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Baneful rolled 2 10-sided dice:
1, 3
Total: 4 (2-20)
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 Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 9:37 am
This irritated Lawr on a new level, touching upon that restlessness rooted in the core of him. "She will never truly win." he said, despite his expression seeming in tone to delight in the enunciation of each syllable. It was like sloughing off a too-small skin, able to stretch out his wings and to show his true glorious nature. He was perfect and this was perfection. Horace had been permitted to walk by his side, to stand in his shadow and it had not been enough, he had wanted to control his mind and his thoughts. It was folly.
He was irritated by shields, they merely staved off the inevitable, rewarded bull headedness and physicality over deft quick betrayal. This would be a struggle if Horace was inclined to fight back in earnest. He could not allow it.
"But you could stay here." he crooned, muscles shivering with the effort of pressing on Horace's windpipe and jugular. "You could have stayed here for ever, but you listened to the snake, you ate from the tree. And now you will be cast out of paradise for ever unless you repent, unless you recant those regrettable and false opinions."
There was a strange light in the other man's eyes as he added. "You do not demand the love of a god. You expect nothing and give everything. Pride will be your downfall."
HP: 50/50
DMG: Soon maybe :l
Charge: 1/3
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The Semblance of Unity rolled 2 8-sided dice:
6, 3
Total: 9 (2-16)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:34 am
Jan didn't see. He truly could not see how in everything he'd done, every bit of himself that he twisted to irritate her, to one-up her.... she won by simply existing. Because without him her life would continue onwards, but without her, Jan.. Horace swallowed noisily. "Did you want to be worshipped?" His free hand slipped up, touched Jan's cheek, stroked a thumb along his cheekbone. It would've been so easy. Jan had possessed everything he had to give.
He couldn't stay. "I tried to find a place to stay - here, with you. I love you. Even in t-this, I am only human. How can you expect me to be here... with her?" As much as he hurt, as much as he felt like screaming, he would not fight him. Jan still had all of him. Even in these delusions, this brightly shining, horrible allegorey... The light in Jan's eyes was new and it sared him. But because it was new - it was a side of Jan he had not seen before, he accepted it. He would twist to fit almost any mold Jan asked of him. But how could he fill a mold dictated by America?
"What's the difference between a god and a demon, Jan?" Horace hiccupped, an inelegant sound borne of distress and thesinking realization that he had never mattered to Jan, not even in the thinnest, smallest ways.
HP: 35/40
DMG: 3 to self
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Baneful rolled 2 10-sided dice:
10, 7
Total: 17 (2-20)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:38 am
"I do not need the acknowledgement of mortals to exist." Lawr said indifferently. "The way that the universe does not need to be believed in to exist. I am. If people should see the superiority and perfection inherent in me that is their choice. I do not want the way they do."
"She was never here." he said, softly and quietly, close and personal, enjoying the control and the lack of fight. "You imagined her here and that simple imagining was enough to taint you, to make you question me. Ignorance was the key to Eden and you rejected it. She gave thee of the tree, and thou didst eat."
He let go with one hand - his good hand - and it seemed for an instant that he might let the other man go, that he might have changed his mind about all of this. But it was merely a momentary interruption, long enough to unfasten the dog spiked choke chain that wound around the gauntlets, part of their fabric, and hooking it nimbly over the claws of the other hand, turn it into a makeshift garrotte.
It was much more effective than his lop-sided grip and the runes flared vibrant white.
"The difference - my darling - rests merely on the perspective of their subjects." he said, with a gentle, almost loving smile.
HP: 50/50
DMG: 11
Charge: 3/3
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The Semblance of Unity rolled 2 8-sided dice:
7, 3
Total: 10 (2-16)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:11 am
There was something broken in his perfection, like a beautiful embroidery held together with ugly knotted string at the back. It was strange that even Jan could not see it, and Horace supposed that was why he was so truly charming; his confidence had never been feigned, but believed in wholly, utterly. In this, at least, Jan had never lied to him.
"She has always been here," he whispered. "- the lamp, in the messages you write to her. The ghost of her." He paused, breathing, waiting. The hand had pulled back, but he waited passively. Horace knew that he deserved this in some manner. He was not sure of the misstep but it had been there and it had be fatal. He wanted to break that horrible, twisted sculpture of a lmap.
Then the chain touched him and he jerked back instinctively. He was not afriad, he was not afraid, he was afraid but this was Jan. He deserved only the things that came to him. A thin line of red appeared on the side of his throat, the blood smearing just barely. Horace could barely breathe, but he did not fight.
DMG: 20/40
DMG: 4 to self
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Baneful rolled 2 4-sided dice:
3, 4
Total: 7 (2-8)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:23 am
"You give her far too much credit." he said, finding the vague amusement hardening into something crueller and more irritable. "All the decisions that I make are my own, I do not dance to her tune, she holds no sway over me." The constant mention of the lamp had grown to rankle him, Horace thought it was important, it was important only insofar as it irritated America and even that was not important.
He twisted the chain tight and throwing his back into it, hauled Horace across the room and without undoing the garrotte about his neck bodily threw him into the lamp. It fell from the table where it had been balanced and shattered on the floor once again. It went out and the other man was dragged to the floor, on top of the fractured shards of the thing.
"You see? It is all an act to torment her, to stoke that fire within her. I did not think you were stupid Horace, that was not a trait I attributed to you."
The runes on the gauntlets had been glowing steadily brighter through all of this, gaining more and more traction and fear. By the time he had the other man on the ground again they blazed brightly, the only real light in the dark room now that the lamp was gone. Outside, the sky had dimmed its embers to a faint violet pink glow and managed only to tinge the edges of the heavy curtains with bloody red.
"The only person who has made me do anything is you."
And finally he listened to the ghost baying, howling and wailing in his head, letting it free of its own leash as he sunk the finger blades into the other man's shoulder, drawing out his fear, tasting him the way he had tasted America once, the faintest almost imperceptible traces of something exhilarating, something terrible, far away. It was as close as he ever flew to emotion and he wanted it, wanted to seize it and possess it before it faded.
And with this sensation came the pull to the push, the looming terrible taste of the void that dwelled in Lawrence himself, a sapping, horrible feeling, stealing fear away into himself, and it seemed like it might never end, teeth sunk into a limb with the tenacity that would only relent when the creature doing the biting was dead, and perhaps given the nature of Butch, not even then.
HP: 50/50
DMG: -
Charge: The Bite used. 0/3 2 turns remaining.
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The Semblance of Unity rolled 2 8-sided dice:
5, 8
Total: 13 (2-16)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 12:45 pm
The coldness on his face made something yawn terribly wide inside Horace. He had no chance to respond, to tearily choke out a rebuttal, before Jan was throwing him. Darkness and pain and the sunset washed over him in turns. It was ironic, how angelic Jan looked. Ah, the lamp.
He did not feel stupid, no. Not in this moment when he lay in the wreckage of the thing he hated, the thing he resented. Horace had only wanted proof of Jan's detachment to her. And even though he felt betrayed somehow, inadequate, even as he felt his heart twisting in his chest, a bruised mass of blood and muscle that should never be likened to a center for feelings... For one small, glittering moment, he was triumphant. It hurt, but victory was pain. His world was coming down around him in fits and starts and yet, a fleeting smile crossed his face, bittersweet and without an ounce of true happiness.
'The only person-"
It was a lie. Jan still stalked America, still sought to torment her with a kind of careless viciousness. It was a lie, but it was a beautiful one and the sheer perfection of it made him gasp. It was everything and nothing at all as Jan sunk his blade into Horace's shoulder. He felt his body jerk up into that pain, hands coming up to latch around Jan's wrist. But still, he did not fight. How could he fight him?
The blade stayed in his shoulder and he moved, pushing them deeper, gasping out Jan's name. And then he felt it, cold seeping into him. There was something deep and dark and empty inside Jan and he could feel it somehow. It was like looking not at the stars but at the dark places between them. It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It could consume Horace and he would be snuffed out in one fell swoop. There was no love there, but he wanted, oh, how he wanted to belong there, to find a way to fill that. He could not speak for fear he would babble out a dozen useless prayers.
HP: 20/40
DMG: 3 to self [mm shove dem blades in yeah]
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Baneful rolled 2 10-sided dice:
5, 9
Total: 14 (2-20)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 12:57 pm
Still he sapped the other man's fear, the warmth and fascination of the things that he felt like radio static through his nerves, crackling in his thoughts enough to derail him for a moment. He could not tell if it was emotions, it was an encrypted code he had no means to unencrypt it and no point of reference to even begin to assess it. But he listened, as a layman might well listen to the static hum of far off and long dead universes.
He did not speak, there was no need to speak while the fear endured, paying attention to nothing but the warmth that coiled and danced in his thoughts, sloshing over his fully intact shield and vanishing as if it never had been.
The only sound was the clinking of the chain and the unhurried pace of Lawr's own breathing. Despite everything, despite the intensity of the situation, he remained calm, his heartbeat as steady as it had been when he'd been writing in his journal earlier.
HP: 50/50
DMG: 8
Charge: The Bite used. 0/3 1 turns remaining.
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The Semblance of Unity rolled 2 8-sided dice:
3, 2
Total: 5 (2-16)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:24 pm
It hurt, ********, it hurt. But it was a pain he choose, he told himself... It was a pain he must have deserved. Horace could feel the edges of something broken. If he held Jan too close, he'd get cut on those jagged edges. HE breathed in quick, shallow gasps, feeling the blades steal things from him. For a moment, he clenched his fists, thought about how he should fight, should struggle away and run and - what then? Tell someone? Try to kill Jan? Plot revenge? No, none of it was conscientious. Closing his eyes, Horace reached up and laid a shaking hand on Jan's chest. beat beat beat. Slow and steady as heartbreak.
"Are you going to kill me?"
hp: 12/20
dmg:
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Baneful rolled 2 10-sided dice:
10, 6
Total: 16 (2-20)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:41 pm
The contact was permitted in a strange, regal sort of fashion. The other man should by all rights have been fighting for his life, resisting every step of the way. But he was not, not really, instead there was an innocent and almost incredulous exploration of him as he was now. It was practically reverential and he basked in it and in the power he held over the other man. He wanted to feel his shield give out, he wanted to feel all of it, to truly be able to make him afraid. Because in their line of work, fear was absolute power, it held the key to everything.
"What do you think?" he asked, calm and steady, pressing down once again on the spiked chain.
HP: 50/50
DMG: 10
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 2:16 pm
Horace felt himself slowly slipping, spots dancing before his eyes. Jan's pressure was a slow and inexorable seige against his shield. Jannisari hissed in his mind, a dry alarm, but he ignored her. She called him all manner of things, urged him to find sense, that he was better than this, worth more. But was he, really? He'd gotten so used to tuning her out that it was easy. Just as easy as not fighting was. Horace was afraid, his muscle trembled with the urge to run, to do something, anything. But he couldn't.
"I think -" He gasped, trying to find breath beyond what little Jan allowed him. "-you could." Maybe this was how it was supposed to be, lyingonthe ground surrounded by broken glass and shattered expectations. He'd over-stepped, over-stretched, reached into the darkness for something that wasn't there. Horace had come away with handfuls of false light that glittered so enticingly but blew away on a fickle wind. He couldn't be everything, but he could be something, in allowing him this.
hp: 2/20
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Baneful rolled 2 10-sided dice:
4, 5
Total: 9 (2-20)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 2:20 pm
"Yes." he said. "I could."
And he felt the bite of fear fade, frustratingly late but just out of reach, right on the edge of being there, of knowing how it felt to have the shield break from the other side. There was a spike of irritation, restlessness at this turn of events but nothing else.
When it finally fractured he pressed the chain finally up against the other man's throat with nothing in between.
"It is such a pity it had to end this way."
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:37 pm
He felt his shield tear like wet tissue paper. Every pain flared brighter, more real and his body jerked against the chain. Horace felt fear, and it tasted like weakness in his mouth. The chain wrapped tighter and his shallow breaths became no breaths at all. Now, only just now, the instinct to fight, to run came upon him, but it was too late. His hands pulled at the chain once, twice before reaching up to fist in Jan's crisp shirt. Horace knew he could've tried harder, fought longer, but what was the point?
The dimming sun cast light around Jan's shoulders like some failing halo. For a moment, Horace thought dazedly of how ironic it was. But even the devil had been an angel once. His hands tightened once more in Jan's shirt, mouth gaping open, and then they fell limp.
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:01 pm
Lawr always savored the moment when they inevitably struggled, it was so human, but ultimately too little too late. But this wasn't his first rodeo, he'd done this before, and Horace wasn't dead, not yet. It simply wouldn't do to have a dead body lying around in his room. There were other things he had to do.
Stepping off the other man when he was sure he was unconscious, he made his way to his bed, tugging out a neat locked box from beneath it and retrieving the key from the recesses of his coat. It was unlocked and from it he produced a long length of rope, blindfold, gag and a set of padded handcuffs. Maebe had been a very helpful excuse to buy all the things he might potentially need. Horace was duly restrained, left on his side on the floor. He double checked the knots, it was always difficult to tie knots one handed and it had taken a lot of research to perfect them just so. He remembered to take his phone away.
This done, the pale man used his artifact, turning into Horace himself with a smug easy sort of smirk before sauntering out of the room and into the hallways. He was in no hurry and made sure to meander around and that that he was spotted on as many different cameras as possible, simply going about his business. He even sent a few texts, just to establish he was alive and well and was not with Lawr at all. It was fully dark by the time the artifact ran out and he made sure that he was outdoors and out of range of all cameras when it ultimately did, in his normal shape looping back to the room and scaling the wall to his window. Horace was retrieved, along with more rope, a knife and a kit of other objects, ranging from a torch and batteries to his limited surgical implements he had gathered working in the labs and on leave. He donned his cloak and picked up the other man.
He made his way back down to the ground with as little fuss as it was possible to cause while carrying a person larger than he was. This accomplished, he trekked out out into the dark forest of the island.
No one took control out of his hands.
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