Skynet
The alley is as advertised on google. Nothing more, nothing less. You know how you used to notice that door? You know the one. The one painted like a mescaline-inspired fractal in a hypnotic palette of blues, golds, and greens? Did it ever really exist?
Khoi
Whether he agreed to be here or not, Khoi comes alone, on the coincidence that he needs to recharge at the node. He turns the corner, vape pen in hand as he steps into the alley, and then some feet in, he slows. He stops, frowning, looking over his shoulder, maybe to whoever he happened to cross paths with on their collective way here. Then he looks back at a wall, staring at the painted face of a woman smiling artfully down on him, then he looks off to the cartoony cheech and chong cartoon not far off. He draws pensively on his vape pen once more as he steps down further. Maybe just one of those forgetty spaghetti days, right? It's here...
Mason
Dr. Mason Costache hasn't been back for over a year. Something about a Seeking gone real wrong. But he limps back up now, his stride heavy as he uses his cane to make his way towards the door that...apparently isn't there anymore. He arches an eyebrow, leaning on the cane for a moment as if he's been thrown for a real loop. His frown deepens a little, and he looks to the left and the right, the way someone might when they're looking for someone who might have an answer.
Bernard
Bernard shuffles up toward the mouth of the alley, peeking around the corner as he hugs a bit of wall splintering from time and wear. When he sees a familiar face in the form of Khoi his shoulder rise and fall from a deep but silent sigh. The lanky Sahajiya waves in hopes of catching the other Cultist's attention. Bernie leans back looking down either side of the street before making his way toward his friend. He startles as he closes up on Dr.Mason first, as if he didn't see anyone else in the alley aside from Khoi. The light skinned man in the drab attire signs, "Hello" and continues to make his way toward Khoi.
Karina
Karina arrives by her usual means of oldschool Caddy. . . Though arrives is a strong word since she never actually stops the car, instead doing that slow roll that could signal a coming drive-by just as much as it might someone that just legitimately doesn't know where they are. Or where they're going.
Thankfully it's the latter. . . though Karina herself doesn't seem too pleased by the prospect of no longer being able to spot the place she'd gotten so much free food from. And a couple of scrapes. "Ye' gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me. . ." Karina grunts as she tries to pick out a door that just doesn't seem to want to be found. And who's she asking for confirmation of this kidding? Well, that's a damn good question, because it's certainly not someone she's been seen in the company of before.
Pris
Alex Foster arrives with his wheely suitcase that actually follows him around on some bluetooth autopilot. Tech these days! Its plastic wheels tumble along the concrete, and he reaches out to stop and re-route it when he has to turn the corner. The old man and his unkempt wizard beard looks annoyed if the hard set of his gaze and the furrow of his brow suggests anything at all. His pace is brisk and direct until it ...
... Suddenly isn't. Over halfway through the alleyway, Foster stops. He stares at someone's garage door, and then as the moments bleed past he snaps his head to look around. Seeing the other mages start to filter in, he turns to see which way *they* go, not yet about to out his own cluelessness. Yet.
Corinna
There's another unknown here besides Mason. A freckled asian girl sits in the passenger seat of Karina's ride, wearing flannel, jeans, and cowboy boots. Her voice is familiar, though. Deeper, husky, and rounded with a Californian accent. "It's just a mirage, probably. A heat-shimmer," she says to the driver, pinching her shoulder. "You got this."
The windows are down, so maybe that dialogue carries out into the ears of the others coincidentally filing in at the same time.
Khoi
Khoi lets out a cloud of vaporsmoke. His large, dark eyes flit Mason's way when he closes in, and when he sees the man's expression, he tells the stranger, "You need something?"
As Bernard slides into frame, Khoi reaches out a hand and returns the wave of hello.
As Karina's car slides into the street, Khoi makes room, taking a swift sidestep as the Caddy browses garage doors. He looks at Bernard. "Hey anh be, you headed to the house?" Clearly, he can piggyback ride on the coattails of someone who must know where he's going.
Mason
Mason's voice is gravelly and grave, and a little on the grouchy side. "Ah. Khoi. Good. Has the HOA moved? Or am I just getting senile? Go for a year and I swear to god the whole city's moved around. Do you know they moved all the aisles around at the Safeway? All. The aisles."
Like this is a personal affront of some kind.
"And now I can't find the HOA. Maybe I need some Exelon..."
Bernard
Bernard frowns at little when he notices Alex, shrinking just a bit from the Virtual Adept. He looks relieved when Khoi notices then addresses him. The lilest Cultest nods at Khoi's question. He fishes through the pockets of his grey sweats and pops in some ear buds before signing something.
Bernard
(American Sign Language)
Bernie asks, "I don't see anything? Illusion? Translocation? Drywall?"
Karina
"I'm 'bout'ta get somethin'. . ." Karina assures.
Foster isn't going to be getting any helpful cues from the Caddy's directionless meandering. Mostly because after that reassuring grip from her passenger Karina chooses to pull off in-front of a random house to begin muttering to herself in Russian. Something else those others on the street could perhaps hear because, as ever, Karina's not good at the whole volume thing and, indeed, the windows are down.
Skynet
OOC: Karina is going to cast a ritual. It will take a few minutes. During that time, Mason notices the pull of her Will doing something over yonder by that cadillac.
Mason
OOC: OK!
Corinna
The befreckled asian gets out of Karina's car and does a double-take at the roof of it, like she's expecting to see something different. She shrugs to herself and rolls her eyes a bit, leaning forward to plant her hands on it. "Is this just like a flash mob or fuckin' what?" she asks. So much for coming unseen.
Speaking of...
She opens opens her fukken eyes and actively looks around for people watching them or devices or somesuch.
Khoi
Khoi looks startled to hear his own name come from the face of someone he doesn't really recognize, but the fact he even said his name and the mention of an HOA makes him take a second gander at the guy. An oh-so-helpful "Huh," escapes him before an actual answer does. More confusing is that Bernard is signing at him, and the beginnings of a polite smile twist into utter confusion. He actually checks if he's not just in some insane lucid dream by pinching his nose and trying to inhale.
Looks like we're awake. Can't breathe through pinched nose. Good. As his eyes flit toward Karina's caddy and he hears her frustration, he starts to get hte notion that the house is, in fact, evading them all in real life. He lets go of his nose and then admits, "I can't find it either," to Mason. Then his hands come to life to start signing to Bernie, his pierced lips still parted in a measure of lingering awe. But he gives voice to the message he signs as he does it: "Why you signing, man?"
Karina
OOC: Aaaah. Sad to see Coda go but glad you're still around.
Khoi
(American Sign Language)
But then, he adds a few more words he doesn't provide a dub for: "Did you sign a contract with U R S U L A?" The last few motions he makes are a fingerspelling.
Mason
Mason nods thoughtfully and then frowns as his attention is drawn to the Cadillac. He gives Khoi an absent nod, well aware that Khoi's attention has already been drawn off in a different direction. There's a moment where he just looks, and then something almost grumpy crosses over his features. He goes limping in that direction. He is not a fast mover, of course, but the way that he walks has this very 'now see here' air to it.
Bernard
(American Sign Language)
Bernard smiles and tilts his head back and forth as he considers a response. "I learned from Flowers but didn't think about it too much. I was just trying to be chill. I'm taking a break from smoking, drinking, putting up barriers to the world. Existing differently to remind myself the barriers are illusions. Spoke to a dude. Trying a thing. We can chop it up later.". He taps his ear buds and gestures at a garage. "What the fuck is going on here?".
Karina
Karina's got no words to offer in return to the unknown Asian's notice of the rest of the people in the Alley. All of her attention seems entirely focused upon staring daggers intermittently out her windows and then into her rearview mirror. All the while she's grumbling about something or other. Apparently the approaching front of "Now See Here" may be about to crash with a high pressure zone of "This Some Bullshit".
Skynet
As all of this is going on, there is the normal background noise of the city. Cars honking once in a while. People talking. Drug addicts muttering to themselves as they pass the alley. It is strange that none have come in to take a piss.
Pris
Alex Foster combs his beard smooth with the pass of one heavyknuckled hand. He taps his rolling suitcase into motion and approaches the caddilac, falling more or less in step with Mason. It's a man he recognizes, himself, although currently the situation carries priority over the reunion beyond a "Happy to see you," as he moves along, to either accompany, observe, or chaperone the situation to some unrevealed end.
Corinna
The freckled girl with Karina cocks her head, listening to something for a moment or two while Karina's muttering. She pushes herself off of the car and takes a short walk, glancing upward. Nah. Interesting, but not relevant, she decides.
She rounds the car and intercepts Mason with a friendly smile. "You've been out of the world a while, Doc." Should he know her? She looks like she's about to give him a hug. And if he accepts, she whispers something to him. If not, she's not easily offended.
Whatever she says to him, and he to her, has her shaking her head. She whispers one last thing before splitting off the embrace.
Skynet
A pile of detritus against the wall begins hissing like a snake. Something behind the broken pallet leaning there. It does not stop. More like air escaping a hose, then.
Mason
Mason inclines his head to Alex and says, "Thank you, it's good to see you too."
Then?
The approaching Now See Here front is cut off by the low pressure system of a quick hug and a few murmured words, and Karina does not get interrupted at all. Mason smiles with genuine warmth, laugh lines crinkling around his bright eyes. He gives her a one armed hug, listens, murmurs something of his own, and then catches something else she has to say. He nods, and the upshot is, he just stands there next to the girl, waiting for whatever is going to happen to go ahead and happen, neither fighting it nor worrying about it. His body language goes quite a bit more relaxed.
Khoi
Khoi's eyes watch Bernard's hands. It takes him a moment or three to really put together what the Sahajiya is signing at him, rusty pistons pushing against the cobwebs of dis-use, but he puts it together. "well uh, okay, interesting, we'll review it later, sure. Or talk about it. And..." He looks off to the way Bernard gestured. "I'm not sure," he says, before he puts his hands to use again.
(American Sign Language)
Khoi's fingers are sort of shaky, and the more he puts them to use, the more the mild tremor presents itself to the eye. "It looks like nobody can find the place right now. I don't think it moved. I've been told the place has measures to make it difficult to find." Concern twists his smile into an uneasy ghost of itself as he continues with those withdrawal hands of his. "I guess the owner of the home is still mad at us."
Skynet
A pile of detritus against the wall begins hissing like a snake. Something behind the broken pallet leaning there. It does not stop. More like air escaping a hose, then.
Bernard
Bernard nods then shrugs a little at Khoi before crossing arms over the "I heart San Francisco" shirt hanging loosely over his torso. The initiate rises on the balls of his feet a little at the hissing. Looking back toward Khoi's signing his eyes narrow implying he is still unpraticed. Once he processes he shakes his head and frowns gesturing at everyone in the alley as if to ask about everyone.
Khoi
Khoi's fingers wilt with the hissing, and he turns to look. He reaches for Bernard to tug him back because hissing things are usually not good things. Snakes, pressure cookers. He flips up his tinted lenses over his head to get an unfiltered look.
Karina
Thanks to that timely interference Karina's irrate mutterings come to a close unhindered, and so too does her time lingering in her car, the engine cutting off just before she pops out to slip them into the pocket of her grey sweats. As she stands to her full height she reveals a white tee sporting the words "The infamous BOOM Chachalaca" written in sharpie.
It's, of course, the absolute stranger standing so close to the not-so-absolute stranger that gets her attention first and foremost. One good eye giving the man with the cane a pointed once over only to drift towards the woman he'd just been embracing and then back again. "Sup." She greets.
And then she too has her attention caught by that obscured hissing. Though she certainly takes her time turning to look at it, for some reason choosing to give the neighborhood another once over before dealing with yet another new oddity.
Skynet
What Khoi sees staring at the wall is that the source of the noise is hidden by the pallet that is leaned up against the wall. Still, there is something in the air that makes him feel uneasy. So uneasy. So leavy.
Corinna
The girl whose face Corinna is wearing takes a step back, feeling the urge to get the heck out of there. But when her back hits the bricks opposite the sound, she steadies herself. Nah, fuck that. She glances over to K, and then she marches across the alleyway and reaches down to shove that pallet and whatever other junk is piled up there aside.
Here's knowing ya.
Mason
For one moment Mason's eyes go wide and he looks up and down the street. Then he closes his eyes and takes deep breaths. One two three four five. One two three four five. His hand is tight on his cane as he does it, almost white-knuckled, but when he opens his eyes he doesn't look like he's going to try to book it out of there either. His features turn a bit grim.
Khoi
Khoi's jodhpur boot thuds once on the road as he takes one uneasy step back, and then another. His grip on Bernard is loose enough that the other Cultist could easily pull away, but in his distinct spasm of ill-at-ease feelings he doesn't let go of the man, either.
He hears Karina say 'Sup', and he goes, "Something bad," before he sucks in a breath. "I don't want to be here," he announces to everybody with such a sudden confession that he may or may not realize that he actually did say that out loud.
Bernard
Bernard lets out a yelp as he is yanked back looking back at the hissing with renewed concern. He almost jumps when he watches Karina get out of her car, the recollection of fire clearly on his face. Watching Khoi start to freak out a little he rests a hand on his shuolder and mouthes the question, "You cool?".
He shudders looking down as whatever threatened to drive the more experienced Cultist away washes over him. His grip tightens on Khoi's shoulder as he rallies against the effect with a shake of his head.
Skynet
When Corinna shoves the pallet and trash bags aside, it reveals a pressure cooker that immediately explodes and kills everyone roll new characters.
No, not that. It reveals a spigot, the kind that rubber hoses are attached to in bio labs, coming out of the wall. The hissing grows louder. Whatever it is putting out is odorless and colorless, but it is ejecting some kind of air into the alleyway.
Karina
Karina quirks a brow at the tension that grips the old man before her and the sudden resolution she sees from the freckled chick that had been riding with her. Khoi she notices as well but. . . well, his not wanting to be somewhere with bad vibes isn't exactly breaking news. -Though for some curious reason the sudden start she gives Bernard has the woman staring for a pregnant moment before she sets her jaw and looks back towards that pallet as its pulled away.
The sight of the spigot earns an almost hateful snarl of an upturned lip from the Modern Barbarian. . . and then she's walking off towards a particular house. You know, that one, the one that's right there? No, not that one, the other one. She's an amazonian Russian redhead with a face meant for before pictures, surely she won't be that hard to follow?
Whether those around can track her or not, however, once she gets up to that door (No, the other one), she raises a white-knuckled fist and bangs on it.
"REPO! Open up ye' fuckin' pussy. . ."
Mason
"Perhaps you'd better come away from there," Mason says to the girl at the spigot, nervously. "You don't know what you're breathing in over there, and I don't like the looks of it."
That's an understatement. He backs several steps away from it himself, because hey, care and a long life go together.
Corinna
Totally-Not-Corinna frowns at this development, and goes with her gut. Sometimes the most straightforward things are easiest, and so she lifts her foot and stomps down on the spigot in order to smush it shut. Back pressure? Not her problem. But it's steel, you say, you can't just expect to close it off by stomping on it. And yet... maybe coincidentally it's a weak af spigot? Maybe it's not actually steel, but aluminum or something?
Pris
Foster makes a face at the revelation of the spigot. "She'll shut it off." After his prediction, he comes in after Karina, following the wake of righetous fury she cuts through the waters of the moment, his little automated wheely suitcase buzzing after him. "Open up!" He echoes. "This is ridiculous!"
Skynet
Silence greets Karina at the door. However, given that she seems to know where it is, and the sound resounding off of it, perhaps now you, too, can find it. Perhaps.
Khoi
Khoi lets Bernard go as he collects himself from his mini-freakout. As Karina takes action, he ... watches, and he tries to find it in him to approach along with Karina, driven by a new kind of anxiety. "Aah, Ariel," he tells Bernie, "This is probably going to be the time to use your words, I don't think the guy's going to have patience for your uh, new lens on experience," as he moves after Karina. Even if his mission is to try and bring some sort of angle to the good Doctor that isn't 'let me in or I'll rip your head off and shit down your neck'. And whatever alternative angle it is, he's working on it.
Bernard
The Sahajiya dressed as a schlub tourist pats Khoi on the arm again and gives him a thumbs up. "I'm going to go check that shit out. You hang back, it's cool.". There is a frown when he listens to Khoi nodding, "Alright for sure." he says aloud plucking an ear bud out. Then Bernard starts to walk over toward Karina and the stranger seemingly unconcerned about the mystery gas. He jukes from the Virtual Adept almost like he somehow forgot he was with them in the alley. When he closes the distance he waves at the red head who clearly scares the shit out of him then the other woman he doesn't recognize. Pointing to himself he says, "Hi I'm Bernard.".
Mason
Mason frowns at the spigot for a moment, but then turns his attention back to Karina, and the door. But he's coming in a little behind and underinformed, and none of what's gone on has told him it's time for him to start telling people how to get things done. So he just waits, for the moment, paying close attention to whatever may be happening.
Corinna
Corinna's first stompy stomp onto the spigot didn't do anything. It's still hissing like that snek. Her cheap cowboy boot come down onto it again, smashing onto the metal with all the strength of her leg. Which doesn't look like enough, but she's full of surprises.
This next volley of heel smashes turns the thing into a shiny lump stopping at the brick and ends the hissing. Though it's probably not great for the air pump, down in the basement or wherever.
Karina
The lack of response she gets from taking her initial aggrivations out on the door only serve to add more annoyance to the anger stew. And as it's already got just so much to work with thanks to the issue of both being effectively banned from what was once a safehouse with no notice -and- the active efforts being made to enforce that ban. . .
Well, it's not surprising that she's jonesing for at least one quick success today.
As ever, however, quick successes don't seem to be in the works.
Whatever Karina -intended- to do, it involved drawing her gilded lighter from her pants pockets and raising it well above her head, thumb flicking the lid off and finding the flint wheel as she opens her mouth to yell something else. The sound, however, does not come from her mouth.
Preceded only by a surge of intense, somehow vicious heat, there's a mighty *BOOM* as Karina strikes her lighter and the fire comes out with such intensity that it bursts like a potent firework instead of burning and flaring.
See Bernard, she's just as much a danger to herself as she is to you. What's there to fear?
Well. . . perhaps there's the fact that she just looks more irritated by an explosion going off just above her raised hand, and thus head, than actually hurt.
And of course she chooses to take it out on the door, turning to kick it.
"OPEN THE FUCK UP!" She demands again.
Skynet
The door... opens.
"I told you people that you are NOT welcome here," comes Dr. Martin's voice. He stands in the doorway, which now seems plain that it was there all along. "You especially, _FOSTER_. You cannot even bother to assault my house subtly, you come in plainly just as before. You invite MORE scrutiny? Then I will show you scrutiny. You have stayed long enough for my call to go through. Leave immediately, and you may have a chance to escape. Except you, Foster."
He pulls a Fallout 4 looking raygun out from behind his back and levels it at the Adept. "You stay."
Pris
Alex winces away at the pop of fire, one hand darting up to shield his own face in an instinctive defense before he peers past his fingers. It seems the woman is no worse for it, or at least doesn't let on that she may feel anything other than anger at her situation. And so, with the sugar jar already spilt with this woman's yelling, he joins in the chorus, now. "I'm two days late on my analysis!" He barks at the door. "Open UP! This is CHILDISH!"
He lets Karina have the door, as some passers by peer at the spectacle. Alex abandons his rolling suitcase by a yard to peek at a shuttered window. He looks back at Karina, then carefully traces the siding on the house, not entirely certain where one building ends and the other begins, before he starts rapping his fingers against the glass, reaching past its security wrought iron.
And the door opens. Foster withdraws his hand.
"Finally!" Frazzled as he is, he barely bothers to listen. "Your home is so hard to find in the first place, your demands are -ridiculous-, Noah -- " And then one, two owlish blinks at that ray gun. He sputters in disbelief, a laugh ruffling out of him. "This is fast becoming the most open and shut council matter I have seen, Noah!"
Skynet
Karina jumps forward to try to grapple Dr. Martin, but runs face-first into the Ward that you all saw when the cultists attacked. Like an invisible wall.
Martin blasts with his raygun as Alex Foster flees toward the Caddy. Alex Foster trips, smacks his chest against the car, and then the bolt hits him. He disappears.
Corinna had been doing whatever practice her counterspell is, it is generally an obvious act because of the reactionary nature of it, and you can feel the Paradox hitting her as Reality sides with Dr. Martin.
Skynet
OOC: Bernard, how would you like to attempt to de-escalate?
Bernard
OOC: Bernie will interject, hold up his hands and ask people to calm down? Likely out of shock more than an expectation of success given the above haha
Skynet
OOC: Also, feel free to pose as your turn passes.
Karina
"Fiiiiina-. . ." Karina begins as the door opens. It doesn't take her brain long to catch up with her mouth, though, and that feeling of slightly vindicated relief immediately loops back around to an even greater irritation. "
On some level she can't help but feel relieved, however. On another level there's a part of her questioning -why- she feels relieved, but that little voice is vastly overshadowed by her immense desire to more forcefully realign the Doc's sensibilities. And so she tries to do just that. . . only to find herself bodily stopped by the thin air between herself and the man himself. Which is when her expression goes from 'a bit irrate' to 'pearly whites displayed in anger'.
Khoi
As the tension ramps up, Khoi is not looking at Foster and Martin. A ray gun being leveled at one of his fellow mages is so much the last thing he would have expected to see that the inertia of disbelief nearly robs him of finding out it happened at all. Instead, he draws his brows together like he hears something, then he steps again. A hand casts up at the air to point out the helicopter in the sky, and his feet are already finding more pavement. "Fuck! What the fuck, get out of here, it's -- Attack, plane, Apache thing!" He's headed for cover, and as he reaches the caddy, so does Alex who dissolves into so much 1950s sci fi goo and particles before his eyes.
Skynet
OOC: As Khoi points out the shape in the sky, you can see that there is something there. Like the Predator's personal helicoptor. There's a slight thrumming in the air, but nothing that would give away its sound. It is circling above, about the distance one would from a police chase.
Bernard
Bernard does not look like he was expecting the ray gun to work and visibly restrains himself from exclaiming some expletive. Too late to put himself between anyone currently in Noah's VATS he holds his hands up and still tries to interject himself into the hostilities. "Hey! Chill! No one came to hurt you Doc! Let's be cool!". He does his best to adpot a soothing tone despite the fact he obviously freaked out by the shennigans afoot in the alley. When Khoi brings the scary chopper to his attention he flinches almost immediately sprinting from his post as his fight or flight starts to wig out.
Corinna
Corinna's counterspelling is in fact lifting her hands and drawing runes in the air before her, but something goes wildly wrong. There's a grunt out of her. Her nose begins to bleed, and she goes boneless and leans against the bricks uncharacteristically. She almost doesn't seem to realize that she's bleeding until she feels the wet, reaching up to paw at it and look at her red fingers.
And then she hears Khoi's warnings, jaw drops. She squints and doesn't seem to see what he sees, but there's that nagging at the back of her neck that he's right.
And Foster... fuck. She runs toward where he just blorped away. That's where the Caddy is. "Doc, get in!" She means Mason, not Martin. Mason and his limp.
Mason
Everything is erupting into crazy, and Mason half shakes his head. He pulls out a business card and scrawls a quick note on the back of it.
"Talk soon. Neutral ground. Please?"
He lays it flat on his hand. A murmured prayer. A wisp of wind lets it flutter off. Off, up, away, to lay at the feet of Noah just past that ward, so he can see it, note face up. He wasn't *involved* in whatever pissed Noah off. Maybe he can open a dialogue.
But then he makes his ponderous way to the car. He's not fool enough to stick around for Apaches and ray guns.
Khoi
Khoi hits the car. Driver, driver -- where's -- Khoi whips around, hand on the car door, and then he yells. "KARINA. WE GOTTA GO, You're our chariot, don't get us ALL killed!"
Skynet
OOC: I will ask that you do throw me a group idea about how you are avoiding being followed by the helicopter. It could be turning the car invisible, portalling it, something. It will not shoot at your car while you are driving down the street in the city, but it does follow you.
Karina
Even for those used to a life of chaos and violence there are still those moments in which too many things happen at once. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that some events are simply too significant to be parsed quickly even by the quick witted.
That's the dilemma Karina faces when that raygun fires and they're suddenly one Mage less.
One mage.
One Awakened Will less in a world already actively being transformed into mundanity.
When she looks from where Alex once was to where Dr. Noah Martin now stood it was with an eye so wide in disbelief that it couldn't possibly convey emotion. Her voice though, now lower in volume and wavering with the amount of sheer vehemence it needed to convey, that did a better job. "You. . . absolute waste of the Arts. . . I'm going to feed you screaming to The Fire. . ."
She seems prepared to advance on the man as she says such, either forgetting or uncaring of the ward before her as she grips that gilded lighter a bit tighter. . . but then there are other people calling to her, and for a brief moment reality imposes itself on budding rage and she looks, still wild-eyed, back to the car.
When she looks back again the door is likely already closed, if not closing. And so with lips and eye twitching with rage she makes her way back to the car. Casting a hateful glare at that silent predatory ship above.
Mason
Seeing that Karina *is* coming, Mason just stays put, even as he glances upward at that helicopter with real nerves on his face. For the moment there's nothing more to do than to let her get in and start driving. "I'm glad I came back on a nice, quiet, uneventful day."
Corinna
Corinna's leaning out of her seat, torso up through the window. She's slapping the roof of the car. This thing can fit so many mages in it.
"Red, we have got to go!" She points up. "He fuckin' switched. Got to live to fight. C'mon!" She sounds worried, frustrated. All the things. But for some reason she just doesn't have the same pure emotional reaction to Foster being ker-zotted.
Skynet
Dr. Martin shuts the door, and it disappears once more.
Khoi
Khoi rips his own car keys out of his pocket. House keys, keys to the chantry house, keys to his motorcycle, a dogtag with handcuffs engraved that says 'his baby girl' etched into it - don't ask, alright, we need to get out of here. He shoves the keys at Corinna's hands with a harsh-sounding, "Work with this," his usually suppressed accent making its appearance in his complete inattention to enunciate. Un-privy to Karina's decisions, he yells out the window. "KARINA! GET IN THIS CAR NOW I WILL SEND YOU TO JESUS, WE FIX IT LATER!" His frazzled voice is equal parts incredulous rage and panic, and even pleading as he grasps the door handle on the way to actually -exit- the car in some unthinking labrador retriever loyalty to go down with her. But as he sees her round on them and advance, his throwing open of the door is to get her in.
Skynet
OOC: Congratulations! You have reached the climactic end of the Party Pad as the Chantry. I do not want to take away without giving back. I want to be very clear that you have some opportunities to create stability in the near future.
Khoi
OOC: Khoi isss going to have Karina drop him off somewhere near a building and he'll go in to uh, teleport home from a bathroom stall
Karina
OOC: Karina will do such.
Khoi
OOC: Khoi is going to want to talk to the group first but that's how he's gonna get home.
Skynet
OOC: You are free to free-pose. With some of the ideas of what you have said, it is dubious that you would be able to do them without taking some paradox, but with some good driving and knowledge of the city, you can get some breathing room first. Karina, can you give a wits + drive against 8?
Mason
OOC: I'm going to go ahead and try to illusion the top of the car then, unless someone objects.
Khoi
OOC: Khoi will help tha tillusion if possible
Skynet
OOC: You can. Unless you have Matter 3, though, it will stay behind as the car drives. So for the illusion to work you would need to park somewhere, cast it real quick, and let the chopper fly past.
Mason
OOC: I don't have Matter 3. I mean I have Prime, I could maybe anchor it into the pattern of the car with that.
Skynet
OOC: No, sorry. It requires the correct pattern sphere to lock an effect onto a pattern. Otherwise the effect can stay in an area, but will not move with the pattern.
Mason
OOC: Mason waits until we're parked somewhere then.
Khoi
OOC: Could park under an overpass or somethin, yeah
Skynet
OOC: Any objections to: We hand-wave your escape, I give each of you a single paradox as some aggregation of how the spellcasting in the tense situation would have gone? Less than a botch, represents a successful vulgar casting.
