knightsoflegend | chicago ♔ can't deny the enemy's taken over

Entry tags:

chicago ♔ can't deny the enemy's taken over

WHO || Des, Buffy, Spike, Myri, Finnick, Archer, Dawn, Vi, Elena, Jaka [closed]
WHAT || Bonding time with Rafael's lawyer by breaking into Chad Beckworth's office
WHERE || NOVA Records HQ, Chicago, IL
WHEN || July 11th, 2013 [backdated]
HOW || Actionspam, single thread

Never a dull moment.

The night of the funeral was certainly eventful: as expected, some of Chad's goons appeared at the cemetery, apparently in search of the buried necklace, and the Knights barely managed to escape with their lives thanks to the appearance of a giant dune-winder worm at the beck and call of a necromancer. Yep. The other team had their own share of adventure at the hotel, and though they couldn't get Nadia to leave with them, they did establish contact, and swiped Decker Greenwall's mysterious hourglass artifact from his room at Dumage's prompting. They also ran afoul of a doppelganger in the employ of the other side, who prompted Elena to begin questioning exactly who or what she might be...

And of course, they finally met with Rafael's lawyer, a last minute replacement for Burt's usual guy, who had met with an unfortunate skiing accident or... something. Jeggred 'Jaka' Teken'Duis, and his brother Nym, garnered a great deal of suspicion from the team from the start, although Jaka seems entirely confident that he can get Rafael off on a temporary insanity plea. Either way, he's agreed to help them look for clues to try to illustrate Chad's role in events at the upcoming trial, and suggested, to that end, breaking into his Chicago office, one of many not-quite-legal suggestions he hinted at during their pow-wow.

All those Knights who are looking to assist him are meeting up with Jaka in a parking garage a few blocks away from the NOVA building, at his invitation. In fact, he's already there, leaning against his car, when they arrive.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[No one puts baby in the corner. That is to say STOP HURTING HER SISTER, YOU FUCK. (Also Buffy, but Vi doesn't know her that well and part of her is distressed, but it's kind of drowned out by the distress at seeing Myri hurt. Sorry...) As the poor spider is getting slammed from every angle and yelled at by Sterling, Violet brings up the rifle and fires. (Attack nat 20, damage 72) It's kind of sweet how they all get all Carrie when something dumps pig blood on them. Or murders Buffy. Close enough.]

[ ok ok ok

SPIDER GETS THE POINT

when archer BLASTS HIS SHOTGUN INTO ITS MAW

AND THEN SOMEONE ELSE BLASTS IT STRAIGHT THROUGH THE BRAIN

its legs stiffen below it and then the entire thing collapses in a quivering pile, rolling onto its back with a clattering sound. its legs slowly curl up, twitching in its death throes.

wow you guys are so mean :(

/init. please call NEXT TAG, ME I WANNA TAG NEXT in the combat plurko. ]

[Myri is only vaguely aware of the combat around her. She's focusing more on trying to calm her sobs long enough to get a strong grip on her gift. Her hands are shaking at first, but as the blue glow illuminates her right hand, it steadies. She holds her hand above Buffy's chest as she breathes- in three counts, hold three counts, out three counts.]

Not again. Please... I can't lose you. [She whispers as her eyes are squeezed shut, trying to push herself further than she has since joining this group. She can't... won't lose Buffy. (cure serious wounds +25 hp)]

[Vi drops the gun, which by the way is so not safe and someone should slap her for that later, and sprints over to where the group is huddled. Well, the group and Jaka... over there. She drops to her knees next to Myri in a really hideous reenactment of the concert, and puts her hand on Myri's shoulder.

And that's when she feels it, that urge to heal that she felt when the person under her fingers was a tiny little tree baby. It's Myri, if she can heal anyone, surely it would be Myri.

Right?

Yup! (Infuse with life +10 hp) So that happened.]

[ it's iffy at first, and buffy's non-responsive because those first five hit points are a killer. aha. but something stirs and her eyes dart around behind her lids for a moment, then the magic seems to do its work and heal the worst of the damage, because buffy's eyes snap open and she sucks in a very sudden, conscious gasp for air and sits up board straight, tensing up as she comes to.

she heaves out and looks skittishly around, trying to spot the monster, but when she sees it dead beside her, curled up on itself and slumped to the ground, some of the tension (but not all of it, by no means all of it) eases out of her, leaving her alert but not in battle mode.

her brain takes a silent moment to more or less recalibrate, and then she's looking at myri. her breath softens, coming in more normal intervals, and she opts for the casual. ]

What'd I miss?

[ jaka lowers the weapon and saunters over that way, on the opposite side of the spider carcass from the crowd of heroes. still, as he cocks his head to examine the beast, he answers buffy's question: ] Soul spider.

[ he turns a curious gaze back towards the web ] You're quite lucky indeed that it didn't get a chance to activate its web.

[Elena's breathing the biggest sigh of relief because holy crap they actually killed it and Buffy's awake and not dead, and they're somehow all in one piece.

She's...not putting her gun away just yet, though. Just in case.]

Please tell me there isn't likely to be another one hanging around.

[There's always a risk of Myri falling too deep into her healing, going too far and not being able to untangle herself from it. But before she can even risk it, Vi's hand presses against her shoulder and she feels rooted to the physical world. There's a rush of energy as her own wounds begin to heal- not completely, but she already feels so much stronger for it.

Blinking, she pulls her hand back and the glow fades just as Buffy sits upright. Fresh tears spring to her eyes in pure joy. She glances back and up over her shoulder to Vi, one hand reaching up to hold onto the one resting on her shoulder. Her other hand darts out and takes Buffy's squeezing tight.

She hasn't had to use her gift since Jade, and part of her had feared that when it mattered, when it meant life or death... that her abilities would fall short again. She's so overwhelmed with the relief that Buffy is not in fact dead that she actually lets out a laugh through her joyful tears.

Emotions are weird.]

Soul spiders are solitary creatures. He's unlikely to have any friends around. [ he frowns, and crouches down near the thing's head, reaching out to turn it with a cracking sound. his lips purse slightly at what he sees. ] ... At least any spider friends. [ a spot of 14+ will see what he's looking at - a tiny glyph branded into the side of its 'neck'. he mutters something that sounds like a curse in drow: ] Ssussun. You might have mentioned the sort of enemies you or your friends have been accumulating. [ he looks up pointedly at the group. ] Perhaps you'd care to tell me what interest other drow might have in you or your case.

[She squeezes Myri's shoulder before she stands to give Buffy some room to breathe and because her knees hurt.] Uh... your nightmare god sort of has a thing for me. You mean like that?

[ the look buffy gives myri is warm with sympathy, and she squeezes her hand in return (careful to be light about it, all things considered), then leans forward to wrap one arm around her in a hug, bloodying her clothes in the process, but she feels myri probably won't mind. she kisses the side of her forehead, then turns her face upward to look at jaka, past the spider. ]

Sometimes, I'm not sure we know what kind of enemies we've accumulated.

[GUESS WHO FINALLY MADE IT and looks out of breath for a moment before he remembers he doesn't need to breathe and it's ridiculous to be out of breath. He looks around and stares at the dead spider and the carnage and everything and then he sees Buffy and Myri on the ground and it's a good thing he doesn't need to breathe because he's pretty sure he wouldn't be able to regardless. That's a lot of blood.

He stumbles over to them and crouches beside--WOW that smells good (will save 11). His stomach rumbles as he looks at her wounds and he leans in looking worried and also... a little hungry... as he looks her over. Then he wrenches his eyes up to her face and glances over at Myri, too.]

What happened?

[Des arrives shortly after because I wasted a nat 20 dex roll on this shit. He has a lockbox under one arm and also surveys the scene with the right amount of WTF.]

We left you guys alone for five minutes. What the hell happened. [He eyes the spider.] Is that a- [(knowledge 13), so I have no idea if he passed it or not, but let's err on the side of him struggling.]

[and finnick arrives at the same time as des because they were running buddies, okay. power running. his eyes scan the scene like O_O but he quickly lasers in on the buffy/myri/vi/spike cluster and runs over to ...

passionately hug myri. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T PINKY PROMISE.]

Giant hell-spider? You betcha.

[ she draws back from myri when spike approaches, but she catches the look on his face and a wary one of her own dawns on him. she presses a hand over one of her injuries to give it some compression, because those are still really bad she's only at 20 hp ok. and also to ... hide them from the vampire (spot 22). ]

Tell me you found something and I didn't just get my ass kicked up and down Main Street for nothing.

Uh-huh. [Des shifts the lockbox out from under his arm and holds it up.] Nothing that'll stand up in a court of law, but check this.

[HE OPENS... THE BOX... And it's still full of creepy stalker photographs, etc. of Chad, like seriously. The last fifteen minutes of Perfect Blue vomited inside this box.] Kind of a weird thing for a guy to have hidden away in his office. Chad strikes me as a dick, but not a dick that much in love with himself.

MAWP

DOES ANYONE ELSE HEAR THAT RINGING?
[Archer cleans spider brains off his Shotgun, and reloads it - just in case.]

[Then, Archer sees THE BOX...]
...YOU GUYS INFILTRATE THE OFFICE OF JOHN HINKLEY JR.? [A beat...] FAMOUS STALKER? [He looks around...] ANYONE?

MAWP

[Elena frowns, because he's been doing that...for awhile now. Worried mode activated.]

No, I can't hear it. Are you okay?

[Okay yeah, stuff in the box is creepy.]

No, he wouldn't need a million pictures of himself. [A beat. (wisdom 19)] But someone impersonating him would. [She's been thinking about doppelgangers a lot, okay.]

WOW ELENA. YES, PLEASE CONTINUE PRETENDING TO TALK.

LET'S ALL MAKE FUN OF THE DEAF GUY!

MAWP

SO MATURE!

[Meanwhile, Myri is entirely focused on holding onto Finnick for the first few moments of conversation. She clings back to him and softly repeats variations of "it's okay," "we're safe now," and "I love you" until she's satisfied that pulling away from him won't trigger some sort of karmic backlash attack for not pinky promising or something. She does eventually pull back and glances around to catch herself up.]

Perhaps we can discuss it further elsewhere? [Buffy is hurt, Archer is deaf, and the poison in her system still makes her feel like she's moving through a thick sap. If anything were to show up, they would be entirely unprepared.]

[Spike looks a little embarrassed at least when she coves her wound with her hand. LOOK HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING. He's still just gonna hover anxiously because it's A LOT OF BLOOD.]

Can you walk, love?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, I - [ she gets to her feet as she talks, struggling against the aggravation of her injuries as she does. she steadies, straightens, and then as she tries to take a step, her knees buckle under her (dex 6). her hand plants quickly on spike's shoulder to hold herself up. ] ... May, possibly, be exaggerating the levels of my fineness.

[Vi backs up when Finnick and the Boys -- they could be a band! -- come running in so they can hug and sniff in peace. (Dat's weird, Spike.) But when Buffy's knees decide not to qwoperate, she reaches out to help steady her and that same weird instinct flows through her. (Infuse with life + 7 hp) This is the weirdest adrenaline rush, okay.] Whoa, steady there. Hey Des, wanna use your manly man strength to rescue my sweatshirt from it's webby demise? [PRIORITIES.]

[Elena clamps her mouth closed, because now she feels bad good job Archer. She wasn't trying to make fun of him, just...ugh.

She puts a finger to her lips to shush him, because really, stop yelling.]

Myri's right. We should get out of her asap.

[Suddenly, a sinking, rushing sensation washes over Myri. Her face pales as the poison twists further inside of her and causes her to stumble back into Finnick. Her breath is shallow and she looks so much more frail than normal (-4 temp con loss which takes back those 10 hp she just got damnit).

Maybe it's simply the blood loss, or the use of her gift? She's never felt like this before though.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject