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 Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:15 pm
"Well," Sindhlot answered, "We haven't got the slightest idea where they actually are. Legion is taking actions to keep the Shadowmen occupied, meaning, we don't have to constantly run from snipers. We can't find them except by searching. We'll have to use look within buildings, magically, to find their hideout, by recognizing members of their group.
"Understand this, child - we cannot plan. Planning. Means. Nothing. These Hunters are beyond anyone or anything you have ever seen. One of them stopped the strike of Leviathan, a seventh-tier demon, one-handed. Leviathan punches harder than I do, since he's more aligned towards kinetics than shadow. We are, to some extent, combing the area until their guards at the outer reaches of their territory attack us. See, they're smart enough not to center their field on their actual base - it'd be too easy to triangulate then. For all we know, it could be twelve feet into the field. If you're so keen on planning, how do you suggest we find them?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:20 pm
Samuel turned and gave her a dry look. "I agree with Sindhlot. We will have to search manually, but beyond that it is pretty much in the air at the moment. After finding our charge, though, we will have to strike fast and escape quickly, making sure we spend as little time as possible in the vicinity. You all well know how nasty it would be if we had to face off with them directly." He walked onwards, his nonchalant attitude not flickering even once.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:27 am
Ted had no idea what was going on, and was in too much a state of shock to really register anything going on around him. That didn't mean he was oblivious, but that he was just tuning everything but the voice in his head out. He was getting the whole shebang from his relative, and while he was dubious at first, he couldn't question whether it was true or not because he was the one witht he voice in his head. When he became aware of his surroundings again, he noticed no one was there, so he just sat down near one of the nearest walls, and slightly after, fell asleep.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:39 am
She narrowed her eyes, her steps never faltering though. "Well I didn't mean to imply I thought you had a plan step by step and knew where they were. I just wondered how we were going about it all," she spoke through gritted teeth. , she roared inside her head in answer. <By the gods! I can't hear barely anything they say over you and your incessant screeching! What is wrong with you anyway!?!>
Apollimi stuttered, then huffed indignatly.
She heard Apolline go silent for a moment. Then heard something like movement from her, which was really odd.
Aurelie lowered her head as though mad, but kept walking. She glanced up through the curtain of her hair towards the building for a moment, but couldn't see anything. Although suspicious, she looked for a moment, then back at the others.
Apolline sighed noisily, Aurelie narrowed her eyes but looked again, laying a bit of magic over her eyes to use the faintest tinge of sight. She noticed some shadows were deeper than others, and didn't move when the wind blew the trees. She wasn't sure, she hadn't before ever fought the shadowmen herself, only demons and hunters. Walking closer to the others she spoke as though simply carrying on a conversation about the weather.
"How exactly do you tell shadowmen apart from the surrounding shadows? Thats one thing I have not any true experiance in..."
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:23 am
((is back- i can has Time w00t!)) Siber somewhat floated, as though in space, moderately of aware of his possible surroundings. He was unsure whether or not he really knew anything about where he might have been, and in truth, it seemed nebulous whether or not he actually existed. This had been going on for what he thought was a ridiculously long period of time, but it might not have been. Time, being all relative anyway, not surprisingly, didn't mean much, here. If "here" was really a place... in the first place. Crazily enough, his original name came back to him without warning. It made sense, though, to remember such an ugly part of his past, as existential as his demi-thoughts necessarily were right then. Karl Andrew Terrian. Bleah, that was boring. To occupy himself, though, he started rearranging the letters, humming softly to himself, though it didn't make any noise. He was as much twiddling his thumbs as anything else- that's what one generally does when one's only memories are a vague recollection of a fake name and a basic understanding of a single language. Krawl. Darker water ran. Treeward lark. Keldan.
The list went on as Siber suddenly began remembering things in the non-blackness of wherever he was. His last moment of life had not been particularly pleasant- he knew that much. Somehow, he had managed to take Keldan with him into this non-death, and he remembered sending his dæmons out, but... where on earth were they? He most certainly couldn't feel them anymore, not after releasing them. Oh, Jeez, that had been dumb. He felt like smacking himself in the forehead, but didn't have a forehead or a hand to smack it with.
Really, the only hope he had now was that Razier and Pathelios had successfully delivered their package to the Hunters and that the Hunters knew how to extract him from where he was. Otherwise, he was kind of stuck. With Keldan. Who was coming closer and closer to being as bad as his grandmother.
He decided to make small talk, to interrupt the guy.
His voice dropped it's buoyant quality after the first few words and by the end was frighteningly melancholy.
Siber made a double-take. why? Wouldn't necromancy work better...?>
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:32 pm
For some reason, the verbal depictions of the utter horrors Legion directly and indirectly caused didn't shock Paul in the least. It was almost as though he'd expected it to be that way. This did surprise Paul; he was aware that Legion was for all effects and purposes evil incarnate, yet he hadn't known much more than that. Of course, it all made logical sense; bad apples make other bad apples, or however that stupid saying went.
He glanced over to Kayla. She did seem rather neutral, so perhaps she would stick with them willingly in the end. They needed it; their numbers weren't particularly great, to say the least.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:12 pm
"I'm not a killer," she said simply. "I mean, the only thing I really have going for me is a good sense of my identity, and at this point in my life I'm not someone who could easily take someone else's life." She paused for a moment. "Though I don't know how much longer that person could posibly hold out with Legion. Or with you hunters, for that matter. This is probably weird for you to hear since he was part of the Cabal, but Vassily used to be a rockstar of sorts. He'd wander around Siberia and people would get excited when he came instead of running in fear. Because he was a shaman, and a damn good one at that, and people knew that the kids who'd developed a weird purple rash and couldn't breathe right were about to be cured because that crazy sonofabitch witch doctor was here. If Legion could turn him into a...well, you know what they all were, what could I become? I don't want that, but I needed to come here to see for myself. I can naver just take someone's word for it." She grinned nervously, looking a little embarassed.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:21 pm
Sindhlot's laughter resounded in Aurelie's ears.
"Shadowmen don't use magic - they're purely mundane, and that's their greatest advantage. They can disable magic - why is why they're incapable of themselves. They are invisible to magic detection because they don't use magic. They are incredibly dangerous, because they have ungodly skill with their weapons. You never see them coming. They are well-organized, shoot from a distance, and if you try to sneak up on one, you can bet another is already taking aim at your back. We are relying on Legion's interruption of their activities... whatever means he's using. Just... trust Legion."
~~
Josh had smiled gently as he heard Kayla's doubt.
"Fair enough," he replied. "I wouldn't believe Legion had a cauldron made of infant skulls meshed together with magic if Alan hadn't found it and shown it to me before Legion resurfaced. He likes to collect the worst of the worst - sick bastards like the necrophiliac Yakuza - but he delights in corrupting genuinely good people. Supposedly, when someone begins to take pleasure in another's pain due to his influence, he can feel it was well, but I think that's a load of bullshit. Besides- What the hell is that?" He saw a dark, bluish squirrel sitting under a tree, with a necklace beside it. "Is that... oh, s**t. That's the Demoniac's familiar, isn't it?" It poked the necklace as Josh threw up his obfuscation around them.
Leviathan squeezed out from the middle of the necklace's bounds.
"Good day, Human Joshua, wielder of the Fists of the Titan."
Josh was totally silent. He held a hand to the side, indicating Kayla and Paul should stay back.
"I am here in the service of the somewhat-late Human Terrian. We have been commanded to bring you this necklace." Leviathan picked it up with his right, normal-sized hand and tossed it to Josh. Josh held his hand out, and it hovered in the air in front of him. "His spirit and mine now are bound to this device. He likely wishes to talk to you now..." The Leviathan vanished, and Siber was on the ground, looking somewhat dazed.
Joshua drew his gun and pointed at Siber.
"What the hell is going on?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:14 pm
"That, my good sir, is an excellent question." Siber stood and brushed himself off, glad to see he had clothes on. How that had happened made no sense, but niether did the apparent presence of all his hidden apparati in their appropriate pockets. With shaking hands, he pulled out a fake cigarette, lit it, and took a long, fake draw. The cherry scent wafted towards the others there. Even the fake method of relaxation helped to calm him down. Keldan was blessedly silent as he took in the situation. Siber made a double-take. "Holy Hell! Kayla, how are you?" A smile lit his face upon sight of the familiar person and he swept her a low bow. "Anyway, good man," he continued to the man who had questioned him, inhaling more of the thinnest smoke known to mankind and puffing it out as he spoke, "I think that is possibly the most impolite reaction to such a formal greeting and introduction as Leviathan gave you. You're excused, though, given that you're the one with the gun. Ah! Leo!" He turned again and addressed the squirrel. "May I have my necklace?" "Siber, you sunnavabitch, if you were coming back so soon, why in God's name did you make me cart this thing around? Razier's gone, by the way; you should have known a Svadhisthana dæmon wouldn't hang around for long." He brought the jewelry, though, and Siber clasped it around his neck. "I am eternally grateful, Leo, be sure of it." The squirrel snorted and vanished. He made a final turn and faced the men before him, looked at the one with the gun, made a pointed decision, took out his cigarette, smiled, and offered his other hand to the other guy. "You look a man of quality. I'm Siber; nice to meet you." He began memorizing faces immediately.
He grinned inwardly to Keldan's grumblings.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:07 pm
Josh smiled as Siber extended his hand. He put his gun away and clasped Siber's hand.
It hurt.
Before Siber realized it, Josh's other hand had yanked the fake cigarette from his mouth - so fast he was caught mid-inhale. Josh threw it down, twisted his heel on it without looking, and calmly placed the hand at Siber's throat. His demeanor was several orders of magnitude more threatening than it had been. He glared at Siber for a moment.
"Empty your pockets of any magical apparatuses and drop them on the ground. The appearance of anything that could possibly be construed as hostile will result in the prompt loss of a key part of your respiratory system. You will not make any form of resistance." His willingness to follow through with the threat was apparent. "I am not in the mood to suppress your magical aura much longer, so..." He released Siber's hand and reached into his pocket and put a locket around Siber's neck. "You will keep this where I can see it at all times. If it leaves your body, I will kill you. Question. Are you the Demoniac the Shadowmen said caused the magic anomaly earlier?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:23 am
Siber choked once and suffered the locket, mumbling about how it clashed with his own necklace, then recovered. "Now hold on a minute, it wasn't even your hand I was shaking. And besides, I don't have anything magical in my pockets; I hardly had time to get this necklace made before I died. Jesus Christ, man." Luckily, Firage and Leo were the only ones able to access the only other magical constructs he had created. He ignored the urge to rub his aching hand, and instead gestured with the other one at his cigarette. "And look what you've done; do you have any idea how expensive those are?" He mulled it over for a bit with Keldan.
He kept his voice light-hearted. Ah, the training brought on by the darkness of a middle school pariah's life. And subsequent high school pariah's life. And subsequent college pariah's life. There seemed to be a pattern, here... "Heck, I don't know. Shadowmen could be inclined to lie, and I don't know what their words were." The other man made a hostile motion. Siber held his hands up in innocence, watching the gun. "But, were one, I suppose, to report an alleged possible circumstance involving perhaps a significant disruption of the magical plane, I suppose that it could have been me." He was still working out how that had succeeded, and was not comfortable with any answers.
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Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:11 am
Aurelie looked at him for a minute, then looked back at the building. "Alright, I trust Legion," she said softly, putting emphasis on his name, "I just did not know much of anything about shadowmen." She paused and continued walking, tuneing her thoughts to Apollines words. < You trust Legion? I can see your memories, you have never trusted anyone, barely me, why him?>, Apolline asked increduslously. Aurelie was silent for a moment, thinking. Aurelie's voice was softer in response, though she wasn not sure why. Then a thought ocurred to her.
She paused and looked at the others. , she added sarcastically.
Instead of saying anything she just continued to follow them, her staff clinking. She tugged her gloves up and rubbed her finger over one of the elemental glyphes hidden on the inside of her gloves. She was really itching for a fight.
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Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:25 am
Paul raised his eyebrows. It occurred to him that either Josh had just done something extraordinarily unnecessary, or he'd saved Paul's life. "So you're the one who summoned the demon with the severe lack of proportion?" Figures. The people under Legion are around ten times as strong as us.
So our problem here isn't that we're all weaklings, the problem is that we're not willing to go as far as some others.
Hey!
I was and am getting an education!
shot at. I didn't mention it, but when I warned you about the guy 15 yards behind you with steel pellets... man, he took that shot on purpose.>
...and you never mentioned this to me?
Eh. You're probably right.
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Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:45 pm
((so, i'll just pretend I'm with Sindhlot's group, i suppose....))
Joe sighed. "Well, at least that's one of us," he said to Aurelie. "I'm Joe, by the way," he added without looking at her. He still wasn't sure this was a great idea. He trusted that Legion had power, but...what if this was a test.
Oh well. It had been partly Joe's idea to come rescue Kayla in the first place.
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Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:00 am
Aurelei turned her eyes to look at Joe, half suspecting he was messing with her, as he had been quiet so far. After a second though she tilted her head to the side, looking at him as they walked. "I'm Aurelie." She paused, listening, and for once didn't hear Apoline make a snarky comment, other than to huff. She rolled her eyes then glanced at Joe again. "I guess that means that... not many of you trust Legion?", she said. She half expected them all to answer, and she did kind of wonder now, she thought they all would.
would trust him, seeing as they are going to such great lengths to do things for him and are at least placing all of our lives in his hands by not worrying about the shadowmen. And only for him saying he has it covered...>
they were more than likely given the choices to join the ultimate evil and do what he says or die a thousand horrible deaths while thier souls rot in hell. Or something like that..> Apolline said dryly.
Aurelie marrowed her eyes.
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