Veil of Smog, Chapter 1

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

"Isn't that the power pole from Dragon Ball?" Leif asks, probably not on purpose saying the most frustrating thing possible.

Growing up in a magically hidden temple Yume has almost no exposure to popular culture an doesn't understand the reference. "Dragon Ball?"

[Charybdis1618]

"A children's show ... loosely inspired by Journey to the West. So, yes, in a roundabout way. Had a terrible Greek dub. My-"

He cuts off suddenly and averts his eyes.

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

He cuts off suddenly and averts his eyes.

Yume raises an eyebrow. "What?"

[Charybdis1618]

"Never mind, it's unimportant. Leif, you volunteered to let her try to purge your ghost? Are you sure you wish to go through with this?"

[Xihirli]

"Absolutely," Leif says. "I didn't realize... I didn't think there were peopl who could remove her." He looks around. "Should I... sit down?"

[Esprit15]

Sarah stows her bow. “Either or. It shouldn’t hurt.”

When Lief has situated himself, she again traces the same symbols as earlier, and the silvery-white characters float in the air before her. “Ahg ayet, Pater Noktis, prewzik tod haylogweoh apa tod ghwemo!” As the incantation finishes, Sarah points a finger to him and a small beam of light flies out toward his chest.

[Charybdis1618]

Leif's body is limned in light for several moments. He twitches once, then all his joints straighten. A thin wisp of smoky vapor escapes his mouth like breath on a cold winter's day. The smoke begins to swirl and thicken. Two small holes open, and seem to stare at the lot of you. A voice echoes in the back of your minds, fading as the wisp drifts away to the north.

"Insolent child! You wish me gone? I shall find a new vessel. One that appreciates me. And I shall show you what you are missing out on..."

A minute later, a roar echoes through the woods. It sounds like a bear, but with an unearthly timbre that resonates in your bones and your psyche. The bear in question ambles out onto the top of the one wall, glaring down at you. It leaps from the wall and lands amidst you. A fall of nearly forty feet should have injured it. Instead, it lands on all fours with just a small bending of the knees to absorb the impact. A malign intelligence behind the eyes glares around at all of you.

[PLEASE ROLL INITIATIVE]

[Xihirli]

Leif stares at the ghost, trembling and keeling over a second.
"****... you..." he manages, then fully vomits, heaving.

[Esprit15]

Sarah smiles. “Oh hell yeah!” A barrage of arrows fly at the bear as the archer vanishes from sight.

Spoiler

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All Out Attack: Take a -5 to Defense for a +5 to attack rolls

Arkhermiens
Attack: (1d20+12)[23] Crit on 18-20
If Crit: (1d20+12)[30]

Toughness DC 18
If Attack succeeds by 2 DoS, DC 20
If Attack succeeds by 3 DoS, DC 23
If attack crits, +5 DC

Stealth (Hide in Plain Sight): (1d20+10)[26]

[Xihirli]

Leif snarls as bile drips down his chin. "You ruin my life, you fill my sister's head with lies, and you dare say I don't appreciate you." He sprints up to the bear, heedless of the danger to himself, and brings up a foot to kick it in the face. Then his eyes pop open like dinner plates. "Wait. ****."

Spoiler: Attack!

Show

Gonna try "go to sleep"

RECKLESS ATTACK! All out, -5 to defenses going down to... 1? I believe?
Aaaaaand (1d20+12)[23] attack:
Multiattack 3. Linked Secondary Effect (Stunned) 3, Weaken Strength 3. Reversible

So each degree of success improves my DC by... 2? And my normal DC is 18.
The M&M book is so crazy hard to search through.

[MechaAce]

The Shroud has a powerful handgun suitable for defense against bears... sadly, she doesn't have it on her person at the moment. Instead, she sweeps up the sniper rifle, dashes to the side to line up a shot clear of Lief and sends a 7.62mm round towards the center of its mass!

Spoiler: Attack!

Show

11 to hit.

[Charybdis1618]

Leif's punches and Sarah's arrows stumble the bear. A similar vapor drifts out of its pores, coagulating in the air above. Shroud's bullet puts the wounded bear down for good.

Apparently done talking, she drifts over to the remaining spirit of Loukas' and merges with it. Its eyes open, and glow like embers.

[Batcathat]

The bear was dead before Rufus even had time to react and now he was once again facing a spirit, presumably a considerably more dangerous one than Loukas' little demonstration targets. Rufus hadn't worked much with spirits before this far too spirit-heavy day – too unreliable – but he suspected it was unlikely to be easily trapped.

Still, only one way to learn.

"Recommencing test", he mumbled under his breath as he jabbed his cane into the ground. Moments later, a pillar out of pure diamond shot up from the ground under the spirit, attempting to trap it. The material was most inconsequential, of course, but there was the matter of style to consider.

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

With a small flourish Yume launches a series of thrusts at the spirit with Nyoiyari, the haft extending and retracting with each jab to cover the distance to the target.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

(1d20+5)[22]
- Damage 5 (Piercing, Slashing, Bludgeoning)
- Multiattack vs single target (increase the attack’s resistance check DC by +2 for two degrees of success, and +5 for three or more. This circumstance bonus does not count against power level limits.)
- Penetrating 2
- Improved Critical
- Affects Insubstantial 2

[Charybdis1618]

Loukas dashes forward and kneels before the pyramid. Without looking up, he shouts "Keep her off me. I've got to disable this before she gets control of it!"

[BACK TO THE TOP OF THE ORDER]

[Esprit15]

A barrage of arrows assaults the spirit from every direction.

Spoiler

Show

All Out Attack: Take a -5 to Defense for a +5 to attack rolls

Arkhermiens
Attack: (1d20+12)[18] Crit on 18-20
If Crit: (1d20+12)[25]

Affects Insubstantial 2, Indirect 4, Penetrating 3

Toughness DC 18
If Attack succeeds by 2 DoS, DC 20
If Attack succeeds by 3 DoS, DC 23
If attack crits, +5 DC

Stealth (Hide in Plain Sight): (1d20+10)[25]

[Xihirli]

Leif shakes his head sadly. She's going to corrupt something else if we get her out of the spirit. Maybe the artifact, maybe one of them... but it won't stop. In me, at least I'm used to stopping her.
He leaps into the spirit, eyes and mouth wide to reabsorb her back into himself.
"Get her back into me! We need to contain her!" He shouts to everyone.
"Come on, Grandmother... you always said our fates were intertwined, you'll never get your destiny without me."

[Charybdis1618]

She wriggles like a spectral eel, but your words are true. She can no more deny the bonds of fate than any other, in the end. Leif asserts his ironclad will and forcibly drags her back within the fleshy walls of her eternal prison.

[END COMBAT]

[Esprit15]

Sarah slows down, reappearing amongst the group. “Well, that did not go as planned.” More tinkering with the spell would be required. Something to prevent repossession by the spirit? But then she would have to chain it off of the target to the spirit as it was exorcised. Or maybe it would be more prudent to tackle it like a curse…? A problem for later.

She approaches Lief and bows her head. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me for my failure, Lief. I’ve never encountered a spirit quite like the one possessing you, and I put everyone here at risk by not taking all appropriate precautions in removing it.”

[Batcathat]

Lost in thought, Rufus walked over to the diamond pillar and leaned against it, watching the others through their faceted reflections. "Still..." He leaned back and tapped the pillar with his cane, shattering it into specks of light. "...a rather informative experience nonetheless."

He walked back to the others and sank back into his chair with a rare smile. "And I must admit, more entertaining than another day at the office."

[Charybdis1618]

Loukas stands, holding a piece of the pyramid in one limp hand. "That was a bit more intense than the demonstration I had hoped for, but all the better for it. Each of you saw how the others handle a threat, and what you can do individually. Together, you will achieve spectacular things. It is written in the stars."

[Xihirli]

Leif sighed and, defeated, sat on a stump.
"...Yeah. I guess. So... we've all seen each other fight. What's next?"

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

Yume sheaths Nyoiyari, its handle shortening to that of a sword.
She struggles with the English vocabulary. "Your Grandmother is a spirit with purpose. She must be made full before she can move on. Prayer and rituals might not be enough."

[Charybdis1618]

"Now, you return to your ordinary lives for the moment. Keep eyes out, and keep in touch with each other. I'm sure a monstrous incident will soon cross your radar. When it does, you should gather each other and face it as one. I cannot always be there to help you directly, but I will always be happy to offer guidance or insight where I can. You have my cards. May Artemis walk with you, my friends."

[END SCENE]

(Say any last-minute things you need to, but we should move on. Let's have a few days' timeskip, during which I want everyone to describe their investigative efforts. We can start the first proper mission thereafter. I can't wait for this!)

[Esprit15]

Without any clear leads, Sarah spends her days working and keeping an ear to the ground. Some evenings that means trading hunting stories at the restaurant with the guys. Others are more investigative - reading about local missing persons, odd goings on in the news, etc.

[Xihirli]

Leif returns to work as well, and those he works with as well as his partner put together that he seems more... defeated. Like there was a hope that is now gone from his life.

"What's that one idea from like... every Greek Myth?"
"Zeus will f-"
"Not that one. The uh... oracle ones. Like Oedipus, or Hamlet."
"Hamlet isn't a Greek Myth."
"It might as well be."
"Uh... it's finding your destiny on your path to avoid it. Though you're thinking of the Scottish Play."
"Thought so."

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

When she is not tending to her shrine, Yume patrols the forests surrounding the city keeping an eye on places that are likely to harbor dangerous spirits.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Sight Tag
- Counters Concealment/Invisibility (Vision)
- Counters Illusion (Vision)
- Magical Awareness (Vision)

[Batcathat]

Having decided he clearly doesn't know enough about them, Rufus spends most of his free time over the next few days in his massive library, reading up on spirits and related phenomenon.

[MechaAce]

The Shroud

Spirits were definitely new to the Shroud, at least the kind that poured out of someone and got hostile. "I'll be in touch" she said after packing up her gear and hiking out.

If something monstrous was going to happen, it stood to reason that it would be someone or something new. The Shroud took to the streets and rattled some cages among the bottom feeding scum, looking for information about someone or something being smuggled into the city, something out of the ordinary.

[Charybdis1618]

Having decided he clearly doesn't know enough about them, Rufus spends most of his free time over the next few days in his massive library, reading up on spirits and related phenomenon.

The books are frustratingly light on details, but seem to agree on a couple things. Firstly, spirits are constructs of magic. However much they may resemble a person, they are not people in truth. Concurrently, they cannot grow or develop in the same way people can. Their nature is an intrinsic part of their being. Finally, and most importantly, they cannot be directly seen by mundane folk. There is no trustworthy information about fighting them, although Shroud's bullets passing through cleanly seemed fitting.