Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes

[BlasTech]

"You can stay then, if you want." Isabelle replied, quickly. The bridge was not what she cared about right now. "I could bring the food to you instead if you'd prefer? Just trying to be helpful here ..."

She hoped that would refocus him on her question.

"So what do you want? Some steak? Macdonalds? Or are you going to eat the people instead?"

[Thanqol]

"I don't care what," Cludge said. It was plain to see that she was tempting him - his eyes were flashing and his fists clenched at even the suggestion of food. "I'm just so hungry."

[BlasTech]

"You have to care, because your choice here, tonight, it will define you." Isabelle said, actually taking a step towards cludge. Her voice hitched as she struggled to keep it under control. Charlene's advice was becoming harder and harder to follow the more they danced around the issue.

"I want to help you Cludge" She continued, her voice more gentle than before. "But I can't unless you tell me what you want me to do. Please, I gave you back your truck didn't I? You can trust me when I say this is really really important."

Only whether it was helping Cludge, or his potential victims, Isabelle couldn't say.

"What do you want?" she finished, softly.

[Thanqol]

It wasn't clear that Cludge understood, or was capable of understanding, what she was talking about. The headlights steadily grew in the distance as Cludge strained with the idea.

"I want -"

Teeth of stone ground together. A hunger flashed behind Cludge's eyes, a hunger bottomless and furious that blotted out conscious thought.

[Presence+Persuasion, -5 penalty. You don't get the bonus of the ogre's curse on this because you're not manipulating him, you're asking him to make his own decision.]

[BlasTech]

"Just tell me." Isabelle insisted.

Spoiler

Show

Presence (2), Persuasion (4), Willpower (3) - 5 penalty = 4 dice

Roll(4d10)+0:
1,1,2,3,+0
Total:7

Oh good bloody hell! O_o I hate my dice! (No successes)

[Thanqol]

[Oh dear. I'm so sorry.

Just be glad this isn't oWoD or you'd have a botch on your hands.]

"I want..."

Cludge blinked.

"I'm so hungry," he muttered, and started stomping forwards, raising his shotgun, moving past Isabelle and towards the van.

There was the sound of a horn blowing as the prisoner van sped towards the bridge. The brakes began to screech as the driver saw all the people on the bridge, and the police car parked across the centre, blocking it off. Vorel, on Cludge's truck, tensed herself, wings raised.

Everything was about to happen at once. There were only a few seconds to react.

[the_druid_droid]

Jon could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as Cludge turned toward the approaching vehicle. Isabelle was about to run out of time... Trying to make the best of the brief moment they had to prepare, Jon turned to Vorel, “You seem to be the experienced one here. What can I do to help if things go bad?”

[Thanqol]

"Try not to look directly at me, listen too closely to what I'm saying, or get in my way," Vorel said. She sounded apprehensive rather than arrogant, and she jumped off the top of the truck and started walking out to meet Cludge. "Try to keep the civilians out of the way too."

[BlasTech]

[I'm guessing if it were a botch he'd be eating me right now >_>]

"No. Don't!!" Isabelle cried, stepping into Cludge's path. Reacting on instinct, she grabbed for the shotgun, trying to turn both it and Cludge away from anyone else.

[Deadly]

As much as she wanted to help Isabelle, Charlene realized that there was little if anything she could do for her from where she was. Entrusting the situation with Cludge to Vorel and Isabelle she turned to Jon, "Right. Let's deal with the van"

[Thanqol]

There was the very loud sound of a very loud gunshot.

There was quite a lot of pain, and an awful lot of blood.

Cludge blinked in shock, and, with a look of dazed resignation - like he wasn't sure who was in charge of his brain any more - shook his head and moved to step around Isabelle.

Vorel took a sharp breath and broke into a sprint.

The prison van continued to surge forwards although the driver was starting to apply the brakes...

[For a really lethal combat system, don't tell the players how much damage they're taking.]

[the_druid_droid]

Vorel’s advice was a little cryptic, but Jon was long past expecting the day to make sense. Instead he moved up with Charlene and began to hurry toward the oncoming van.

Then, with a sick feeling, he heard the shotgun go off and his head turned automatically to look...

[Deadly]

The sound of the shot caused Charlene to stop and turn for a second. She struggled with her instinct. But she was unarmed, Jon was unarmed, she had no idea what Vorel's plan was but there was no time to wonder about it, and there was a van of possibly armed police headed towards them.

Get help and prevent further harm, that was it. She pulled at Jon, "Come! We need help!"

[BlasTech]

At first, the only thing that registered was the noise and the incredible kick of the impact.

Isabelle found herself on the ground, the hard gravel of the road pressing onto her knees and hands as she struggled to understand what had happened to her.

Wha-

Context.

Cludge.

Did he shoot?

She drew herself up to one knee. The giant was past her now, advancing on the others. It was odd, how little it hurt right now, she couldn't even tell where she'd been hit, nor how badly. Stories and movies always portrayed shooting as immensely painful or instantly fatal, and while her time with her keeper had provided the medical knowledge to know that simply wasn't true, it had never provided her with the experience first hand.

Instinct took over. Fight or Flight?

She'd been attacked ...

Fight.

A tingle of glamour suffused her as she looked up to see what Cludge was doing now, and to see if there was anything she could use as a weapon. A rock, a piece of iron, it didn't matter ...

[OOC]

Spoiler

Show

Using 1 point of glamour to channel the Elemental blessing and gain a point of temporary health. Does Isabelle still have the addional point of stamina from the success with Spring this morning? (it only lasts for a scene and it's been most of the day, but we haven't really had a break yet so was wondering)

[Thanqol]

[OOC]

Spoiler

Show

Using 1 point of glamour to channel the Elemental blessing and gain a point of temporary health. Does Isabelle still have the addional point of stamina from the success with Spring this morning? (it only lasts for a scene and it's been most of the day, but we haven't really had a break yet so was wondering)

[No. "A scene" is about 20-30 minutes out of dramatic time]


"Cludge!"

Vorel was glowing; a deep orange-gold fire from within. It didn't shed any light but it made her visible; astoundingly, perfectly visible. A creature far removed from petty mundanities like darkness, grime and dirt. Her voice was deep and resonant and oh-so-beautiful.

"Robert Cludge, listen to me," said Vorel, slowly, hypnotically, words seeming to burn with bronzed fire, "You want to eat me, don't you?"

The words were infused with temptation. Cludge nodded, and it'd be hard for Isabelle not to do the same.

"Well, if you shoot me with your gun, I will jump off the side of the bridge and then you will never get to eat me. If you kill me with your hands and your feet alone you will get to eat me when I am dead. What do you think, Cludge?" Vorel said, edging closer, swaying hypnotically. The glamour-fire burned in the mind that saw it, igniting love, passion, obsession.

The gun clattered blankly to the ground. Cludge took a step forwards -


The prison van screeched to a halt on the edge of the bridge; big, metal, armoured, with opaque windshields.

[Any action taken while Vorel is in your field of view which is more complicated than 'stare blankly at/move directly towards Vorel' suffers a penalty equal to 5-your Wyrd. You can close your eyes or use a mirror to avoid this penalty.

As far as improvised weapons go, there are traffic cones, a few shovels, Cludge's shotgun, and the pistol in the cop's belt.]

[BlasTech]

Her hand closed around the wooden haft of a shovel, discarded by some nameless roadworker, or perhaps by Cludge himself. Isabelle had little knowledge of guns, but that wasn't the reason she'd ignored the shotgun lying nearby.

No, the reason was that the gun was too impersonal. She wanted to feel the pain she was going to inflict.

Pain.

She found herself stumbling, her weapon turning into an impromptu crutch as fire engulfed her body. A small whimper escaped from behind clenched teeth as severed nerves and flesh screamed at her, demanding that she simply collapse.

Medicine roll:

Spoiler

Show

Medicine(4), Wits (2), Penalty (-4) Roll(2d10)+0:
2,8,+0
Total:10

1 Success. You can let me know the results OOC.

[the_druid_droid]

For a moment, Jon hesitated - Isabelle was hurt, and he couldn’t be sure just how badly yet, although he knew he had seen her stumble when the gun went off... But then Charlene was pulling at his arm, and Vorel’s warning echoed in his head as her body began to glow, and there was a part of him that wasn’t sure he could handle seeing how badly Isabelle was hurt, so he shut his eyes tight against the horror and began stumbling along with Charlene toward the van.

[Thanqol]

It was like emergency response, when you thought about it. The motion, the assessment, the diagnosis was practised. It wasn't explicitly covered in med school how to work out how to perform field surgery on yourself but there had probably been an extra credit course in it. Perhaps in that Survival Medicine elective she'd seen.

The bad news was that her side was pretty torn up and she'd need stitches, possibly minor surgery, and was going to be losing a fair bit of blood. It was also bad news that if she ran around swinging a shovel at a giant in the next couple of minutes she'd probably tear the wound and make it a whole lot worse. The good news was that she'd had a shotgun fired point blank at her torso and still had a torso to write home about.

And hey. All that shovel waving could prevent a whole lot more harm, and an ounce of shovel prevention was worth a pound of buckshot.

[You've taken three levels of lethal damage; no wound penalties currently apply]

Meanwhile, the prison van was a variant of an armoured car. A sign on the windscreen clearly read DRIVERS CANNOT OPEN DOORS FOR ANY REASON. Charlene would have snippets of memory for this kind of setup; when a prisoner had to be moved but there wasn't manpower to be spent on a proper convoy, the marshals used their armoured carrier vans. If attacked or stopped, the officers inside were to radio for help and then sit tight behind half a foot of bulletproof glass. The doors could only be removed by special machinery at the other end of the trip, a trait invented to stop drivers getting out when criminals threatened hostages. Go to the bathroom before you get in.

So the van had come to a stop and no one was getting out. The awkward part of this was that they were probably about to, or already had, called in the fact that a shotgun had been fired and a freaky giant was about to start beating on a young woman on a bridge in the middle of nowehre.

The really awkward part was when bronze light was reflected in the windows, and the driver put the car into gear and started slowly, drunkenly, driving towards Vorel.

[Deadly]

"Right..." Charlene muttered as she saw the sign and a few memories clicked into place. She should have seen that coming. She was about to try to gesture at them and just signal for them to "relax", as redundant as that was, when the van began to steer towards Vorel. "Damn! Quick, we need to distract them," she said to Jon as she began waving her arms in front of the van for it to stop. This wasn't their day today, not their day at all.

[Need any rolls to distract the driver? If yelling and waving at the van doesn't work immediately, I figure Charlene will try to use Night's Subtle Distractions to hopefully draw the driver's attention away from what goes on on the bridge. At least I assume I could use the contract in that manner]

[Thanqol]

[You have a Darkness Contract to obscure vision? That is literally the perfect counter to Vorel's vision-based hypnosis effect! Good thinking!

On the downside using that Contract will probably break Cludge from the hypnotism as well.

As far as distracting the driver with yelling and waving goes, you are literally going to be making an opposed 'Be Distracting' roll against Vorel. Vorel is a kung fu dragon lady with 4 dots in Striking Looks engaged in active combat against a giant and is spending glamour to be really distracting. I don't like your odds.]

[BlasTech]

Isabelle's hand tightened on the shovel as she fought to get her breathing under control. The pain was immense. Sharp. Burning. Trying to think her way past it was like trying to ignore a bonfire right in front of her face.

She glanced down, blinking tears out of her eyes as she tried to assess how badly she was hurt. Strangly, seeing the blood soaking her side seemed to help. This was medicine, this was something she knew. And seeing blood had never bothered her before.

She was in pain, but the fact that she could feel the pain was a good thing. Her legs and hands still worked, and the fact that she hadn't gone completely into shock was always a plus.

Probably missed the vital organs, substantial soft tissue damage and lacerations, possibly some perforation. Needs surgery for removal of pellets. Main issue is probably blood loss. All that, my, blood. Huh ...

All her medical knowledge told her that what she should do now is lie down and stay still until proper equipment could be brought to staunch the bleeding. Medical training could be damned though, she'd been shot. She should take that shovel and ...

And what?

Get revenge?

She took a deep breath, another groan escaping from her as she slowly rose to her feet again.

It wasn't about revenge. Despite her momentary loss of control, despite the blazing fury of the pain shouting at her to take that shovel and even the score ... this wasn't why she fought.

Cludge had made his choice, and they had to stop him from hurting anyone else. Vorel was the sheriff, she should be able to handle him on her own.

But if not?

She half walked, half stumbled across to where Cludge had dropped his shotgun. If Vorel couldn't take Cludge down, well then she'd do what she could to help. Cludge would not kill anyone else tonight.

That was why she fought, no matter the pain or cost to herself.

[Deadly]

With all the light and chaos, Charlene felt like an animal caught in the headlights. It was an apt analogy as she waved her arms ineffectively at the van in front of her. She had to stop it, and there was no time to think. Charlene did what she had done for years now, turn off the head and let the guts take over.

Instinctively she reached out a hand for Jon's shoulder. She wanted the night, the blackness and the sounds and flittering shadows and strange lights that drew the hunter away from her. It was right in front of her and coming towards her, if only she could get a distraction, get it to ignore her, look the other way and turn off on another path.

[Night's Subtle Distractions. If I understand the catch thing right... since it's outdoors and sort of at night it doesn't cost any glamor? Charlene is going to spend a point of glamor anyway, as a darkling, to increase the pool by 1. If I got the catch thing wrong that just means she spends a total of 2 glamor points.

1 wyrd + 3 stealth + 1 bonus + 1 glamor = dice pool of 6

Rolled: 4, 7, 4, 10, ten again 1, 2, 3... seems my die is in a contrary mood today, but at least it gave me one success

Excluding Jon from the effect]

[Thanqol]

[You understand Catches right. Think of a contract like a deal; you can pay with money (glamour) or services (the catch).]

The gun clattered blankly to the ground. Cludge took a step forwards -

- And Vorel kicked his ass.

It was a spellbinding display of martial arts. She moved so amazingly fast, yet it all seemed in slow motion - the observer could clearly see the perfection in each stance, each strike, each droplet of blood as claws tore it free and as it gleamed against bronze-gold scales like precious rubies. It was better than watching a high-budget action movie in the same way that wine was better than a picture of some grapes.

Cludge seemed as spellbound by the process of getting beaten to a pulp as anyone else, barely raising his hands to defend himself as Vorel jabbed into his gut and then slashed open an artery in his arm. A bladed tail swung around following a circular crescent kick, severing two fingers, followed by a reverse side kick that sent Cludge stumbling back a few paces.

And then the darkness rolled in.

As Vorel's glamour was concealed from sight by the rising night-time darkness, the truck that had been steadily heading towards her came to a halt as it's drivers regained some of their wits. So did Cludge. The next time Vorel surged forwards with another series of blows, he swung back.

It seemed impossible that his very first clumsy blow would send the dragon who had this far utterly dominated that fight folding backwards to crumple in a heap by the very edge of the bridge. It was like watching Bruce Lee get taken out by the karate kid pre-montage.

Cludge stomped towards the Sheriff, fists like boulders raised high, spitting out broken teeth.

[BlasTech]

One.

Isabelle stood gape-mouthed, all thoughts of pain or injury momentarily forgotten as she watched Vorel's awesome display. The dragon laid into Cludge with a fury, and Isabelle could only give thanks she hadn't gotten herself in the middle of that.

Two.

And then the spell ended. Vorel crumpled, felled by a lucky blow or by just not being as magical as she needed to be ...

Cludge advanced on Vorel's prone form.

Isabelle advanced on Cludge.

Three.

She swung with all her might.

[OOC - "SNEAK ATTACK"]

Spoiler

Show

Strength (3) + Weapons (-1) + Shovel (1) + Willpower (4) - Cludge's Armour (1) = 6 Dice (Did I get all that right? O_o)

Roll(6d10)+0:
10,10,2,10,4,2,+0
Total:38

Roll(3d10)+0:
2,5,10,+0
Total:17

Roll(1d10)+0:
5,+0
Total:5

4 Successes ... my dice are really bipolar lately

[the_druid_droid]

As Charlene’s hand settled on his shoulder, Jon smelled the tang of Glamour in the air, like the perfume of an impossible flower blooming. Around him, the night seemed to grow darker and a thin mist rose steaming from the asphalt; even so, he could see everything perfectly - the van shuddering to a stop, Vorel’s fluid approach, and Cludge’s haymaker... Jon could even see Isabelle creep up with her shovel upraised, but he doubted that blow would finish off the giant, and he couldn’t bear to think what might happen if Cludge retaliated

One other thing Jon saw was the dropped shotgun, and he made his way toward it as quick as he could.

OOC:

Spoiler

Show

This is happening as Isabelle goes to make her strike. Not sure how far away Jon is from the gun, but his plan is to use it to try and force Cludge to back down - or else make use of it.

[Deadly]

Charlene, hoping the driver would stay suitably distracted now, turned back to the fight going on behind her. It was not what she had hoped for. Trying not to panic she ran for the truck where she had left her weapon, while hoping to see who needed help the most.

[Trying to see if Vorel is still conscious at least. Can she see that Isabelle is badly hurt, or is the light still blinding?]

[Thanqol]

The shovel smashed against Cludge's back with a loud cracking sound, and made him stiffen in pain. He swung around suddenly and, with overwhelming force, smashed Isabelle in the side, sending her sprawing to the ground. The pain from before was nothing compared to this - sharp stabbing pain in the chest meant ribs were broken for sure.

Cludge paused on the followup. He blinked. He blankly said the words "I'm sorry,"

And then a talon punched it's way clean through his chest.

Vorel had been on her feet the second Cludge had turned around, not even slightly unsteady, not even scratched - that 'lucky hit' was too improbable to be true after all. She grabbed Cludge's arm, turned, stepped in close to him and then brought her whole body forwards into a throw. There was just a flicker of heavy boots before Cludge vanished over the side of the bridge.

And she stood there, on the edge of the now very quiet bridge, covered in gleaming blood.

[Deadly]

Charlene stopped abruptly as everything happened at once and Cludge disappeared over the edge. Then, as quickly as she had stopped, she set into a sprint towards Isabelle.

[Thanqol]

[Given that there's some peace and quiet now, Charlene can quickly determine that Isabelle has taken a total of 6 points of damage and is at -2 penalties. EDIT Oh wait, she's Stamina 1, the penalty is -3.]

Vorel turned her head to look at the prisoner van parked awkwardly on the end of the bridge. She raised one blood-soaked finger and said the word "Go,"

They sped off.

[BlasTech]

Isabelle lay on the road once again, quite literally seeing stars as she gazed up at the night sky overhead. She didn't bother moving, there didn't seem to be much point anymore. From the corner of her vision, she'd seen Vorel put a definative end to the situation.

She let out a breath and relaxed, wincing as the pain of broken ribs made themselves known. It was a pain that suddenly seemed muted and distant.

She shut her eyes.

[OOC]

Spoiler

Show

Still at -2! (Elemental's blessing is active for the next 20 or so minutes at least ). [/ruleslawyering]

Only mention it because it might be important if those last three points of damage are lethal, since it would buy some time before Isabelle begins to bleed out.