Serious Plots 6: Srs bsns

[Beans]

[Front Yard]
Carrie smiles at the shaking man, turning to the others.
"Demoralization a good start, y'think? I can do that. I can sure as hell do that, let me tell you." She shifts, tuning her instrument a little and testing its tone with soft little pluckings. "Or, at least, drawing their attention... I can pop out and it'll buy at least a brief period of their inactivity before they can get on with shooting at me. That sounds like a good way to get them vulnerable to various murderings."

[Recaiden]

[Front Yard]

Arlem straightens up and heads for the door. Carefully, carefully, one hand up like he expects someonething to jump out at them. Making for whatever (Whoever?) that was by the door. Was that a name or a designation?

"Soon as we see someone for you to pop out at."

[Fenric]

Linda follows Arlem, a bit to the side to keep her line of fire clear.

Right-handed here, so if you keep a bit to the left it'll be easier to not accidentally hit you.

[Reinholdt]

Front Yard

Oh man. Rushing across the killzone? Madness. Well then again, Arlem did have some crazy creepy water powers. He'd probably be fine.
"Give us some light covering fire." Rein tells the troops, before darting after Arlem and Linda. He doesn't know their ammo situation, so doesn't ask for the full suppressing fire. Besides, those windows look plasma'd already.

He doesn't head for the front porch though. Other people have that handled right now. Rather, he goes for the corner of the house. The cat had heard fighting coming from the back, at least until recently. It sounds pretty quiet back there now. Better to scurry alongside the side of the house to scout it out though. If they end up getting inside and needing to blindly run away, it'd be good to know if the back door was an option or a death trap.

[FireFox]

[Back Yard]

The beasts started out as dogs. Probably. Dire wolves are about the same size, but short hair and sticking close to the house sort of point to guard dogs. But their shoulders have some sort of thick natural armor and their tails are long and covered with spikes. They have throats, at least, and Quinn kills the charging one so fast it doesn't make a sound as it falls down. But even before the beast's decapitated head hits the dirt, three more rush the paladin.

[Front Yard]

The automatic gunner obligingly sprays the upper floor of the house again. The driver sets his machine pistol down and picks up a handheld grenade launcher, but just holds it ready for now. "If they have more of those f***ing things, they can just hole up in a basement or fortified room and turn the rest of the house into a death trap."

A woman is tightening a tourniquet on her leg in the middle of a pool of blood on the ground, just on the other side of the porch. Too much blood to all be hers, but the number of broken weapons and severed limbs littered in front of the door suggest at least 2.7 other people meant their ends up here. She's wearing a tactical chest rig over civilian clothes: a white blouse and jeans (probably, the blood obscures both color and detail). A handgun is held unwaveringly on the front door, even as she looks at Arlem and Linda with glassy, shocked eyes.

There are definitely people moving around on the side of the mansion Reinholdt is at. Not much to see until he goes all the way around to the back, or tries to look through the windows. He might start to hear Quinn, though, depending on how loud she is next post.

[Beans]

[Front Yard]
Carrie starts moving out with Arlem, still radiating the chill of death. While it's certainly possible to fire on her, anyone trying to do so may find they have to push themselves a bit to break through the unnatural reluctance that seems to creep in.

[Recaiden]

Arlem hears and walks just a bit more to the left.

Crossing over the porch, he bends down to lay a hand on the injured woman.
"Ariez, there is more honor left for this one to win."
"Make her once again fit for service."
"Heal."
And whatever happened to her leg and put that deadness in her eyes, it should all be undone. Good as new.

[The Bushranger]

[Back Yard]

The beasts started out as dogs. Probably. Dire wolves are about the same size, but short hair and sticking close to the house sort of point to guard dogs. But their shoulders have some sort of thick natural armor and their tails are long and covered with spikes. They have throats, at least, and Quinn kills the charging one so fast it doesn't make a sound as it falls down. But even before the beast's decapitated head hits the dirt, three more rush the paladin.

Quinn calls on her magics as she takes in the sight of the charging beasts, whispering a small plea for forgiveness for what she must do, and that perhaps in the afterlife they can chase rabbits cheerfully forever...

...before she spins, her blade extended out before her towards the charging Beowulves, swinging it as magic crackles and snaps down the blade - and then lashes out in a screaming arc of Holy energy towards her charging assailiants.

[Reinholdt]

Side Yard

Peeking in the windows would be a definitive distraction from his current scouting goal and counter-productive to the efficiency of- hey. Hey stop.

Reinholdt is apparently an easily distracted cat, currently sneaking a peak into the window closest to the movement he thought he heard coming from inside. Stupid flying pink scout cat.

[Fenric]

Linda provides cover while Arlem heals the injured woman, looking around carefully for any threat.

Looks like they want to play hide-and-seek now, whoever they are.

[FireFox]

[Front Yard]

A hiss of pain and a stream of profanity come from the woman as she hastily untwists the tourniquet from her newly healed leg. "Thanks. Welcome to the party, friends. We lost the element of surprise when their eyes in the skies caught us on approach. Bloody crows, if you can believe it. I hate magic. We had someone go in early to take out their leaders, but..." She tries to stand up, the pool of blood making everything sticky. "Sorry, but we wouldn't have called for you if everything wasn't fantastically FUBAR. Gun-toting cultists we expected... but where the hell did they get these monsters?" The more pressing, if unasked, question: how many more are still inside?

The black, open doorway beckons to Linda like a ravenous maw: trite and cliche, but what else does she expect? HIC SVNT LEONES... yet, the entrance hall at least seems silent and devoid of threats.


[Back Yard]

The beasts are tough, but neither especially clever nor warded against magic. Each one is willing to catch a blade so that the other packmates can get a chance to bite and latch on, but the arc of holy energy kills them all mere heartbeats before they would have leaped. Horrific gashes gush sickly smelling blood. With their momentum pitching their lifeless bodies forward the few feet from where the paladin slew them, it's possible that Quinn ends up bathed in their foul ichor. At the very least, the only obstacles between her and the mansion now are stepping over the savaged corpses and opening the back door.


[Side Yard]

Rein peeks in on what looks like a dining hall. Not much time to take in details, though. A door opposite his window opens and a group of adolescents run in with submachine guns and shotguns and dark, fearful expressions. A big table is upturned and positioned to block the door. Some of the teenagers start bracing it further with chairs, while the others go to push cabinets and shelves in front of the windows.

[The Bushranger]

[Back Yard]

The beasts are tough, but neither especially clever nor warded against magic. Each one is willing to catch a blade so that the other packmates can get a chance to bite and latch on, but the arc of holy energy kills them all mere heartbeats before they would have leaped. Horrific gashes gush sickly smelling blood. With their momentum pitching their lifeless bodies forward the few feet from where the paladin slew them, it's possible that Quinn ends up bathed in their foul ichor. At the very least, the only obstacles between her and the mansion now are stepping over the savaged corpses and opening the back door.

"...ew."

Quinn will, the paladin muses, need a most thorough bath after all this. But the call of honor doesn't provide a time-out for the washing of clothes, and so, with a deep breath taken, and her blade wiped quickly clean on the grass, she straightens up, turns towards the back door, and stalks towards it.

Where, upon reaching it, she pauses to check it over carefully for traps before opening.

[Reinholdt]

Side Yard

Reinholdt raps lightly at the window before loudly talking in at them. "Wouldn't be a better idea to open the window and leave?" Barricading themselves in sounds like a wonderful way to wait around and get killed.

While Rein points this out, he floats around wildly like some sort of erratic fairy. Mostly because they have guns, look scared, and might shoot him. And that would be bad. If they look like they're going to, he'll just have to dive away from the window.

[Beans]

[Front Yard]

Carrie advances behind Linda, eyes darting as she peers into the looming doorway. She grips her weapon.

[Recaiden]

[Front Yard]

Arlem offers her a hand to stand. It's just blood.
"Magic, where else? Those people you sent in, are they the prisoners that were mentioned?"

Then, if Linda hasn't already taken the lead, he strides into the ravenous maw of the house, pressed against the side of the entrance hall. Here, little monsters. Come on out!

[Fenric]

Linda has, indeed, taken point and is now walking carefully forward: a bright light shining from the front of her rifle to light the way ahead, her ears turning this way and that listening for sounds, and her nose sniffing for telltale scents.

[FireFox]

[Back Yard]

The door does not appear trapped... and it opens safely. Not even locked, looks like they were confident the pack outside was enough of a guard for the back door. Quinn finds herself in what used to be a very expensive, well kept kitchen. Everything is dirty and disorganized now. Very recently used, however. There are two doors at opposite ends. The one to her left is open, but the room or hall beyond is too dark to see into from a distance with the naked eye. The one to her right is closed, but noises can be heard behind it: pattering of many shoes, thumps and clatters of moving furniture, 28 pistol caliber gunshots in the steady stream of automatic fire, and the boom of a shotgun!

[Side Yard]

Rein's going to have to dive away from the window. A second or two after he attracts their attention by rapping on the window, the nearest boy raises something in the AK pattern to his shoulder and blindly empties his magazine out the window. A slightly less panicked kid calls for the others to finish barricading the windows, then fires a shot of double aught buck out into the night in an attempt to keep Rein's head down long enough for them to seal themselves into the room.

[Front Hall]

"No, they supposedly grabbed an unknown number of random civilians from some village and we tracked them from there to here. The Vulpanian spook who briefed us said someone called the Huntress would be sneaking in ahead of us. He said she was a HALO member..." The woman explains as she untangles some sort of low profile comm gear from herself and offers it to Arlem. A headset with a slender microphone at adjustable angles and distances from the ear domes, a push-to-talk button on a clip, and a pocket sized black box that connects the other pieces with wires and, presumably, works as some sort of short range radio transceiver. "I'm Golem, with Prometheus Securities. We'll hold the perimeter and let you know if anything happens out here. Good luck."

At the far end of the expansive atrium is a grand staircase leading to the second floor of the mansion. Shadows dance across the steps as the electric chandelier rocks back and forth above the party. Down a short hall to Linda's left she'll hear the gunfire mentioned in the previous sections. Behind a door on the right comes the foetid odors of death and musk. Wait, there's no breeze indoors... why is the chandelier swaying?

Anybody looking up or anyone with extrasensory perception and sharp instincts will get a split second to react before a large serpent with multiple heads falls in the middle of the group and immediately strikes, biting at anyone close with venemous fangs the size of knives.

[The Bushranger]

[Back Yard]

The door does not appear trapped... and it opens safely. Not even locked, looks like they were confident the pack outside was enough of a guard for the back door. Quinn finds herself in what used to be a very expensive, well kept kitchen. Everything is dirty and disorganized now. Very recently used, however. There are two doors at opposite ends. The one to her left is open, but the room or hall beyond is too dark to see into from a distance with the naked eye. The one to her right is closed, but noises can be heard behind it: pattering of many shoes, thumps and clatters of moving furniture, 28 pistol caliber gunshots in the steady stream of automatic fire, and the boom of a shotgun!

And so it is that Quinn considers the door with the gunfire and action...and then turns, heading through the other door. Charging into somebody else's Charlie Foxtrot is a good way to get shot, but she can, she muses, ensure that nobody who wouldn't care about that isn't getting ready to ambush them from the other side!

[Beans]

[Front Yard]

Carrie narrowly misses getting bitten by the horribly angry noodle cluster.
"Oh, real original, a multi-headed snake." She inhales and drags a plectrum across the strings of her soulsteel dahu, a shrieking chord snapping out like a taut cable suddenly breaking. The concentrated frequency is enough to crack bones and mash blood vessels into soup, should the multi-snek not avoid it.

[Reinholdt]

Side Yard -> Back Yard

Rein doesn't need to be shot twice to be convinced to stay away from that window. The first attempt was enough to get him to leave them be. He's crazy, not insane. He'll get back to them after they've calmed down or used all their bullets. They'll be fine barricaded in for a while, probably.

Rather, Reinholdt continues his prior mission of checking the backyard. Looks recently bloodied. Might as well go through the back door while he's at it too. Since someone conveniently left it open for him. How kind.

[Fenric]

Being at Point, the snake falls behind Linda and the head meant for her strikes at empty air... not so much from any amazing reflexes on her part but by dint of having knocked the hapless vixen with sufficient force to propel her at speed, which her reflexes and training converted to a forward roll leaving her a solid ten feet further along the hall (though still facing the wrong way)

Urnffff!

[Recaiden]

[Front Hall]

"And we're here because the Huntress is in some trouble. Thanks."
Arlem takes the headset and winds it around his own ears, swings the microphone into place, and clips the transceiver onto his left side. One button, not unclear how to use this thing. He thumbs the button and tries. "This is Arlem, from HALO, on Golem's communicator."

All this adds up to him being a little ways back when the snake starts falling, and he rushes in to occupy one of the heads. Hydras are usually just as quick as vipers. Got to wait till it's about to strike at him and thrust his dagger up through that fanged mouth.

[FireFox]

[Ballroom - Quinn]

Quinn finds herself in a large open room with a wooden floor and a high ceiling. Tasteful light fixtures sprout from the walls at regular intervals, providing plenty of light to illuminate the wild-haired old man in a fur robe, leaning on a wooden staff. "So, Our Lady's hounds didn't discourage you... I doubt I will manage to sway you, but be warned! You trespass at your own risk. Those foolish enough to make an enemy of Mother Nature stand no chance against someone with my experience."

[Kitchen - Reinholdt]

He sees everything from the backyard through the kitchen described in previous posts. No more shooting is coming from the dining hall, but he may hear voices off to his left.

[Front Hall - The actual HALO members]

Two heads get pulped by Carrie's evil sonic attack. Actually, they seem to vaporize into a thick green gas that coalesces like smoke. Arlem impales another head right as it lunges at him. That head seems to die immediately and then decompose at an alarming rate. Autolysis causes blisters to form almost before the shapeshifter pulls Dorothy back out. It is still Dorothy, right? I suppose he could be using a different blade now, but that might make her jealous. Well, three heads down, which leaves four left. That's two each striking at Carrie and Arlem again. Linda is too far away to be attacked easily. Unfortunately, the serpent being between her and her teammates means she can't fire at it without risking hitting them!

Oh, and a generic voice (presumably the driver from before. Or one of the other mercenaries? They all sounded and looked the same...) is speaking up in Arlem's ears. Hope that's not too distracting. "Arlem, this is Doldrum. Reading you loud and clear. Be advised, the gunfire from earlier was hostiles shooting out a window on the ground floor at your, uh, flying cat. They missed and he continued around to the back. We don't have a good angle on either the hostiles or him."

[The Bushranger]

[Ballroom - Quinn]

Quinn finds herself in a large open room with a wooden floor and a high ceiling. Tasteful light fixtures sprout from the walls at regular intervals, providing plenty of light to illuminate the wild-haired old man in a fur robe, leaning on a wooden staff. "So, Our Lady's hounds didn't discourage you... I doubt I will manage to sway you, but be warned! You trespass at your own risk. Those foolish enough to make an enemy of Mother Nature stand no chance against someone with my experience."

"My daughter is a druidess, my ex-husband was an archdruid, and I am the Champion of Neirian," Quinn responds, frowning as she holds her sword out to one side, ready but, for the moment, not actively threatening. "I come not to make enemies, but to save lives. But," the paladin adds, eyes narrowing, even as she casts a quick spell to determine what sort of morality her potential opponent holds, "If I must sacrifice the few or the one to save the many, so be it."

[Reinholdt]

Ballroom

Rein catches up! Is that Quinn? Wow. She definitely looks better than Reinholdt remembers. Maybe it's the angle.

"Hey Quinn!" Rein kitty, stop being all distracting in a middle of a tense moment between a druid and a paladin.

Speaking of the druid, "Excuse me sir. Have you seen an assassin around? Around yay high?" The cat elevates to about where Kyne's head would be.

[Shadowcaller]

[Rivi Des]

Kitty nods firmly. "We'll take care of it. Let's not waste any time." That's what they came here for, after all. To stop this monster. Kitty makes her way toward the door with Obriane. When they're ready to go out, she meets her girlfriend's eyes. "Ready?" She speaks with confidence, showing no doubt in her own or Obriane's abilities. She offers her hand for Obriane to hold, despite the presence of Obriane's family.

[Rivi Des]

Obriane nods and grabs Kitty's hand without thinking about it. She then realizes just what she is doing and just pushes open the door and rushes out. Better face a crazy spirit than embarrassment. The spirit is nowhere to be seen however as the two exit the house. But kitty can feel it now, it must have hidden it's presence somehow. It is right behind them, on the roof.

It leaps towards Obriane, all it's masks staring right at her. Unless Kitty can react extremely quickly, it will land on the changeling's back, pushing her flat against the ground.

[Beans]

[Front Hall - The actual HALO members]

Two heads get pulped by Carrie's evil sonic attack. Actually, they seem to vaporize into a thick green gas that coalesces like smoke. Arlem impales another head right as it lunges at him. That head seems to die immediately and then decompose at an alarming rate. Autolysis causes blisters to form almost before the shapeshifter pulls Dorothy back out. It is still Dorothy, right? I suppose he could be using a different blade now, but that might make her jealous. Well, three heads down, which leaves four left. That's two each striking at Carrie and Arlem again. Linda is too far away to be attacked easily. Unfortunately, the serpent being between her and her teammates means she can't fire at it without risking hitting them!

Oh, and a generic voice (presumably the driver from before. Or one of the other mercenaries? They all sounded and looked the same...) is speaking up in Arlem's ears. Hope that's not too distracting. "Arlem, this is Doldrum. Reading you loud and clear. Be advised, the gunfire from earlier was hostiles shooting out a window on the ground floor at your, uh, flying cat. They missed and he continued around to the back. We don't have a good angle on either the hostiles or him."

Carrie darts back, bringing her instrument-weapon up to parry both snakes. She whirls the huge thing in her hands, making a swing for one of the heads.

[Fenric]

[Front Hall - The actual HALO members]

Linda spins around just in time to note what the narrator already stated: she can't shoot without inflicting friendly fire. This, however, is not a new situation for the former capital ship gunner... getting boarded and fighting in close quarters often put enemies in the middle of friendlies. She has a contingency for it:

She calls it a "baton", but if you think of it as a lightsabre you'll have the right idea (though completely wrong mechanics). It flares into life silently, though the blue glow of the cherenkov radiation it gives off lights the hallway brightly.

She sprints back toward the action, a target head already selected for a slash

[Gullara]

[Rivi Des]

Obriane nods and grabs Kitty's hand without thinking about it. She then realizes just what she is doing and just pushes open the door and rushes out. Better face a crazy spirit than embarrassment. The spirit is nowhere to be seen however as the two exit the house. But kitty can feel it now, it must have hidden it's presence somehow. It is right behind them, on the roof.

It leaps towards Obriane, all it's masks staring right at her. Unless Kitty can react extremely quickly, it will land on the changeling's back, pushing her flat against the ground.

[Rivi Des]

Holding onto Obriane's hand, Kitty is just about torn to the ground with her. The kitsune reacts quickly and thrusts out her hands. From it pours a fountain of white fire. It washes over the two on the ground, but while Obriane will only feel uncomfortably warm, her attacker will feel it like real fire.

[Recaiden]

[Front Hall - The cat is an actual HALO member]

Of course it's Dorothy. The dagger was the one who wanted to go on this mission; Arlem is just support.
And as he pulls the knife back, he twists forward, sliding between the two heads and doing a completely unnecessary flip over the back of the hydra to land on its other side. One of them might get a mouthful of saltwater as he shifts out of the way of its teeth.

"Hear you. Thanks. They've got-uhf-monsters on the light fixtures in here."