[Trespassers IC] Shadowrun: Seattle By Sundown

[IntSys]

"Yeah, you better run! You're lucky that I'm not here to catch mooks like you- " 

 

... and a storm of comets crashed right above Halley, before she could even rendezvous with the others.

 

 

She slid down the wall and landed on top of a piece of rubble, taking an unhealthy amount of shrapnel and bullets. "Come ON, Lexiel, are you still holding a grudge against me?" She looked up from the huge crater. She could tell that they fell down twenty-five floors, and that about a hundred of eyes were unceremoniously looking down the crater.

 

"Just... do your thing." She carefully hopped across whatever remained of the office and climbed up from there.

[Empiricist]

"JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? FUCK! There's a damn army of spirits coming our way! If it was just one shaman I could handle them, but it's an entire group of them, and they look real damn confident." 

Edmond would soon get a reply, a hurried one at that, simply reading Leave. Now. Spirit army inbound. 

[DragonRage]

"Ahahahahaha!  That was great!  Come on, you sorry sons of whores!  I'll take you all on!" Lexiel declares at the top of her lungs, rising off the ground to hover on wings that look noticably more red and black than they did before, triple-toned hair whirling about her like a second halo, "You want to do human sacrifice?  You'll serve better as target practice!"  While her everything else is aggressive, her aura remains calming and peaceful, gradually healing her wounded allies.

Edited April 24, 2017 by DragonRage

[LucidRain]

Visrii got up from the unceremonious fall down the crater. He had unleashed the float-strings just in time to catch himself from falling to death, but those 'guns'... Visrii shook his head, and held a

Visrii wiped the trickle of blood running down his mouth. That 'angel'... what does she think she is?

Had she not been a part of the team, he would have kicked her off the ledge back in 50 immediately. The lunatic with a twisted sense of justice had no place in the land of the living. 

"Congratulations, you just killed 500 innocent bystanders. Good job playing angel of justice, you fuck." Visrii growled at the murderer, with an accusing undertone.

Visrii sighed. So much for teamwork. Visrii turned around and addressed the rest of the team. "Find cover - and try find a place where there isn't damn lava."

With the brief warning, he threw up 2 crystals into the air. The first exploded with a shock of light, covering as the second exploded directly beneath, a rapidly expanding smoke that crystallized again mid-air, to form a floating mass of black stone that covered the massive crater 3 floors above them. That should keep the majority of the guards out for the tiny moment they get out of this place.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!" He shouted as he hustled out.

Edited April 24, 2017 by PigeonOfAstora

[DragonRage]

"They're all guilty!  All of them!" The archangel rants, as another wave of wrong and fear and hide your savings pulses through her aura.  "If I have to kill them all to keep this world safe from their insanity, then they'll all die!"  Lexiel casts another comet storm, performing an elegant aileron roll as she gestures to the spell's targets, a mostly indiscriminate circle of falling stars that will actually completely miss her allies this time.  "Die.  Die!  DIE!"

[LucidRain]

Visrii grips his weapon tightly, about to pierce this angel through the chest.

Visrii! Stop! What are you doing? Wyvis' voice whispered.

About to stop a massacre. He replied.

Take a step back. She might be an angel, but she's not herself at the moment.

All angels are like that.

No - this one's something else.

...wait. Color.

Shit.

She was now a threat to the mission, however. He'll have to switch tactics and try to make her see herself.

Visrii breathed in. Okay. This is going to hurt.

His pupils changed to fiery red as he poured all his mana into the torrent of spells. He first gripped her gauntlet tightly and overloaded it with reverse chaos, effectively shutting her mana source down. With another spell, he summoned a powerful storm of fireballs that tore through the comet hails, exploding them out of the air before they could do any collateral damage. Finally, he summoned a lightning storm, showing the crater with rain to put out the fire and lightning to fry any electric equipment the guards or witnesses had.

He brought his face up close and looked Lexiel directly into the eye. If Lexiel had any mana detection at all, she would know that Visrii was speaking directly to her soul. 

"Lexiel." Visrii addressed her by her real name for the first time. "You are not yourself. You are hurting civilians and that is not who you are. That is not what you fight for.

Wake up."

Edited April 24, 2017 by PigeonOfAstora

[IntSys]

Quote

"Congratulations, you just killed 500 innocent bystanders. Good job playing angel of justice, you fuck."

Quote

"Ahahahahaha!  That was great!  Come on, you sorry sons of whores!  I'll take you all on!"

 

"You want to do human sacrifice?  You'll serve better as target practice!"

 

"They're all guilty!  All of them!"

 

"If I have to kill them all to keep this world safe from their insanity, then they'll all die!"

 

 "Die.  Die!  DIE!"

 

Halley halted her steps and turned to the crazed angel floating feet above. She saw something... it was a crimson angel of death, a bringer of despair, and... herself?

 

Her blaster pointed upward. A drop of tear fell, yet, she couldn't bring herself to fire. "I'm... sorry." She said quietly. She turned away from her and hopped across the lava. Each step felt heavier than the one that came before.

[Empiricist]

Izumi slips ,  her normally cold demeanor twisting into one of incredulous rage and abject horror as black ichor bleeds from the world around her, the deathly sludge pooling at her feet, the storm clouds beginning to rumble 

"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR GODDAMN MIND? DO YOU KNOW WHAT AN ARCOLOGY IS? IT'S A CITY! IT'S A FUCKING CITY! YOU JUST BOMBARDED A GODDAMN CITY! I CAN ALREADY FEEL THE IMPURITY SEEPING THROUGH. 

 

WE ARE NOT HERE TO FIGHT A FUCKING ARMY, GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE, BREAK THE FUCKING BOOK AND LET'S GET THE FUCK OUT! YOU'RE PULLING THE SHIT YOU ALMOST SHOT HALLEY FOR. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? GET IN THE HOLE, GET IN THE FUCKING HOLE, I'LL COVER YOU." 

 

There's a flash of light, a blast of heat, and then, a mushroom cloud. A great cloud of roiling darkness looming above, drifting towards the incoming personel. Flashes of burning light crackle within like lightning, and a sickly black rain, closer to tar than water begins to fall. It was a curse, the same curse that she had uses on the Knight Errant, now boosted by the demise of a nauseatingly large number. 

 

Gather impurity from all those who have perished and curse the land with Black Squall. 

[Yours Truly]

Lexiel-1 (Soundtrack)

The many, many comets would have rained down and destroyed whatever remained of the arcology and killed an unnecessarily large amount of civilians. The ensuing earthquake would taken the entire city of Seattle down with it, an event of such catastrophic proportions that the cries of the dead and the damned, and those who have lost their loved ones would have been heard all over the world, and would have led to the Aztechnology portal receiving an extremely large amount of fear and panic, causing an unstoppable horde of alien and almost indestructible monsters to tear a swath of destruction on the surface of the planet. The remnants of humanity would huddle inside the large and magically sealed bunkers that may or may not still work despite being several hundred thousand years old. But rather fortunately Visrii managed to consume the comets with several great rings of fire, causing them to disappear back into the aether from whence it came preventing a major disaster, and creating a rather beautiful light show.

 

Izumi's ensuing explosion of impurity caused every single guard in the area to feel something off, like there is a disturbance in the force, but rather unfortunately this does not faze the guardsmen who have rather gotten used to the idea of up sometimes being purple, although they do seem to just be standing there for an order that will never come. The mages that Sif had spotted earlier were down on the floor and writhing and moaning in pain however, as the many spirits they had summoned slowly started to disappear one by one; although a female mage simply stood up, and blasted Sif with a bolt of dark magical power while shouting "You hit like a little girl!".

 

Edmond would have successfully opened fire on the guards to cause them to disperse, but in the blink of an eye all that was left of the many security guards were a twitching pile of bleeding humanoid shapes, followed by the distinct sound of a jet engine starting up again. The door however was not open, and the not very sturdy door quickly yielded underneath a barrage of explosive bullets. Revealing a server room where an injured looking Bullet was single-handedly facing off against two buzzsaw drones, and where a rather fat man jacked into a cyberdeck was rather furiously typing something.

 

Luckily enough for Halley, her steps weren't literally heavier, as that would end with her falling into the still quite hot lava...She would find herself in the fancy looking office from earlier, where a robed man with a fierce look to his eye and a general demeanor that suggested that enough was enough flew out of the room and into the distance with a shout of "Fuck this, I'm not getting paid enough".

The office itself was quite nice, and an open computer with a freshly installed USB port was waiting for her input, it even had a message for her on the screen saying "The debt needs to be paid". The door leading into the floor itself was quite open though, and there didn't seem to be any guards waiting beyond that door.

 

The End of The World (Soundtrack)

But none of that matters to the Austrian Scientist Dr. Gerhard Wolpertinger has completed his life's work. He smiled with a mad satisfaction as he beheld the gibbering and constantly twisting shape of the monstrosity, the unholy Horror he has summoned to serve the company's interests. I mean sure he had to sell out to some big shot company, but let's face it; SCIENCE! Needs a lot of funds now doesn't it?.

He knew that it was trying to shift to a form that would scare him, and he saw as his lab assistants, worthless men and women of not enough conviction; clawed their eyes out or tried to commit suicide in a vain attempt to not have their very essence consumed by it. But Gerhard wasn't scared by it at all, you see he wasn't seeing it as a representation of the sins he had committed, the sins he would commit immediately afterwards, and he didn't even flinch when it tried to show itself as some weird Hecatoncheires/Bionic School girl hybrid killing several blonde senators. Because he saw it for what it will be, he saw it as the future...

What will the Good Doctor do? (Most votes will win)
>>>>Slap some sense into your lab assistants, I mean it's only a Class 20 Memetic Anti Sanity Mutating Emotion Feeder, I mean sure the scale only goes up to 5.....but that is no excuse for a lack of professionalism and inquisitional spirit!

>>>>Name it George, I mean sure it has some super edgy and "interesting" name like Darkul the meter feeder or Ploppy the perpetually well endowed, but I have always wanted to call something George

>>>>Laugh at your own brilliance! We both know you deserve it

>>>>Rattle it's cages a bit, you have seen worse, and make it clear that you are disappointed

>>>>Other (Write what you think he should do here)

[Strider]

Decker. For now, Edmond ignored the drones, and ignored the sound of a thousand speeding meteorites raining from the heavens. The Bullet would simply have to avoid the flying buzzsaws for another few seconds. Edmond hadn't even met this thing before, and had only seen it briefly on Chaos Engine. Angling himself towards the overweight man by the server, Edmond once more ignited the thrusters. Propelled by the furiously roaring engines, Edmond shot towards the man, tackling him out of his seat, and pulling the cables from his datajack. To finish him off, Edmond gave the man a few solid punches, pulling them slightly to avoid killing him.

 

>>>>Slap some sense into your lab assistants, I mean it's only a Class 20 Memetic Anti Sanity Mutating Emotion Feeder, I mean sure the scale only goes up to 5.....but that is no excuse for a lack of professionalism and inquisitional spirit!

[spümpkin]

The Bullet has struggled to stay alive in this chamber, but understood that Edmond needed to pursue the cause. He truly was dedicated. The Bullet simply kept dodging the manhacks, waiting for any opportunity to safely strike.

 

>>>>Rattle it's cages a bit, you have seen worse, and make it clear that you are disappointed

[DragonRage]

"What- city?  I-" Lexiel takes a moment to actually listen, and under the tramp of marching, angry feet, there is a rather lot of screaming going on.  "No.  No.  No." She mutters in a monotone, gaze distant and face blank under her halo.  Which, by the way, has turned pitch black and started radiating red vapor.  Her feathers and hair have similarly darkened to an edgy black and red color scheme, as has her 'makeup', but even if she could still see, she'd never notice.  Her mind's eye is elsewhere, even as she falls from the sky like a sparrow blasted with bird shot.

 

"Ghalma, Kemba, Martrel, Partuk, Koth, Samhail, Kord, Arba," She recites in a faint, numb tone.  Fields of living corpses, flayed alive.  Skin is the bastion of the heretic; the sanctum of the unclean.  Blinkmoths, tyrannex, humans, leonin, driven to extinction to grease the gears.  Works of art, milennia of culture, gone within a month.  "Venser, Kalma, Huyin, Melira, Karmine, Bastei, Rakon."  Endless expanses of dry, white dust, still holding the shape of the people and lands it once was, until touched by a breath or a breeze.  Still air, dead as the land.  Complete disregard; her greatest spells less than pinpricks, and then darkness, darkness forevermore.  "Siltek, Camden, Duriel, Yotta, Wildorn, Ambriel, Jori En."  The litany of names continues, unceasing, the angel never needing to pause for breath.  A greasy, gritty sensation fills the air, surrounding everyone near her, like trekking through a swamp for a few days with no chance to cleanse oneself.  Suddenly, her presence isn't nearly so comforting.

[Empiricist]

Izumi leaps, and ascends before swooping down to catch the falling and quite possibly fallen angel. She's lost her damn mind, and now seemed to just reek of impurity. Couldn't do much about the former, she ain't no shrink, but the latter? Well it was worth a shot. The mechanisms on y r arm hands her a fresh magazine and she presses it against Lexiel's chest. By this point, it was no longer a matter of hoping, nor of what-ifs and consequences, it was just a haze of adrenaline and cursing mixed with the usual cravings for whiskey.  "Sif, gonna need your help with this..." 

 

Purge Casket on Lexiel. Try and siphon away any impurity and seal it within the magazine. 

[LucidRain]

Visrii's eyes turned back to amber, his hair turning silver like ash. He let go of Lexiel's gauntlet, and weakly stood leaning against his Duty. Then he retched and threw up at a nearby wall, coughing up blood from some sort of ghastly sickness. Uncontrolled bursts of lightning flashed from his armor.

Fuck. Too much mana again.

He straightened himself, and with shallow breaths returned to where Izumi was trying to heal Lexiel. The murmurs, the mantra that she was repeating over and over. That was guilt, not some sort of disease. 

"That wouldn't work...that...she's under guilt sickness." Visrii coughed again. "Unless that thing you're doing gets rid of all the dark mana she's filled with... we need to finish the mission...get the hell out of here." After he waits for Izumi to finish, he retrieves Lexiel and carries her on his back, Duty to support him.

With a weak gesture, he peels back the lava flow just enough for him to be able to cross the lava without stumbling, and slowly catches up to Halley and the rest of the folks.

Wyvis...when I get back, you're gonna have to pull some weights.

 

[The Fading(Weak) - Every 4 turns one of Visrii's abilities goes under cooldown. This effect lasts until he has time to rest or finds a mana source.]

Edited April 25, 2017 by PigeonOfAstora

[DragonRage]

Izumi's magazine fills with a soft, golden substance, making the device feel oily, as though whatever is contained inside is trying to seep through.  However, the darkness leaches from Lexiel's halo and somewhat from her wings.  Though she still trembles uncontrollably, too much to walk far unassisted, she is able to focus enough to notice the magazine full of oil.  "Oh, no.  You need to burn that!  Burn it now!  I- I had that inside me?  That doesn't make any sense.  I'm supposed to be immune.  Venser said I would be immune!"

 

>>>>>>>Laugh maniacally!  Much like applying more dakka, or picking Reinhardt on defense, it's always a good choice.

Edited April 25, 2017 by DragonRage

[LucidRain]

Visrii took the casket out of Izumi's hand and burnt it in his hand, letting Lexiel watch the flames turn the magazine into cinders.

Fire is destruction.

Fire is the purest form of destruction.

Fire is purity.

Visrii scoffed under his breath. Ironic piece of shit they were.

"Hope you're happy." Visrii said, as he moved on.

 

>>>>Slap some sense into your lab assistants, I mean it's only a Class 20 Memetic Anti Sanity Mutating Emotion Feeder, I mean sure the scale only goes up to 5.....but that is no excuse for a lack of professionalism and inquisitional spirit!

Edited April 25, 2017 by PigeonOfAstora

[Empiricist]

"Christ you alright? You're coughing up fucking blood! Lexiel, you back to you senses now? We need to hurry - the curse will only last for so long." Izumi sends Sif on ahead to scout, quickly catching up with Halley on account of being able to fly. 

 

Edmond, I have cursed the area. I don't know how long it will last. Hope you have an exit plan. 

 

>>>>Celebratory lines of coccaine. 

[Strider]

After Edmond had driven his fist into the man's face, there was a satisfying thunk  as the drones fell lifeless from the air. Edmond turned to the sentient bullet, and spoke without opening his helmet. "No time for pleasantries. I'm on your side, and we need to go. Get on my back." Edmond turned, allowing The Bullet to latch on. Edmond tested his grip, then launched off. Down the hallway, past the corpses--Edmond shuddered--, and into the pit. Rocketing past employees in a flash, Edmond was rapidly approaching a wall of solid black rock, magically created, he supposed. Edmond swerved as he approached, almost scraping against the edge of this gaping hole as he skirted the floating monolith. Down a little more, and Edmond pulled in above a small group of people heading into a floor. He cut the engines and landed.

 

"Fancy meeting you all here" he quipped. Then, realizing that his identity was hidden, he said, "It's me, Edmond, but I won't be taking off the helmet." Edmond turned to Izumi, with a sad, unseen smile on his face. "I couldn't leave. And..." A quick glance revealed Izumi's latest text, "There is no real exit plan. We can only do our best to get rid of the book, and perhaps fly out through the rather large hole." Edmond let The Bullet off, and turned to the party. "I'd like to make a general apology. I assumed that you could perform your tasks without knowledge of this world." Of course, I thought that you would make the effort to get that knowledge if you didn't have it... "As you see, things have gone very poorly because of that. Now, we need to finish this mission properly. I suggest that whenever any of you decide that you want to do something, unless someone is actively shooting at you, ask either Izumi or myself first. Going forward, let's use the elevator shafts to get to the basement. Izumi, you have a bird, correct? Can you keep that stealthy, and out in front? Visrii, I want you in the back. You have the wall of rock which could stop anyone following us. Use it sparingly though, as we need to be able to get out through these halls. Uh...Bullet? I'm sorry, I don't know your name. You and Lexiel should remain in the center, keep an eye on Visrii. I'll be on point, though behind Izumi's bird."

 

This didn't seem likely to work, but Edmond concluded that almost any organization would be better than the chaotic attack they had initiated. Now he needed..."What's Halley doing? We need her with us. And, I have a method of communicating with Izumi silently, which can be useful." Turning to Visrii and Lexiel, Edmond continued. "Do either of you have some form of magic that can facilitate silent communication? It may be vital, saving us a few moments before an enemy notices our presence."

Edited April 25, 2017 by Strider

[IntSys]

"Kept you waiting, huh?" Halley quietly inserted her finger into the USB port and installed the data Deus had gave her. She looked to the robed man's exit. "You sure went through a lot to make sure I install this in time."

 

She opened the door and stood by it, waiting for the others' arrival.

 

 

>>>>Slap some sense into your lab assistants, I mean it's only a Class 20 Memetic Anti Sanity Mutating Emotion Feeder, I mean sure the scale only goes up to 5.....but that is no excuse for a lack of professionalism and inquisitional spirit!

Edited April 25, 2017 by IntSys

[Empiricist]

"I'm afraid that won't be happening - there'll be an army covering it by the time we're done. Guess we'll be blasting another way out." She nods and beings stalking off ahead, instructing Sif to keep to the shadows. "Lexiel's in a bad shape, can't say Visrii's faring much better. Things aren't looking too good, but you already know that." A tired, bitter chuckle "Ten minutes. I've brought us ten minutes, if we're lucky. After that... there's no telling what hell will rain down."

[DragonRage]

"I- I can't draw mana," Lexiel admits, sounding absolutely exhausted, "The lands I have bonded to weep, and... with how much Phyrexian oil Izumi extracted from me it's a wonder it took me this long to go crazy, even with my resistance to the stuff.  I won't have any magic until I can adjust my spells for my changed state of mind.  But I can still shoot things, as long as you aren't expecting sharp shooting."

Edited April 25, 2017 by DragonRage

[Empiricist]

"So, how do we fix you?" 

[Strider]

"We do our job correctly from now on, and we do our best to stay alive. That's all anyone can do. When we get out of here, we can spend some time recuperating, recovering our power. I have a contact who, if we destroy the book, will be willing to shelter us until we get picked up. I need a communication device though. And Visrii, if you need magical strength, to perform some form of communication spell, I can lend you some." Edmond was uncertain if he had enough of his own magic to help. His guess was that the book which Marisa had given him was more of an assistant, opening the gates of magic in a person. It wasn't that he was somehow gaining magical power, he was simply learning how to take it and use it. Edmond pulled out the book, placed his hand upon it, and felt that frail spark that he recognized as his magic. He placed his hand on Visrii's chest, and slowly poured the strength that he could into the worn and battered figure.

 

"Are there any communication spells which you can do with that amount of magic?"

Edited April 25, 2017 by Strider

[LucidRain]

Visrii gripped his necklace tightly, weak bursts of lightning fading away as he slowly regained control over his own mana pool. His mana deprivation, just for the little while thanks to Edmond's help. He still lacked strength to be in fighting form, however.

"I've one more spare comms crystal. Halley has the other spare. The receiving end's engraved into my right shoulder pad. I can try to graft a 3 way communication with what we have, but the communication is going to be a little sketchy." His voice sounded a little more stable, though it was still faint.

He looked at Lexiel again.

"There's something we can do. If what I am assuming is correct - Lexiel is suffering from black mana and guilt-sickness. I can't help the sickness, but the black mana I can use. We can momentarily link our mana pools, then I can neutralize her overload and use the power to stave off the Fading for now. That is, if Lexiel's up to the task."

 

[Strider]

"Would it be possible to link a single crystal with the comms unit in my suit? Is your magic compatible enough to do that? In any case, we'll need the other crystal. Halley! We're going to need the comm crystal. For now, try establish a radio connection with my suit. For the most part, we can speak in the open, but in the event that we need to sneak up on someone or something, we need everyone connected to at least one other person through some form of silent communications." Edmond spoke inwardly to his suit computer. "Try to assist in establishing a connection with Halley, the AI over by the door."

 

"And Visrii, if you can do absorb the mana without significant harm to either of you, it sounds like a good idea. Get consent though first."