Skyscraper Graveyard IC: Renaissance City

[Anarion]

Tessen doesn't flinch at all when she's slapped. She just looks a bit surprised and stares at Cyprus.

[Deadly]

[Wits+Streetwise 6: 4, 1, 8, 3, 10, 6, ten again 5, two successes]

Amun watched tensely. Things were not going well. They should have run instead of staying. Damn it all, he should never have trusted that blasted prophet. Damn prophets never good for anything anyway, thinking their words bind and control other people. He couldn't see any way of getting them to give up the painter now. They wouldn't get anything out of this.

And then there was the exchange of looks, and then Slade hit Turing. Amun blinked, and almost smiled. Perhaps they had been more successful than he had dared to hope after all. Perhaps a seed had been planted. He stopped himself, forcing his face into even more of a scowl instead. He could play along with this.

Amun was no good in a fight, he never had been, but he could look big and threatening and that was all he needed here. Acting. He turned as Cyprus slapped Tessen. He knew his friend was pretty tough, deep down, but she looked like she hadn't quite caught on yet.

"Hey!", he growled and rushed at the Seer. This was going to hurt a bit but Amun had tried that before. He didn't expect to even get within striking distance, but he was damn well going to make it look authentic.

[Thanqol]

Amun had seen this kind of thing before, most often around police stings. An informant got roughed up publicly by cops so that his street cred would remain intact. This was kind of like the reverse of that.

The upshot was that the Seers were not striking to kill. The downside was that they had to make it look real, which meant that this was going to hurt.


Cyprus waved her hand, pained, remembering the force field too late. Tessen hesitated and lost her chance to counter, though, and Cyprus cast a spell.

Invisible fire shrouded her arms. She stepped forwards, hooking her ankle around Tessen's foot, and then struck with an elbow into Tessen's throat. Both limbs passed through the forcefield without resistance; Prime magic allowing them to ignore the defense without damaging it.

There would be a moment to wonder why she had done it that way - the Archon could just have easily torn the shield to shreds with a single focused Dispel. As it was, she'd fall, with a badly bruised throat, but she'd land safely on the ground and not crack her head on the stone.


Slade spit blood from Turing's punch. He looked surprised at this, and smiled briefly. He even chanced a wink.

Then he threw a slow, powerful full body punch.


As Amun started his run at Cyprus, there was a silver flicker and the sword was in her hand and raised to meet his charge.

[Anarion]

Lying on the floor, Tessen saw the sword whip out, while the burly cop (Slade was his name, right?) threw a knockout punch at Turing. Not really thinking, and having no time for subtlety, Tessen simply thrust out her hand from the floor and exerted as much force as she could to blow both the Seers into the far wall. She also tried to shout out "I won't let you hurt them!" but with her throat damaged, it was more of a pained croak.

[Improvised kinetic force. Not intended to do damage, merely to throw them both out of the way and into the wall. Not sure if they're within a 1 yard radius or not, so it could be either 3 or 5 dice on the roll.]

[Thanqol]

[They're not that close to each other, so with multiple targets it's 3 dice.

Cyprus does have an Arcane Shield up, so she reflexively spends one of the mana points committed to it to apply a penalty equal to her Prime dots (4) to the spell. It's a bit of a grey area, but I think a shield is a personal protection so that defense only applies to Cyprus and not both of them. So roll 3 dice vs Slade and a chance dice vs Cyprus.

This is also Vulgar. I decided to rule the earlier photograph thingy spell Covert (with option to become vulgar later if you broadcast the image) so the Paradox Ticker is currently at 0.]

[Anarion]

[There's presumably a paradox roll as well, and the croaked exclamation was an attempt to use one of Tessen's magical tools to mitigate that.]

Chance roll (1d10)[5]
Slade (3d10)[6][4][5](15)

[Thanqol]

[On the plus side, the Paradox roll didn't go anywhere either.]

[Deadly]

Amun frowned. He needed to think quick, to hopefully end the show quickly and stop Tessen from going berserk. Well, no time to think it over.

"Fffff..."

Amun hissed between clenched teeth and dodged to the side, aiming a kick at Cyprus' leg. He knew he had about zero chance of connecting, and assuredly would get stabbed for his effort. But it would look dramatic and much worse than it was, and probably no worse than father's belt... he hoped.

It had better be worth it.

[Shifting the Odds, Wits+Science+Fate 9: 5, 2, 1, 8, 9, 8, 8, 1, 7

Four successes, to make his inevitable defeat look worse than it is

1 mana]

[Thanqol]

As the blast of force hit Cyprus, a glowing purple aura of complex sigils and diagrams briefly surrounded her, leaving her unruffled.

And then Amun was almost on her, and her sword was reflexively moving to counter.

It was like watching a swordsman do some showy warm up moves, flicking the blade around faster than the eye could see and then striking a pose. It was like that except there was blood everywhere. It wasn't quite clear where it was all coming from. There was at least one small cut on every major section of the body, making it look like Amun had been reduced to a bloody wreck in seconds.

Fortunately, the individual cuts were hurting. That probably meant they were shallow. It was when you couldn't feel your lower body that you were in trouble. Lots of small sharp pains was better than one big, throbbing one. Useless trivia and contradictory bits of advice for self-diagnosis bubbled to mind as Amun collapsed in a spray of blood.

He didn't feel dying. Just really really hurting. A doctor would be nice.

[Deadly]

Amun collapsed with a cry of pain. It probably added to the dramatic effect, but mostly it was because it actually hurt like hell. Now he hoped it would have its intended effect.

[Anarion]

"Amun!" Tessen tried to shout, though it still came out as little more than a croak thanks to the sharp blow to her throat. She thought about trying to get up, but looking at what Cyprus had just done, and the pain in her own throat, she was too frightened. Slowly, she tried to crawl over to him on the floor instead.

[the_druid_droid]

Turing smirked a little himself as his punch landed. That’s how we do it in the Guardians!

Even if he was cursing at not having a shielding spell ready, he could at least say that he’d landed a hit on a Seer... He was also vaguely aware that the others were fighting, and hoped they had picked up on what was happening, but his thoughts were interrupted when he saw Slade pull back for the haymaker.

If the last punch was any indication, he would have difficulty getting out of the way, and this was most likely going to hurt. A lot. Turing gritted his teeth and braced for impact.

[Thanqol]

The punch hit Turing in the gut and knocked all the air out of him, throwing him back into the pews. Hurt like hell. Slade used the advantage to draw his pistol and aim it at Turing.

Cyprus lowered her sword, took a breath, and spat on the ground in front of Tessen. "Remember this, blasphemers," she said. She grabbed the Painter by the shoulder and started to frogmarch him out of the building, followed closely by Slade.

[Wits+Occult from those who have it, please]

[the_druid_droid]

[Wits + Occult pool is 3. Rolled - 5, 5, 8 so one success]

Turing grabbed his abdomen and grimaced as he leaned against the pew for support. He wasn’t feeling quite so foolish as to charge Slade with the gun in play, so he simply watched, breathing raggedly, as they departed.

[Anarion]

Tessen just looks at Cyprus at she walks away. But it's a look that says I'm not angry with you, I'm just sorry for you.

[wits plus occult (6d10)[7][9][1][10][4][10](41) and also, just in case Tessen's specialization in magic applies, one extra die (1d10)[6] And rerolled 10s are a 6 and a 1, respectively.]

[Thanqol]

To those who saw it, there was no way that Cyprus had spit like that by mistake. She was a trained countermage; she knew better than that. Blood, spit, hair, fingernails, they could all be used to power an extremely powerful Scrying spell - which was doubly dangerous considering they knew her true name.

In which case, the obvious connection came to mind - she'd done the magical equivalent of leaving behind a phone number.


Turing, meanwhile, had a crumpled piece of paper down the front of his shirt. It had the words "I want out" and a single drop of dried blood in it's centre.


The Seer car drove away.

[Anarion]

With the seers gone, Tessen has the presence of mind to collect a little bit of the spit [we'll say she soaks it into the corner of a piece of paper], and then immediately gets up and runs over to Amun. "Amun! Amun!, are you all right?!"

[Thanqol]

[Turing has access to Life Sight; using that can get you an accurate medical diagnosis including a reading on how bad people are hurt. If you use it:
Turing: 3B
Amun: 4L
Tessen: 1B]

[the_druid_droid]

When he’d managed to catch his breath, Turing walked stiffly over to join the others.
The corners of his eyes crinkled worriedly as he took in Amun’s bloody clothes and the bruise forming over Tessen’s throat. If they were badly hurt, medical attention was the top priority, so Turing brought up Life Sight to double-check his cabal mates’ conditions.

Under the effect, he could tell that Amun was hurt the worst, although that came as no surprise. Still, it didn’t appear that anything vital had been damaged, and his tension eased a little. They would need bandages, and tomorrow would be full of aches and pains, but they would live.

“I think Amun is going to be ok, Tessen. He’s bleeding, but I can’t see anything bad with mage sight; the cuts are mostly pretty shallow.”

[Should I roll for this, since Life Sight technically costs him mana? If so, I can roll it in the OOC]

[Thanqol]

[Should I roll for this, since Life Sight technically costs him mana? If so, I can roll it in the OOC]

[Yeah, we should track mana expenditure 'cause your Hallow is crap. There's about 10 points of Tass in the stones of this Church, though, which Amun can harvest]

[Deadly]

[Wits+Occult 7: 10, 1, 6, 3, 4, 3, 9 ten again 4, two successes]

Amun groaned. "I'm better than I might have been," he managed with some effort.

[Anarion]

When Amun speaks, Tessen says "You're okay!" and hugs him, then immediately lets him go. "Oh, sorry, that probaby hurt. I'll just give you some air."

She moves back and over to Turing. "I don't understand. We did exactly what they asked, we didn't even stall very long. Why did they attack us like that?"

[Deadly]

" 'Okay' is a stretch," Amun groaned as he was hugged. " 'Not dead' is closer to the truth. And I say we get out of here before discussing what happened and what to do next."

[the_druid_droid]

“I agree with Amun; this is something best discussed once we’re back home. For the moment though, I think we’re safe... such as we are.” Turing winced as his jaw throbbed with the effort of speaking. “Amun, are you able to stand?”

While he spoke, he knelt by the pool of blood beginning to congeal on the floor. He reached out and let his fingers brush its edge, willing the connection it bore to his cabal-mate to fade and wither. Better safe than sorry, after all.

[I’m assuming the effect doesn’t cost mana and thus no roll, since we’re not rushed]

[Thanqol]

[Actually, a roll is important here. There's the chance you could miss something which could come back to bite you.]

[Anarion]

"Um, guys, how are we going to get back home? It's several miles and I don't really think taking Amun on a taxi or a bus like that would be a great idea."

[Deadly]

[I assume he can still stand without too much trouble]

Amun struggled back on his legs. "I think I'll manage. Good thinking," he added as Turing wilted the connection of the blood. "I don't know, if we walk we're bound to be seen by more than just one taxi driver"

[Anarion]

"Maybe someone will lend you an overcoat?"

[Streetwise question. Which method of travel would attract the least attention with a wounded Amun? Bus, cab, or walking. If we walk, is there a relatively safe route we can take to avoid getting mugged or stopped?]

[Thanqol]

[If you roll a success on Int+Streetwise, with a -2 difficulty penalty, then you have the phone number of a guy who's speciality is no-questions-asked transport. If you make that a -4 penalty you can also find an illegal clinic who'll patch you up for cheap. No legit bus or taxi driver is going to want the lawsuit of having a guy die or bleed all over their vehicle. You can walk but it'll be slow and painful going and probably deal another point or two of damage from the bleeding.]

[Deadly]

[Int+Streetwise-2 = 3

10, 9, 10, ten again 10, 7, ten again again 3

I swear I rolled that Four successes on the -2 penalty, with a -4 it'd be a dice pool of 1 so still 2 successes]

Amun gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the pain so he could think. "Well, if we can find a phone I might know a guy and a place, depending on how much we can afford, but at least we should be able to get out of here."