THE DUNKER, his cover thoroughly blown, focuses his eyes on a patch of the ground near the two people looking at him to provide something more interesting for them to appreciate. He begins to hnng and oof, his head throbbing as he tries to invoke the power of divinity itself in the hotel lobby.
"Huh," the nearby
Eta repeats, somewhat surprised to see the donut shop man here and seemingly attempting to cure a very nasty fit of constipation.
"I... Well, that rather depends on your definition of knowing. He was there when I was buying doughnuts at the store. Must have followed me here," she tells Bart, and the large man nods.
"He looks suspicious," Bart says, wrinkling his face a bit at the way THE DUNKER seems to be pressing himself ever harder into the wooden frame of the door.
"And maybe drunk.""I... Uhh... I guess I could go talk to him? See what he wants?" Eta proposes, and Bart shrugs, which she takes as a sign of approval, and begins to approach, speaking to the man slowly and carefully.
"Erm... Hi! I uhh couldn't help but notice you... standing there. Was there something I could help you with?"Just as she is about to ask the straining man again, THE DUNKER replies with a powerful
"GRRAGH!" followed by something altogether stranger!
[THE DUNKER's affinity roll: 2+1]
A single can, ostensibly of some strange form of pineapple if one believes the art depicted on it, with a label written in what is obviously Hebrew, suddenly appears in front of Bart, a flash of light and a heavenly choir introducing it as it begins to float mid-air in front of the man. Bart's immediate reaction is to retreat back behind the reception desk, ducking down to shield himself.
"Hostile wizard! Better run, lady!" he says from behind the counter worriedly, presumably meaning Eta.
* * * * *
After a negligible amount of discussion,
Larry and
Halesey decide to go peddle their cocaine over at Klein's pawn shop, which is quite a long walk indeed for two men as betentacled as they. Fortunately, nobody really seems to notice as they walk about the area - apparently one can even miss a bunch of abominations nonchalantly strolling down the street if one isn't specifically looking, which is probably a good thing to remember for the future.
Eventually they reach the shop, only to find... nothing. The shop appears to be simply... absent, an empty lot in its place. The emptiness before them, and the silence that appears to envelop it, drowning out all nearby city noise, is highly unnerving, to say the least.
* * * * *
John, feeling that his purpose here couldn't be any clearer, quickly undresses the mannequin and puts on the waders, the labcoat, the gloves and the mask, rather delighted when all of them seem to fit perfectly, though he can't really see why they wouldn't, given how they all but magically poofed into existence for him. Grabbing the tools provided, he gets to work immediately.
[John's finesse roll: 6-->5+1]
[John's mind roll: 2+1]
Charging over to the vat with his net, John immediately fishes out every muscle, kidney and miscellaneous gland from the vat, plopping them one by one on the slab next to the skeleton, then taking a short moment to assemble and quickly attach most of them to the skeleton to make a pretty functional-looking body, and the skeleton seems to agree, beginning to twitch altogether more vividly. Next, he retrieves the digestive and respiratory systems, hooking them up expertly to appropriate orifices. The liver's a bit difficult to wedge in there, and he's not sure about the position of the pancreas or all those other glands, but he's the only doctor around here, so his jigsaw puzzle skills will have to do in this case. Then he sticks the heart in its proper place (on the left side, if he remembers it right) and, continuing onward, retrieves the eyes and ears, popping them into place, followed by the brain, for which purpose he needs to actually open up the skull, put the brain inside, then close it up again. And then, as the final touch, he takes the pelt off its pedestal and, after opening it up with a generously provided knife, garbs the skinless body in it, finding that the pelt fits better in some places and worse in others - no doubt through no fault of John's, obviously. Sewing the pelt shut, John then pauses to regard his handiwork.
He comes to the now rather obvious conclusion that the thing he's put together is a koala. A very familiar koala, in fact, one that appears to be less than satisfied with its patch job, judging from the senseless twitching and all. However, John is interrupted by the mirror ball above him stirring in a most menacing fashion. There is an organic half-slosh, half-snap as the koala, who appears to be psychically screaming into the air, judging from the way John is quickly developing a splitting headache, straightens out, her body twisting internally for a fraction of a second before the restraints of the slab suddenly open up, and the innocent little critter tumbles to the floor, rolling around in a panic for a few moments before she opens her eyes and seems to get her bearings. Awkwardly getting up, she slowly turns to John, and her voice rings out in his mind.
~My god. Just... oh my god. There are no words,~ she says, sounding mildly distraught.
~I... hope I can eventually forget that feeling.~ * * * * *
Dave, not entirely relieved by Mr. Pilton's counsel, puts down the pair of boyshorts he has been speaking into and lights yet another match, hoping the rising green flame carries him far away, and he never has to come back to this dimension again in his life.
[Dave's mind roll: 2+2+
1]
Entering his mindscape, Dave comes face to face with what looks like... a dragon? One of those Chinese dragons, no less. And around there is nothing but desert. Dave, unsure on what would be the best thing to do in this situation, looks the dragon in the eye, noticing that the creature appears equally perplexed. They stare at one another for a few long moments, but then Dave, as he often tends to, has a bright idea, and quickly climbs the dragon's side, mounting its back like the champ he knows he is. Cheerfully slapping the dragon across the neck, he urges it to take him to the land of happiness, and the dragon, seemingly having no better ideas, complies, flying upward, its elongated form snaking through the air as it ascends ever higher, giving Dave an increasingly good view of the land below, though there appears to be nothing of interest to see, just a few cacti and sand dunes, and the further ascent confirms that that's all there really is, for many miles in every direction. Finding this greatly depressing, he looks upward instead, and notices a cloud high above him - a single, massive cumulonimbus. As he appreciates the cloud, the dragon starts moving closer to it, going higher and higher until it starts to become difficult to breathe. And yet the cloud seems to draw the dragon quite irresistibly, and Dave's resistance only seems to urge it onwards, into even less oxygen-saturated areas. Dave tries to scratch, bite and kick the dragon as hard as he can, but that doesn't work at all, and neither does strong language, or even the weak pleading he manages right before he begins to lose consciousness, his grip relaxing in a critical moment, causing his body to slip off his mount, going into freefall.
Dave practically doesn't feel a thing when he hits the ground - just a very deep ringing, and a whisper of sorts in his ears, as the cloud above, the dragon no doubt within it already, drifts off.
1. Immobilize Wig
2. Emulate Stupefying Canned Goods
3. Empathize With Camel
Perhaps this was too esoteric of a test! Have one spell anyway!
As Dave gets back from his trance state, he notices that something appears to have changed in his surroundings, namely, he seems to have attracted a crowd of strange, floating pairs of underwear. He isn't sure how, but he is fairly certain they seem to be looking at him curiously.
Author
Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 256186 times)