Police Station XVIII

[Draken]

(...)

Are you mocking me? Fine, I shall use the low weapons in this case.

<some words in druidic>

The land begins to rumble and crack as the giant, druid worm summons a mighty Earthquake.

[Woland]

(( XD sorry, I wasn't sure how to treat the idea of 'cold winds'. ))

Kain adopts a confused expression as the ground rumbles around him, the area he's hammering becoming a gigantic crack.

He checks his jackhammer to see if he accidentally switched it to some sort of 'epic' mode.

Gray, on the other hand, looks straight to regard the gigantic worm, his expression slightly quizzical.

"Mocking you? Whatever gave you that impression? I have just as much respect for giant worms as the next guy. No, my earthy friend, I'm not mocking you. I would, however, like to offer you a job, seemingly random attempts on my life aside.

I'll give you a hint - it involves making holes.

Interested?"

He smiles pleasantly.

[AmberVael]

Aesa is extremely tired of this.
She becomes forming spatial sheers, trying to slice everything they've put back together- and more- apart by displacing the space around varying locations.

[Draken]

Not at all.

Bit I hope you show interest in this.

Firestorm.

And indeed, with a mere word, I set the air arround you (and where you are) to flames.

(The cold winds was a description to a cold damage breath weapon.)

[Admiral_Kelly]

From around the corner, a man in black walks towards the Police Station's ruins.

"Almost arrived at destination. All guns armed with magic nulling bullets that double as adamanite piercing rounds. Also equipped with glasses of True Seeing, necklace of spell immunity, and metallic blot armor."

"Good work Agent DEM. Now when you get in there, kill anyone trying to rebuild the station. Aim for the NPCs first. If Aesa says anything to you, tell her you are effectively on her side."

"Yes boss."

With that, Agent DEM appears and starts firing away with a machine gun at all those working to rebuild the station.

[Woland]

Gray looks up, his eyes flashing, a large grin on his face as the effects of the attacks against him begin to close.

"Machine guns, fire rain, and inexplicable spacial ripping...

If you all aren't careful, we might just start moving around in slow motion."

A single rune, nothing flashy, the shape of an E with a diagonal cross running through it, manifests in front of Gray. He suddenly disapparates, reappearing...Two feet away.

Gray chuckles. "Thought I might as well use some magic myself. When in Rome, you know..."

The bullets and fire envelop him all at once. Kain too.

There's an explosion. There often is in situations like this. Accompanied by - you guessed it - a cloud of smoke.

[AmberVael]

Aesa shrugs.
She hadn't been aiming for him, just his work, which she assumes has started collapsing nicely.

[Admiral_Kelly]

And if Gray was using magic against Agent DEM's machine gun fire then it fails. Don't forget what they are called - magic nulling bullets. For a more detailed explanation, the bullets produce a very small anti-magic field around them, suppressing magical effects within an area the size and shape of the bullet.

[Woland]

Gray's work, consisting of a steel beam pushed slightly back into place, is slashed, as they say, in twain.

By displaced spacial distortions.

One can assume this is a tribute to the old saying, "You catch more flies with H-bombs than with vinegar."

[gooddragon1]

((Oh look, Woland, you have a fanboy.))

OOC: ((Wrong! He has a fan-dragon! I'll be cheering for him long after he's died of old age :P))

[AmberVael]

Aesa begins lopping the rest of the building apart, just to be contrary.

[Admiral_Kelly]

And DEM switches to his sniper rifle and starts hunting down any NPC workers still alive.

[Woland]

The smoke clears, as it always does, revealing Gray and Kain not to be standing any longer.

They now sit at a table, a spread of sandwiches and coffee laid out before them.

Gray turns to the worm, smiling.

"Unstoppable force, immovable object. I said it to illusion lady, I'll say it to you. I've witnessed fights in this town. People on the street throw the energy of a small star into walls of absolutely impenetrable nothingness, while other people on the street argue over the price of shish-kabobs.

Vent your anger on me and my associates if you want. Toss your balls of laser-fire-disintegration around just because you like to flex your magic muscle. But honestly, you might be better off doing it to someone who will set his unicorn-demon-alien-god at you in appropriately epic fashion. Someone who isn't occupying himself with, oh, say, architectural design.

You see what I'm saying?"

He sips his coffee.

((By the way, Admiral_Kelly, there are no NPC workers at the site as of yet, although if DEM searches hard enough he may find Waldo.))

[Woland]

Gray turns to Aesa.

"And you. Do you know what the kind of material that can withstand a spacial distortion attack looks like? Do you know how freaking expensive it is?

At this rate, you're not going to stop the station from being built...You're just going to make it the ugliest piece of overpriced crap ever designed without winning some sort of architectural award. Is that really worth hanging out with a giant worm and a bunch of dull pit-lords for hours? To force the police station into being a gaudy tax-sink?

Ah well, I suppose it is your time, you have every right to do what you want with it. Mazel tov."

Gray turns back to his coffee.

"We'll be done with our break soon."

[AmberVael]

You're going to have to deal with a lot more than spatial distortion...
Look, I'm telling you this ISN'T worth the effort, you fool. I'm going to stand my ground, and there is no reason for you to insist on doing this.

[gooddragon1]

Psionic message at waldo: You gotta get outta there man, those guys are crazy! How will I ever find you again?

Waldo: I don't know, maybe you'll get lucky... just look for me in a crowd... *waldo has teleported*

OOC: ((Gray, just make it out of darksteel, that stuff has to be removed from existence to be destroyed))

[Woland]

Gray swallows a bite of sandwich.

"Really, now, how much effort do you think I'm putting out? You're the one summoning worms and causing the apocalypse at metal beams. I, on the other hand, am enjoying a nice pic-a-nic basket."

Gray takes a hard piece of puke-green substance from his pocket and tosses it to Aesa.

"Here...Try to destroy this. Go ahead and do whatever you want to it, knock yourself out. Disintegrate it, erase it from the face of the universe, go back in time and stop its parents from ever giving birth to it.

My primary profession is as a resource manager. I even have spiffy papers attesting to it. That little unrefined chunk of disgusting metal is worth about as much as a 2.3 by 2.3 kilometer cube of solid steel on a multiversal trade network.

That's what the police station is going to look like if you don't cease this silly 'kill the buildings' spree you're on.

I know, it makes you sick to think about it, doesn't it?"

[AmberVael]

Aesa takes the piece, considers it, then opens a hole in the ground and tosses it down into it, watching it fall for a very, very long ways.
Whoopsies.

[Woland]

A faint rumbling becomes gradually louder, and a puke-green jagged pillar erupts from the hole in the ground.

Gray sighs.

"I told you. It's impossible to get rid of. Plant it in the ground, it just acts like a seed. It's like a plague, only uglier."

He smiles.

"Clever, though."

[AmberVael]

By Hel, it's like kudzu. Kudzu stone it is!
Aesa looks over it curiously, then tries fire, ice, electricity, acid, spatial sheering, force, and adamantine weapons to try and cut through it, not expecting any to work.

[Woland]

Each attack seems to have the same effect on the material - wherever it's hit, an incredibly tasteless ba-relief forms, mostly depicting badly-shaped animals.

[AmberVael]

Aesa tries gently pulling it apart and gnawing on it, just because that would be different.
After that, she attempts a divination on its properties, attempting to figure out how it grows, how it could be destroyed (if it could) or contained, and anything else of interest.
She also attempts a shrinking galdr on it.

[Woland]

Gray says, "You needn't bother analyzing it. It's called 'grudge-rock.' Supposedly, (and this is just how the story goes so it's bound to be filled with inaccuracies,) an entire multiverse collapsed, which caused its harboring existence to buckle. This material was what was left over from it. The base material of an existence or something like that. So originally it was really not a substance at all, but the potential of a substance, any substance. When it was shunted into another existence, it manifested in a mountain. Coincidentally, a group of miners were attempting to hack a tunnel into that very mountain at the time, and accidentally hacked into this substance with their picks while they were hacking at the rock.

Anyway, this substance had some sort of sentience, as the story goes, and so when it was struck by the miners' picks, it recoiled, and in some primordial way got really pissed at the men, don't ask me how.

So essentially, what it did as a sort of revenge, is it decided to take the form of rock, metal, and so forth, in its basest variation, but to be immovable and unbreakable, unlike normal stone.

There's also some sort of weird explanation for the whole ba-relief thing. As it took in the essence of rock, it supposedly incorporated buildings made out of rock into its essence, which included all sorts of architecture. It distorted that idea, made its color this putrid green, and caused the slightest attempt at fracture to create ugly pictures on its surface.

It's a strange explanation, I know, and probably all untrue, but it's pretty damn hard to get rid of, and that's all enterprising fortress builders ever want to know, so it fetches an incredibly high market price."

[AmberVael]

((Doesn't tell me how it grows or can be destroyed.))

[Woland]

((As far as Gray knows, it can't be destroyed and its way of growing is unknown. Not that it can't be destroyed, it's just one of those mystery materials.))

"Didn't get any results either? Yeah, people are still studying it, but there's been slim to no progress made. Those who buy into the whole sentience thing say it keeps changing around and hiding its morphology to throw researchers off. It's called 'grudge-metal' for many reasons."

[AmberVael]

How do you intend to shape it?

[gooddragon1]

OOC: ((Time hop away the parts that are being sculpted out, remove the newly formed shape, let the remainders stay there? At the very least, you'll know whether or not it has sentience... that's probably how the miners managed to take a piece of it.))

[AmberVael]

((Nah, can't be, he already referred to time manipulation once.))

[Woland]

Gray grins. It seems to be a common habit of his.

"That's the beauty of it.

It shapes itself."

He takes a carving of an arch from his pocket, unidentifiable runes adorning the surface, and presses it against the pillar.

It shoots up with a sickeningly organic noise and expands into what can only be described as a shed drawn out by a 7-year-old who didn't want to use a ruler.

Gray rubs his temples.

"Quality stuff, eh? Can you see now why I don't want to have to build the station with this crap? That shed is also pretty much worth my entire life's savings."

[gooddragon1]

((Nah, can't be, he already referred to time manipulation once.))

OOC: ((Not quite, more along the lines of you can't destroy it in the past, this is just sending it away for a while))