Wielders of the way

[Fallen] [[OOC Disclaimers and special rulings!
1. Thanks for being here! Yay! *confetti!*
2. Per usual, lets try to keep posts coming fluidly as possible. I like around 10min or so. It's a small enough scene there can be more leeway but keep the number in mind.
3. As usual: If anything gets uncomfortable for you, let me know.
4. I've come to the conclusion that I hate, hate, HATE writing combat re-caps. Largely because I never feel comfortable writing brief little blurbs for other PCs actions. And the game comes down to rolling with a minimal chance for people to actually play their PCs which, yeah.. bleh. SO! We're trying something different here:
Instead of everyone just declaring, then rolling, then recap, we'll roll initiative when it comes to combat and then people may write brief posts of what their PC is doing with an OOC breakdown of the declare, in usual declaring order. I'll handle the NPCs per usual.

All good so far?

[Emily Littleton] ((10-4, boss lady. All clear here.))

[Fallen] Okay!
SPECIAL RULINGS:
1. You MAY, in these SL scenes, spend WP to activate a Healing Charm in the -same- turn you spend WP on another action. Remember: If the wounds are Aggravated you must also spend a dot of Quint for the Charms to heal Agg.
2. Anyone with guns: I'm allowing prime charged bullets in advance, no rolling/cost needed.
3. Everyone gets 1 Get-Out-Of-Botch-Free card.
4. The Characters will have to decide where they stand in this scene - literally where they stand. One option allows them to keep an eye out on the 'real world' with greater ease while controlling the Talisman. The other option allows for Paradox free magic. Keep this in mind.

PREP!
And n ow.. feel free to IM me with what prep your PC did in advance, any Effects already active when they come in, etc.
Options For Your PCs:
Israel Offers:
Mind Shield Charms, Healing Charms [1 each... she has the others and will distribute as needed between the different groups], Wits [Read: Initiative] increasing Charms. Kage can do the Mind stuff on her own. Em and Atlas would be offered 1 each of the mind charms.
She'll also take the time -prior to heading for the beach - to increase Em and/or Atlas WP and show Kage how to do it herself if Kage doesn't know the Rote.
Let me know what - if any - of those your PC wishes to use.
*collapses*

[Fallen] Israel Restoring Em's WP: (at 3 after activation both Charms)
Fortitude for the Journey Rote [[Life 2 [to invigorate], Prime 2 [to empower], Mind 2 [for purpose]. Diff: 5. -1 Foci, -Taking Time]] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 3 (Success x 2 at target 3) [WP]
to Emily Littleton

[Fallen] Extending: +1 Diff, -1 Practiced.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 3)
to Emily Littleton

[Fallen] And Again, one last time max:
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 3)
to Emily Littleton

[Fallen] Alright Sweets:
Emily is going in with Temp WP: 8.
Mind Shield Active [Strength 3]
Wits +2 [Max5]
Imbued Bullets: 1 full set of rounds.
1 Healing Charm: Honey, inactive.

[Fallen] Kage [R Awesome] Jakes:
Temp WP: 8
Active Charms: Wits increase [max 5], Forces Shield [-3 to attackers damage pool]
Mind Shield: Strength 3.
Healing Charm: Honey, Inactive.
Jacket: Prime Imbued + Spirit keyed: Threshold of 3 for direct Spirit attacks.

[Fallen] [[Atlas: Activating Talisman]]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 8 (Failure at target 4)

[K. R. Jakes] [Sailor Scouts, Unite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Fallen] [[Re-rolling that, for realz!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 4 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Emily Littleton] [Go-go Gadget Talisman!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 6 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Fallen] During the day of July 3rd, it was clear, hot and humid. Just the sort of weather that brings city dwellers and tourists alike flocking to the shores of Lake Michigan, seeking some reprieve from the damp heat, some relief from fetid summer-in-the-city funks; some blissful ignorance of day-to-day living and increased crime rates and... and... and...
the world is falling part. it's worse every year. Sleepers know this. they feel it. they chalk it up to a million and one reasons, tidily set aside, views from the scat periphery allowable by the tunnel vision of the grind.]

Nighttime now. Late evening. The beach is curiously vacant [thanks to the efforts of a certain cultist with certain dubious connections], cordoned off with yellow police tape for a stretch that goes beyond the secluded point the party arrives to. [perhaps they heard on the news and on the street: a terrorist threat, a bomb scare, high bacteria levels in the water - no, no - anthrax in the sand... ] There's the risk that sleeper authorities might still be combing the area, though from what anyone can see the concentration of search efforts seems to be in the Navy Pier [businesses there will suffer at the loss of prime income on this peak weekend in the year. they will curse your names, or the spectres of your names; curse the unknown that caused this though it save their lives. this is how it goes, on the periphery of ignorance and enlightenment].

The sand is cooling now; the moon - visible here - is sliced down the center, a well cut melon. [there's a lady in the moon, did you know? not a man at all: a Lady, with long, flowing hair, looking upon a mirror which casts out the suns reflection.] The party is considerably large. Emily, Atlas, Kage.... Ashley, Wharil, Daiyu. Israel is there, bag heavy with charms, a slender wooden staff, intricately carved replacing her normal guide cane. And a few others who are combing the beach to check for possible traps, Sleepers, interlopers, whatever the case may be. Each and every one of them has some tingle of Resonance going on, denoting active magic. The air lilts with it, the clash a curious dissonance, not unpleasant, but not quite a melody.

This is how it goes...
...activating the Talisman is relatively easy. For the first time Emily and Atlas get some feel of what it is like to manipulate Reality with a higher level of Enlightenment; with a higher level of Understanding. They must stand close together, all three, so that the curious wonder is connected in a pyramid, the clockwork design with its alchemical symbols pointed downward at the apex, the open bottom facing upwards here [see the symbolism? all things start at a point, all things flow outward, unending. power and spirit have no end and even the fixed point is just a funnel]. Atlas takes the lead in activating it; Emily and Kage tapping in, lending their Will.

...the Shadow opens. Before them, see, first it is a sliver of mercury in the air, yes, visible to all present. Then, wider. Broader. It grows. It melts; no it ripples, it blooms. Breathe it in. For one moment as the gauntlet drops steadily, as the cusp of two worlds becomes one, they can feel that this is how it is supposed to be. Unified. No barrier.
It lasts only a moment.
A moment before the wrongness hits them. Something has been teeming in the penumbra all this while: Vile sanguine mists; Telos blood full as a tick high in the umbral sky; creatures, things, dark things that usually linger out further, come like parasites, like opportunists just seeking, just waiting for a chance to get out, to take advantage of what is going on. Kage knows this, as done anyone normally with the ability to witness the Spirit world.

....the red mist is there, in the distance and thankfully well away from the boundary between the 'real' world and the entrance to the Umbra.
A shining pulse is there... no. Not shining at all. Absorbing light. Sucking it in. The Opal, one might easily guess. 20.. 30 yards? Maybe. It is hard to measure distance in there. The swirling of the Avatar storm is a sheen of madness; is a a glittering whirlwind of shards that glitter [that cuts, that rends, that tears -- be careful, here].
Outside of these things [as if these things are not enough] the way seems... clear.

The team going in after the so called Twilight Star heads in, to brave the Storm and then all that lies beyond.

The three operating the Talisman have separated the wonder and looped their own pieces of it around their necks by the thin cold chains on which they dangle. They can move and act individually but must remain within 30 paces or so of wherever the main wielder [Atlas] stands.

A choice must be made: To enter into the Umbra [braving the Storm] and thus provide back up for the party in there and ensure nothing gets out that does not belong. Or to remain where they are and provide the same support, without risking the Storm but without benefit of the lack of Consensus within.

[Emily Littleton] Enter the Apprentice: wary, calculating, cool-headed. Emily is stead-fast, she is sure, she is calm and alert -- she is all of these things outwardly at the very least. She has made her goodbyes, left messages for her cabal mates, phoned home to speak to her near-sibling. She has made her peace with Man, and perhaps also with God. These are the things one does before they meet up with a handful of world-benders to weild a Talisman stolen from a Demon's acolytes in hopes of thwarting the great reaping of souls.

It is a hot and muggy day, but the dark-haired girl wears a jacket to cover the weapon she will be carrying. In the interim days (weeks), she has learned the rudimentary firearms skills; she is done being a passive party, a lamb to the slaughter, a weakness. When Israel offers to bolster her, Emily does not fuss or quail. She submits, she appreciates, she offers back thanks and mentally notes things to learn for herself in the future. This is a focused space, this near empty expanse of beach.

Ashley brings woad and Emily-conservative, Emily-proper hesitates only slightly before letting Kage draw lines and whorls on her face as well. This is the way the ready for war: the unwarlike Other draws paint on the Apprentice's features; the blind woman inspires, uplifts; the Gentleman Inventor leads; the Apprentice follows.

This is a day for being more than you were born into; this is a day for rising above; this is a day to be immanent, to be transcendental, to be reverent, to be humble.

Their Wills rise in concert, and what an odd thing that must be. (Reverent, Luminous, Shining, Withering, Unrelenting, Deranged.) The boundary between this world and the next shimmers, the blood-red miasma beyond swirls. Emily's expression goes even more somber, grave beneath the blue and pale where the warpaint does not cover it.

She slips the cord over her head, letting one wonder lie near another, separated by the dark fabric of her shirt. One cord is cold; the other is silver. One Wonder brings down walls, the other calls out to Home.

In goes the Umbral team. Through the Storm (a fray which Emily does not yet understand). The younger Orphan looks to the one with the cold-fire hair. Where Kage goes she'll follow, even if it's into the Abyss.

[K. R. Jakes] This is a threshold. They operate the talisman: Atlas, Kage, Emily. This goes as planned. Kage is not yet so settled into (Disciple [Enlightened]) her new skin that handling the Talisman is a thing that brings no tarnish of wonder to her eyes. This is a threshold. The world cracks open: the gauntlet thins -- and that red fog, that trick of the light [just, she'd said to Ashley, earlier: just turmoil, chaos, a trick of the light: don't worry, you'll be fine], wants out.

Kage bought her older sister, her sister's husband, their two children tickets for Hawaii. They've already left. She said it was for Cary's birthday, which was last week. She said that she could afford it, and it was too late, the tickets were already bought, Oh well. Guess they'd have to go. Darn. Her younger sister couldn't get away: this weekend, the 911 dispatchers are out in bulk. Disasters happen, on the fourth. Pay is also better. Federal Holiday. Fireworks: fire: flame: old buildings, oil.

Daiyu, Wharil, Ashley, Justine: as they go inside -- toward that bright star, that gleam; that silver glow: they each get a comment. A quip. Might be the last thing she ever says to them.

The Orphan: she came to the fight with a long jacket, dark blue. A sleek thing, and buttoned high; a thing of muted (diminished [don't look]) elegance, worn at the elbows, worn at the knees, flare at the hips, the line of her back. Now that the wonder is humming, is singing, is at work; now that they have separated it, piece by piece, riddle by riddle, shard by shard [all the shattered ones] she tucks it underneath the collar of this jacket, places her hand over it. She came to the fight with a gun that once belonged to another Orphan, another Orphan Disciple, a man who went mad, who walked through Hell, who she couldn't help, who gave it to her (willingly [asked]). She came with her face painted with woad, tattooed in blue, and all this blue (blue is for loyalty [blue is for true]) has darkened her eyes, has heightened the burnished ember glint of her hair, the pallor of her skin.

It's hot, she's wearing a jacket, and she's afraid.

This is a threshold.

Her voice is cool, smoke and shadow; a touch of (diminished [also]) radiance: glint of metal. Kage is a creature of composure, of grace. Resolve [Balladry]. Witness: "I'm going to stand on the Other side, guard the breach from there." Kage will look at Atlas, at Emily, when she says this. They nominated Atlas as de facto leader, in case orders needed to be given, but that isn't a need, yet. This is like the time they tripped a Ward: a time Kage said, to Higher Ground!, and offered her truck, and they used it: bastion against creatures.

So when she steps across, her gun'll be drawn and readied: maybe it'll flame out, like shining from shook foil.

No hope abandoned, yo. Screw the Abyss.

[K. R. Jakes] [Arete.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [Arete 2: Into the Abyss?! Oh, alright.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Fallen] Perhaps someone warned them in advance. Someone who has crossed the boundaries before. Nathan or Solomon or Wharil or Israel. Honest words: It will hurt. Fortifying Words: It will be worth it. Pragmatic words: Sometimes you don't have any other choice.

Which, of course, isn't really true. There is always a choice. [Emily knows this: She chooses to Believe. Chooses to let her Faith rekindle, manifest. Kage knows this. She chooses to forge her own path. She chooses to exert equal measures Suspicion and Cavalier impulse.] No matter what the circumstances there are always options: It's just that often none of them happen to be good options.

The warning were right: It hurts. God, yes; oh fuck it hurts. It steals the breath: No, more. Much more. Physically they are not assaulted; what bombards them seeks out the Core of what marks them as Awakened, it seeks out their Heightened Selves, their Better Angels [and sometimes, oh yes, Darker], what Pushes them, what goads them, what Screams, what Soothes, what Cradles, what Shoves. That which is connected to them but Apart. Their Avatar. The shards, the glinting, glittering [how can something so lovely be so wrong? Figuring out that Paradox just might be Ascension] shards slices through to the essence of them. Here there is a benefit to being still-young along the path to Enlightenment. Still young, still less connected to the Mystic. Emily is assaulted and takes a blow, but not enough to do much more than quickstaggergut-jab her. Kage now... ah, Kage. So cool, so composed. Balladry?

Ballads are rife with pain, sweetening.

He howls. He screams. He lashes out at her in His torment and she will bear the outward manifestations of the lightning brief but painful, shattering experience.

Gather your bearings now.

Atlas remains just on the other side, so the women cannot stray too far. He is visible.. for a moment, at least. And the the mists. Not the red mists [be thankful] but a thick, cloying fog that is spreading through the umbra, obfuscating vision [this good - it hides you. this is bad - it hides others too]. It is... silent. Perhaps the mists alter and twist sound as well. They hear nothing of those who went in before. They know Atlas is alive be cause they can still feel the Talisman working, still feel the Way opened behind them.

Silence.
Shhh...
....still now.
Look up.
See the Red Star?
Don't look too closely.. that way lies madness.
Silence.
Shhh...

...then, in the distance [they think. it's so hard to gauge with this pea-souper [Emily is perhaps reminded of London], with broken vision and distorted sound] something howls. That sound... god, that sound. Have you ever heard a rabbit scream? Have you heard a chorus of them? Yes. There. That. That is closet. Something screams. And something... wet, crunching, disgusting, glutenous, feasting, bones break, marrow sucked on...

....something is feasting.

[K. R. Jakes] [WP?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 8, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [WP: Temporary WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [Uhm. Re-roll?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [Go-go gadget Apprentice Awareness!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6 (Failure at target 7)

[Emily Littleton] [Aware: Re-rolling; dif +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[K. R. Jakes] [Also diff 7? Aware? Clearly, doom. But of what manner?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Fallen] What she hears is made all the more frightening because she cannot see it, cannot give it a name, cannot classify it. [does she really want to?]. But still, something nags at her... something at the base of her spine, some other sense, some Knowing.
Be careful. Pay attention. Don't get hung up on what is obvious.
to Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] It was not so very long ago that Emily realized she had an Avatar. It has not been more weeks than she can count on her fingers since it came to her, one light and one dark, in a Seeking; since it pushed her onward; since she grew into her own Unrelenting Reverence. It still, at times, makes her shudder or gasp to feel their wings flutter at her breast, beside the cavity in which her heart lies. Recently, so very recently, she felt his talons close around her life-seat, dig in, warn, forbid. So to step through something that cuts her to the quick, threatens to spill something even more essential than her lifesblood, is wondrous; it's terrifying.

She hisses out a little breath, presses her eyes shut for a moment. Emily does not stop moving, does not linger in the Storm. Once through, she is quick to recover, to breathe normally again. Even as she casts about with her expanded senses, Emily reaches for the firearm she has secured, concealed. There is little worry after mortal authorities here, and while she has no assurances that the gun will do anything against the wrongness.

This thickness does, indeed, conjure up memories of London. Of San Francisco. Of places where it was possible to lose your hand before your face, for the thickness of the weather. Where fog was not so much seen as felt, cottonwool that dimmed the senses, left you lost in a tightly enclosed space. Numbed everything, everything. It rattled up from the base of her spine, this knowing, a need to be watchful and ready.

There is a howl.

There comes a scream.

"Kage?" Emily calls out, suddenly aware that they stand too far apart to touch. "I think we should stay close," she says. "Hold hands, or something. I don't want to get lost in the fog if we're going any further."

[K. R. Jakes] And it hurts.

A lot. Not just her. Hurts Him, who still refuses to name himself. Him, who has stars in his eyes, who gave her a crown of Antler, wrenched from his skull. Who watched, and held her, as she cut out her heart, as she died (once [and again]), kissed her forehead. Hurts. A lot. For a second, Kage's breath is torn from her throat. Her eyes fill with salt, with water; her eyelashes gunk together, and when she blinks them away, tears crease the corners of her eyes, her cheeks. A stain, earthly. A sound, choked, clots in her throat, she coughs it out, and her heart hammers, hammers, hammers at her, why, why'd you do that, why.

All around, the red fog, up above, the red star.

" - something is looking for us," she says, low and pensive. "For the opening." Her voice a husk. Don't clear it: no reason to be noisesome. The pensive: she is thinking, is imagining a ward, a circle. [It hurts. Shush. Ignore it, for now.] Emily wants to hold hands, and Kage steps closer to the Chorister/the Orphan, says: "Back to back, shoulder to shoulder? I've a belt. We can tie each other together."

[K. R. Jakes] [And uhm! Honey Healing Charm, Activation! Whoosh, whoosh! -1 wp.]

[Fallen] Most human beings do not truly understand the sensation of being tracked. It is simply no longer a part of our lives. Some encounter it: Nature lovers. Rural dwellers. Those unlucky enough to have been targeted by thieves, stalkers, murderers, rapists. But in the grand scheme such numbers are relatively few, even in this horrendous [Dark. Dying. Dwindled] reality.

Still, part of our innermost psyches retains the memory. Retains the knowledge. Some are more aware of it than others. Some are simply in tune; others have had enough happen to them that they learn to tap back into that small spark of primal instinct.

Here and now Emily knows that something is amiss and Kage understands that something is out there, closer than those shrieks and the horrible feasting sounds [does it it occur to them? occur to them to wonder if that's the direction in which their friends trotted off?]. Something creeping closer, something sniffing out the opportunity.

The fog is moving, always moving, creeping, always creeping. Here and there a thinner patch.
It shifts now... clearing. It draws the eye, the revelation of something other than the miasma of bone-chilled-white to witness... in the clearing something - good sized, dark, streaked of quicksilver, of crimson cords - darts past, seeking the cover of the thicker fog. To their left, some 10 yards away, perhaps. Hard to judge. Hard to tell.
They can't stray far.
Follow it?
Or close in close, close in back, closer to the opening, prepared to take defensive stances?

[Emily Littleton] [Corr 1: Sensing the lay of the land; base dif 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Fallen] Thing Charm: Am I SUPER Sneaky?
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Emily has been taken. She has been snatched off a street that was far less ominous, far less creeping than this. She does not know if the man at the mouth of the alley tracked her, followed her ambling path through the city of strangely shaped letters (the only city that wasn't bombed in the war, Emily) with its greened-patina copper roofs; with its onion bulb orthodoxy; with its hot, sludge-slick river mud. She does know what it feels like to have the wrongness ride her skin, the pervasive worry of being watched that has followed her through the city for the last month.

This is far, far worse.

Kage asks her if they should tie back to back or shoulder to shoulder, and Emily votes for the latter, with their backs toward the opening that the Shallowing makes to the familiar world. With their backs to the Storm that slivers like cut glass.

There is a thing in the not-far-enough distance. The disorientation is making her anxious, adding to the wrongness, to the feeling of being tracked. Emily needs to do something to level the playing field, even a little bit. She needs to find her footing, steady herself. After they are lashed together, the Apprentice makes a circle of her fingers and her thumb, focuses on it, imagines it pushing outward to reveal the Umbral topography.

It is not much, but perhaps it is enough to help.

[K. R. Jakes] [Corr 1/Spirit 1/Entropy 1: this is a labyrinth; I have the thread. Base diff: 4. -1 totally practiced. Extending, if necessary, yo.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 9 (Success x 3 at target 3)

[K. R. Jakes] The belt Kage spoke of is flexible (for knotting [for unlacing]) and belongs to her jacket (of badassery [sharp (could cut through the fog)]). They stand shoulder to shoulder, and Kage says a word, says another word, in Ancient Greek, her pronunciation deliberately skewed just so. Kage was cut, was wounded, makes that wound a real thing, draws a touch of blood from her thumb. Kage is secretive, when it comes to a lot of her foci. She touches her eyes with her thumb, sighing. Woad-faced, blood-eyed, salt and water, tears.

They do not follow that swift, swift darting thing. They don't go further into the (labyrinth) Umbra. That isn't what they're here for. Somewhere, in that shifting red mass there is Ashley, and there is Daiyu, and there is Justine, and there is Wharil. They are not visible. They cannot be seen. They stay at the gate. They're unneeded, further.

And they watch, watchful, wary.

[Fallen] With Correspondence activated her senses extend, they sharpen, they come down to spatial relations and interconnection. [all things are One. are of the One. the chorus will teach you this.] It gives her an edge, an advantage. It lets her separate things slightly though it is still so odd, so alien here in this Shadow world that she has a harder time identifying what she senses.
She is, however, able to discern a presence. 7 yards off. To the northeast of them, let's say 3 O'Clock. Something that is other than the fog and surreal landscape. Something patient. Something waiting. Then it shifts again, shivers and Blink gone. Gone?
She cannot sense it.
to Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] [Alertness: Come out, come out wherever you are! I see you?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [Alertness: Re-roll, +1 dif]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Emily Littleton] When her attention catches on something more animate and ambulatory than the scenery around them (more tangible than the fog surrounding them), Emily's body orients toward it. North-east of here, not far enough away for comfort's sake. The younger Orphan does not speak, rather lets the subtle shift of her shoulders, the tense readiness to her tall frame speak for her.

Whatever it is, Northeast of them, blinks out of her correspondence-guided sight. Emily casts about trying to place it with her mortal eyes. To catch sight of what was there and gone again.

Purpose (alertness), then confusion and wariness: this is what the rowan-haired Other can read off of her just now. Emily resettles the grip of the firearm in her hand, catches the corner of her lip with her teeth. Wary. Worried.

[K. R. Jakes] Her jaw is a delicate thing, and it tightens. Because Kage can see straight through the bullshit, Kage can see Aces, can see Spades, Kage can see the way the labyrinth works, Daedalus wishes, and because Kage has ideas about where they're going. What's drawing them. The ones that aren't here. The ones that aren't creeping, subtly, closer -- Emily tenses, here -- until they're about two and a half number of feet Kage'd be if she were lying down, stretching out. Kage is no gunslinger, for all she has the jacket, and she is an academic. Her doctorate is not in badass. Yet, still, still: she (subtle [hope]) aims. Kage is connected, right now. Her hand feels the way to go; her bones feel it, something humming, a resonance, an ache, the way to flaws, the way to damage, luck, and it's so close.

But she doesn't fire. The dark-haired Chorister, Orphan, has tensed; Kage exhales a word, spits it. Because: Kage is connected. Kage knows the way this labyrinth works [the way it turns (the fucking alleys of red fog, of blood-soaked starjuice)], and there's no reason for It to know. Not this way: get turned around. That-a-way. Look that-a-way.

[Mind 2 Effect. Base diff 5! -1 practiced (confusion). -1 foci. Go away, spirit thing. Please. Don't wanna shoot you. Or be clawed.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 2, 4 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[K. R. Jakes] [Extending.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Fallen] [[What what?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Fallen] Emily i on the ready, on the lookout; actively trying to avoid being pounced upon from nowhere. Kage; Kage can see it, can call it for what it is and what it is is... well... bad. Lots of bad. But some good, too, yes, considering what could be. She focuses her attention on the lingering presence, on the thing that is not fleeing, is not evading.. is stalking and watching and waiting and...

...She tries to confuse it. Muddle it. But such beings are not nearly so susceptible to that kind of thing as your average human; so malleable. Their minds are alien, it takes time to begin to think of the thoughts of a Spirit; let alone manipulate it. She tries, but it shrugs it away. Shrugs it away but is aware.. aware of their awareness. Which means, which means...
Action.

It leaps so silently, so fluidly; but Emily can feel it shifting, it's space changing, the distance closing it. Perhaps she shouts a warning, just enough for them to evade -- not backwards [no, not there] but out of the way, to the side, crablike and quick. Enough so that it lands not on one of them but to the side, snarling now, snarling and.. and.. and...

...tearing apart. Black-glow, ebony-sheen, ink-swell, its body splits in twine. No, not sudden spontaneous defeat; no... two. It splits It doubles itself. Two now. Two. Each identical. Each an imp, a large imp, flat faced, slit eyes, hulking, disproportionate limbs, like a hairless Maltese; like a Great Dane sized thing but on steroids from the Abyss. It's close, both of them but not on them. There's distance enough.

Action.

[Fallen] Thing 1: +7
Thing 2: +6
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 6

[K. R. Jakes] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Emily Littleton] [Initiative: Dex 3 + Wits 3 + 2 from Israel]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[Fallen]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[K. R. Jakes]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Fallen] Order:
Emily
Kage
Thing 2
Thing 1

[Fallen] The two Beasts snarl; flat faces; imp faces; slit eyes closed like purring pleasure; like a call to the feast. Sharp teeth, razor teeth, hundred of teeth, rows of teeth, open maws; too large. Strong bodies. But.. wary? Unsure of what to expect here; displeased to have to face a confrontation when what it - they - want lies beyond...

...out there.

A moments hesitation.... then they will move to leap in - bite - leap back.

[K. R. Jakes] They split in twain, this thing: these things. Nonviolence: that's Kage's first instinct. This time, it has not served her (or the spirit [the monstrosity]) well. The smoke-eyed Orphan watches as they purr, as their teeth gleam, as they dart in: she fires the gun at it twice. One, two. Hold.

[Emily Littleton] They are close, too close for Emily to be cautious, to channel her Will to help her aim. Their slit-eyes closed, their sussuration-purr, their teeth, innumerable, unfathomable. Emily is no happier to see the imp-beasts than they are to see her. Arguably, she is seriously less happy to see them than they are to see her.

Kage takes aim at one, Emily takes aim at the other. She fires, just once, into that black-glow, ebony-sheen hide.

[Declare: Shoot thing 2 + WP!]

[Emily Littleton] [Dex + Firearms: Shoot thing 2 + WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]

[Emily Littleton] [Damage: 4 suxx + 4 base + primed bullets!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [1a. Dex + Firearms. -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [ DMG: 4 + 1 + primed bullets?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [1b. Dex + Firearms -3. +WP.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 4 (Failure at target 6) [WP]

[Fallen] Thing 2: Chomp Em.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Fallen] Thing 1: Chomp Kage.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Fallen] They are, both of them, hit and it rocks them, certainly; it throws off their leaping; skews the aim of their gnawing, horrid teeth. But these are things of sheer, single-minded determination. Ultimately they would continue to gnaw and claw and gnaw until the last bit of their Essence was stripped away. They do so now, one snapping out [its neck elongates horribly] and managing to tear away a bit at Emily's arm. The other does the same but misses Kage, rounding back, both of them, sprung back, re-coiled, ready to strike out again.

------------
Thing 2: Attack Emily again
Thing 1: Attack Kage

[K. R. Jakes] That second shot: it went wild. That was a waste: that was a shame. That was a word [with their name (with a gleam [star])] lost. That was damage: undone, untouched. An untouch. But one of them gets Emily, tears into the other woman's arm, and Kage can feel it: sympathetic, the tug of muscle. They're bound together, after all. Tug.

Not again, Kage thinks, and, No. And she shoots once, shoots twice: red-haired maiden, lady gunslinger, and everything here, across the tear-in-Umbra, well, everything is red -- isn't it? Is it not? But she also starts this: preparation, sound in the back of her throat, beginning of a word. It won't distract; it's automatic.

[Emily Littleton] Those many-numbered sharp like shark's teeth dug into her arm and Emily cried out. It's a mournful thing, rent and aching. It lasts barely at all, cut off and pulled back as soon as her will allows. The arm is injured, she can feel the tear in it, hot and angry against the swirling miasma of the Umbral world around her. She can feel it seep, get bloody and visceral.

The Singer-to-be bites down harder on her cheek, pulls her focus to center, pushes through. She takes aim on that thing again, with its maw bloody with her own viscera. She fires. Again.


[Declare: Shoot thing 2 again + WP!]

[Emily Littleton] [Dex + Firearms: Shoot thing 2, -1 (wound penalty) + WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Emily Littleton] [Damage: 1 suxx + 4 base + primed bullets!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [1a. Dex + Firearms. -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [DMG: 4 + primed bullets!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [1b: same, -3. +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[K. R. Jakes] [DMG: 4 + 1 + Primed bullets!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Fallen] Thing 2: Emily
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [DMG: 4 + 1 + Primed bullets!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Fallen] Thing 1: Kage
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fallen] They are persistent, this has been stated. Spirits, they are learning, are hard, to kill. Can anything else be expected? After all, here and now it is these two women who trespass on their domain [dominion]; who have entered into a realm of rules and laws and phenomena to which the two Willworkers are largely alien.

It's a dance this. A deadly one.
A weaving. [all things are a Pattern]
But there is hope here.. see? Look. Look, they are beginning to fade, they are losing some of what seems to give them that horrifying visage of permanence. Some dark-glow within them is flickering; is shaded.

They don't have long.

[both women have felt a certain resonance before; sorrow[filled]ful, traces of hope; a piercing clarity. Kage is more familiar with it than Emily, though its been a long time. It's a caress, a brief touching around them. A seeking. Sensing. Then gone.]

-------------
Thing 2: Emily
Thing 1: Kage

[K. R. Jakes] This hurts. Again. Hurts enough that, for a second, there is a caesura, a pause, in the murmur that curls on her tongue: sea-salt, promises, promises to keep, how many miles to Babylon, you want a piece of me. They're hurt, shadow-haired Emily, flame-haired Kage, and the Orphan


This hurts. Again. This hurts, and is weakness. Her muscles protest: her body, it swells; it strikes a pang against her spine; against her throat. That, when the creatures many-millioned teeth dig into her flesh, rend and tear. Hurts enough that, for a second, there is a caesura, a pause, a murmur that curls on her tongue: sea-salt, promises, promises to keep, how many miles to Babylon, you want a piece of me, "No. Bad."

They're hurt. Both of them -- shadow-haired Emily, flame-haired Kage, and Kage's hand is not quite as true. She's hurt. Doesn't matter: draw a bead, fire: finish the word. She shoots again. Just once - and, hope -

true.

[Emily Littleton] Spirits are difficult to kill. Magi are too. They are both willful things, they both cleave to rules all their own. They both bend and warp the reality here. These things, these imps of wrongness with their flashing toothy-jaws and baleful claws (gnash their terrible teeth, roll their terrible eyes [It is nothing like that] It is everything like that), they attack again. They rend, they tear. The Orphans, the Others, they stand tall, stand fast but it is not quite enough; it is never quite enough.

Her body aches, but Emily knows the body is a vessel. It is a thing. It can be torn and mended. It can be sundered and broken. There is a charm in her pocket, still, and they are both badly wounded. Both of the imps are fading. Her breathing comes in shallowed and painful shudders, but it is better to be done with it. To find a moment's true respite in which to heal. To regroup, and determine which of them to bolster with that honey-draught.

Now: there is pain; there are tears; there's a tear in the Reverence, but she's no less Unrelenting.

Once more, and hopefully for the last time tonight the Singer-to-be, the Apprentice-for-now takes aim and fires.

[Declare: Shoot thing 2 again + WP! (Please die!)]

[Fallen]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Emily Littleton] (WP: No! You take it!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [No YOU!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [Charm! -1 WP -1 Quint]
[Dex + Firearms: Shoot thing 2 +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]

[Emily Littleton] [2 suxx + 4 base + primed bullets! Die Please!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [Dex + Firearms. Shoot Thing 1, man. -1 (wound). +WP. C'mon. ]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[K. R. Jakes] [DMG! 4 + 1 + primed bullets.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [DMG! 4 + 1 + primed bullets.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [DMG! 4 + 1 + primed bullets.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Fallen] Hebrew Hammer? [[Holy Strike: Prime 2. Diff: 5 [HAH! NOT VULGAR HERE!]. -1 Foci, -1 Practiced.]] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 7 (Success x 3 at target 3) [WP]

[Fallen] The taste of the healing charm is sweet; the honey rich and largely unrefined. A taste of it; an offering of the divine essence within her and Emily feels her body cleansed; her body healed. It invigorates her as much as it offers a balm; the knowledge that there was only the one charm and a friend at her side fuels her determination, fuels her concentration. She fires again and the thing attacking her evaporates; whether gone completely or merely gone to Slumber is anyones guess and perhaps something the younger woman doesn't even know. All she does know is that gone, indeed, it is.

Flame-haired, blue-painted, blood-on-eye; slat on cheek.. Kage fires; pain starting to take its toll on her body where razor teeth sliced through flesh, sliced through sinew of, thankfully, her off-arm. With her strong arm she shoots and the light within the last thing is fading, but still it snarls, enraged, blinded by its one goal.

A burst of sheer light - enough to make you wince back for a moment - and the Thing - struck dead on - explodes, becoming ephemera even as its pieces shatter and shatter. A low voice, hoarse now more so than its usual breathiness. "Ashes beneath our feet." Says Israel, emerging from the mists behind where the last creature stood. She is approaching them, carved staff in hand, lowered from where she directed the Prime assault. Moving steadily, but her eyes - as usual - never really focus on them, indeed she directs her gaze somewhere past where Kage stands. "I can't stay long.. Emily... no," She stops herself, face turning towards the younger woman as if she's focusing on something - then she nods and looks to Kage. "Here then. Take this." Another small stone vial is offered in the taller womans direction. "I can spare maybe two more.. will that be enough?" There's blood on her but she doesn't move as if she's wounded.

[Emily Littleton] The taste of honey is still on her tongue, down her throat: it is sticky-sweet, cloying with nothing to wash it down. Her body mends and a small part of her soul shudders, its energy consumed in the effort of healing. It is an odd thing, but it is not the first time Life magic has touched her pattern. It is comforting, too, to know that Israel's touch is with them in this swirling and foreign place.

And then the small woman is, quite literally, within touching distance. She weilds the power of creation much as Owen had, at the beginning of this long and wearying trial. She comes bearing gifts, to bolster resolve, to comfort, to console. It is a terse thing, though, this visitation. Tight by necessity. Cautious and fleeting.

"Israel..." Emily says, and her voice is rough with the remembered pain. She is no longer a naive and new apprentice, and though her skills are untried she has proven herself. Would prove herself. Time and time again be re-tested in the crucible of the Umbra; she would prove Faithful. Her voice wraps around the name, like a thing parched thing sensing satiety in first dew. There is Reverence twined with her presence, with the smell of blood and the unraveling of Spirits.

Emily does not ask how. She does not gape (not that Israel might see it to be astonished, amused or offended). Whatever train of thought had originally parted her lips is lost, and in its wake comes: "Thank you."

Heartfelt. It comes from the deep and delicate places, visceral and emotionally unsteady. The girl is not about to unravel, just yet, but this is a lot to take in. To parse. And that thank you is not something polite, something skin deep, something professional. It sounds like indebtedness; oath-deep and somber.

[K. R. Jakes] The blind woman is an apparition (hope [sorrow (honey & ashes)]) in the wake of a radiance so profound. The impthing that is the first and also the last explodes into that wake. And it never wakes from that touch (never springs, again - never feasts, again - never, never - ). The red-haired woman takes a slow, steadying breath; she cannot help that it catches in her throat, and she cannot help that it catches in her teeth and tangles in her tongue. Doesn't matter, though: pain sharpens the sweet. Israel has never seen how, when Kage smiles a certain way, that way sparks her dark eyes, makes them lambent, re-fashions them into numinous darkness, lifts her ears, transformation, revelation, gorgeous. But it touches her voice, that fleeting, brief glimpse of gorgeousness, touches her voice when she says, somewhat hoarse: " - oh, Israel. You are the Queen of Cups and the mistress of timing. Two is more than enough: already, it will suffice - " A beat. A touch of amusement, of cream. Her jaw tightens, and her throat works, and her muscles tense: quick, flickering thing. Because it hurts, hurts. And she is human, Kage. " - be careful, yourself. We'll hold."

[Fallen] It's hard to imagine the tiny woman as anything like a warrior; even now that is not an apt description. Her role here - as it has been, on and off, in her small acts to aid - is of support, of safeGuarding those who have more proactive lines. Still there is an almost militant tension to her, a hyper-sensitivity to what is going on around them as if she is keeping track of several aspects at once and wary of all of it. Determination and concern mingled into one that, yes, forces her right now to brevity. She cannot remain everywhere at once, no matter how she would like to be and clearly she must keep moving...
...but Emily's words do stop her, do break a moment through the myriad of other things she juggles. She blinks slightly, her expression softening into something that is moved and touched. She offers the younger woman a smile that speaks both blessing and gratitude. "You would - and will - do the same." Because there is promise in the Apprentice [soon to be Initiate] that her cabalmate has verified.

Then, towards Kage, her smile flexes at the old-friends humour; a nod, that is more somber. "You'll hold. I know." Soft-spoken words, but the Trust [Faith. Hope] there is strong. "Besides," A beat of her own, her own brief moment of levity - or it's attempt. "I still need to buy you that hat." To presumably eat when she tracks down another person named Kage.

Such things aside - she must leave - she steps closer to both of them. A hand finding Emily's free arm. Another patting and finding Kage's cheek. Words of Hebrew, brief, with the tone of a blessing. Then the two charms pressed into each of their hands and she's off again, making her way back into the thick fog, her visage soon disappearing.

...she is not gone long enough something howls again in the night. [no, not in the direction the blind woman went off to]

It is not over yet.