Halesey is rather okay with battling massive beasts - after all, why wouldn't he be? The power of the potato guards him in all tasks, even ones such as these! He begins with a spell!
[Your affinity roll: 5]
As the angel, evidently pissed at having its rumbled directives ignored begins to move toward Halesey rapidly, he conjures up a barrier of hairy mafiosi, all of which draw their firearms at the sight of the angel and begin firing!
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 6-->2]
[Cassowary Angel's body roll: 6-->1+1]
They seem rather accurate in their firing, most unexpectedly when given the range, and many bullets bite into the angel's flesh, causing it to rumble and hiss as it draws closer in a way that makes Halesey more than a bit uncomfortable. He needs some protection.
[Halesey's affinity roll: 6-->4]
Motivated by danger, Halesey summons up a shield of desks so dense and moronic, even the largest and nastiest of claws would have difficulty penetrating it! And it looks like Halesey is about to quickly find out how well that is going to work, given the impressive land speed of the angel even as it seems to tread carefully in the vicinity of the massive potato vortex nearby.
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 3]
As the angel draws closer, the mafiosi seem to be missing more often, possibly thrown off by the angel's rumble. Halesey knows that he must act fast.
[Halesey's affinity roll: 6-->3+1]
And so, blessed by the power of the potato, he conjures up a large vortex right next to the angel, a maneuver that the creature appears to have not expected!
[Cassowary Angel's body roll: 5+1-1]
However, a slight alteration of posture and claw position puts it back at a tranquil, yet deadly pace as it wades into the barrier of mafiosi!
[Cassowary Angel's finesse roll: 4+2]
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 1-->2]
[Cassowary Angel vs. Mafioso Firing Squad: 2+1 vs. 1]
Upon stepping next to the mafiosi, it begins to slash with its talons, slicing two of the about eleven mafiosi in half, intestines flying this way and that, while the rest try their best to keep firing!
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 5]
[Cassowary Angel's body roll: 6-->2+1]
Shots fly right into the angel, but, while it does bleed bright silver blood and its neck flaps begin to shiver from the pain, this only serves to enrage it further! And it is exactly this state of rage that Halesey plans to exploit, stepping over to the angel, sweeping his shield aside for but a moment and unleashing the killer centerfold while its eyes look in his direction.
Looking at the centerfold for a moment, the angel tilts a few of its heads for a few seconds before helpfully rumbling to Halesey that he's really holding the thing the wrong way up, then returning to its attempts to gut mafiosi like nobody's business.
[Cassowary Angel's finesse roll: 5+2]
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 2]
[Cassowary Angel vs. Mafioso Firing Squad: 2+1 vs. 5]
However, this moment of distraction appears to have been crucial, as its next talon swipe hits only air now that the mafiosi have begun encircling the creature, directing fire at it from several directions!
[Mafioso Firing Squad's finesse roll: 1-->1]
[Mafioso Firing Squad's body roll: 2]
Evidently, they have not heard of the very good reasons why you shouldn't fire on objects from all sides, those reasons being all the allies you can hit this way unless you've got a serious height advantage. Only a few moments into firing several mafiosi immediately drop dead or critically injured, only about three still standing when the exchange of fire ceases as they realize that this probably wasn't the best plan.
* * * * *
Dave tries to give these dirty, filthy underwear grunts some sweet magic.
"Alright, put some of those in this box. Everyone look into the flame of this stick when I give it to you. You may get magic or you may not get anything, I don't really know," he explains, and the underwear master shakes its upper body.
"Oh, don't be silly! A tinderbox will never fit inside of that! But, other than that, very reassuring!"Dave walks up to the lineup and tries to give the first guy some magic, making sure to look away as he strikes it. After a few moments, he looks back and spots that it seems to have a yellowgreen flame. How wonderful. And the grunt he showed it to does seem very confused. Okay, moving on! He steps to the next one, striking a match and shoving it toward the creature without looking, and the same thing for the next, and so on for as long as he has matches - that is to say, for the first half of the lineup - it seems to have worked in 9 out of 10 cases, miraculously enough! The blessed grunts look quite happy with this new power they've gained and, once Dave's done, they all look to each other, and begin their work!
[Grunt affinity rolls: 5-1, 6-->6-1, 5-1, 4-1, 1-->5-1, 4-1]
Suddenly, Dave notices several alarming phenomena - a bottle of shampoo materializing from thin air, a hole in the nearby ground forming and quickly filling up with women's shoes. One of the grunts shoots up in the air, a trail of shiny stools marking its flight. A chocolate sausage falls from the sky, followed by a few more. And finally, a small mound begins to form on the ground, spewing out small bits of foul dust.
"Stop, everyone!" the master says, but its minions seem a little too absorbed in their variably successful attempts at magic to listen.
* * * * *
Eta, deciding to leave the peas where they are in the pot if they're going to be so dang difficult, serves all her available food as-is on the nearby kitchen table, then goes to check on Lois, who, for her part, appears to be sitting on the couch, grinning and looking into the distance while swinging her head to and fro. She appears to be eating a canned ham with her bare hands.
Eta wonders if she wants to interrupt Lois' fun, but before she can rightly come to a decision on the matter, Lois turns to her.
"Hey. Is the food ready? I already kind of started eating, I dunno," she says, laughing softly.
"I just felt like it, you know?"* * * * *
John is quite disappointed at the staff of Bernski's for sleeping on the job like this - most disgraceful! Time to get things done anyway, he guesses.
"Ah, great. James, get off your arse, we're going to the hospital! Try and remember where it is, please.""Not far... I think," he says, getting up and helping his drunken compatriot stumble out into the street, which seems really quiet for this time of day. The two move down the street, James guiding John whenever the latter begins to pivot on one foot and go in a sideways direction, and they both trudge through the streets, and John hardly even notices the time fly as they move along, eventually reaching a place called the Joseph Banks Memorial Hospital, which, like you'd expect from a hospital, happens to be large and made of concrete, with a whole lot of windows - this much, though, is all that can really be said of it, as it seems most lacking in any character aside from these obvious marks. A few ambulances are parked outside, and there appear to be many entrances, few of which seem to be marked in any intelligible way.
"This... this is the place," James says.
Author
Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 255200 times)