Kaze ventures on, pushing against the soft spot in the wall, trying to break through.
Kaze ventures on, pushing against the soft spot in the wall, trying to break through.
Phoenyx: You crash against the wall with a mute thud. It's a minor annoyance that barely gets past your thickened skin, but an annoyance nonetheless.
"Geeze", the voice says sarcastically, "be careful", and then, "Toast as in dead. We're the only living beings in the building. Congratulations are in order I suppose, that's an achievement. It's you and I, easy as that"
A few seconds of silence pass, "No wait, the other guy just came back online..."
Shodan: The Aetheric rays pierce the veil of darkness. But vast patches of gloomy ichor prove themselves resilient even against your enhanced perception, as if they were a fixture of the environment rather than the physical manifestation of the absence of light.
Of the other guests no traces are left.
You step into the hallway; two sets of polished wooden doors face each other under the suffused red light of the indoor LEDs, separated by the few inches of the granite floor. A few meters ahead of you, on the left, one of the doors lies open, its threshold blotted by a pool of red (ink?).
The smell of incense fills the air.
As you inch past the first door, you're greeted by a selection of moans. You could try to clear the steam from the glass porthole and peek inside if you wish, but as your instinct tells you, the VIP section is really just a brothel.
Kaze: You jam your fist into the wall, caving a hole in it. Your hand digs deeper, and you think you've latched unto something important the moment you try to pull your hand back and are met by an overwhelming resistance. Then PAIN, as hundreds of tiny little razors eat away at your arm and whatever is on the other side starts pulling you deeper, offering little or no care for the fact that it's trying to fit a square peg through a round hole.
7 successes
Subtracting Kaze's defense (5) plus his defense from armor (2), still gives the tendril two successes on his grapple attempt. As per core wod p.157 and going by the description of Organic Resilience, armor is not subtracted from touch attempts but it will be subtracted from the next turns attacks (str + brawl - [kaze str + kaze armor] if the grapple is not broken.
We're in init stage, you can break the grapple or attempt an overpower maneuver with a single success on a str + brawl roll penalized by the tendril STR (7). Be Mindful of your hp penalties, Kaze is on his second to last health box (bashing) which will levy a further -2 dice penalty on the roll. Once you're full bashing you start rolling stamina for the KO. Needless to say, very bad things will happen. The beast deals lethal damage.
Magic is a thing, so is WP. Be creative
Info
The quip is responded to only with a scowl.
Either arrogant or a terrible liar. Either way, they're watching me, so best not to show the extent of my abilities until the time to break free.
Phoenyx waits patiently. She could try and get through the top of the elevator and fly out, but that would leave Kaze and Shodan trapped. She could get her clothes - she really wanted her duster right bout now - but is was more important to recover the others and learn about her mysterious companion.
"What should I call you, then, if you are here to help me?" she asks, trying to keep her voice level.
Spells: Life Shield, Supernal Vision, Modulate Frequency, Transmission, Tune In, Nightsight. Stamina 2 = -3 Penalty on Spellcasting Rolls
Max Mana (5/6), 0 Vulgars, WP 4/6, 7 max HP
Inventory: Smartphone, Pistol (Beretta M92, +2 lethal), pair of daggers, Reinforced Leather trenchcoat [1/0] (left in dressing room) | 1 dagger (on herself)
It's weird.
On the one hand, all of the guests that were here seconds ago seem to be gone, but clearly there are people behind these doors. This is either an extremely elaborate hallucination... or he's been transported to one of the Realms Invisible. But if that happened, shouldn't his Unseen Senses and Mage Sight start pinging like crazy?
Figuring whoever is behind this has so much environmental advantage that they woul'dve already started shooting if they wanted to, Shodan stops at the threshhold of the open door to the left. Squinting, he tries to spot anything unusual.
More unusual than a surreal corridor filled with sticky darkness, that is.
1 success
Kaze find reality in the pain! He reacts to break free and back away from the awful thing, the grasping tendril from a lot farther and stranger place than just the other side of a physical wall! At the same time, even with all of the unreal surroundings, Kaze is determined that he would rather die than use vulgar magic in a room full of Sleepers!
1 success
Date Action Roll Result 2020-01-03 20:41:05 Kaze rolls 2 to break the grapple of the tendril (Str 3 + Brawl 5 - Tendril Str 7 - health penalty 2) (10 Again, WillPower) 7, 9 1 success
Phoenyx:
The elevator slows down visibly.
"Call me Icarus. You help me, I help you. That's a friendship with benefits", he says flatly, "I won't be able to keep the elevator running for much longer. In approximately 15 seconds that thing will have flooded through the steel casing of the elevator on its way to the upper floors. In approximately 9 seconds, the elevator will pass a sealed maintenance shaft. I'll open the elevator's doors and slow down the throughput of the mainline for you. But you'll have only 6 seconds to break through the iron doors and jump inside the shaft. For some reason the other side is safe"
Shodan: Four walls covered in red velvet with a large King size bed filling the center, its white sheets are soaked with scarlet. A naked girl - you recognize her from earlier - lie sprawled on it, facing the ceiling. Both her wrists and ankles have been tied to the bed with stark black Velcro sheets.
On the right side of the bed - with her back to the door - the other girl, her friend, shears through her flesh with a meat cleaver. A maddening dance that sends geysers of crimson flying after each stroke has sliced yet another artery.
You hear a seductive feminine laugh, it seems to come both from the room and the outside, everywhere. Suddenly, from your right the creaking sound of a door.
Kaze: With a whiplash the tendril releases its hold, retreating back in its shelter and leaving you with a visible memento of the struggle for your arm.
This time, man has prevailed over beast. The prize: not only your life, for your hand has found something, something else. You recognize the cold touch of bare metal. [Roll STR to pull the item, 1 sux]
Phoenyx runs those numbers in her head. She needed more time.
"I can't get through there that quickly. I'm going up to the next level and through the doors there."
She begins reeling off High Speech to form her spell.
1 success
3 successes
Date Action Roll Result 2020-01-13 14:31:46 Phoenyx rolls 6 to Gravity Shift - Gnosis+Forces+HS-3 (10 Again) 10, 7, 1, 7, 2, 10, 10, 6, 3 3 successes
Damn, that stings.... the paradox bursts through her body. With her center of Gravity directed against the wall, Phoenyx walks up the wall, through the hatch, and begins to run up the wall of the elevator shaft.
Phoenyx drops Modulate Frequency to keep Gravity Shift on, and absorbs 1 bashing as backlash.
Spells: Life Shield, Supernal Vision, Transmission, Tune In, Nightsight. Stamina 2 = -3 Penalty on Spellcasting Rolls
Max Mana (3/6), 0 Vulgars, WP 4/6, 7 max HP
Inventory: Smartphone, Pistol (Beretta M92, +2 lethal), pair of daggers, Reinforced Leather trenchcoat [1/0] (left in dressing room) | 1 dagger (on herself)
Oh, great. Now they step out of Hitchcock and straight into Quentin Tarantino territory. Whatever it is that he sees - a bout of madness, an illusion, a weird case of spirit posession - taking on the cleaver-wielding maniac is just too much risk for too small a reward.
Seizing the moment when she is still distracted by the butchery, Shodan takes a step back into the corridor, towards the doors he heard opening.
Kaze pulls on the metal item, and backs away from the opening in the wall; even though the tendril seems to be gone, he doesn't want to tempt it with a clear shot at him!
1 success
He attempts a self healing spell as low key and unvulgar as possible, without High Speech. He succeeds, barely. It seems perhaps just resting a while is going to be more effective than magic this time.
1 success
Kaze: You pull and twist, but the metal handle won't budge. Deflated, you retrat from the wall to the relative safety of the center of the room, and redirect your focus on mending the warp and weft of your pattern. But your will is unsteady and the imago while steady, lacks the permanence to patch your wounds completely. The golden core of a glyph hovers in front of you and a small trickle of energy reaches its intended destination illuminating all around. Then, it dissipates, its energies fizzling. [you heal 1 bashing]
The adrenaline subsides, but then, you unexpectedly hear the ringtone of a phone. [roll perception]
Shodan: Tap tap tap. The steps of a looming presence, followed by a shriek, like chalk against a board.
Reminiscent of most horror cliche's you hesitate forward, and soon it becomes clear that it's not tomato juice on the floor a few yards away.
"Are you scared?", the womanly voice returns, this time much clearer, lacing words with noisy symbols in your head, "I just want to play with you. You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"
Phoenyx: The imago forms under your guidance and showers the cabin with a myriad of dazzling orange motes, at the edge of the glyph, black vines latch unto its pattern, trying and failing to empty their content of malevolence. Instead, you offer them your blood for their taint.
As you perform your ascent, you find hard to juggle between such complex effect and the very serious task ahead (Gravity shift's duration is Concentration).
And the cabin starts to smell of smoke. Brakes?
Your friend whistles mockingly, his voice much clearer now that you've unwound your protections, "head, blood. No bueno", and then after a muffled laugh.
"9, keep trying"
What did you spend 2 Mana for? Also, welp. I would have allowed an escape through the latch, but concentration spells don't allow for any other action as long as the spell is in effect, the only solution is to set a duration (by taking a dice penalty) the moment they're being cast.
Kaze, be mindful of health penalties. Substracting 2 dice from the right yields a chance die on the str roll. Also, keep track of the mana expenditure, that rote costs 1 mana
Info
Let's move forward, sorry for the delay. My health and head just haven't been there