This is for adding a Search Category to the thread.
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Allison's ministrations achieve their desired effect. The woman's eyes flicker and she appears to slip in, and out, of consciousness. For one glorious and horrible moment, her eyes open and she stares into the face of her rescuer. And vomits!
Star leads the way as the air palpably thickens. Up on the landing, the fire is beginning to find its stride: long orange tentacles spread from door to door.
Coco needs to make [Wits + Athletics -1] as the smoke begins to mess with her perceptions.
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Allison's face twists up as the woman continues to evacuate the contents of her stomach. Gross. One would hope that she finally has it all out, but there's no guarantee of that. So Alli turns her over, situates her on her side with her leg supporting her. That way, if she passes out again, she won't drown in her own vomit. Pleasant thought. "Stay like that. I'll be back."
Satisfied that the woman isn't in immediate peril, Allison leaps up and charges back into the house, searching out the mophead with the affinity for locked doors and the crazy chick with the martyr complex. Hopefully she won't have to drag both of them out, too. But she can't just leave them in there to die.
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Sure, there's a way.
More than one. But this wasn't an episode of The Striker Show. Secrecy, yo. It's A Thing. Was it crappy that someone's house had to burn down to protect The Great and Secret Show? Sure. But the house was a Lie.
"Hands and knees! Get under the smoke!"
Geez. Common. Sense. Then again, was he really indicting someone running around in a blue velvet suit? File under Lower Expectations.
Hands unslung the pack and shoved the book in it, then began fanning the air with the wet towel. Maybe it'd clear a path. Maybe not. A few steps were taken back up the stairs, ready to offer a towel when Carrot Top appeared.
Should have broken the window in that room.
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Presence
DexterityHa! Smoke was no match for her brilliant powers of observation, merely for her much neglected respiratory system! Which, was not necessarily a good thing, Coco noted as she folded nearly double, body bent both from the vicious rebellion of smoke coated lungs and the desire to avoid inhaling more smoke into them. From there it was a quick trip to her hands and knees, her cane clutched desperately in one hand, her weight having to rest on the knuckles of that appendage, but that didn't stop her from noticing what the man was slipping into his camera bag.
"Whuh-haghk...why take the boo-ook," Coco managed to squeeze out in between the seizures racking her lungs.
2 successes
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"Uh. I don't speak Welsh. Or, like, whatever that was?"
Arms stretched out, flipping the towel out to it's full extension to land with a wet slap on the redhead.
splat
Practice, yo. Magicians, tablecloths. It's totally A Thing.
"I mean, that sounded like Welsh. Like that whole growling while you eat fish and chips sound, you know? Anyway. I only, like, do English. Oh. And I can ask for a cigarette in Vietnamese." True Story. Don't. Ask.
Picture this conversation, on the stairs, of a burning house, with a woman on her hands and knees in blue velvet with a wet towel on her head.
Paging David Lynch.
Feet thumped on stairs as he began bouncing down. Was he scanning the rooms for valuables? Totally. Heirlooms. Do The Right Thing. Right for who? Who even knows.
"Time to go!"
Because raging inferno.
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Presence
DexterityA cutting riposte was on the very tip of her tongue, ready to spring forth, but all that the Coco could manage beneath her sodden towel shall was more ragged coughing. Just for the moment, though. Eventually her lungs would clear and then the cameraman would have no means of escape.
The image of a corpse lying in the rain, the sky's tears falling into a pool of spilled crimson, a camera strap tangled in it's limbs, sprang into her mind and a shudder passed through her.
No, it wouldn't be that sort of confrontation, but she wouldn't let the man weasel away, either.
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Smoke increasingly pervades the house. The air stirs as it warms. A ruddy glow chases Star and Coco as they flee downstairs. Fortunately, the quixotic flame haired maiden did not stumble when she reached the stair well. Star, quickly sweeping the upper floor before bounding down the stairs, sees nothing of... value.
Downstairs has more bookcases - assuming he could make the time to look. The front door is open, framed by swirling mists as smoke escapes into the street. Allison is returning to the scene, framed eerily in the murky, smothering, smog.
At least the hapless cultist has been dragged to safety.
The wail of the first siren at last cuts through the air. Distant, but growing closer.
Allison looks up as she reaches the staircase, noting the others coming down with a relieved smile, "Come on! Lets get out of here while we still can!" If necessary, she grabs the hand of one or both of them and guides them out of the smoke, away from the flames, back into the fresh air. This place isn't gonna make it. Get everyone outside, check up on the victim. That's the plan, now.
Once outside, she releases any hands she has a hold of and moves to recheck the woman who'd started this whole mess. Still conscious? Still breathing? Still alive? Don't you die on me, now. I didn't do all of this for nothing, damn it.
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What's the hand for, yo?
splat
Now everyone had a towel. They were fully prepared for house fires and interstellar bypasses.
"Roll it up and stick it under her neck. Ummm. Yeah. I saw that, like, on tv. Once. CSI Emergency Room or something?"
Dang. Girl was kinda... well. She had a nice smile. The kind oftoned absnice smile someone single wouldn't mind getting CPR from. Sirens? Right. Outside, hands dug in his pack, tacking on his press ID and fishing the camera out again.
click
Burning house.
click
Approaching emergency vehicles.
click
Victim and savior.
click
Clownfish peeking out of blue coral.
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Presence
DexterityOnce they'd finally emerged from that den of poisonous vapors and would-be dragon's breath, Coco found that precious air became far easier to grasp in between the torso contorting fits of ragged coughing, and olstered by these bits of breath, the Claviger's eyes managed to land upon the toned back of the other woman, the woman who'd managed to beat her to that magnificent state of heroism, with almost enough heat to start another blaze. The call of Summer rang strongly in her blood, then, her heart beating like a war drum, but Coco knew that was only because the tenets of Spring had failed her once again. Today she'd risked her life in the pursuit of her one desire, to be recognized as a woman of courage and valour, the principle character of every hour, yet once more that desire eluded her grasp and fell into another grasp. At least no blood stained her cane today, no one's life had been wrongfully taken, no friend had left to clean up the mess, but all was still not well.
Why had she been unable to obtain her desire? The question ricocheted through her mind, rebounding through dead space where no answer lay. The implication that, perhaps, the failure was her fault, arose but was quickly banished to the warrens of her memory where everything that she was afraid to face lay. It was getting too full. Pieces had started spilling out of it, and slowly her heartbeat turned from wardrum to the thumping of a rabbit fleeing over hard ground, and in a mad scramble she fixed upon the one aspect of this whole affair that she could still affect, could still do something with.
Using her cane to push herself upright, Coco stalked over to the cameraman and tried to push his camera away.
"Why the...book?" she managed, choking a cough back. "Tell me."
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