door.
"So, anyway. Let's eat?""Sounds good. Let's eat something non-threatening, though," Lois says, looking like she's lost quite a bit of her enthusiasm for food, but evidently hungry nonetheless.
And so they eat! Eta, quite used to her own cooking after all these years, does not find the food overly objectionable - the salad in particular is a favorite recipe of hers. And Lois, for her part, seems to love it.
"Mm. This is way better than that canned ham or whatever," she says as she munches on the salad, taking a bite of the fish on occasion.
"To say nothing of the cheese."All in all, a charming breakfast after a rocky start to the day.
Author
Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 273452 times)