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

[lawofsurvival]

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.

Comments

[lawofsurvival]

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.

[graveflowers]

[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?

[slay]

[ 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.

[bigbad]

[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?

[nothingsodivine]

[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.]

[65]

[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.]

[slay]

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.

[nothingsodivine]

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.

[isisagent]

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

[notaroundme]

[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.]

[isisagent]

WOW ELENA. YES, PLEASE CONTINUE PRETENDING TO TALK.


LET'S ALL MAKE FUN OF THE DEAF GUY!

MAWP


SO MATURE!

[witchwoman]

[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.]

[bigbad]

[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?

[slay]

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.

[graveflowers]

[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.]

[notaroundme]

[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.

[witchwoman]

[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.]

[nothingsodivine]

[Des nods at Vi and goes to retrieve the aforementioned jacket. (str... 11)] Jesus. It's a lot tougher than it looks. [He tugs again (str... 9)

On the plus side, he's about half-distracted by Myri faltering so some of his weak-ass yanking is easily explained.] Hey, pretty boy. Is your girl all right?

[As uncouth as his phrasing is, he does sound worried.]

[slay]

[ as if on cue, buffy's feet come out from under her and she all but passes out (you better make a check to catch her spike you bastard). the poison hits her, taking her down 6 temporary constitution damage, doing 21 hp of damage and bringing her back down to 6. thanks vi, you kept her conscious. she's woozy and out of it, blinking hard like the world won't come back into focus, and her skin has lost its healthy glow.

she watches myri stumble, and seems to catch on (wis 20 total). they'd caught the worst of the attacks, whatever it was affecting them must have come from that. it's not hard to guess. her voice is weak and scratchy when she speaks up. ]

Poison.

[65]

[don't worry, finnick's got her (ref save 20 total)] You were poisoned?

[all his attention is on myri. he should sort of feel bad, considering buffy looks 5x worse than her, but … nope.]

[lawofsurvival]

[ jaka looked a bit like he was sucking on poison himself when violet made that comment about ~his~ nightmare god, and he watches all of this unfold in silence for a minute before adding in his two cents again, nodding to the fallen creature ] That's how they operate. Their venom slows their prey, making it impossible for them to run, and then they activate the web. [ he moves to des' side, reaching up to grab a handful of webbing and tug on it as if to show how tough it is ] The web is a soul snare. If the spider had gotten to any of you, it would have trapped your spirit within its strands.

[ oh right, dying people, whatever. ] They'll need a cleric. [ he glances at myri and vi skeptically ] A real cleric.

[bigbad]

[Spike almost drops Buffy since he's pretty clearly hassled from worry and the delicious, delicious blood smell but he manages to grab her at the last minute (reflex crit fail, but ACTION POINT into a 13). He hoists her up (str 17) and gives Jaka a desperate look. He ain't even mad about the REAL cleric comment because he doesn't care right now, he just wants Buffy to get better now.]

Then stop wasting our bloody time and bring us to one.

[Exposition later. Saving Buffy and Myri now.]

[slay]

It's fine. I'm fine - Cleric later, we need - Need to - [ she grimaces and pushes through it for a moment to fix jaka with a look. ] These soul spiders. Are there spells to control them? Could anyone do it, or do they need to be drow?

[nothingsodivine]

[with a strength check of 20, Des finally frees Vi's jacket and rejoins the rest of the group.]

We can take it up with Gar and your drow when no one is bleeding out.

[Des didn't see Jaka be all rescue-y. he can be mean if he wants.]

[bigbad]

You're not fine, you stubborn bint. [Spike starts carrying Buffy towards the garage.] We can talk on the way.