Returning to one of the ad's you bookmarked, you send a message to the poster expressing your interest, and soon afterwards receive confirmation that the vehicle is available, a blue S.U.V, about six years old, chipped paint but with parts in good condition. You immediately leave to go pick it up using the monthly transit pass of one of the schoolchildren now part of you. Between all of these people you find that your knowledge of the local transit system is *quite* extensive, and you manage to accurately determine the ideal route, arriving at your destination twenty minutes later. You are greeted by a middle-aged man who rather unnecessarily explains that as his children are growing up he no longer needs the spacious vehicle, which can seat as many as seven people under somewhat cramped conditions, or five with quite a bit of cargo space. It's easy for you to meet the asking price of eight and a half thousand, and you don't bother haggling with the man, as you're eager to get away from the stink of his kindness.
It's likely that sort of aversion will abate over time, but for now that weakness fills you with revulsion. You are a creature of envy after all.
You don't bother wasting any more time, and you leave town as soon as you have managed to get a full tank of gas. The experience of your hosts is useful in navigating the roads and making your way to the freeway, and once you are there you make good time, passing by the smaller cities and towns that feed off of Dark-Gate like urban parasites.
...
It takes some time and quite a bit of searching down lonely dirt roads before you find a place where you are confident you won't be observed. You spend some time consuming what birds and bats you can find, until you are confident in your reserves of flesh. You practice the variety of local birds, and bats too, learning of the intricate differences between their forms. You suffer dozens of injuries, mostly meaningless to you when you can simply replace and repair lost or torn tissue. The various designs of nature do teach you much about the mechanics of flight however, each flying creature masters it's own unique technique, dependant upon the body it bears. It is these subtle differences, rather than the abilities of any one bird, that give you the tools you require to begin to design and practice your own variations. Once you have become passable with each natural form, you slowly scale into the unnatural, creating larger and larger forms for you to practice with. You quickly reach the limit of size that you can currently manage with birdlike forms however, much larger than an eagle and you would need a greater supply of birdlike material than is feasible to acquire under these conditions. Batlike flight however, is much easier to scale for, human flesh is not so different than the skin of a bat, and so delving into that reserve makes larger and larger batlike designs feasible. Soon, you are passable in the flight of great human-sized bat-creatures, large enough that you can use the rending of claws and teeth to great effect in disembowling and other acts of maiming, and proficient at flying as smaller creatures, though perhaps not as proficient as those born to the bodies you copy. You could probably manage larger too, though your skills at flight will diminish rapidly the larger you choose to become. At least without more practice.
You lack the flying instincts to learn these things in the usual way, so all told, when you have reached this level of skill it's been about ten days. During which you have entertained Obadiah Lancaster's requests for contact with his underlings. You still have his cell-phone, and you've purchased a charger that can be used to resupply it's power within your vehicle. Sometimes you've needed to drive around a bit to reach good reception, but this isn't quite in the middle of nowhere, so it's a small enough matter.
The Warlock has been having his people shake down local businesses, mostly to give them something to do so that they don't grow too antsy. He's also been attempting to have them acquire weapons, and they've met with some limited success due to the Crimson's stranglehold on most of the underground weapons supply, though the Triad has been willing to sell to them. Any day now he expects that a representative of the Crimson will show up to offer them a position as a cell of their organization, thinking him dead (he IS dead, but you decide to let that pass for now). Obediah also freely offers his advice on both of the organizations you've set him thinking about.
"
Well, the mastiffs are probably the easiest to deal with, as they behave pretty predictably as criminal organizations go. If we can show them we're powerful, reliable and can make them money there's a good chance they'd be willing to back us. Just as long as they think we're the winning team of course. If we decide they are too much trouble fighting them would be pretty straightforward too, though not necessarily easy. All we'd really have to do is wipe out their leadership. The Nightcrawlers are a little trickier, we might be able to do what the Crimson does and just slyly point them in the direction of monsters and people we don't like, but until we're too strong for them to oppose they will probably see us as an enemy if we approach them outright, unless we manage to convince them we are "the good guys.". Destroying them might be tricky too. Mostly they are just punks and wannabe heroes, but i've heard they've got some competent sorcerers and old-world creatures among them, which might explain why the Crimson hasn't just wiped them out."
Author
Topic: Thieves and Demons (SG) Open for Criticism. (Read 9707 times)