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its me debz rolled 1 6-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-6)
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 Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:11 am
Kostya, too, reacted swiftly: staying within reach of Taym, but escaping the gas. He looked all around, trying to determine where the can had slid in from.
It either meant that Bernice and her accomplice had beaten them down (how?) or that someone else had been down here with them.
He was unsure which opportunity he disliked the most.
charge// 1/3
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:26 am
A hammer crashed into Kostya, but he was able to dodge part of the blow. The air around the elevator cleared out and Bernice dropped down from the hatch, one hand covering her mouth while the other fired off another shot at Taym, whose stumbling gait granted him a shot that would have otherwise struck his bad shoulder. Randall lifted the hammer to strike again, eyes glinting with a thing red sheen. Bernice's face held all the hatred Kostya had only glimpsed earlier. Hissing into her com piece, the latter sneered, "We got something of yours. Come out and play." cherno astra To fight: Select a target and roll 1d20 to determine success. To escape: Roll 1d12 to determine success rejam To fight: Select a target and roll 2d8 to determine success. To escape: Roll 1d10 to determine success
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Rejam rolled 1 10-sided dice:
5
Total: 5 (1-10)
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:46 am
Taym was not, although he had forgotten it earlier, a Death hunter.
Which did not stop him from living up to Bernice's murmured prophecies outside the elevator car. Badly, given his condition.
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its me debz rolled 1 12-sided dice:
7
Total: 7 (1-12)
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:46 am
He wondered, with a fervor intense, who it was that she was talking to.
He wondered, then, when it was his optimism had superseded his logic.
Who else could it be, if she'd called the pair of them yours. Who else had received the visitors. Who else.
Kostya stumbled away, and would remember the eyes of red for days and days.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:14 am
It was less their speed or their stealth that allowed them first one corner and then another, but rather the way one of Bernice's shots went stray and hit Randall, and the way he then charged her with hammer raised. It was only a temporary distraction, but it was enough. There was a loud call of, "Damnit Bernice!" And it sounded close, just a wall away. But they were in a maze of course, and that could mean just around the corner or detours for miles and never the twain shall meet. Another corner and they are met with the sight of a thickset, swarthy man with a broken pair of glasses, his arms raised and trembling in the distance. Peering over his shoulder, was America Jones, her face shifting from rage to despair and back again. Seeing them, the man man abruptly called out, "Help, help me!" His cries were cut short as she gripped the back of his neck and slammed the man against the wall once, and then twice, like a rag doll, her eyes wide and voice snarling too low for them to hear. When he quieted into tiny, poorly repressed sobs, America held a hand up toward Kostya and Taym. Stay where you are.The girl was pale under the dried blood and dirt, and there were large wounds obvious against the once white tanktop and khakis. Ever from a distance she looked like she should not be up, should not be capable of throwing the man around as she had, but there was a manic glint in her eyes that said maybe she was capable of quite a few things right now.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:32 am
Bernice, Randall, "Damnity Bernice" and now America. That was four. One of them had thrown the cannister-- probably Randall. Kostya watched her with a critical eye and the way her face oscillated, how the expressions swam back and forth like a darting fish. It was her, but-- it wasn't. It wore her skin and gave her strength-- and it was obvious how much-- but America wouldn't do this. Not on her own. Not like this. It didn't matter. A surge of relief wound all around him, and while they were absolutely ******** ********, she was alive. She was hurt, but she was fine. This was not the worst case scenario. This was not the worst possible thing. This was not the end of her choose your own adventure book. He wasn't sure what this was, and an unease in his belly roiled, despite his blatant joy that America was alive and standing-- and, for once, Kostya did not obey her. Instead, Kostya slowly advanced, weapon trained on the man and not America, He said nothing.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:36 am
Taym, his initial relief placed immediately by a huge and nameless terror, fell motionless, and his eyes were not on America, not on the man, but on Syntax.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:42 am
She made a pushing motion with her hand, back, back, and whispered something urgently into his ear. The man made a whining sound and she slammed his head into the wall once more before he was nodding, frantically agreeing. Shoving him forward with a sneer, America shoved the man toward Kostya and Taym before turning to run back into the labyrinth. Righting himself the man was still sobbing quietly as he got closer to them, and this time his help me's were quiet and cautious.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:45 am
"Who are you," Kostya asked, clipped, not dropping Syntax, although his eyes followed the route she took. The electric whine did not subside. "Vhat happen." A look to Taym, sharp: "Do ve follow."
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Rejam rolled 1 6-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-6)
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:59 am
The question wasn't even fully out of Kostya's mouth before there was a loud snapping sound, and some dark and unruly shape shot down the hallway after America's fleeing back.
He'd reached for it as soon as she'd turned around: the "just in case" bit of runic technology he had never, not once, felt even remotely compelled to use: a trapping gun, the handing-over of which had felt like a woefully inadequate compensation for the grueling trial that was Deathsweeper, just another Death Division joke of a reward. It was almost a hysterical joke now that he did use it, and he certainly didn't expect it to work, didn't expect it to go hurtling through the darkness and actually manage it.
He would put this down to luck, later. Karmic recompense for his shattered kneecaps.
He could not run but he could hobble and this, grimfaced, he did, leaving Kostya with the whimpering man. The sight--Taym half-limping, half-hopping at speed down the hallway towards the ludicrous mess of runic strings and weights--would have been really, really ******** funny if it weren't so awful instead.
"America," he said.
And if he made it in time, made it before she could fight her way out, he would tackle her, drag her to the floor.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 4:15 am
Tearing furiously at the net, America was whispering no, please please no under her breath, tears streaming from eyes wide with disbelief. The man caught at Taym, as he passed by, voice urgent, " L-leave her, we need to go. Sh-she can't help now anyway and if they find her like that she deserves it." He began to pull at Taym but then let go, seeing Syntax, "Sh-she's going to lose it again. She always cries right before."
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 4:40 am
Fiona had flickered out as he'd reached for the gun. She remained unsummoned. It was impossible to say whether he'd have time to do it effectively--impossible to say what Kostya might do, even if America didn't--but instinctively, Taym's hands reached for the nets she was trying to shove away, desperately attempting to tangle them around her clawing arms. He didn't move from where his full, too-slight weight pinned her to the floor, and here he whispered in her ear. He'd had a lifetime of learning to make his voice sound more soothing, more self-assured than the roiling panic beneath gave it any right to; he could cry without making a sound, and his tone was no different than if he were drowsily, comfortingly stroking her hair after a nightmare in the way that he'd never had the chance to: "I love you. He loves you. We're going to fix it."
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:31 pm
Taym moved as fast as he could, given his condition, disappearing the way America had, leaving Kostya alone with the man. The man who said that America deserved whatever it was she got. "No," Kostya said, clearly, "She vill not die." It was a threat, and Syntax's hum and blood-red glow intensified. His face had twisted into-- not into something ugly, but into something with the potential for it. "Cries before vhat. Vhere should go. Who are you."
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 4:08 pm
Noticing the gun, the coat, the purpose, he paled and began hurriedly, "I-I'm F-franklin Wilbur. L-life. My weapon weapon got fractured," he was weeping again. "She's going to get angry again and then we'll all be ********, we can't be in here too long, oh god. She was going to draw them off so you can take me up, she's going to be so mad." By the end his voice had thinned and softened to that of a child, full of terrified expectation.
She was sobbing, one claw-like hand tangled against the ropes as her body heaved violently, trying throw him off. "It's not fair," America choked. "You need to let me go you need to let me go. You need to protect him. You can't stay here. You came here to help me so for ******** sake please just ******** help me before... "
She turned her head to meet his gaze, free hand moving toward her hip as the net's runes began to fade.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 5:34 pm
A cloudy memory had been trying to catch Taym's attention for some time now, ever since he'd caught a glimpse of Randall's red-filmed eyes, and its murmuring ratcheted up into yelling through the searing pain and his fear and bewilderment and finally finally it took, and he remembered two things simultaneously: the first was Peyton in an infirmary bed, her normal girlish enthusiasm subdued as she prodded her oatmeal and painfully related what she and America had undergone. The second was Molly, on Twitter in the aftermath, telling them to be wary off-base. He met her eyes--he did that so rarely, so reluctantly--and said: "They're on our heels. I'm proud of you." He rolled free, Fiona summoned and half-severing the nets from around her arms, leaving her to fight free of the rest as he shoved her to face the direction he thought the assault would be most likely to come from, and then, clumsily, agonizingly slowly, he hauled himself towards Kostya and Franklin, praying that he'd get close enough for them to hear him without his having to raise his voice: "She told us to run and it was an order. Help me get out."
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