Author Topic: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point  (Read 56015 times)

Offline Shiki

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #20 on: March 02, 2012, 10:22:30 PM »
"You will? Many thanks. Although, I am not touching him. I will follow you, though. If you cannot lift him and walk properly, might I suggest dragging him? You seem capable enough." replies IA.

Offline littha

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #21 on: March 02, 2012, 10:47:00 PM »
Giving her new companion a venomous glance Lilly drags the kid into shelter and out of the snow, at least he wont die from the cold here.

"All right, after your amazing help back there I am ready to look at your thing" Lilly puts a hand forward for the paper

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #22 on: March 02, 2012, 11:12:53 PM »
On the same monotonous tone IA goes on with: "Did I came up as overtly rude? 'twas not my intents, forgive me. Anyhow, here, have a look." She shows Lilly what's written on said piece of paper.

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #23 on: March 04, 2012, 02:53:23 PM »
For a hesitant moment, Roy forgot to let go of the cup as he handed it half-mindedly to Miles. As the phone cuts out, Roy cut back into reality. "Huh, brilliant. A prank caller... oh, sorry." He finally let go, realizing Miles had grabbed it. Thinking of a way to try and trace back the call, he quickly left Miles' company in favor of an officer not about to kill him for the sodium content of their coffee.

He maneuvered his way through the busy office to one of the desk-workers he'd hit it off with fairly well. Desk jockies tended to be a little more tolerant of him than operations officers, if only because they shared some skill in hacking. "Hey Daniel, do you mind giving a rook a hand? We just got a prank call, or maybe a drunk, fed through to the tabletop. Any way you know of to go back through the system in a legal way, trace the call? I know it's the kind of crap I probably shouldn't read into, but I'm not much use here. Besides, something seemed off about it."

Daniel sighs. "Fine, whatever.  You owe me for this..." He closes his eyes.  "Yeah, that call was from the public kiosk at 35, Circle 2, Market Wedge."



((Cecilia's in the other thread. :hide))

(click to show/hide)

The kid was not helpful at all, being pretty much a dead weight the entire trip.  The only clue that he's still alive is the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, and the occasional moan.

Just as Lilly is about to look at the paper, the kid coughs weakly, and says in a hoarse voice, "Trap the moment, before it's ripe."



Sighing, Jack picked up the dead changeling, slung him across his shoulder, and began carrying him towards the dome.

Jack reaches the dome in no time -- the changeling weighs very little, and he has no trouble bearing the load.  The airlock is deserted, which is nice -- no uncomfortable questions -- and then he's in the city proper.



Radon frowned at not being able to expressly identify what attacked the girl.  Based on the surroundings and the fading aura, he guessed that whatever attacked her could either teleport or was incorporeal.  He made the mental note to have some spells like Dimensional Lock put in place in case of future attacks.

After looking a bit more at her, he figured he'd pry open her fist.  He doubted she had the ability to actually hit her attacker and thought the magic coming from it seemed odd.

Radon pries open the fist -- the girl isn't fighting him, her muscles are just locked, like living rigor mortis.  Her breathing is still shallow.

In her hand is a clear, empty glass vial with a matte-black lid.  As Radon looks, the glass of the vial slowly darkens, becoming the same light-absorbing black as the lid in about 10 seconds.
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #24 on: March 04, 2012, 05:15:43 PM »
Radon pries open the fist -- the girl isn't fighting him, her muscles are just locked, like living rigor mortis.  Her breathing is still shallow.

In her hand is a clear, empty glass vial with a matte-black lid.  As Radon looks, the glass of the vial slowly darkens, becoming the same light-absorbing black as the lid in about 10 seconds.

Radon looked at the glass vial, careful not to touch it, and compared it to the girl's likewise black eyes.  The situation was so fishy it reeked, and the thought of the rotting fish smell made Radon gag a bit.  Once again he accessed DivNet and made various knowledge checks to see if he could figure out what the black vial was and how it was related to the girl's eyes.

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Offline Flay Crimsonwind

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #25 on: March 04, 2012, 06:15:35 PM »
"35, Circle 2, Market Wedge. Got it. Would there happen to be a security camera around that location?" So it was looking more and more like a drunk or prank call after all.
I'm here and ready to keep confusing the hell out of everyone I meet.

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #26 on: March 05, 2012, 08:53:27 AM »
Radon looked at the glass vial, careful not to touch it, and compared it to the girl's likewise black eyes.  The situation was so fishy it reeked, and the thought of the rotting fish smell made Radon gag a bit.  Once again he accessed DivNet and made various knowledge checks to see if he could figure out what the black vial was and how it was related to the girl's eyes.

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

Radon concludes that the combination of schools and their relative strengths, along with the effect on the girl, is consistent with the effects of a magical drug.  He's not sure which drug, however -- he hasn't encountered these specific effects before.

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Offline sirpercival

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #27 on: March 05, 2012, 08:59:22 AM »
"35, Circle 2, Market Wedge. Got it. Would there happen to be a security camera around that location?" So it was looking more and more like a drunk or prank call after all.

Daniel sighs again.  "Yeah, here, I'll transfer the coords to you."  Roy receives a message over his uplink, with a set of coordinates.

((I assume you're going to check it out...))

Roy accesses that sensor, pulling up the recording from the past 10 minutes.  When the image comes up on his virtual overlay, he's startled -- a middle-aged, overweight man is standing in the middle of the street staring directly at the sensor.  The man's eyes are completely black, from iris to sclera.

The man stares at the sensor for several minutes, not moving, not even blinking.  Then he walks over to the kiosk and makes a call, speaks (Roy can hear that end of the conversation through the sensor, and it is indeed the call that Roy took), laughs, and collapses to the ground... then slowly fades from view.
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Offline Flay Crimsonwind

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #28 on: March 05, 2012, 01:47:56 PM »
Breathing a quiet sigh, and making a mental note to pay Daniel back for the favors, Roy went to work on the visual overlay. He replayed it twice, before admitting confusion. Physically, there was obviously nothing left of the scene, which made even less sense. Could they have gotten a holo hacked into their records? That seems like a lot more than some stoned up hopper with some credit left in a call-card. Before making his way back to the service vehicle, he puzzled over the kiosk.

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I'm here and ready to keep confusing the hell out of everyone I meet.

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #29 on: March 06, 2012, 09:58:36 AM »
No tampering with the sensor or the kiosk, the call went through exactly as normal.

You do find an impression in the snow, consistent with a middle-aged overweight man lying there for a bit.
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Offline AyeGill

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #30 on: March 06, 2012, 11:10:47 AM »
Continuing through the airlock, Jack walked as quickly as he could to the nearest police station, trying to stay off the main streets to avoid detection. He walked through the front door, then put down the corpse on the floor inside.

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #31 on: March 06, 2012, 11:14:06 AM »
Continuing through the airlock, Jack walked as quickly as he could to the nearest police station, trying to stay off the main streets to avoid detection. He walked through the front door, then put down the corpse on the floor inside.

As Jack approaches the station with his grisly load, Roy's service vehicle returns to the same station.

((Descriptions, please!))

Roy notices that the body Jack is carrying is wearing the same clothes as the man from the phonecall.
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Offline littha

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #32 on: March 06, 2012, 02:33:04 PM »
Lilly begins to check over the kid, it was obvious that she wouldnt be getting anywhere until she had delt with him.
"We need to do something about him" she motions to the kid. "We can deal with this later" shaking the paper in front of her. "You have any medical expertiese?"

Offline Shiki

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #33 on: March 06, 2012, 07:33:57 PM »
"Oh, how unfortunate. To answer your question, I must say that I do not. If it is once again needed to have him be moved, I shall help you this time, however." says IA while putting the piece of paper in one of her pockets. She then grabs one of the boy's arm with her now free arm. "Where to now?"

Offline Flay Crimsonwind

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #34 on: March 07, 2012, 02:51:58 AM »
Out of a regular service car steps a young man with jet black hair and warm amber eyes. He's got a bit of facial hair, but it seems to be clean cut, in a regular sort of way. He's got on similarly clean-cut clothing, nothing special, and a buff jacket over a shirt with something obviously under it. Similarly obvious is the pistol handle poking out from under his right arm, and the badge indicating he's a member of the local law enforcement. The pins on his collar, matching the patches on the sleeves of his coat, are however quite unusual for local law.

As he steps out and sees the clothing, he pauses, unsure if he's lucky or just having his mind playing tricks on him. Before the man carrying his target can get too far, he snaps back into reality. "H-hey! Sir! Stop, please!"

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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #35 on: March 07, 2012, 03:24:29 AM »
Even though he was able to figure out what the stuff is, Radon wasn't pleased by the results.  Magical drugs meant bad news.  He'd have to call the authorities on this one.  Luckily his work as an informant sometimes helped him stay on the good side of the law.  Radon was about to make the call when he realized he hadn't checked his sensor's recording.  He smacked the back of his head as a wake-up call, then proceeded to access his sensor.

Offline AyeGill

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #36 on: March 07, 2012, 04:01:08 AM »
Jack stops at the shouting from behind him.
A cop. Good. Maybe I can finally get this thing over with.
He slowly turns around to face the other man, his boots creaking on the snow beneath them. No reason to avoid the sound, here.
"I s'pose you're wondering about this guy?" he says, gesturing towards the changeling with his free arm. "Found him 'bout half a mile from the airlock. No signs of assault or anything like that, thought I'd bring him in here, see if you guys could find out something"

Offline littha

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #37 on: March 08, 2012, 09:22:53 AM »
Lilly begins to drag the kid down the road, towards the nearest medical centre. "Hopefully we can leave him here and both of us can be on our respective ways."

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #38 on: March 08, 2012, 04:55:19 PM »
Even though he was able to figure out what the stuff is, Radon wasn't pleased by the results.  Magical drugs meant bad news.  He'd have to call the authorities on this one.  Luckily his work as an informant sometimes helped him stay on the good side of the law.  Radon was about to make the call when he realized he hadn't checked his sensor's recording.  He smacked the back of his head as a wake-up call, then proceeded to access his sensor.

The sensor has a very clear image of the girl.  She wanders around the room a couple times, looks at some magazines, and flops into a chair with a very bored expression on her face.  Then she gets a shifty look, glances around surreptitiously, and pulls the matte black vial out of her pocket.  She stands up and moves directly under the light fixture, squeezing the vial tightly in her hand and holding it toward the light.  After a long moment, she opens her hand and the vial is clear; in a half second the vial starts glowing, and she quickly pulls the stopper and downs the liquid inside.  Then she sits again and closes her eyes, her face becoming blankly blissful.

A few minutes pass, and then she begins to convulse, her limbs flailing.  She knocks over the magazine stand and falls to the ground.



Lilly begins to drag the kid down the road, towards the nearest medical centre. "Hopefully we can leave him here and both of us can be on our respective ways."

Lilly and IA carry the boy towards a medical center Lilly remembers from her wandering.  As they go, the kid mumbles unintelligibly under his breath, almost without stopping, and without moving. 

After 5 minutes of walking, the kid convulses again, wrenching himself from the girls' grip, and falls to the ground.  Before they can react, he slowly stands.  His eyes are open and completely black... he holds his hands out, looking at his palms, as they begin to glow with a blinding light.

"...boom..." he whispers, then turns toward the girls.

((Let's move this into the WtL Combat thread I'm about to make.))
I am the assassin of productivity

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It's begun — my things have overgrown the previous sig.

Offline Flay Crimsonwind

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Re: Walk the Line, Chapter I: Tipping Point
« Reply #39 on: March 08, 2012, 05:39:09 PM »
"Thank you; I actually just started looking for this man. How long ago did you find him?" Roy rushes over to help the man, and turns him over to look at his face and confirm that he's still alive. All the while, he was thinking to himself how the man just vanished from the kiosk and got to an airlock. "You didn't find him by a public kiosk in Market Wedge circle 2?"
I'm here and ready to keep confusing the hell out of everyone I meet.