Atrophy

Recollections: Primal Sinister

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Interactions: Vin@Fernstone Gideon & the Gang @NoriWasHere
South Side, The Circle, David Smith’s House

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Paloma quietly scoffed at her own cowardice as Vin was seized by the Bystander Effect. The blood that had flowed heavily from Vin’s wounds was caught in suspension as was the peculiar look upon her face. Paloma couldn’t quite pin down what the look meant, but it lacked a clear expression of gratitude that Paloma had perhaps secretly been anticipating. Just because she was surprisingly hot without the fur didn’t mean Vin was justified in acting like such a tough guy, right? Now that they were trapped, sorry, saved by the Bystander Effect, a bit of Good Influence could be sprinkled in to improve Vin’s manners, perhaps get them to back Paloma up if anybody started considering blaming Paloma for Caleb’s death.

Paloma shrugged on her jacket as she shivered and her scarred arms prickled with goosebumps, more due to the chilling thought than the obvious chill in the air. Obviously, she would never do something like that. Of course not, of course not. Influencing a bad person to do the right thing or protecting a mob from becoming cannon fodder? Sure, meddle away. But for something as small as this? Paloma shook her head. If anything, the way Vin was treating her almost like she was a nuisance was a novel change of pace to the regular boring respect and adoration to which Paloma was subjected. So go ahead and stop focusing on her frown, then, thought Paloma, failing to listen to herself as she squinted and wiped her cheek.

“So. What’s your story? Who’s your apparition?” asked Malik.

“W-who? Me? My what?” said Paloma, putting her hands up as if to say she wasn’t doing anything.

Her first instinct was to play dumb and try to lie her way out of it, which the time bought by the arrival of backup allowed Paloma to reconsider what a stupid idea that would be. She could play off the doppelganger missing her as them playing with their food, or the crowd dispersing as some weird phenomenon, but the half-dead, half-naked frozen person in front of her clearly warranted a better explanation than, “I dunno, a wizard did it?” Her train of thought was fully derailed as a large slab of meat stepped out of the truck. Paloma subconsciously pulled her hands up into the sleeves of her jacket to hide them as she gave the man the sweetest, most charming smile someone could manage while blood was still drying on their face.

Paloma looped her arms behind her back and shifted her body bashfully as she quietly tried, and failed, to interject herself into the conversation between Malik and Marco, “...um, actually I should stay with…I’m Pa…actually, Vin needs…maybe a lot of stitches I mean I’m no…oh actually, I’m also in the medical field, I’m P…oh, wow, weird, do you also work on the North Side, maybe we work together, by the way I’m–hwha?”

Paloma’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped as the bleak landscape of dirty snow, junk-filled alleyways, and roach infested apartment buildings was bombarded by rainbows like a Pride carpet bomb had been dropped on the block as Marco was lifted into the air. Her arms dropped to her side as she was completely flabbergasted by the development, her eyes watering as she continued to gawk, her heart threatening to crack through her ribcage as her emotions were taken on a rollercoaster as the beefcake’s clothes disappeared only for him to be censored out by a blinding light before fading to still give Paloma a pec reveal.

The sugary music that evoked images of people running for no reason or contemplatively looking up at the moon from a windowsill was drowned out by pulsing of blood in Paloma’s ears as the skirt disappointingly weaved itself around Marco’s waist. Her head looked to be stuck in an animation loop as she bounced between looking in two directions, the devil on her shoulder who had spent the past forty days and forty nights in a desert without a single drink of water yanking on her hair to get her to look up while the angel struck her with a hard smite across the cheek to avert her gaze and shy away from temptation. Marco landed on the ground and any hope of coming up with a plan, an excuse, anything to help her navigate what would surely become an intrusive interrogation was shattered as the rusty gears in her head started to smoke due to her proximity to Sailor Daddy.

“You…you can unfreeze her now.”

“Who?” asked Paloma, staring at the pair of tree trunks that were squeezed into some thigh-highs.

Out of her periphery she caught the image of Vin, the frozen trainwreck of their wounds shattering the hold Marco’s transformation held on her. Paloma wiped her lip as she dropped the Bystander Effect on Vin to allow Marco to heal them as her mind oscillated between hoping that this didn’t awaken anything inside of her and wishing that she had been the one injured instead. She let out the breath she had been holding and realized that there were more people in the truck than she had noticed. With the Samaritan believing that her “attack” on Vin was through, Paloma’s Sweetheart aura clicked back on. An invisible wave rippled through the air and washed over Gideon’s goons. It was nearly imperceptible and inconsistent in its nature to those who felt it–a waft of cinnamon and apple, a soft squeeze on a finger, a feeling of warmth–the sensation so inoffensive that it quickly became unnoticeable.

What wasn’t unnoticeable was the look of “Oh, Shit” that crossed Paloma’s face when Gideon Cross got out of the Jaguar. She was clearly too unimportant to actually know him, but being from the South Side meant she knew of him. Hell, she was pretty certain the only reason her apartment building had a working furnace this winter was because of Mr. Cross. The problem was separating fact from fiction. For every admirable, charitable thing Mr. Cross did there was always something else that would only ever be said after a look over each shoulder and a lean-in whisper. A person can only be rumored to have caved a man’s face in with his bare hands so many times before she had to stop asking herself if she believed the story and start asking the teller if the person deserved it. Frankly, she didn’t care whether or not the rumors about Mr. Cross were true—or rather she wouldn’t mind if they were true, because obviously she would love to know if he had actually made that loan shark's face into his own personal sock puppet.

Still, she was afraid of him. What would happen if she got blamed for Caleb’s death? She wasn’t worried about him caving in her own face because he couldn’t even if he wanted to, but there were other ways to destroy a life. North Siders liked to act like the South was some lawless wasteland after the Cataclysm, but the South Siders just had a set of their own rules to follow, even sad sacks that lived out in Jungleland. The number one rule was that you don’t cross Gideon Cross. Paloma shot Vin a desperate look as Gideon told them that they would be okay, trying to silently communicate through a batting of eyelashes that Paloma was the only reason they would be. Surely, she had earned some kind of kudos. A life for a life. That was a thing, right?

A life for a life, she thought. The entire reason she had come to David Smith’s house in the first place. In all this excitement, she’d nearly forgotten her promise. Paloma’s lashes stopped batting in morse code for a bailout from Vin as her face darkened. Inside of her sleeves her hands balled up into tight fists.

“You killed it,” accused Paloma, the disappointment heavy in her voice. Her eyes broke away from Vin, glancing around the ground and blinking rapidly. “But what if, what if…” What if that was the right David Smith. What if that had been her only chance. It didn’t matter how hot the tiger was, she had told them not to kill it. Life would be so much better if everyone just fucking listened to her. She snapped her attention back to Vin, a bit of heat tagging along with her words. “You said you would make it talk. You promised!”

You promised. A look of pain crossed Paloma’s face as it felt like a knife was shoved into her belly and twisted. She winced but resisted the urge to grab her stomach, giving Vin a pleading look in hopes that the woman would speak up and correct her–not about there only being a mention of how to interrogate something instead of promising to allow an interrogation, but that Paloma’s assumption about Vin killing the doppelganger was untrue. The heat dispersed from her voice as rapidfire blinks returned as if Paloma couldn’t believe what was happening as she lied again in a defeated whimper, “You promised…”

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Team Artifact
Elysium Island (Team Artifact)

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The feeling of satisfaction that came from everyone listening to and agreeing with her plan was stripped away the second Layla and Alizée rushed forward. Sloane grumbled under her breath how she had meant for them to chain up the dog after she had attempted her distraction, but they had to roll with it now. Sloane followed after Luca, quickly overtaking the sickly sprinter, flinching as her skin prickled as she ran just a bit too close to him. She resisted the instinct to pull away and take a wide berth around Luca, trying to reason with herself that a moment of discomfort was better than catching one of the now loose chains that whipped freely around as Clancy wrestled the Starving Dog. Sloane gritted her teeth as echoes of “meat” bounced around her head as she imagined the stench of her flesh rotting off yet again as she safely passed by Luca.

She was breathing as heavily as Luca when she reached the door, taking the opposite side from him to avoid the aura of the Rot, although unlike her friend it wasn’t due to physical exertion. A rare look of alarm was in Sloane’s eyes as she glanced towards Luca while he told her that he’d step in on breaking through the vault door if necessary. She grunted in confirmation as she tapped her Channeler to her knife, the blade twisting as she cursed it while a wave of dust and debris scattered across the room as Aislin buried the guardian and Clancy. Coughing as the dust settled, Sloane slid her cursed knife across the floor until it hit the wall opposite of the one Luca and her had hugged on their way across the vault room. She hoped that the burial was enough, but if the Starving Dog broke free than perhaps it would get distracted by her Object of Obsession.

Sloane turned to the vault door. She had never seen one quite like it, crafted out of parts that look like it had been repurposed from an old locomotive. The sapphire gave her a pause. There was a possibility that it was a backup magical defense system. It was also possible that it was just an ostentatious design for a biometric scanner. Either way, she decided against touching the gem. Sloane threaded her Channeler between pipes and rivets until it touched the metal door beyond it, her wrist pressed uncomfortably close against the teeth of a gear, the fear that it would start moving somehow and snap her wrist pushed to the back of her head. A light flared from behind the pipes as her opposing Lux ignited and tagged the door with her Hexmark, a blue circle crossed by an orange x.

Her Hexmark was no bigger than the eraser on a pencil and much too small for what she was hoping to accomplish, but Sloane wasn’t done channeling lux into her spell. She began to twist and turn her hand, awkwardly navigating between the web of warm iron as she continued to weave her Lux into the door. She pulled her Channeler out of the steamworks, the old tarot card rolled up in such a way that it evoked an image of a pen or a brush with an orange tip streaming faint blue smoke as Sloane continued to expand her Hexmark as the door became her easel. Scribbled phrases in archaic symbols from dead languages flowed through her hand onto the metal, quickly fading as she moved her hand to graffiti another part of the door before pulling her hand back and violently slashing lines between the invisible instructions like an upset artist trying to deface their latest piece of work.

However, with each slash the Hexmark expanded, growing in diameter until it reached the border of her invisible writing, where she would once again begin to repeat the process. Her hand was starting to cramp up but she didn’t stop channeling Lux into the door, nor did she look over her shoulder to see if the rock pile had started to move. Her Possession Hexmark was over halfway done now. While breaking the door with a Fragile or Glitched one would be quicker, the odds of requiring additional Hexmarks to get through or triggering a failsafe were too high. If she was able to finish her Hexmark then there would be nothing preventing Sloane from opening the door.

Only a handful more seconds and they would be in, able to grab the goods, and radio their supports to get teleported out.

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Interactions: Lila@NoriWashere, Liz@Skai, Team Aggro
Elysium Island (Team Aggro)

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Sully gave Liz a salute as she thanked him. As Liz turned to offer her assistance to the group, Sully turned his head down to try and figure out why everything was so cold all of the sudden and let out a little yelp as he ducked behind Lila’s wing for cover. “Don’t move, bro,” said Sully, crouching awkwardly behind Lila to hide his junk from the group. Of all the times to not have a blanket lying around to make a toga. Sully scanned the horizon for an evergreen shrub to jump behind that hadn’t been blasted by dragonfire, knowing that Lila wouldn’t be able to stay grounded forever. He saw one and made his move, ducking low and blocking himself with the Chalice.

"... Wasn't that your boy?" hollered James as Sully poked his head up from behind the bush. He was a bit too late in looking, and instead of catching Drake getting sucked into the dragon dimension Sully saw Liz seal up the magma monster instead.

Mildly confused, thinking that James was implying that Sully was supposed to have the sealed magma monster, Sully replied, “Nah it’s cool, she can have him. She’s with us!” Then with a thumbs up, Sully hollered at Liz, “Great job, cuz!”

There was a quick survey of the field now that the Magma Monster was sealed and the Dragon had disappeared as Sully looked for any of their crew that was in dire straits. While there were plenty of bodies scattered across the ground all of them appeared to have been previously dead from before. It was over, they had won, and with a quick little head count it appeared as if none of them had been lost. An unbelievable total victory. Sully let out a cheer as Ruby raised her fist into the air and shouted. The Chalice began to overflow with gatorade that he was ready to dump on the Coven leader when he paused, doing another quick headcount.

“Hey James, you seen Drake?” asked Sully.

However, there was no chance for an answer as the ocean began to bubble and swirl as a dark mass emerged from it, a gigantic skeleton that shook the whole island with its roar, seafoam rolling off its bones. If only Sully was truly Brosideon, then perhaps he could summon the fury of the sea to pull this party pooper down in the undertow and whisk the skeleton away from their victory celebration. Unfortunately, he was just a naked bald dude with a cup hiding behind a bush, so all he could do was shout his disapproval alongside Greenwood as the skeleton smashed its fist unto the beach and sent shockwaves throughout the island. Falling down to his knees, Sully pointed at the skeleton and screamed:

“IT’S BONEZILLA!”

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Luca @Fernstone, Adora @Mixtape Ghost N, Artifact Group
Elysium Island (Team Artifact)

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Sloane dropped her hand and turned her head to protect herself from the dust cloud as part of the roof buried the skeleton, pulling the collar of her coat over her nose. She turned to see the hand of the skeleton vanish in a flash, leaving behind a pile of rubble and a young boy who was more hole than boy. Sloane would’ve been concerned if it were anyone other than Clancy; for him it might as well have been a skinned knee, the what-should-have-been fatal injury being sealed shut by shadows. Sloane checked herself for injuries while Kashmira was mending Adora, but aside from a few minor scrapes from debris that were wiped away by the healing wave she was fine.

She was shaking the dust from her coat when her eyes were drawn to movement. It was Luca who had approached her, stopping just out of range of the Rot to start picking at Sloane’s flesh. His brown eyes were met with a peculiar wrinkle of Sloane’s brow and a quick aversion of her own eyes that was interrupted by a sharp intake of air, an upturning of the chin, and a narrowing of her eyes as her finger pricked the end of the Brass Needle in an attempt to better hide the artifact. Her unintentional reaction to the pain masqueraded perfectly as prickly dismissal to Luca’s insistence that he was fine. Her eyes softened as Luca smiled behind the surgical mask.

”Let’s go- I’d offer you a hand, but that’ll end badly for us both.”

“I wouldn’t accept it anyway. I know where those hands have been,” said Sloane dryly, her head tilting towards the beheaded monster. An attempt at humor or merely a statement of a fact? Who could say.

Sloane followed after the group, taking a moment to float her possessed knife back into her bag and discretely drop the Brass Needle in after it. There was a worrying lack of resistance on the way to the vault, which hopefully meant that the Aggro team’s distraction was working and not that they were slowly being stalked by something waiting for the prime opportunity to strike–presumably, once they alerted the Starving Dog. Sloane looked at the statue then took a few steps to the side to get a better glance at the vault, feeling the eyes of the statue stare at her as she craned her neck. The vault looked bizarrely antiquated in its design, but she should still be able to open it up with a glitch caused by a Hexmark. The problem was the size of the door demanded a larger Hexmark, and a larger Hexmark required more time to draw.

“It’ll take me ninety seconds, two minutes tops to breach the vault,” said Sloane with a frown, erring on the safe side with her estimate. Even if she could pull off her Hexmark in a minute that simply might be too much time. Ruby had made it sound like the Starving Dog was indestructible, and despite Adora’s bravado a handful of already half-cooked meatshields and some light bondage consisting of chains and vines probably wasn’t going to outperform Greenwood’s attempt at putting down the dog. It was quite possible that Luca could breach the door faster, but she really didn’t like the idea of him relying on the Rot.

”I'm the only one who can give Luca or Sloane an opening,” said Adora.

“Perhaps if the plan was to just get you killed then that would work,” said Sloane bitterly. “Our best bet would be to try to immobilize it. Autumn boosts our controllers while Layla and Alizée leash it, Aislin buries it, and Britney fences it off. Clancy, Adora, and Cyrus are ready to intercept it if it breaks free. One Amara stays with Kashmira and guards our healer, while the other comes with Luca and myself and watches our back.”

“But if we’re lucky, I could potentially disable it before it even gets a chance to act,” said Sloane, pulling out the same knife she had used to distract the skeleton. She was unsure whether or not Object of Obsession would even work on a living statue, but if it did it could completely circumnavigate dealing with the Starving Dog. Sloane turned to Autumn. “How many of us can you boost?”

Recollections: Primal Sinister

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Interactions: “Vin”@Fernstone & Malik @NoriWasHere
South Side, The Circle, David Smith’s House

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A spark of panic ignited within Paloma as Malik commented on the unnaturalness of the crowd of rubberneckers appearing. She gave him a rapid bat of the lashes as if she were shocked by his cult leader comment combined with her best innocent little “who, me?” smile, which probably would have done little more than fuel his suspicions if he wasn’t pulled away by the person on the other end of the phone line picking up. Paloma held her breath as she tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear so she could as nonchalantly as possible cup her hand behind her ear to try and pick up the voice on the other line. She leaned in closer to Malik, suddenly snapping back into place as he ended the phone call in mere seconds, hands drifting down to clasp together behind her back, glancing over her other shoulder back to the sound of the scrape going on inside, her curiosity mostly unsated.

“If you don’t mind, we’d like you to stick around. We need to figure out what happened and all, and you got a really good look at the monster,” said Malik.

“Hm?” Paloma looked back to him, acting as if she had forgotten he was even there, that little smile returning to her face. At the very least she had gotten a handful of names: Vin the tiger, Caleb the guy missing half a head. ”Oh, yeah.”

Paloma fell in step behind Malik and followed him across the street. She was hit with a momentary urge to flee, between the tiger getting a whiff of the Samaritan and Malik’s intuition towards her crowd control. Perhaps Gideon’s men were interested in something other than a statement. Paloma’s jaw tightened as she wrung her hands in worry. Still, she had to stay. Paloma had yet to get what she had gotten herself wrapped up in this whole mess for in the first place. Plus, one of them had gotten himself killed because of her. That sacrifice more than earned them the benefit of the doubt. A look of distress crossed Paloma’s face as that choice of a word bounced around in her mind–sacrifice. No, it wasn’t like that. It had been an accident, except an accident implied there was no one at fault.

A mistake, then. The man clearly had magic. The Samaritan hadn’t been the one to make him act. It had just been a mistake.

“Hey, Malik,” said Paloma, reaching out to tug on Malik’s sleeve. Her head was hung and she had even gone so far as to slip her gum up into her cheek like a chipmunk saving an acorn for later so she wasn’t snapping and popping throughout her whole apology. “I’m really, really sorry about what happened to Caleb. It’s my fault, isn’t it? If I had listened to y’all and minded my own business, he wouldn’t have had to…”

She gave a staggered sniffle. It had been a mistake. Caleb’s mistake. Paloma didn’t know why he’d stepped in the way. Perhaps it was overconfidence in his own ability. Perhaps it was an ingrained chauvinism masquerading as chivalry. Whatever it was, it had been his choice, so why should she have to shoulder any of the burden? Paloma gripped the sleeve of Malik’s jacket, twisting it as her breathing grew ragged. Her cheeks would’ve been crimson with frustration if they weren’t already painted red in his blood. Her mistake. His mistake. Her mistake. His mistake. She didn’t want to think about this anymore.

“...I’m sorry. Thank you for getting me out of there.”

”Malik! When the fuck is a doc gettin’ here?!”

Paloma looked up, her eyes dry, as Malik was freed of her tightening grip. Vin staggered out of the door to David Smith’s house but collapsed before making it out of the frame, the orange fur and black stripes replaced by bruised skin and bloody slashes. Paloma bolted across the street without a second thought, her breakneck pace only slowing as she got close enough to see the severity of the injuries as her eyes widened and a hand went up to cover her gasp. Vin’s leg was little more than a bloody bit of bad butchery and her arm was like a gnarly voodoo doll pricked with bone shards instead of needles. Paloma quickly tore off her jacket and her bloodied button up sweater as she dropped down to her knees beside Vin.

“I-I work in a hospital. You’re going to be okay, Vin. Okay? You’re going to be okay,” said Paloma, her face very clearly say that they were fucked. Paloma gave the sweater a few rough folds until it was a square that was slightly larger than the still bleeding cuts on Vin’s side. It was unsanitary as hell, but Vin didn’t look like they had time for her to go find a fresh cloth. A tourniquet would be required for the leg. Paloma snapped off her long gloves and tied the ends together to form a long piece of cloth, setting the makeshift rope in her lap before picking the sweater back up. She held it out to Vin, the reddish-purple scars from where Nyrah’s acid had burnt her clear on her arms as she explained to them her plan.

“Okay, so you just need to hold this against your side and put enough pressure on it to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, we’ll use this as a tourniquet to stop your leg from bleeding. Oh, except your arm’s, um, don’t worry, you’re gonna be okay. Malik can hold this, then we can tourniquet your leg, oh, and we’ll need something for you to bite on. Don’t want you to lose your tongue, right? Need that for grooming as well as other fun things, right Ms. Kitty?” said Paloma with a forced laugh and a teasing wink, her face immediately sinking as she realized this wouldn’t work. She was just a fucking janitor, what did she know about first aid? Vin was held together by nothing more than grit and a few bits of meat. Moving her would probably just get her killed. Paloma grimaced as she realized the one way to save Vin. She shook her head and dropped the bedside manners in favor of the actual truth.

“Actually, you’re not going to be okay,” said Paloma, her voice low as she made eye contact with Vin and didn’t break it. She placed her hand on Vin’s uninjured knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You have two options.” She held up one scarred finger. “You can tell me what you want me to tell your family.” She held up a second finger. “Or you can trust me. We can save you.”

“Let him in.”

Paloma didn’t move. She didn’t blink. There was no spark in her eyes or pop of magic around her. Yet Vin would feel the sudden absence of the faint tingle of Paloma’s Sweetheart aura, likely unnoticed until it was gone due to the pain, as she hit Vin with the Bystander Effect. It would be like a jackhammer hitting against Vin’s Emotional Field, trying to punch through their forehead to perform a rough lobotomy. Vin would get the sense immediately that if they dropped their field they would be completely catatonic–they would not bleed out so they would survive, but their release would be fully in the hands of the annoying little busy body who had butted into their business. In that moment, Paloma opened herself up to harm as her defensive aura was suppressed by the Samaritan.

Paloma smiled, hoping that Vin would do the right thing. They didn’t need another Caleb moment. Then the smile dropped as her mouth hung open, her eyes widening in horrific realization. Shaking, Paloma slowly withdrew her hand from their knee. She no longer cared if Vin let her hit them with the Bystander Effect or if they bleed out right here in front of Paloma. Her scarred hands clamped over her mouth to prevent the scream as a single tear streaked down her blood stained cheek. For a second, fear gripped Paloma so strongly that she no longer even cared about her promise. There was only one thing in the world she wanted right now, and that was for this person in front of her to actually be Vin.

Recollections: Primal Sinister

(Don't fear gang even as a GM Ghost still won't post)

Recollections: Primal Sinister

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Interactions: R-Rated Tigger @Fernstone Davidganger & Malik @NoriWasHere
South Side, The Circle, David Smith’s House

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Paloma tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow in surprise as the creature that had been valiantly and pathetically trying to murder her started to plead with her instead. She was even more surprised to see a streamer of golden light thread around the face flap of David Smith, the Samaritan apparently buying right away that the creature was in desperate need of some help. It gave her a pause as the taunting smile fell from her face, replaced by a look of concentration as some rusted gears started churning.

Paloma never fancied herself as having a particularly high intelligence. She had been a below average student who went to an abysmal school. One of the highlights of her job was that she could completely shut her brain off and still do it. Still, she liked to think that growing up most of her life in South Cloverfield helped boost her wisdom score up a pip or two. After all, she had made it nearly three decades as close to unscatched as anyone could be who lived in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in the area without the Samaritan by her side and while, yes, technically she had achieved this by largely being an indoor kid, she had still done it.

So, when the doppelganger started its “I’m actually a nice guy” routine Paloma could see the string attached to the bait. It also helped having the body of what remained of Caleb oozing out dark blood in her periphery, as well as the fuzzy shape of Vin moving in to strike the doppelganger from behind. Paloma flinched reflexively as the tiger bit down on a limb of the creature but kept one eye open. It was funny, seeing blood and viscera did almost nothing to her but an act of violence still shook her. The numbness of being in the medical industry, even in a role as small as her own. She was used to witnessing the aftermath.

The tiger must’ve overheard her; they offered to help lead an interrogation before being sent crashing through a wall alongside the doppelganger. Now there was a small conundrum. Technically, as long as she found out her information she was fine, and right now the tiger looked to be getting its ass kicked. She could play along with the doppelganger, knowing that whatever game it was trying to use on her that she still held the trump card. But Paloma had already been vaguely responsible for one death and the tiger had protected her. There was a budding kinship right there. How could she possibly hinder someone so sweet that they would protect a total stranger?

“Please, please girl, make her stop. I think I can fight this. I can come back,” cried the creature in David’s voice, reaching out to Paloma with its hand.

“Just an I think? Mm, not very promising,” said Paloma, crossing her arms and turning up her chin.

She had already made up her mind, but perhaps if the doppelganger kept trying to play its mind games it would allow for Vin to sink in a few good blows. Her eyes widened as Vin called out about it being an Apparition, the retort of I know dying on her lips as they revealed that they were somehow aware of the Samaritan. She looked towards Malik, who was beckoning to her to follow him out the exit, and nodded. The man was right. She would only just get in the way. The body of Caleb proved that. She turned to follow Malik out the door, pausing to look back at the vicious fighting just enough to say to Vin, “Try not to kill it.”

Paloma stepped outside and was immediately assaulted by a choir of voices from maybe a dozen or so people who had been within earshot when she had screamed. “Are you okay?” “You’re hurt!” “Let me call you an ambulance.” “Here, let me give you my coat.” “Do you need help in there?” “What happened?” Some in the crowd just stared and gawked, while others began to come closer to the house. Paloma gave Malik a side eye, hoping that he wouldn’t realize that they were only addressing her.

Malik, assuming he had an Emotional Field, would feel nothing more than a brief itch on his skin as she activated her Good Influence aura, but he would see the crowd of Blind onlookers stop as one as Paloma held their rapt attention. Without saying a word, Paloma sent a vibe through the crowd that it was dangerous here and that they should swiftly and carefully go somewhere safe. As one the crowd would turn and leave the scene in a hurry without any further questioning. Paloma turned to Malik, gum nearing falling out of her mouth as she gawked at him with faked confusion.

“That was weird. Sorry that your friend got…” Paloma voice, which had been solemn, sparked with curiosity as she noticed that Malik was on the phone. “Who ya calling?”

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Artifact Group, Skele-King @Estylwen
Elysium Island (Team Artifact)

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She was cowering.

At first, Sloane had been tactically staying out of the way. With the monster interrupting her request for the sword and serving as a future excuse for Britney’s failure to cooperate she was, essentially, dead weight in a fight. It was better to just keep herself small with a back to the wall instead of finding herself out of position, potentially tripping up one of the many others they had brought along exclusively for such an occasion. When their cover was blown with the arrival of the mage and his skeleton friend, the hall illuminated by green flame and flashing red lights, Sloane had moved to act now that magic was back in the arsenal. However, the closeness of the quarters and the speed at which Cyrus and Alexander danced around one another meant trying to sink the edge of her hexed knife between the eyes of the mobster could very well plant it in the spine of the chainsaw artist instead.

Sticking to the sideline, Sloane turned her body to shield a casting of one of her spells, the blue light blocked by her coat as the knife in her hand began to spiral and twist. Just as the cast was about to complete a waft of something repugnant hit Sloane like an eighteen wheeler hauling cow shit on a July day. Her eyes shifted down the hall and caught sight of the source through the flashing of alarm lights and black lightning. It was a nightmarish scene from hell that evoked the tortured images of a dark renaissance painting as Luca gave the bound and gurgling monster the roughest and deadliest old fashioned imaginable. Sloane balked and covered her mouth. Her concentration didn’t just break; her grasp on reality snapped as she was shunted back to a field of pink mist, limp limbs, and decayed flesh.

For a second, she thought about painting and smiled before swallowing a surge of bile that brought her back to the burning hall. Down on her knees now Sloane was, in fact, cowering as Britney had observed, although not in fear of their assailants. She shifted the bag on her shoulder to make sure that it was still there, the Brass Needle close at hand. Sloane looked up as Britney called her out, her eyes wide and terrified like an animal backed into a corner. If not for the mask on Sloane’s face or the chaoticness of the encounter Britney would’ve seen the typically unflappable woman break as her mouth snarled and every stress line darkened and creased in a look of unbridled hatred. This is all your fault, screamed Sloane in her head, fist punching the ground as she pushed herself up to her feet. With shoulders hunched and coat rippling from the twister, there was a flash of blue light as Sloane whipped the spiraled knife through the air, an angry, inhuman yowl like a cat whose tail had been stepped on escaping from her throat as it was released.

At first the knife appeared to be aimed at Britney until the blade sharply turned ninety degrees and flew straight up to the ceiling, Sloane standing with her Channeler thrust up towards the sky while shielding her eyes from the freezing winds with her other hand. A carefully palmed needle was also held in this hand for the worst case scenario, protected from view except for a quick flash of the tip as Sloane shifted her body and took a step back. Her Channeler hand shook, blue and orange wisps of flames circling the card, as she tried to keep the Possessed knife aloft as the twister closed in on it. Unnoticeable to anyone other than the Undead King was the absolute majesty of the knife as the Object of Obsession spell was narrowed to only draw the undead’s attention. Sloane didn’t need it to go after the blade. She only wanted to distract it for just long enough, hoping that temporary glance away would be just what they needed to have Britney’s stake impale the King.

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Interactions: TeamAggro, Amara @Blizz Lila@NoriWasHere Liz@Skai
Elysium Island (Team Aggro)

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This is the end, beautiful friend. This is the end. My only friend, the end…

Sully always had a feeling this was how he was going to go out: forgetting the lyrics to a song by the Doors. The intense pain that shook through his body like a thousand squirts of lime and a thousand grains of salt shoved into a thousand tiny paper cuts was nothing compared to the mental pain of knowing the melody of a song but not the words. His finger still scratched at the ground, his mind forgetting what he was even going for, as it went c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon and a ghost appeared. He felt something press into his hands. A microphone, right? They called him Cupbearer, which wasn’t right. He was Jim Morrison, dying on the stage after snorting a line of cocaine from all the way from stage left to exit pursued by bear. He felt the mic get pushed into his face. Right, he had to perform.

“C’mon baby…light my…fire…”

Nah, man, no way. Not happening. He was too fat, sad, and drunk to go through the song and dance. Time to turn his back on the audience, close the curtains, maybe go see Paris. He always liked the French. He thought they got a bad wrap. Sully pulled his charred lips away from the cup. Even if the French excursion didn’t work out he’d had a full life. He’d done some things and seen some stuff. It had been a pretty good twenty-seven years in the states. Now he’d just go away, and hey, maybe he’d start up a new trend for his fellow artists. Only, wait, his math wasn’t adding up. What year was it? He couldn’t really remember, but he could see a cake and he could see the candles, a big two and a big eight. Wait, wait, wait, no, that can’t be right. He missed the club by a year?

Then he heard it.

"Sully! Buddy!? You gotta drink!"

Leon dispelled the illusion that he was some big rockstar. Sully didn’t even like the Doors. The lyrics were all nonsense, a jumble up word salad presented as poetic genius when it was really just drunken ramblings. Plus, what kind of fucking rock band didn’t have a bass player? Sully heard Drake yell out RIDE THE LIGHTNING, sending a spark of life from the burnt crispy bits of his eardrums all the way down to the charred piggies of his toes. Metallica, now that was a real band. Blackened, Sully’s fingers tightened on the Chalice. The chalice became full of healing fuel. He wasn’t just the Cupbearer; he was the one, the Chosen One. There was a ringing in his ear, and while Sully didn’t know for whom the bell tolls, he knew it wasn’t for him. Sad but true, if not for the sound of his boys around him he probably wouldn’t even have bothered to drink. Even if he really knew he wasn’t special, if he wasn’t the actual Chosen One, if it was just dumb luck that he got the cup, Sully still had to stick around for his homies–nothing else matters.

He puckered up his lips, ready to drink the whiskey in the jar, and coughed violently as the Amara phantom plopped a fingerful of green goop between his lips like he was a baby. Surprised, Sully opened his eyes as the healthy greens sent life through his system. He spat the finger out and pushed the Chalice up to his lips, drinking deep. The ash fell off of his body like a phoenix reborn, the burns rapidly healing across Sully’s body as he took hold of Leon’s enablement and fully embraced it, shedding a few manly tears in the process. Sully came up for air after what felt like an eternity, gasping loudly in satisfaction as he yelled…

"... I live, bitches!"

He grabbed the phantom’s arm in a meaty Predator handshake and pulled himself up to his feet, “You were always my favorite Amara. Save the goop for yourself, bro. I got a cup.”

And there were people who needed him. Chalice to his mouth and chugging in case he caught any strays, Sully took off in a low run towards Lila and Liz. It was weird. Obviously, the healing of the Chalice neutralized the heat of the burns, but Sully didn’t remember it being this cold out. Unaware to the healed man, but quite obvious to anyone who looked his way, the Chalice had just healed Sully’s wounds…and only his wounds. The nuclear light of the Phantombane bomb reflected off of Sully’s shiny, bald head and illuminated his large, hairless, kind of doughy body, the fire of the dragon removing any needs of imagination for what Sully had going on under his get up.

Sully, still blissfully unaware that he was no longer a bear but rather as bare as the day he was born, ducked gunfire and magical bullshit as he reached Lila and Liz unharmed. He needlessly dove towards them, a failed shoulder roll morphing into a sideways log roll, covering himself up with a thin layer of ash and mud. Sully got up to his feet with surprisingly nimbleness. The two of them looked to be in rough shape, with wounds splattered across their bodies. If he had his pistols he could blast them both at the same time, but right now he’d just have to improvise.

“Never fear, the juice man is here! Lila! Cuz! Baby bird!” said Sully, looking like an absolute nightmare in his mudman form. Sully began to splash the healing elixir of the Chalice in their direction like he was a priest blessing them with holy water, hoping that with the sheer volume some of it would get in their mouths and heal up their wounds.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Just for clarification sake, there is the Doomsday Ken/Drake spell and the Phantombane Spirit Bomb Aryin/Stormy spell happening. It reads like the Dragon smacked the Doomsday spell but was called Spirit Bomb instead. @Blizz@Estylwen

Or maybe I just can't read.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Lila@NoriWasHere Liz@Skai Fire @Estylwen
Elysium Island (Team Aggro)

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Lila’s shout for Sully cut through the battlefield and interrupted his jeers of, “Hey hey, you you!” He snapped his head in the direction of his little bird buddy, his mouth forming a wide-O as he saw her ruffled feathers matted with wet blood and fresh bullet holes. Then, catching the rest of what Lila said, Sully realized that the injured figure the corvid was carrying wasn’t an oversized and overcooked skunk but Lyss’s cousin. He felt a wave of sympathy for the badly sunburned woman. His pale, Irish family had sought out St. Portwell because of the opportunities it proved, with the biggest opportunity being that it was almost always overcast so they never had to worry about the sun immediately killing them. Lyss’s cousin must’ve been a local, the fright of seeing actual sunlight for the first time turning some of her hair white.

“Don’t worry, cuz! I got you both!” shouted Sully, glancing off to the treeline in case that jumpy bastard came back to snatch up his glory.

There was still some distance between Sully and the two wounded. Fortunately, he’d come packed just for such a thing. Sully picked up the SoakEm Mk V super soaker from where he’d dropped it on the ground and began pumping the cylinder as a battery-operated motor and lights started to flair up, a high-pitched whirring sound cutting through the actual gunfire peppering the barrier next to him. Sully shouldered the SoakEm Mk V and closed one eye, releasing his breath as he centered Lila and Liz in his sights. A shout to take cover from Ruby drew his eye up to the sky as he cursed and dove back behind the barrier, dirt peppering him as he landed roughly and tweaked his knee. Sully sucked in a pained breath as he grabbed at his leg and rolled onto his side, fumbling with his hand for the Chalice and took a sip. He felt something in the joint pop back in place as he wiped his lips dry.

Okay, round two. Nothing to come from the sky to stop him from hea-oly fucking shit!

“DRAGON!” yelled Sully, pointing at the portal that had just ripped open over the mansion.

The last thing anybody would see before the man disappeared behind a wave of fire and smoke was Sully coming up to one knee, tilting his head back, and lifting the Chalice up to his mouth. The flames tore across the ground as smoke filled the skies. It blackened the earth, vaporized the trees, and glassed the sand. Feasibly no man should have survived the blast of dragonfire, Emotional Fields be damned. However, in that moment Sully achieved his apotheosis, truly becoming the avatar of Broseidon, channeling the pure power of the popped collar and amplified by the feeling of having a true bro at his back in the form of Stormy’s shield that actually took the brunt of the attack.

Sully chugged from the Chalice hard and fast as the waves of flames licked around the shield. His cowboy hat was ripped from his head by the blast and sucked forward into the inferno, incinerating in an instant alongside the SoakEm Mk V, whose hard plastic shell and sick decaling turned out to surprisingly not be dragonproof. The smell of smoke and burning hair filled his nose along with what little air he could breathe in that didn’t become fuel for the fire. Sully smelled another strangely sweet aroma, like a pig roasting on a spit over an open flame, unaware that it was the smell of his skin being cracked and cooked by the heat, the Chalice out healing the burns, the elixir running down his cheeks and dripping down his neck as if he were basting himself.

Sully kept chugging until the metal of the Chalice became too hot to handle. The cup dropped from his hand. With the elixir no longer continuously healing him, the wave of the most insane pain he had ever experienced from the intensity of the heat was quick to get the best of Sully. He crumpled to the ground as the wave of fire cleared. His skin was like a burnt pie crust, incredibly dry, cracked, and oozing some kind of juice, with a nightmarish pattern of plastic and fabrics fused to his body from where his clothing and gear had melted from the heat. The world around him was nothing but ash. He convulsed as the red hot Chalice rapidly returned to its neutral silver, his eyes twitching, throat groaning, his hand just an inch away from salvation.

His eyes closed, he fell silent, and the convulsions stopped.

Then with an almost feral, Leon-like howl he opened his eyes. Sully pushed through the nuclear level of pain as he stretched his right hand towards the Chalice. Just an inch. He could make it just an inch. A centimeter. A millimeter. A couple of atoms. His burnt fingers felt the inexplicably cool metal of the Chalice, his lips cracking in a skeletal smile that became a terrified gasp as he nudged the Chalice ever so slightly. His eyes widened in horror as the goblet slowly rolled forward. An inhuman cry that was more like the moan of a zombie escaped from Sully’s throat as his fingers limply scratched at the ground, his strength rapidly fading, the Chalice just out of reach.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

presenting a villain too non-canonical for the main RP

@Mixtape Ghost N

Damn bruh