(Sink or Swim) Too far

[Jhet]

Omar's mouth moves in the formation of curse words. That much is instinctual. It breaks his concentration and he gasps for air. Gasping for air is painful, and in addition to being decked by the bowl, he's grasping at his throat. The gun drops and bounces on the floor.

Suffocation is silent, much like drowning. The body slowly stops working. It's rather peaceful when you think about it, and over relatively quickly. Being on the end that's causing the suffocation is something different too.

Once Omar's body let's go, there's no turning back. He can't concentrate on anything else, and he can't do anything else. He slowly slumps over in his steel pants, his body slowly giving up.

Omar's at 2L4B and will proceed to die unless Star is going to change course. No need to stay in initiative.

  Finally suffocating.

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-12-25 13:34:36		Omar rolls 1 to Suffocating!-1 (ouch!) (10 Again)		1		failure

[Star]

He watched Omar slump over with cold, curious eyes.

Hypoxia would set in, and pretty soon he'd start convulsing. If you're ever being suffocated? Try playing dead. It's hard, when the body is in a red alert, but someone not familiar with the process might just ease up. He was familiar, and knew he had plenty of time. Whole minutes, yo. You can change change the world in minutes. True story. He'd changed Omar's world.

A toe eased the gun out to himself, and he release the boobytraps on the weapons as he retrieved the pistol and laid it on the table out of Omar's reach.

Highly Effective Individuals go by the numbers. Number two? Omar's phone. He fired off a text to the sender of the picture of Nous.

Got us a new brother. Let the girl go but tell her Omar think she got a pretty mouth if she ever want to get with a real man.

The phone went next to the gun. Eyes alternated between the door and Omar's quavering body as he fished his deck of cards out. You know the card. Six of clubs. Like a sheet of titanium. Sleeves, rolled.

"I'm your angel, Omar," he said softly. Barely a whisper. Could Omar hear him? Dying, unconscious? Maybe. Maybe not. "You've spent all your time waiting for that second chance... for a break that would make it okay. It's gonna be okay. This is your second chance."

Long fingers reached out, grasping Omar's hair and pulled his head up.

flick

The card sliced the jugular open, spraying blood in crimson benediction. He slowly walked in a circle around the sacrifice, twisting the head and spraying the blood all over the room, pulling Mana from the act.

"The sacrifice, Omar. It's the greatest love. I'm going to show you how to love. With this essence, we're going to do great things, you and I."

He wiped the bloody card clean on the corpse's hair.

"You know, some of my friends call me Cut."

  The Angel (No Degeneration)

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-12-25 15:07:48		Star rolls 2 to The Evil That Men Do (Morality/Wisdom) (10 Again)		8, 2		1 success

[Jhet]

Omar is no more, and is so much more.

It's almost an act of kindness to use Omar's sacrifice to maintain the veil. Guy was going to break it. Shatter it, even. Sacrifices like these are often frowned upon, and the violence and anger that permeated Omar flavors the mana that fueled Star. It seeps into his pattern. In this case, the sacrifice is being made anyway, but that doesn't make that any less clean.

Omar's blood and being coats the room and starts to puddle under his body. His body being supported oddly by the steel pants.

The phone buzzed back. The text reading, 'She's gone. Too bad too. A hottie like that shouldn't be with some white piece of shit.'

Omar might be dead. But his buddy upstairs isn't, and there's still cleanup to do.

[Star]

Ever accidentally drink a stale, half drank beer than someone had used as a spit can for their dip? That's the taste. His skin felt dirty and pricklier than a gas station bathroom stop. Number two.

Tick, tock, it don't stop.

Jerks. He read the text. What was the world coming too, when being hot was more noteworthy than producing pure THC? People had their priorities wrong. Right, Omar?

The book went in his pack. Phone, too, once the battery was removed. The gat went in his pocket, after he made sure a round was chambered. Sorry, Omar. Puttin' one in the pipe, you right. We're riding dirty.

"Omar, what's that?"

He yanked the knife out of the corpse's foot, spinning it so the jagged teeth were facing out.

whackskrrritch

Methodically he struck at the corpse; slow, deliberate, letting the teeth catch and pulling out and away. Jagged wounds appeared. Just. Like. Teeth.

whackskrrritch

"Oh god Omar, what, close the book! What is that! Where!"

whackskrrritch

You kids want hoodoo? All right.

whackskrrritch

"STOP MAKE IT STOP OH MY GOD OMAR SEND IT BACK!"

He slid the knife against his forearm, slicing into his shirt and skin before dropping and kicking it under the table as he released his spells on Omar. The mutilated corpse was falling into it's own pool of blood even as he spun and bolted, blood spattered and eyes wide with fear.

"HELP! JESUS HELP!"

He bolted up the stairs. Loud. Uneven. Panicked.

"OH MY GOD! IT'S EATING HIM! RUN!"

[Jhet]

Omar's buddy isn't deaf. He can certainly hear when someone is yelling up the stairs and he comes lumbering down them. A bloody basement and a mutilated corpse is enough to make most people flip out. And not only did mister big ass muscles flip out, he lost his lunch. Shouldn't eat so much fried food. Vegetables are better for this sort of work. Not that Omar's boy could plan for seeing his boss dead and mutilated on the floor.

So, vomit is a thing. Fries in there. Some corn too. Greasy going down, greasy coming up. It just adds to the general ambience of 'crack den that brings down the property values'.

After Big Man is done losing his lunch, he runs over to check on Omar's unmoving body, completely ignoring Star in the process.

"Omar man, wake up. Omar, Omar. Omar!"

The Big Man is losing it. Not his lunch this time, but his sanity.

[Star]

Pop Quiz: What do you do when a large man come barreling down a flight of stairs? You move. Angel, sure, but he was still a ways off from directly contesting Newton's Laws of Motion.

What

Don't

No

Gross, yo.

Fingers splayed against the wall as his body spilled against it. Eyes closed, but he could still hear it and smell it. A cold wash of nausea rolled over him as his stomach flipped and flopped and he fought to keep it together. The mana he'd drawn from the blood burbled and roiled, fighting for release like a whiskey sour on top of red wine.

Keep it together. Keep it down. A hand wiped at the cold sweat on his forehead. Come on. Showtime. Every great mystery need a messenger.

His will pushed outward, into the pool of blood. A tendril raised, thickening, an unmistakable hood fanning out and fangs distending from the undulating animated blood.

"ITSBACKLOOKGETBACKWATCHOUTRUNNNNNNNN!"

  Shape Liquid to make a nom nom serpent

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-12-27 16:11:34		Star rolls 8 to Make it Look Good (Dex + Crafts) (10 Again)		2, 1, 1, 9, 10, 8, 3, 4, 3		3 successes
2014-12-27 16:11:14		Star rolls 9 to Blood Magic (Shape Liquid) (10 Again)		8, 1, 1, 3, 10, 10, 5, 6, 2, 5, 5		3 successes

[Jhet]

Big Man turns to look where Star is pointing and yelling.

See, Big Man is kept around for his muscles and giant physique. He's not kept around because he's particularly intelligent, because he really isn't. He's not strong of spirit either, and when he sees the big blood & vomit snake, there's really only one solution.

"RUUUUNNNNNYOUPIECEOFWHITETRASHGETOUTOFMYWAAAAAYYY Y!!!!"

His volume fills the basement and he crashes up the stairs at full speed, which, for the Big Man, is pretty respectably fast. His footing it's particularly sound though, and he manages to slip on his own vomit, crash down face first onto the stairs, and knock himself unconscious. He's not moving. Upon any inspection, Star can see the cut from where the edge of the stairs split open the temple and the slow trickle of blood from the now ballooning bruise on the side of Big Man's head.

He won't be waking up for a while, if at all. No real fault of Star's that, but clumsy happens with oversized muscle. He'll have to step over him to leave, but the door is open at the top of the stairs, and there's nothing standing between Star and leaving. Well, except for the puddle of blood and vomit. At least he can step over that.

[Star]

"Rest well, and dream of large women."

And roughage. Dear god, please dream of roughage. Fiber, yo. It's a thing. Less grease, more greens.

He picked his way back over to retrieve the knife he'd ditched, wiping it on Omar's corpse. A spot check to relieve Big Man of his firearm, and both weapons were stashed in his pack.

We did good work, Omar.

One. Last. Thing.

Between the tainted mana, reek of blood, and acrid stench of vomit, reaching through the funk made his senses swim. Tainted mana was burned to ease the way, but it was like setting off a cherry bomb in backed up toilet. A convulsive swallow kept it all together as he threaded Stygia into the corpse...

...and with a wet splatter, turned flesh to blood.

Eventually, the spell would run out, leaving a film of flesh covering the floor around Omar's skeleton.

The Illusionist sketched a bow to the room, and left.

  Spellcraft

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-12-28 19:59:02		Star rolls 9 to Ashes to Ashes (Lesser Transmogrification) (10 Again)		8, 7, 3, 8, 6, 4, 5, 3, 1		2 successes
2014-12-28 19:57:43		Star rolls 2 to So. Much. Vulgar. (3rd Vulgar +2) (-3 Mana Mitigation) (10 Again)		5, 1		failure

[Jhet]

Yeah, that's going to make the coroner go audibly, "What the fuck?" He's not going to get an answer either. Because there's nothing natural on this planet that's going to explain what happened here. The good news is that all the occult stuff on the ceiling is going to give them a really easy fallback. Voodoo stuff, yep, sure, why not!?!

Someone will lose the paperwork, and it'll just go away. It'll make the news, and no one will want to talk about it except for Omar's Grams. And no one will want to listen to her. It's all sort of perfect.

Even more perfect because Star got the book that started this mess in the first place.

His phone buzzes at him. Text from Nous.

What's the address. I need to see what you did tonight. I'll pick you up and buy breakfast.

[Star]

i knew one day we'd have breakfast together

Eyes studied his phone, letting the GPS get a good lock as he walked down the street, then confirmed street signs with what his phone was saying.

at [street] and [street]