THE DUNKER, all too often blamed for the presence of flies in rooms, is quite wounded by the way he seems to be a priority target over a teenage girl.
"The insects aren't me. In case you didn't notice, I'm trying to lighten up this place, which seems to be struggling from an attack of boredom. As am I. Thus the attempted thunder-fondling. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to work out, so now I'm going to express my displeasure at this," he says, jiggling slightly as he rolls over.
[THE DUNKER's affinity roll: 4+1]
And at the front door, the ground is disturbed, and suddenly two formations burst out of the ground side by side! They seem to be made of stone, each depicting a pair of somewhat ordinary-looking underwear, although they both seem to be looking at Bart with a disappointed gaze, very much condemning him for falling to the ways of the Five Thieves. Bart, rather surprised, takes a step back, never really cognizant that underwear could judge him so, and lowers his gun, possibly quite curious as to how underwear can even gaze at all.
[Joanie's affinity roll: 5+2]
He does not get to wonder for long, however, as suddenly he is enveloped by a slight glow that emits a buzz, a buzz that rises in intensity, reminding THE DUNKER of a giant mosquito in many ways. The air in the room becomes slightly thick, and the tension in it rises along with the buzz until, just as suddenly as it began, it stops with a rather underwhelming pop! What happens immediately afterward is somewhat hard to describe for THE DUNKER, as his mind finds it difficult to process sudden materialization on such a scale, but Bart, ever deprived of luck, is suddenly engulfed in prehistoric chicken-like things, encased in twitching and shrieking dinosaurs from head to toe, a mass of scales and feathers struggling and fighting against itself!
[Bart's body roll: 6-->6+2]
Bart, very much surprised by this turn of events, begins to go absolutely wild! Flailing around and leaping from place to place, smashing into walls and diving to the floor in turn, dinosaurs fly every which way as he struggles to free himself, an endeavor that he is remarkably successful at! Merely seconds later, he is lying on the floor, looking somewhat winded, small dinosaurs scampering around him as he gets up. He stares at the two wizards with a bewildered expression.
"What. Just... what," he says, raising his gun again, very much with the intent to fire, it seems.
[Bart's finesse roll: 3]
A shot rings out in the lobby, and Joanie appears to be lightly grazed.
[Joanie's body roll: 1-->2+1]
Quite surprised, she drops immediately, perhaps thinking she was hit harder than she really was, or perhaps guided more by film logic than anything else, cursing rather wildly and colorfully.
* * * * *
Dave, now tasked with inventing the art of magical siege warfare, heads out into the wilderness and seeks a grove of giant hogweed - fortunately, his world has a lot of those, and they're not nearly as tall around here as they were where he first appeared, either, so there's no real danger hitting anything with their toppling forms, either. With all this in mind, Dave tests the destructive capabilities of the thylacine river.
[Dave's affinity roll: 6-->6-1]
The ground opens up before him, and thylacines begin to stream forward, the marsupials biting into the landscape, forcing it to give way under their combined pressure - it blasts straight through the grove of hogweed, which, not being mangroves, can't take such thylacine flooding and immediately topple, falling in all directions!
Yeah, Dave thinks this siege warfare thing might not be all that difficult, all things considered!
* * * * *
Halesey, quite pleased that this appears to actually be business and seems to be progressing at a fine rate at that, goes for yet more fun experimentation.
[Halesey's affinity rolls: 4+1, 5+1, 3+1, 4+1, 2+1, 6-->1+1]
He looks at a nearby heavendweller, a slight woman in her early forties, apparently very much disturbed by the way heaven seems to have become a million times less safe lately. Halesey knows what will solve all of her problems - a potato vortex to the face! And as soon as one appears, one can't really hear her lamentations anymore! Success!
But what if he tried more power? He adds another vortex, rather pleased when the face vortex grows to be twice in size from this intervention! Cool, but what if he tried
more power? The next vortex doesn't have quite the effect of the previous one, but the face vortex still grows acceptably, and, during the lady's blind flailings, begins to suck up various individuals around her quite nicely! They begin to retreat, which does raise the question - how about yet more power? Adding one more vortex to the mix seems to work wonders - the heavendweller becomes little more than a potato vortex on comparatively tiny arms and legs! And now she seems to be absorbing a great deal of her fellows.
Halesey feels a little underwhelmed when the next vortex he adds seems to do little aside from increase the size a little. He resolves to make the last one truly exceptional and, pausing to make sure his connection to all things potato is as strong as ever, makes it so! This time, the vortex grows geometrically in size, and towers above all else in the vicinity, a massive monument to the power of the potato that soon sucks in a nearby marble temple as well.
[Larry's body roll: 4-1+
1]
Even
Larry, still halfway inside heaven, has to struggle a moment to keep his position as the vortex begins to devour large portions of heaven.
"Ha-hah! Fantastic work!" Reuben compliments Halesey, beginning to bash the fleeing souls toward the vortex in passing. This continues for a short moment before Halesey becomes aware of a very low rumble in the distance that occurs for but a few moments before it stops.
Turning to look, he spots something unusual - it appears to be... some kind of strange bird, maybe? A large creature, about the size of a car, possessing what looks to be five large necks coming from many sides of its body, each branching into five directions, with all offshoots ending with a blue, black-beaked, compound-eyed head with a spiked keel atop it. All of its twenty five heads seem to be looking straight at Halesey, and its four massive legs with what look to be immensely deadly talons seem to be dug into the ground. It raises eight of its wings, and each head inhales, the black feathered body of the creature nearly doubling in size suddenly. It then lowers all of its heads and begins emitting another rumble, this one far more powerful - it begins to make Halesey's head hurt within moments, actually, and for some reason fills him with a not insignificant amount of fear and also the idea that perhaps he should stop now.
* * * * *
John, nodding appreciatively and thanking Madam Bernski for her useful hint, pushes himself off the counter and stumbles outside into the street, taking a look around to locate James. As his gaze wanders over the street, he spots nobody fitting the... well, nonexistent description of James. No dudes around, at any rate. So he decides to call the man. but is interrupted by a sound - the door of the diner opening and closing behind him, complete with a bell ringing to signify entry.
John's not really sure why, but the sound seems... meaningful to him somehow. Maybe because he's drunk off his ass, but you never know.
* * * * *
Stepping inside her apartment,
Eta does a quick check of all the things within - firstly, she closes the door tightly, then makes sure that all her cardboard hole patches are still in optimal condition - unfortunately, it seems they are not, largely by virtue of people in the downstairs apartment working on the ceiling and thus on her bathroom by extension. This is, obviously, something of a problem. Making sure to close her bathroom door as well as she can, she turns to Lois.
"Well, not much has changed since the last time we were here. Want me to get you anything to eat or drink or should we get straight to magic?" she asks, and Lois thinks for a moment.
"Well, some food would be nice, I guess," she replies after a moment, shrugging.
Author
Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 256148 times)