Feeling that being appraised as food may be a troubling prospect for him,
THE DUNKER engages in willful aposematism.
"I am most certainly not delicious! That belongs to donuts and donuts alone. Anyhow, I think I need to test this new spell out anyhow. Don't move," says he, and orients his hands in profanely magical ways.
[THE DUNKER's affinity roll: 5+1]
[THE DUNKER's finesse roll: 1-->4-1]
At his bidding, a tornado suddenly manifests next to the vampire. Perhaps it is not best described as a tornado - a better analogy would be that it's more of a whirlpool of semi-liquid lard, except without a larger pool of lard in which it would qualify as a proper whirlpool at all. It appears very much like a moving plaster cast of a whirlpool, except much more disgusting-sounding. In addition, it seems to be growing larger at what does indeed appear to be an exponential rate.
Furthermore, it seems to like him. It seems to like him to an unhealthy degree, and is eager to join his body to its own, presumably to turn him into so much off-white goo for its own macabre envisioning of the coming apocalypse.
[THE DUNKER's body roll: 2-1]
[Halesey's body roll: 2]
Unfortunately, neither THE DUNKER, nor
Halesey, who seems to be taking a vested interest in observing this lard-based phenomenon, nor his dedicated cadre of immobile and unambitious mafiosi (well, not entirely unambitious and immobile - one has the idea to shoot the non-solid tornado with his gun with predictable results) manage to avoid the rising, spinning tide of lard and are swept into its turbulent mass. The tornado bends, twists and rampages through the interior of the factory, leading the two men trapped within it to begin to suspect they may be in trouble here.
* * * * *
John is seduced by the sheer potential of the concept of a pademelon-based spell repertoire. Look at him now - all he's got is a single yellow pademelon and he's already practically the king of the world. Imagine what he could do with, say, a legion of pademelons at his beck and call.
[John's mind roll: 3]
Indeed, the thought of such a thing renders him so giddy with excitement, he barely manages to even pay any attention to whatever abstract task he's supposed to be performing to the point where, when he finally looks around in his mindscape to see what's what, all he sees is a sky of nothingness, a gray plain stretching out all around him and a single table in front of him, where a note hastily written on white paper with large black spots (alternating between black and white ink depending on the background) awaits. Feeling a little awkward, he takes a look at the missive, hoping it's not some snippy reminder on how he should be paying more attention.
Sadly for him, though, it totally is.
1. Fell Pademelon-Aided Flight
Dear John,
While your internal musings on the inherent virtues and uses of small marsupials in the application of magic might be amusing to you, rest assured that there are people who spend quite a bit of time crafting elaborate, thematically consistent, engaging mindscapes for your enjoyment and challenge that certainly do not appreciate their work being ignored so flagrantly. With that in mind, see if I bother in the future! Have this single spell you have a perfectly viable alternative for anyway. Hope you enjoy it!
Sincerely,
Your Supernatural Sugar Parent
Awakening from his disappointing foray, John sees Pilton looking excitedly at him.
"So, with all that out of the way, what say you we go pick up Tracey, relieve poor Stan of his duties, then split up in search of fun stuff around town?"* * * * *
Larry elects to not give up fifteen years of memories in return for two spells, since, when he thinks about it, it may in fact rank as one of the shittiest deals he's ever been offered. He instead allows Tom private viewing of his innermost memories for about an hour. Tom, quite enthused, worms his way into Larry's mind much deeper than before, his plainly alien, slightly repulsive mind snaking through Larry's forbidden corridors of cognition.
All things considered, the process feels much longer than it probably is, even with Larry's eventually quite desperate-seeming attempts to zone out. The trouble is, somebody rooting around in your thoughts plainly and intrusively, without even the slightest attempt at subterfuge and with the clear feeling that this very somebody is in a terrible rush, almost as though it were some kind of fire sale on priceless works of art.
Come to think of it, that is an awfully flattering thing to consider one's own thoughts. Here is Larry, replete with thoughts that are the culmination of eight or so thousand years of civilization and two or more million years of human development, the ultimate filter through which humanity will be viewed by a being beyond his immediate comprehension. He now has a market value well in excess of the average 7-11 employee, clearly. If only the "appraisal" didn't feel so fundamentally icky and soul-tainting. This must be what models feel like.
"Most enlightening!" says Tom at the end of the thoroughly disturbing session of thought perusal.
"Although still not enough for me to be perfectly satisfied. Hm... you wouldn't be open to negotiation about that whole giving me some memories thing, would you? I don't think I'd need more than, like, a year. Any year of your life you wouldn't mind giving up for good in return for a blisteringly cool spell of some kind. Hm?" he tries for one last sales pitch, clearly not having had quite enough information. Though will he ever truly even have enough, that's probably the more important question.
* * * * *
Eta, seeing no reason why the standard techniques wouldn't work in such a clear Earth analogue/satire/parody/simile/whatever as Hell, tries to butter up the shade at the kiosk a little.
"Only tourist? Really? I suppose Dante did give it a very bad review, but that's hardly a reason to kill the industry. But, fair enough, if that's the way it is," she says, carefully looking around to see if anyone's listening in. Mostly the leaving shades appear to not even take notice of her. She leans in and starts with the logical first step - relating the problem.
"Well, you see, the problem is I'm supposed to meet someone in a block here. I know what block he is in, but nothing else besides that. It all started with a divine cheese that lead me to speaking to... I'm not sure. Something divine. One thing lead to another and now I'm on some quest to tell them something very important, give them some sort of warning. Very weird stuff. But it leads me to visiting hell. Isn't that fun? It certainly has a certain charm and if nothing else is a very interesting experience. I bet with some changes you could make a lot of money in the tourism industry."[/color]
The shade's expression, and thus its reaction, to hearing any of this entirely unreadable. It hasn't moved one bit in about a minute.
"Anyway, I found out that he's hiding here. Would there be any way for you to help me locate him? Perhaps if I provided a little something for your effort?" she says, giving the shade as charming a smile as she can manage.
"No need for compensation. I am very well paid for my work," the shade explains, and with a very high, distinctly unnatural step in which its body demonstrates a great deal of amorphous fluidity, moves out of the kiosk.
"I am technically an officer of infernal law," it continues as it closes up the kiosk and draws a finger along the seams between its shutters and the wall, causing them to completely disappear from sight.
"However, I find myself in need of a walk. This post is tiring, and I believe I have found sufficient reason to cash in my two vacation hours. So that, I believe, is what I shall be doing. Now, where exactly were you thinking of going?"
Author
Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 266903 times)