Edge Town-City of Light

Tim, somehow, managed to combined resetting his hat on his head with a facepalm as he heard Alexanders words.

Motorboat Enthusiasts

"Sure. Do you want your complimentary white flag grenades with or without a pin in? Or is that at my discretion? Either get serious, or the lead starts flying." The voice came back, although it sounded like it was a little closer.

Edited by math792d on Nov 14th 2018 at 9:30:18 PM

Jarl and Terry

Lilaine looked down at her shredded, soaking-wet tights and torn dress and let out an annoyed sigh. She didn’t seem thrilled at the thought of showing up in front of the cops looking like a ragged mess.

“There’s always someone waiting for me, Jarl.” She softly replied, looking back up to meet his eyes, a teasing smile on her lips. “It’d be a shame to say goodbye so soon, though. Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you home?”

Silver flecks danced in her pale blue eyes. It was an echo of the fine of promise and danger in her voice.

Behind Lilaine, Sofie covered her face with a hand, pushed up to gently jab Lilaine in the ribs with an elbow.

“Really?” Sofie asked.

Lilaine broke her stare, turning to Sofie with a helpless shrug, a wide “it’s who I am” grin spread across her face. A moment later, when Sofie’s face didn’t change, Lilaine’s smile broke up into a fit of giggles.

“Well, if this is really it…” Lilaine sighed, slipping her purse off her shoulder. She reached inside, pulling out the hatchet she’d used earlier, and handing it over to Jarl. She followed the hatchet with a tube of lipstick. And with a business card.

Sofie let out a deep sigh, walking up to gently hug Jarl again. Then the two of them lifted Brother Angle, and walked toward the police.

The stairs led Jarl and Terry into an empty kitchen, half-finished dishes still strewn across the counters. On a wall in the back was a battered metal door. It opened out into an shadow-filled alleyway. The flashing red and blue lights from the police splattered from one side. On the other was a dumpster, nestled in a narrow street filled with the back-end of other restaurants. It looked clear.

The ground was covered in a soft snowfall.

Alexander

"That sounds like a poor idea for everyone involved, the boat among them." Alexander quipped back. Empty Night. Some people just couldn't learn to accept defeat with dignity.

"If you come inside, I promise not to shoot you. In fact, once I'm done taking all the weapons I want, and once you'd answered a couple burning questions my friend here has, I'm perfectly willing to go."

Tim gave Leon a quiet look, remembering the police that might just now try to find the boat on the River.

Jarl

The expression on Jarl's face was more or less an exact mirror of his sister's until he suddenly had a hatchet in his hand. "That's not usually the kind of axe you bring to a concert, you know." He tilted his head. "Are venues in the States really that bad? Or is it just for the too-adoring fans?"

He hugged Sofie back and then hoofed it out the kitchen door. And then looked up at the snowfall and frowned. It wasn't that he felt the cold, really, just a bit of residual annoyance that it'd be easier to tell someone had bolted out through the kitchen door.

"Look, boss. You're kinda making my job harder here, could you just...not?"

Jack probably wasn't involved, but at least it made him feel better. Even if it meant he was currently standing in the back alley of a jazz club talking to empty air like a complete loonie. It was the concussion making him do it. Totally.

"Well, that's one for three. Hopefully the others have had more luck."

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Boats'R'Us

"Bon. One moment."

The door leading into the engine room opened up again, but it didn't actually seem like anyone came into the room.

"Excuse the paranoia, but you have been shooting up this poor boat." The voice clearly came from inside the engine room.

"Whereas you are trustworthy and honest purveyors of legally frowned upon merchandise?" Tim, being as tired as he was, didn't have the energy to put in the brakes between brain and mouth anymore.

"I feel the need to state that your... employees? Did most of the shooting up the place."

Leon grimaced as he spoke, his ribs still awfully sore from the pounding they had taken earlier. He eyed the blank spot of air that it sounded like the voice was coming from warily. The fact that they were somehow veiling themselves this close to water was worrisome to say the least.

This was a terrible idea, but between the invisible negotiator and the fact that they still hadn't located the neuromancer, the odds of them being one in the same was giving Leon no small amount of paranoia, so he opened his Sight.

Terry snorted as they walked out into the snow, breaking his pensive silence. "More luck? Man, we did the thing we were supposed to and we're walking out of here unarrested and under our own power. What more do you want, a blow job and a thank-you note? Because Lilaine will spot you at least one of those."

He sighed, looking down at his feet as they crunched through the snow. "If it just ended with that, and assuming the priest pulls through, I'd be okay with how things went. But it's not gonna end like that, is it. World's Most Punchable Ghost was working with someone. So now there's gonna be some conspiracy bullshit that's got an even chance of involving Loki and a better-than-even chance of Odin shoving us into it deliberately like a great big schemer. I remember when life was simple."

Eh, fuck it. That was enough introspection for one day. Terry bent down to scoop up enough snow for a snowball, tossing it from hand to hand as he looked for a likely target. Hey, he'd hopefully never get a chance to do this in Vegas.

Edited by rikalous on Nov 26th 2018 at 1:09:00 AM

Annette stared at the talking empty space, bemused and still somewhat scared that everything was about to go horribly wrong. Though. This did give her an idea for a potion she could work on. How hard would it be to turn invisible...

Jarl and Terry

The Paris night provided neither answers to Jarl’s plea, nor a target for Terry’s snowball. The sirens faded into the distance as they left the Caveau Le Huchette, the path back to Rollo’s townhouse empty and quiet, soft snow painted gold by street lamps. For a while, it was as if they were the only humans left on earth, alone in a landscape of silent, darkened shops and restaurants, with only the distant sound of passing cars to prove them wrong.

However, as the dense streets began to fade into the broad walkways of the university park, they both noticed something coming toward them. A shadow—a large as a car, bounding down the street in the wrong lane, featureless and huge. It moved like an animal, and was definitely heading toward them. A gust of wind picked up, sending snowflakes fluttering through the air, and Terry caught the smell of fresh-cut pine on the wind.

Alexander

Alexander narrowed his eyes, suddenly wary, trying to figure out what the game was. If it was a grenade—well. He’d probably live. Everyone else would just have to pray.

“Actually, I’ve hardly fired a shot. Blame your men. And their trigger discipline.” He replied, nodding in agreement at Leon. “Satisfied?”

"Oh goddammit!" Terry yelled, scrabbling out of the newcomer's path. "Jarl, please tell me Pine-Sol's one of your guys." He didn't hold out much hope that it wouldn't try to mulch them both, but hey you had to try.

On the bright side, it being an enemy would give him a choice target for that snowball.

Jarl

"Unless you see a red nose, I really, sincerely doubt I have any idea what that is!" Jarl forced himself into a vaguely fightable position, though he still looked like an absolute mess. He was really not feeling up to another fight.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Boats'R'Us.

In hindsight, it could have been worse. When Leon opened the Sight, as always, he was suddenly exposed to a world of dancing lights and flows of energy, drifting out like a spider's web. Some of it streamed from a figure he could now see...well, at least most of. Even now, in the Sight, they wore a mask, but the energy was unmistakable as the person who'd tried to choke him out from behind before.

Whoever they were, they weren't particularly strong. Compared to looking at Tim through his peripheral vision, who, like most wizards, was like looking at an open bonfire, this person felt much...smaller. There was power there, more than any shmuck off the streets, but not anywhere near Council caliber by a long shot.

However, they were extremely efficient with what little they had. While it was obvious the effort was draining - all Leon had to do was look at how much power was being tucked into the sea - they expended very little of that energy on maintaining the illusion itself. Someone with a limited talent and a lot of practice.

"And yet you're dressed like one of ours. Should I expect to find him on the bottom of the sea, perhaps?"

Jarl and Terry

The giant creature loped closer, headed directly toward Jarl and Terry. As it approached, they could see its eyes glittering in the dark. The smell of pine grew stronger, mingled now with faint, animal musk. The smell was oddly familiar to Terry. Not a predator. A prey animal.

About eight meters away, it passed under a street light, and Jarl and Terry could finally make out what it was.

It was a squirrel. A poofy, car-sized, chubby squirrel, with flame-red fur, and a giant fluffy tail sticking up behind it. If not for its sheer bulk, it would have been comically non-threatening.

It stopped about five meters away, rearing up on its hind legs, and staring down at them. It had a soft, white-furred underbelly.

After a moment of contemplation, it nodded, staring directly at Jarl with giant, pitch-black eyes, tail flicking back and forth. Then it spoke in a deep, chittering voice.

“You. Are a chode.”

Edited by DrTentacles on Nov 28th 2018 at 2:33:19 PM

"Bottom of the *sea*?" Tim muttered as he continued to fill his little circle with every scrap of magic he could "We're not even out of Paris yet. Seems a life of crime starts with failing basic semantics in school."

Ah. Ratatoskr, one presumed. The Aesir's preemptive answer to the drive-by internet troll. Douchey, but with a below-average likelihood of trying to kill them both. How nice.

Terry looked at the snowball in his hand, then at the giant squirrely face before him, and did the natural thing.

Jarl

Jarl had had just about enough by now. Concussions, a necromantic simulacrum of Mimir's Well, a probably-divinely-planned meeting with his younger sister, getting burned half to death in a church and getting an arrest warrant for his trouble, and now a fucking squirrel the size of an SUV.

"Ratatoskr. Hi. What's up? Which Aesir decided to shit in my dinner today?"

Jarl and Terry

Ratatoskr shook his head, letting out a chittering laugh in response to Jarl’s question.

“Easy question, simple-question. Message is from Bound God, Clever-One, Dwarf Trickster, Giant’s Son. Perhaps other foes you have, but they would send weapons, blood-brothers, not words. Who else but Gift Giver, Flame Hair and Scar-Lip, Wolfsire and Heimdall's Bane would speak such?”

It raised a giant paw, covering its mouth again as it laughed. Its black eyes widened, and it tried to duck under Terry’s snowball, but dodging wasn’t easy for a creature so big. It spattered against the white fur of its chest, sending a spray of snow onto its chin.

“Aaagh!” It cried out, brushing the snow off its fur. “You. You are a chode as well, skinchanger. That is a message from me!”

It lowered its head, and began to scamper away, loping past them, and heading toward a building. As it passed, it flicked its giant tail along the ground, sweeping up a massive plume of snow at Jarl and Terry.

Edited by DrTentacles on Nov 29th 2018 at 3:25:37 PM

As far as Sight visions went, especially in risky situations like this, Leon was lucky. No mind shattering for him today. Just a very capable minor talent. Who couldn't be the neuromancer given both their already displayed abilities and the lack of black magic taint. He closed his Sight glad that he didn't really catch anything else in it besides the invisible one.

Leon wasn't actually sure where Alex had gotten the clothes but he was going to hope the vampire hadn't just thrown the man overboard. He let out the breath he was holding when he had opened his Sight and winced at the shock of pain through is ribs. He really wished he had had his full combat gear for this if only for the sake of his rib-cage. Still he relaxed a bit despite the pain now that he knew the negotiator wasn't a major threat.

"Yeah, that's fair," Terry replied as the squirrel turned to leave. "Happy messaging!" The tail end of that turned into a surprised squawk when Ratatoskr returned fire, staggering him back a step.

Chuckling and brushing snow off himself, he turned to Jarl and asked, "So, does your chodehood have any special meaning between the two of you, or is Loki just being petty?"

Jarl

"Not to my knowledge. I'm sure he's just being a petty asshole." Jarl didn't even really bother wiping the snow off. It wasn't really bothering him as-is, and this meant it'd hopefully be harder to identify him, just in case that became relevant again.

"Right, I should go and report back to the others. This was supposed to just be a scouting job, but I guess we accidentally solved the problem."

Alexander

“You know, someone less sympathetic than I would suspect you’re stalling for time.” Alexander said, still looking for a signal from the wizards on what the hell was going on. “He’s breathing. I didn’t selectively murder my way across your ship. Now. Do you have any plans on trying to stop me from taking what I want, and leaving?”

Take A Good Hard Look At the Motherfucking Boat

"More lead, mostly. Depends how much your wizard friends have left in the tank how many of you make it out, I suppose."

"On the flip side, it also takes into question how many of my boys are going to survive, and I'm not one to throw good help away. So, I'll make a very generous deal. You take all the firearms you can carry, you take one of the lifeboats, you get the fuck off the yacht and don't interrupt us trying to get out of the way of the cops. And I'll even throw in a freebie and tell you who you're stealing those guns from, in case they decide to come around to collect. How's that sound?"

Tim gave Leon a look, nudging him to respond in regards to their quarry. For now he was too focused on his magic scrap collecting.