Also, I feel it only fair to pre-inform you that there is a second level of Inquisitor that has yet to officially exist, in universe. Cunningham is likely to become the first one, eventually, and it's going to be horrifically bad news for us.
Bazmund
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Not a Doctor
STATUS: Back at the guild after a long absence. Much changed since I was gone? 7 yrs ago
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Back at the guild after a long absence. Much changed since I was gone?
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Medical student living in Scotland, a lover of beer and steak mostly - but also writing, and politics. Because why not make myself even more divisive.
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The Inquisitor stopped a moment, and narrowed his eyes at Ekaterine.
"Psychopath. A barrier to The Sight, but only a small one - especially considering the simplicity of your own fears. For one who seeks knowledge, you truly know nothing. If you learn nothing else, you should at least learn what it is to be crippled." He snarled, before striking with the talisman through an empty patch of air, with a noise that sounded like sheet metal tearing, and a bright shower of sheer white sparks, appearing from the talisman as if from nowhere.
Meanwhile, Daniel was seconds away from opening fire on the Enforcers, having driven the bolt of his carbine rifle forwards, and caught the first one in his sights. Gently, he squeezed the trigger, and smiled grimly as the first man fell with a scream and a shower of red, the side of his neck torn by a bullet. As he lay on the dock, his whimpering fading as blood drained from his body, the second enforcer looked around in panic for cover, finding none. She too caught a bullet, this time in the head, putting her solidly down on the ground.
The third enforcer, however, was not so easily cowed, opening fire with his service shotgun, pumping and firing in steady cadence. Daniel was forced back into cover as the enforcer and his one remaining partner made their advance, and he looked desperately around for something to surprise them with - all the while, painfully conscious of the fact that neither he nor his newfound companions were even remotely equipped to take on an Inquisitor, let alone Cunningham. Generally speaking, it took magic to fight magic, and they-
- they only had a Dryad, and a Dragonkin.
Aura was their best shot, and if not her then Ariah. Of the two, a Dryad is more spectrally magical - in that the nature of the magic that turns a girl into a Dryad is not physical, but metaphysical. If anyone were to be resistant to anything that Cunningham could throw at them, it would be her.
Now he just needed to tell them. Or hope that one of them knew already.
"Psychopath. A barrier to The Sight, but only a small one - especially considering the simplicity of your own fears. For one who seeks knowledge, you truly know nothing. If you learn nothing else, you should at least learn what it is to be crippled." He snarled, before striking with the talisman through an empty patch of air, with a noise that sounded like sheet metal tearing, and a bright shower of sheer white sparks, appearing from the talisman as if from nowhere.
Meanwhile, Daniel was seconds away from opening fire on the Enforcers, having driven the bolt of his carbine rifle forwards, and caught the first one in his sights. Gently, he squeezed the trigger, and smiled grimly as the first man fell with a scream and a shower of red, the side of his neck torn by a bullet. As he lay on the dock, his whimpering fading as blood drained from his body, the second enforcer looked around in panic for cover, finding none. She too caught a bullet, this time in the head, putting her solidly down on the ground.
The third enforcer, however, was not so easily cowed, opening fire with his service shotgun, pumping and firing in steady cadence. Daniel was forced back into cover as the enforcer and his one remaining partner made their advance, and he looked desperately around for something to surprise them with - all the while, painfully conscious of the fact that neither he nor his newfound companions were even remotely equipped to take on an Inquisitor, let alone Cunningham. Generally speaking, it took magic to fight magic, and they-
- they only had a Dryad, and a Dragonkin.
Aura was their best shot, and if not her then Ariah. Of the two, a Dryad is more spectrally magical - in that the nature of the magic that turns a girl into a Dryad is not physical, but metaphysical. If anyone were to be resistant to anything that Cunningham could throw at them, it would be her.
Now he just needed to tell them. Or hope that one of them knew already.
Working on the Inquisitor's response to Ekaterine. I need to know if you guys are cool with him and other similarly empowered characters engaging in a degree of powergaming, to make the threat they present more real. Specifically, he's about to inflict a simulation of a crippling wound on Ekaterine, to provoke her fears.
EDIT: Posted, leaving it open for now.
EDIT: Posted, leaving it open for now.
James was not in the middle of anything when the text came. No, far from it, he had been waiting for some sign that his fate had been decided, by his car, parked by the green space in a gated, western immigrant community reminiscent of one of the nicer London boroughs - though that was hardly saying much. It was, notably, not his immigrant community. He needed somewhere he could blend in - where his White British ethnicity and stark blue eyes wouldn't make him stand out too much - but James was all too aware of the fact that his actual community would be the first place that the Family would be looking for their Kagaku-sha, a criminal known to be inexperienced in the physical and tactical element of the underworld.
James was smart enough to know not to go home, at least. Knowing that, he'd brought his most important possessions with him when he'd sabotaged the manafacturing plant. A case of basic medical supplies, some food and water, a knife and a gun - which had, ironically, been a present from the very same criminals he'd just screwed over - with a couple of magazines' worth of ammunition, and of course, his smartphone. The one he had always been very, very careful not to tip his employers off about, lest they try to track it or bug it.
Now, as the rain pelted down in the city, he looked again at that very same phone, and grimaced at the sight of his name on the board.
Erasure.
Not that he really knew anything about it, but he'd always heard that it was a very, very unpleasant way to die. Or... be removed. He couldn't even recall fully if it involved real death, or just something else. Nobody knew but the erasers, unless by some strange twist of fate they themselves did not truly know how they did whatever they did.
He looked at the address - or rather, the coordinates, next. He wasn't sure exactly where that was, but he could find it without much trouble.
James pulled open the driver side door of his car, and got in, plugging the coordinates into the GPS app of his phone and making a mental list of priorities as he did.
James was smart enough to know not to go home, at least. Knowing that, he'd brought his most important possessions with him when he'd sabotaged the manafacturing plant. A case of basic medical supplies, some food and water, a knife and a gun - which had, ironically, been a present from the very same criminals he'd just screwed over - with a couple of magazines' worth of ammunition, and of course, his smartphone. The one he had always been very, very careful not to tip his employers off about, lest they try to track it or bug it.
Now, as the rain pelted down in the city, he looked again at that very same phone, and grimaced at the sight of his name on the board.
Erasure.
Not that he really knew anything about it, but he'd always heard that it was a very, very unpleasant way to die. Or... be removed. He couldn't even recall fully if it involved real death, or just something else. Nobody knew but the erasers, unless by some strange twist of fate they themselves did not truly know how they did whatever they did.
He looked at the address - or rather, the coordinates, next. He wasn't sure exactly where that was, but he could find it without much trouble.
James pulled open the driver side door of his car, and got in, plugging the coordinates into the GPS app of his phone and making a mental list of priorities as he did.
- Priority number 1 - Establish contact with whoever the fuck has decided to help you.
- Priority number 2 - Identify and avoid the enemy.
- Priority number 3 - At any and all costs, find your way back to England.
We all good, amigos?
If anyone has any ideas on how to make the Inquisitor more shitscary later on, PM me por favor.
As the enforcers trooped off towards the Ascendo, the Inquisitor's attention turned fully to the crew. Slowly, he raised his hand to his face, and grasped the mask around its temples, squeezing gently, and pulling it away from his face to reveal deathly pale, ashen smooth skin, with his mouth and jaw still covered by a thin veil of dark, opaque silk, and eyes that were so black that to look into them would be to visit an abyss.
He dropped the mask to the side with a tiny gasp of what would have sounded like pain, if it were audible. The world around him grew brighter in a way that only his changed eyes could perceive, and the crew's heartbeats became visible, tiny pulses of light varying only slightly in colour against a background that was coming into focus only slowly.
"You cannot hide from me." His voice came louder than before, reaching into your core and shaking it. "The Eyes can already see all that you are, children, and all that you could ever be."
He took a step forward, clutching the artefact more tightly in his fist, and tearing it from the thin cord that kept it around his neck.
"I can taste the guilt of your pilot, who abandoned his family to the treachery of the Iron Dominion, where gold and blood rule; I can hear the whispers of your scholar's fears of his own loneliness, sharp and biting; I can feel the pinpricks of your Dragonkin's weakness, like a sapling in the wind, or a greyhound on the run, only useful until it can move no longer; and most of all, I can smell the revulsion that your Dryad cannot ignore when she sees my face, my eyes, and knows that I am not a person as she knows it. I know all that you are, and you cannot hope to prevail in your pathetic mission."
"Just... give up." He half growled, half purred, in between a sharp inward breath, taken as if existence itself was just another pain to ignore.
He dropped the mask to the side with a tiny gasp of what would have sounded like pain, if it were audible. The world around him grew brighter in a way that only his changed eyes could perceive, and the crew's heartbeats became visible, tiny pulses of light varying only slightly in colour against a background that was coming into focus only slowly.
"You cannot hide from me." His voice came louder than before, reaching into your core and shaking it. "The Eyes can already see all that you are, children, and all that you could ever be."
He took a step forward, clutching the artefact more tightly in his fist, and tearing it from the thin cord that kept it around his neck.
"I can taste the guilt of your pilot, who abandoned his family to the treachery of the Iron Dominion, where gold and blood rule; I can hear the whispers of your scholar's fears of his own loneliness, sharp and biting; I can feel the pinpricks of your Dragonkin's weakness, like a sapling in the wind, or a greyhound on the run, only useful until it can move no longer; and most of all, I can smell the revulsion that your Dryad cannot ignore when she sees my face, my eyes, and knows that I am not a person as she knows it. I know all that you are, and you cannot hope to prevail in your pathetic mission."
"Just... give up." He half growled, half purred, in between a sharp inward breath, taken as if existence itself was just another pain to ignore.
Cole can explain. That, or the Inquisitor will already know.
@Grimhildr Superb, wanker. How's your health?
Personally I have a character I quite like in mind, with appropriate magic, given a good cultural backing. Which is to say I'm ready to start whenever.
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