Timor et Fastidium [IC]

[Celticbear]

Harold was standing next to Delphine like a hawk, watching the kitsune to make sure this business confrontation was just business. He did swear an oath to protect Delphine a while back, and he was almost quite literally dam*ed if he didn't uphold it. He put on the big scary skeleton tactic, not seeming overtly hostile in his posture, but still achieving a striking image. He then whispers in french to Delphine, Delphine, if you spend private time with that creature, it will have a hold over you that you cannot shake off. Do not trust it, remember that it isn't human.

He then looks up at Suiko, and says, The hell with Delphine and you spending private time. I know you've wanted me to perform acts for select clientele of yours. I will perform them on retainer free of charge for a year if you let Delphine's oath go unspoken.

Spoiler: OOC

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Intimidate on Suiko to back off the come hither I suppose.

Intimdate +5 (+1 for Marked, +1 for living dead): (4d3-3)[8]

[ylvathrall]

"Oh, you're no fun at all," Suiko says, pouting. "What if I swear an oath not to exercise any compulsion over her, nor to enchant her nor snare her thoughts? All I seek is a trade of information."

[Celticbear]

How about an oath to provide her hospitality as a host under the unseelie accords. I understand they are a laughing matter here, but they're what I will hold you by. Deal? Harold asks, anteing up Suiko's deal to something more all encompassing.

[ylvathrall]

"Certainly," Suiko says. "The Accords aside, I'll be damned if I'll violate guest-right. I swear, upon my tail and my gems and Inari's grace, that I will regard Delphine as a true guest during this meeting, that I will not lay a compulsion on her or ensnare her mind while we talk during this meeting, and that I will grant her free passage to and from the place of our meeting, provided she tells me truthfully the information agreed upon."

[Wuff]

Delphine inclines her head to Harold in appreciation. "Well, now that all the deals are done... Shall we scoot?" Delphine allows the fox to fade, drawing the glamour back to her in a stream of sparkling light, then wrapping it about her waist like a sash.

"I think we should ambush her, catch her off guard. We can take her out and then you can have as many chunks of her body as you need." Delphine shifts her newly created sash, taking a step or two closer to the door.

[ylvathrall]

The next day, the group assembles outside Annie's house. Alice is perched on the roof of a neighboring building, waiting in case the vampire turns out to need more firepower than expected to bring down. Delphine is holding a veil over herself, Harold, and Carlos in the alley. Between the glamour, the darkness, and the suppressors, they should be able to get off at least a shot or two without being seen by the target.

Around midnight, a figure walks up towards the door. She has the classic White vampire look - pale, lean, and memorable. She is less beautiful than striking, with a hollowed-out look that makes her look like a concentration camp survivor. Her hair is ragged and matted. She is wearing a black dress that looks like she's been wearing it for days. But under all that, her features are definitely those from the ID of "Annie Turner".

[Wuff]

Delphine has her weapon drawn already, and when the vampire has her back turned, stalks forward, pushing the limits of her veil. The pistol was strangely comfortable in her hand. Even while practising and honing her marksmanship, she'd not gotten this comfortable with the weapon to this extent before.

The witch strides forward again, passing through the threshold of her veil and as she does, fires once, aiming for the back of the vampire's head. She can feel the next bullet move into place as she does. There is a soft popping sound, and Delphine's arm jerks upwards a little, but she continues to close the gap between her and Annie. A sense of pride and power settles into her mind as she pulls off her little ambush. The witch feels invulnerable as she brings her aim to bear again, her gun back in position already.

"How does it feel to be the prey for once?" She roars, challenging, as she starts squeezing the trigger to finish the job.

Spoiler: OOC

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Delphine's ambush got pulled off well enough. Now we cross our fingers for her guns.

She'll invoke her I Don't Play Fair Anymore to represent her sneakiness.

Guns Attack (4d3-7)[4]

Pistols are Weapon:2

Applying her Purpose/Righteousness to this opening shot would be useful.
(4d3-3)[6]

[Mr Stereo1]

Carlos takes his cue from Delphine, firing center mass at the creature to try and wear it down with tremendous satisfaction. It feels good just to point a gun at a White, even if he knows mere gunfire alone has poor odds of ending one. That's what Zack, Alice, Harold and Suiko were here for after all.

Spoiler: OOC

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A simple attack to try and take out some stress bars for now.

Guns Attack (4d3-4)[5] with Weapon 3

[Celticbear]

Harold looked at the target, and quickly decided that the best course of action he could take would be attempting to take the beast out at once. He had seen a white in action before, and knew that even though they were called the weakest vampire, this mission could go south quickly. He gathered his will, a purple energy gathering around him. It coalesced into his skeletal body, his hood falling back from his face. His normal bleach white skull had become alight with power, and as he uttered the phrase, TUEUR DE DEMON, CRÂNES RIEURS! the energy released from his face in the form of a massive laughing skull, plummeting straight at the vampire's face.

Spoiler: OOC / Spellcasting Technobabble

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Alrighty, time for a long explanation of what I want to do.

With my evocation specialization and foci, I am at an effective +6 for both conviction and discipline for this spell. I want to summon up 8 shifts of power for a straight up Weapon: 8, no other extra effects. I'm going to invoke my aspect "Horrors of War" in order to get a +2 to the roll, bringing that +6 to a +8.

Discipline roll, Weapon: 8, Target 8: (4d3)[9]

[Halae]

Alice waits antsily on the nearby rooftop. This isn't her usual MO; normally she's in the thick of things, fighting herself. Instead, she's here as backup now - if the vampire survives the ambush, she's to swoop in and finish the job.

But that doesn't make it any easier to sit still and wait when she can hear gunshots. Still, for now, she follows the plan, waiting. If the fighting goes on for too long, she'll intervene, but for now, all she can do is sit and wait.

[ylvathrall]

Delphine's shot hits home in the vampire's back, just off the spine. Annie staggers, but she doesn't seem too terribly surprised as she spins, and the movement is fast enough to throw off Carlos's aim; his shot goes wide. That doesn't do a thing to help her when Harold's laughing skull hits home, slamming into her shoulder and neck. Bones shatter under the force of the spell, her shoulder and clavicle ruined.

But she doesn't so much as slow down, just raises her good hand and points at Harold. She laughs, the high shaky giggle of the broken and insane, and a wave of crushing, obliterating desperation hits the lich like a tank. It's like he has a momentary window into her mind - and it is not a fun place to be. It is full of twisted dying trees and barbed wire, bones rotting away under acid and toxic smog. She shares her madness with him, and it is brutal

Spoiler: OOC

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She takes the severe consequence Shattered Shoulder and a heckton of stress. But she's still up, going for an incite emotion (despair) attack on Harold. This inflicts mental stress with a weapon: 4 rating. She's invoking an aspect, so he gets a fate point.
Attack: (4d3-1)[9]

[Mr Stereo1]

Carlos doesn't curse when his shots go wide, but it shakes him. Any reminder of the disadvantage he's always fighting from did. Snapping off another shot he rushes to Harold's side to check on the old skeleton, as usual their best shot at getting through this in one piece.

"Push through it friend!" He says to him to at least provide a friendly voice through whatever that demon had done to him. "We all need you!"

Spoiler: OOC

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Not much to do here without seeing the narration for Harold's response, but it's been a while since the last round of posts so here goes.

Rapport +4 to maneuver to create the aspect "My Friends Need Me" and pass the invokes to Harold.

(4d3-4)[6]

[ylvathrall]

Zack, under a cloak and with black oil filling out a cloak large enough to make him look like a troll, shambles forward into the line of the camera, waving a club and grunting incoherently. Suiko is nowhere to be seen.

[Celticbear]

Harold was overwhelmed by the white court's mental charms. The words of her mind rang in his ear, and he wasn't sure what it all meant. What he did know is that most of everyone he knew from his life as a mortal was dead, and he remained functioning if not living. He was a hitman for goddess, a force beyond his reckoning in a world he no longer belonged in. Those facts hit him like a truck, and he wasn't sure how he'd coped with them before. He wanted to fall on his knees and cry, but he no longer had tear ducts.

Spoiler: OOC

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Dont know if I should act now that initiative rolls are being done. If I should, I'll throw up my shield rote since Harold is in cry in bal mode, and the vamp may come to punch him while he's down. That's his logic in the least.

[Halae]

Well, that's Alice's cue to move, isn't it? She's not about to glide down and watch the fight from afar. Oh no, that would be too passive, when there's already a fight underway and gunshots to be heard.

When Alice takes to the ground, group is only going to see a large gray blur for a moment as it collides with Annie. The maneuver doesn't end there; Alice has put a lot of weight into this move, and momentum of that sort doesn't just stop on a collision. Rather than try to stop herself, however, she transfers that momentum to Annie, as she ducks into a roll, and the proceeds to throw the vampire bodily hard enough to shatter a nearby brick wall.

"Glad I'm in time for the party!"

Spoiler

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So this is going to be a Fists attack, or at least that's the intention. Normally a grapple rquires you to tag an aspect first, but mechanically speaking this is more or less an attack, not a grapple. It should be with surprise given where the strike comes from, so no matter what, this is going to hurt Annie like hell. I'm going to invoke the aspect [Predatory Instinct] for one Fate point to make it even more brutal.

Fists: (4d3-1)[8]
Due to having Inhuman Strength currently, this particular impact will also have Weapon:2.

[ylvathrall]

Alice hits the vampire like a speeding truck, catching Annie completely off guard. The impact itself is enough to likely kill - the Skavis's neck flops with rubbery fluidity, the whiplash likely having shattered her spine. But the shapeshifter then picks her up and throws her into a brick wall hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing through the brick. What falls to the ground...well, if you hadn't seen what just happened, you would only give even odds it was ever human or anything like it. It makes a wet squishing sound as it lands on the pavement.

"Excellent work," Suiko says, suddenly appearing from an alley where she was presumably out of sight around the corner. She is wearing the body of a teenage boy, but her eyes betray her. They are old, and cold, and cruel. She walks up and looks down at the body. "Now for my part in this little escapade, no?"

[Halae]

"Yeah. Go ahead," Alice steps back and away from the corpse. She know how important it was to take out the vampire, but it still feels wrong to leave a body like this, and at the mercy of the pair of disguised individuals.

Still, she doesn't complain, keeping her roiling emotions to herself.

[Mr Stereo1]

"Good work." Carlos praises shortly, nodding appreciatively to Alice before returning to standing protectively over Harold. He doesn't say anything, preferring to let the skeleton work through whatever was in his head in his own way, but he keeps watch while he does.

[ylvathrall]

Suiko leans down and scoops a handful of blood and...things from the vampire's throat to her mouth. She swallows it down, her eyes half-closed, and then nods. Halfway through nodding, her body melts and shifts between blinks. Instead of a teenage boy, an exact copy of Annie is standing there, looking smug. "Well," she says in Suiko's voice. "This is an interesting body. Rather malnourished, which is unusual for a Skavis. Shall we go in and do our dastardly work?"

[Mr Stereo1]

"No time like the present." Carlos grabs his bag of tools left by his previous vantage point and sets towards the doorway of the house.

"Any hocus pocus or can I get to work?" He asks, looking to Delphine and Harold, then in the general direction of Suiko.

[Wuff]

Delphine studies the body for a moment, trying for a moment to memorise the look of the corpse. The broken form of the vampire girl turns her stomach, but she still forces herself to do it. The frenchwoman fully turns her back to the others, crouching down in the darkness. Her hand reaches out, trembling slightly. With a noise, she draws it back to her chest and whirls to her feet, shaking her head at Carlos.

There is a slightly solemn look on her face. "Will you allow me to use my glamours on you? I need a clear affirmative if you're wanting a disguise for this next part." Delphine drops her current glamour, reworking herself into something a little more fey, putting as much of the wild into her face as she can manage, gangling her limbs at her sides and making herself beautiful in an entirely unnatural and unnerving way.

When her transformation finishes, she looks monstrous, delicate, and feral, all at once. She reaches out a hand to Carlos.

[Celticbear]

Harold looked around, at his party, at his compatriots. He was still shaking, his bones audibly rattling. He clutched a hand to his skull, which was still exposed. His purple glowing eyes flashed around, widely, and he spoke in clear tones, I... I cannot help, I'm... sweet gods...

[Mr Stereo1]

"Very well." Carlos says, begrudgingly holding out his hand. Unpleasant as it was it had to be done. "Can you check for any curses or the like on the door too? I don't want to get hexed by something picking the lock."

[Wuff]

Delphine reaches out to grasp the hand, forming whatever covenant was needed to perform her glamours. When the deal is done, she uses her glamours to beautify Carlos. Her magic sharpens his features, shifts his eyes, makes his body strangely incongruous with itself, making him far more fey than he had been previously, with a trace of the Mortal still clear within him.

After this, she really notices Harold's state. Her eyes roam up to Carlos' for just a moment, pausing, before she drops his hand and moves to do her best to console the Lich. Delphine moves close, and settles a soft weight onto his shoulder. She doesn't say anything, but she looks worried for him. She whispers a soft consolation, curious as to what the damned vampire had hit him with.

She can't check the doors, she'll ask Harold when he comes around.

[Halae]

Alice moves up to Harold. This close, her faceplate might be a bit unnerving - she doesn't have a human face right now, instead a smooth gray plate that ends in a wide, flat mouth where her mouth probably should be. It's not clear how she's seeing, though from this close, one can hear the subsonic clicks she uses for echolocation. It had seemed a safer bet than relying on eyesight when dealing with a supernaturally attractive foe.

Alice doesn't like Harold. A lot of what he is freaks her the hell out. But she's also enough of a good person to try to help when he's clearly in distress. For now, she pulls his hood back up, "It's alright, Rattlebones. She can't throw any more at you," It's a bit weird hearing a normal young woman's voice coming from the creature she's turned herself into, "But we've gotta move before some unlucky schmuck decides to investigate, alright? And that means we need to finish up before someone looks into this."

[Mr Stereo1]

Carlos owes a lot to the old sack of bones, but all of their lives are on the line if they take too long and get caught out on this job so he leaves others to comfort him and gets to work.

Spoiler: OOC

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I'll Roll Crafts Overcome to get the front door open so we can get started. (4d3-3)[3]

[ylvathrall]

There are substantial security measures in place in the house, but Carlos did homework and he's able to get through with minimal effort. Until the basement, at least, where his contact's information proves correct: there's an advanced biometric secruity system linked to a heavy vault door. On his own, there's no way he could get through it, realistically - the best he'd have would be to simply blast the door open with explosives, and there's no telling what damage that might do to the contents or indeed the building.

Suiko, however, simply walks up and lets the scanner examine her fingerprints, retinas, and who knows what else. Apparently it finds her adopted form to its liking, because the locks disengage with a satisfied series of clicks. Inside is a small room - more of a closet, really - with a small set of shelves. On the shelves are a laptop, a leather-bound book that looks like a journal, a briefcase, what looks like a fully automatic shotgun with two drums of ammunition, a jewelry box, and a small framed photograph.

"Well, that should do it," Suiko says. "I'll go take our dearly departed friend's body for a joy ride, shall I? Get some good evidence planted. Oh, and watch out for the claymore in the wall."

[Mr Stereo1]

Carlos eyes dart around the room desperately looking for the Claymore before he calms himself down.

"Thank you Seiko, that would be much appreciated." He says politely, wanting to encourage this helpful behaviour as much as he can.

Then he returns to looking for the Claymore, which to a squishy mortal like him actually would be fatal. He's really prefer not to leave his kids orphans or let his grandkids grow up without him if he was able to help it.

Spoiler: OOC

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As an Explosives Expert with my Demolitions Stunt I assume I can roll to find and disarm the thing?

Crafts +5 (4d3-3)[6]

[ylvathrall]

"Not a problem," Suiko says, taking Zack's arm and sauntering out.

After a few moments' study, Carlos spots the mine: tucked into the corner next to the door, fresh plaster in the wall marks the explosive's hiding place. It looks to be rigged to the shelf. With a bit of expertise and a lot of courage, he manages to disable the trigger.

[Celticbear]

Harold doesn't hyperventilate, he doesn't have lungs. He just freezes, his body showing intense fear its tenseness alone. Eventually, when people start to gather around him, his purple eyelights move to look at everyone in the group, his skull lagging behind a few seconds. He then pulls his hood over his face and begins to send out his magic senses, trying to fight past the White Court's insipid mental attack to look for magical booby traps.

Spoiler: OOC

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Using... Lore(?) if that's applicable for finding magical traps.

Lore (+4): (4d3-4)[3]