Re: Mission to Chicago, An old friend and Abigail IC Thread 8

[Adley]

Adjan looks around then nods. "We should find a proper spot for the ritual and get to work.

He nodded back to him, looking around the floor for a likely spot to set themselves up. Somewhere they could get into and get their work done and perhaps get to cut off a trip to the stairs and windows, like an adjacent apartment that wasn't occupied or upstairs, with Freddy in the unfinished areas.

// sorry for the delay. Project got done just in time for the zombie apocalypse soap opera then I went to bed lol

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

There are adjacent apartments that can be used, they are mostly unfinished, they have light fixtures and windows installed but the floors, plain on the walls and anything else cosmetic is not done yet you could probably set up in one of those, or go up one floor and do it there, from one of the nearby apartments you should be able to cover the windows a parts of the staircase in the strengthened field of the Gauntlet with no problems, though down here on the same floor as Nicolai's apartment it was a greater chance of being hear than if you go up one floor.

(OOC: Oh no problem post when you have the time no rush, oh and you got to love some zombies.)

[Adley]

He'll head upstairs if it means getting a better shot at the windows and staircase, as well as not being overheard. Minor as his issue was it was sometimes inconvenient when it came to stealth, even if stealth wasn't exactly seen as a hallmark of his House. As they headed towards the stairs, he continued to check to see if there was anything magickal they should be concerned about, such as a trap or alarm.

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

You do not find anything magickal as you walk up the stairs, Adjan following behind you, the Euthanatos' eyes was alert and he kept his eyes on the surroundings, his hand ready to grab for his weapons in case something happened, you made it to the top of the stairs and here everything was even more unfinished.
"Hum...if we go for the end of the hallway we should be able to get both the stairs and the windows."
Adjan suggested and pointed.
"Either inside one of the apartments or just out into the hallway."

[Warpmind]

Colin smirked, "I do believe the most mundane method will serve the best. Presumably, the fuses are all the modern lever type, so simply shutting one off should be far less trouble than... deviancy. And it's Steed, my dear. John Steed. While we are on the job, at least."

((OOC: Well, just got back home from Deadpool. It was very... accurate. I lost count of the "Dammit, Wade!"s I let slip. Especially when he started with exponential fourth wall breakages... ))

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

"It is a completely new building, I mean it is not even finished so I should think the electrical systems and fuses are modern as well, I would not know I have not had the need to do anything with the ones in my floor yet."
The cyborg said.
"So yes I would think that would be simpler than your deviancy. So what where you planning to do? Turning off the lights?"
He continued. Francesca grinned a bit.
"Mr Steed then, very well, we should get into the apartment we are going to hide in before we are discovered."

[Warpmind]

Colin nodded, "Turning off the lights will give us a substantial advantage - when the people in the apartment come toward the door, we will be significantly less visible in a dark corridor than they will be against a window with sunlight. It's harder to hit something you cannot see clearly."
He looked up at the cyborg, "Light amplification or infrared, or perhaps both? Presumably something better than the night vision equipment I enjoyed in the military?"

[Tane Karyak]

Friday:

You can have both. One day you'll understand and you'll be able to make your own opinion.

"Well with Nephandi coming down on our asses no matter where we turn I for one would welcome your finned friends guarding the doors."
He said.

Belive me, they'd love a good fight agains their filth and they will, eventually, face them or their minions...

"As if mind altering substances have not been a part of magick since the beginning."

Remember when i told you reality is a consensus of people's realities? well, the base of what Ecstatics do is basicly why alter reality myself and get paradox when you basicly can alter reality making sleepers move to a whole different perception. If they perceive differently, they'll change reality in their own way. Like when you're having a great time with someone or doing something and suddenly it's been 8 hours? just like that, but in mass. Or as a focus. Tane tried to explain the criptc and not detailed explanation he gave to her.

That's a pity, but i bwt i can ask her for someone able to chat with Lily.

Saturday:
((Sorry! What do i roll to start seeing how Beatrice avatar's doing?))

[Adley]

"Hum...if we go for the end of the hallway we should be able to get both the stairs and the windows." Adjan suggested and pointed. "Either inside one of the apartments or just out into the hallway."

He looked over to where Adjan was gesturing and nodded. "That should work." Then he glanced at his phone quickly to see how much time they had to work and headed towards the end of the hall, checking over the apartments in case they were not empty, for magick and to see if they should set up in one or the hall.

// It sounds like Deadpool, then xD I've heard good things, I should get to see it this weekend now that I am not in project hell.

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

Colin:

Colin nodded, "Turning off the lights will give us a substantial advantage - when the people in the apartment come toward the door, we will be significantly less visible in a dark corridor than they will be against a window with sunlight. It's harder to hit something you cannot see clearly."

"Very well, I will go and turn off the lights."
The cyborg said and walked over to the small cabinet opened it and peered inside before he flipped a few switches and the lights over each apartment went dark, there where enough light coming in through the windows that the corridor was just dank though, it was not really very dark but it might help some.

He looked up at the cyborg, "Light amplification or infrared, or perhaps both? Presumably something better than the night vision equipment I enjoyed in the military?"

"You would be correct in that I am equipped with several methods to see in the dark should I need it Mr Steed."
He said as he returned to the group his eyes flashing red every now and again more striking in the now dank corridor.

Adley:

He looked over to where Adjan was gesturing and nodded. "That should work." Then he glanced at his phone quickly to see how much time they had to work and headed towards the end of the hall, checking over the apartments in case they were not empty, for magick and to see if they should set up in one or the hall.

Alle the apartments was empty some of them had hammers and drills and other tools strewn on the floor, none of them felt magickal in any way, they where just unfinished apartments in various stages of completion, the major fixtures was done, like doors and windows and the kitchen appliances was installed but there was allot of the minor things to do and the floors of several of the apartments was still covered in plastic. Adjan nodded and fetched several bone dice from him pocket, he took several deep breaths to calm himself and get ready for the magick he was planning to perform.

Tane:

Friday:

You can have both. One day you'll understand and you'll be able to make your own opinion.

Lily nodded.
"I guess you are right."
She muttered.

Belive me, they'd love a good fight agains their filth and they will, eventually, face them or their minions...

"Well any enemy of the Nephandi are alright in my book even if they have fins and would taste great in a soup."
Ryan said then he gave a bit of a grin.
"Just kidding, I am sure that the Chief will consider calling on such potential allies if we can not handle the bloody Fallen on our own."

Remember when i told you reality is a consensus of people's realities? well, the base of what Ecstatics do is basicly why alter reality myself and get paradox when you basicly can alter reality making sleepers move to a whole different perception. If they perceive differently, they'll change reality in their own way. Like when you're having a great time with someone or doing something and suddenly it's been 8 hours? just like that, but in mass. Or as a focus. Tane tried to explain the criptc and not detailed explanation he gave to her.

"Well I guess getting a whole bunch of sleeper high can be a form of blatantly hiding magick in plain sight."
Ryan said then he gave both of the young magi.
"However that is not so much the core of our Tradition. Once we where seers, in fact our name once was the Seers of Chronos, but we like to change our Tradition name every so often not to get to static, before that we like the Hermetics came from an ancient Roman Order of ritual mages called the Cult of Mercury, we where an offshoot of that Order that focused on trances where the rest focused on group rituals. You see that is the thing about our Paradigm, we believe that the subconscious mind have power, now exactly how it have power depend on the individual, some have a shamanistic view of it and believe that when they enter a trance they will commune with Gods and spirits, for others they think that in an altered state of consciousness they can use an manipulate the energies of nature and the universe. Others have a more ritualistic view of it and think that as we make thought forms in our subconscious mind they will manifest in the real world the exact belief vary but the fact remains that so many Traditions have trance work as part of how they use their magick, meditation, ritual dances, psychedelics all of these and more will alter your state of consciousness, but while other Traditions have it as a part of their foci, we have altered states of consciousness where our passions get to sing to the cosmos as our main philosophy. Now not all Cultists use drugs despite our name, it actually do not refer to the drug ecstasy but what the name of the drug actually means, ex stasis, from stasis, we try to leave a static state of mind and enter a magickal one."
The Culstist explained.
"Now yes many of my Traition do use drugs to enter altered states of consciousness, I for example do not, I lose myself in music, Rosa here actually play a violin and loose herself in that and I have friends who use pain, physical exercise, food or even computer games to do the same thing, whatever works for you to alter your own mind is fine, remember the goal is to alter your mind so you in turn can alter reality."
He said then he sigh.
"Now many of the other Traditions see the Cultists as hedonists and in a way that is true, but we are so responsibly, we believe that this physical life we have should be enjoyed that the reason why we have physical incarnation is so that we can be alive so we put no bonds on love, sex, or any other enjoyment you might have, however we do have a code we live by, a code that in effect say that you should not harm others in the search for your own enjoyment of life, meaning for example you can fuck whoever you please as long as they also want to fuck you but forcing someone is not acceptable."
He said and Rosa blushed over her mentor's blunt language, Ryan ignored this and continued.
"The other thing our code say, it is more to it than that off course but in effect it boils down to responsibility, do whatever you please that do not harm others, but know that you are responsible for your actions. If you party all day and do not work you will soon be homeless and hungry then that is a outcome you have chosen and you have to own it, if you have unprotected sex you can get ill or an unwanted child and you have to own that, know what you are doing and be fully responsible for it, but live your life to the fullest that is the way of the Cult of Ecstasy."
Ryan finished and Lily nodded, she seamed fascinated by what he was saying about his Tradition.

That's a pity, but i bwt i can ask her for someone able to chat with Lily.

"You do that, I will let her know you want a word with her when she comes back from the airport."
The Cultist said and nodded.

Saturday:

(Well Tane's ability with Avatars is not strictly cannon or rather doing what he do is far more complicated than his actual Spheres but I let him have it because hey it is Mage someone having a mystical ability or being abnormally good at one type of magick is not unheard of, just let him do his regular song to see another Avatar and then roll perception plus awareness to get an opinion on how Beatrice's Avatar is doing.)

[Adley]

He found a space that would allow them to get the windows and fire escape - if the hallway was close to the stairs and might echo down, inside the nearest apartment that has a clear space he doesn't have to displace a bunch of things.

"Generally, there's a closing to any ritual. Describing a counterclockwise circle around the sigil for example but here we are using your dice - do you have a specific thing that you do at the end of your workings that will let me know that you are finished and signify the end of the ritual?" He brought out the other dram of tass as he spoke. "Something simple can work, such as saying 'It is done.'" He waited a moment to hear the answer before continuing, "Just before then you will see me put my arms out and draw them back in, as if I am slowly drawing a curtain closed and I will remain that way until the end or if we need to keep going, I will start again and continue to try to raise the power of the ritual through repetition. Three is a good number, considering the Work."

Adjan nodded and fetched several bone dice from him pocket, he took several deep breaths to calm himself and get ready for the magick he was planning to perform

He set himself up, putting the paper on the ground, flattening it out and then regarding it as if it were a larger circle. First there was silence, no sounds or motions just focusing for the start as he put himself into a ritual state for working to raise the Gauntlet. Then came the four quarters as he traced the circle clockwise once with his wand and quartered them, drawing the Quintessence from the tass. Then the three letters, a cyclic formula extending further back to the ineffable Name that he pronounced. "I-A-O - all that has been and is and ever shall be." He paused for a moment. "He that goes forth; the ever becoming one. AA-IA-OA!" He put his arms out like a T. "As no one has ever lifted her mantle - So let this veil remain unparted, so strengthen this veil between the realm of spirit and the material world," he said, envisioning the Gauntlet thickening, hardening, becoming less permeable. He made the sign of the Closing of the Veil, bringing his arms closed, forearms parallel to the floor and palms together.

// how many rolls would you like?

[Tane Karyak]

Friday:

Well, you sounded more poetic than i and Master Narim together. Tane said with a smile. You both seem to be doing well, anything i could help you with? But it looked like they were pretty chilled right there, so he had little concerns about them. That was good, at least.

Saturday:

per 2 + awa 1= 3
2 6 9

Tane closed the door and kneeled by Beatrice bed. He placed one hand onher stomach and one hand over her forehead and started to hum her song, trying not to awaken her. Slowly, little fires covered his hands and smoke flourished from the flames. Little by little, the dark avatar appeared over them.

Hello, buddy. I'm here to check on you.

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

Adley:

He found a space that would allow them to get the windows and fire escape - if the hallway was close to the stairs and might echo down, inside the nearest apartment that has a clear space he doesn't have to displace a bunch of things.

You find an apartment where there are not allot of clutter on the floor that will allow you to get the windows and fire escape easily.

"Generally, there's a closing to any ritual. Describing a counterclockwise circle around the sigil for example but here we are using your dice - do you have a specific thing that you do at the end of your workings that will let me know that you are finished and signify the end of the ritual?"

"Not usually I tend to just stop focusing on the archetypes I am working with, drawing a deep breath and putting my dice away, but I can work with using the dice as you described and laying them down around your sigil."
Adjan said and looked down at the finely carved bone dice.
"All I need is to be able to feel that I have a connection to those archetypes withing me if you understand what I mean so I should be rather flexible at that point."

He brought out the other dram of tass as he spoke. "Something simple can work, such as saying 'It is done.'"

"That works for me."

He waited a moment to hear the answer before continuing, "Just before then you will see me put my arms out and draw them back in, as if I am slowly drawing a curtain closed and I will remain that way until the end or if we need to keep going, I will start again and continue to try to raise the power of the ritual through repetition. Three is a good number, considering the Work."

Adjan nodded.
"Very well I can follow those cues."
He said as his fingers caressed his dice, five of them.

He set himself up, putting the paper on the ground, flattening it out and then regarding it as if it were a larger circle. First there was silence, no sounds or motions just focusing for the start as he put himself into a ritual state for working to raise the Gauntlet. Then came the four quarters as he traced the circle clockwise once with his wand and quartered them, drawing the Quintessence from the tass. Then the three letters, a cyclic formula extending further back to the ineffable Name that he pronounced. "I-A-O - all that has been and is and ever shall be." He paused for a moment. "He that goes forth; the ever becoming one. AA-IA-OA!" He put his arms out like a T. "As no one has ever lifted her mantle - So let this veil remain unparted, so strengthen this veil between the realm of spirit and the material world," he said, envisioning the Gauntlet thickening, hardening, becoming less permeable. He made the sign of the Closing of the Veil, bringing his arms closed, forearms parallel to the floor and palms together.

You can feel Adjan there he was focusing on his own magick and you can feel his strength joining the ritual, though it do not go as smoothly as with another Hermetic or even with Hannah who just followed your cues and soon was able to work in sync with you, however the Euthanatos was focusing on the same goal and he was helping his willing joining with yours. As you spoke the ritual he knelt and carefully placed the bone dice in a circle around your drawn sigil, there was a focused solemn feel to his movement, a respect for the dead being the bones had belonged to and a deep understanding in how they, symbols of death and chance connected to an inner world of power, inner archetypes grated through the collective subconscious, it was not exactly the same as your Paradigm, but it was close enough to understand, it was close enough to work.

(Let us say you and Adjan need seven successes together and that each roll take about a minute of ritual work. Let us just simplify this each edition have rather complex rules for working in concert but this time let us just make separate rolls and do it this way. Adjan's first rolls are 3 7 2 5, 7 10 9 1, 1, 9, 9, 4 so four successes from him Adley needs three and he can keep trying until he runs out of time or botch.)

Tane:

Friday:

Well, you sounded more poetic than i and Master Narim together. Tane said with a smile. You both seem to be doing well, anything i could help you with? But it looked like they were pretty chilled right there, so he had little concerns about them. That was good, at least.

"Thank you."
Ryan said with a little smile.
"No we are good, I am just getting some books from Rosa, even if we are in the middle of a crisis I have to teach her something."
He said.
"Thank you for asking, let me know if you need anything other than for me to tell Hildegaard you want to see her."

Saturday:

You enter the Node chamber and you can feel the song of the Node everywhere, in the center of the dirt floor room was a natural glass bowl, who knew how it had been made or when, around it was stones with what might be Native American inscriptions. Amadeus sat leaned against one wall resting but he wakes up when you comes into the room, he looked allot better after he had gotten some sleep, he stood and stretch.
"I will keep watch outside."
He said before he bent over the bowl where Beatrice was laying and planted a kiss on her forehead, then he left the Node chamber to keep guard. The other people in the room was a rather large man you did not know but he matched the description you had heard of Bruce King, the Orphan artificer that also was a member of your new Cabal, the man gave you a look as you came in.
"Since Master Nassa seams to know you I assume you are no threat, still who are you?"
He said sharply.

Other than Bruce there where two more people in the chamber, one was a man that looked to be around fifty, he could have been handsome with fair eyes and steel gray, short messy hair, he was wearing jeans, a teshirt and a leather jacket, but his eyes where so sad, as if there was something irreparably broken inside of him, then man turned his head to look at you when you came in, he was sitting with his back against a wall he did not say anything though, but he might be wondering who you was. Beside the man with the gray hair sat a woman of rare beauty, she looked like a porcelain doll her skin without a blemish, her eyes large and sky blue and her hair was perfect blond ringlets, the woman did not look like she enjoyed her beauty or anything else though, she just stared out into nothing, as if her mind was not even there, an in her eyes to there was something lost, something broken.

Beatrice laid not in a bed but in the glass bowl itself, there was no furniture here but she was wrapped up in blankets and she managed to give Tane as smile when he came in though she looked pale and tired, pain swimming in her dark brown eyes.
"Tane...you came to see me?"
She muttered weakly.

(OOC: Perhaps it is best to introduce yourself to the people inside the Node chamber first, just coming in and starting to sing might make them look at you rather oddly.)

[Warpmind]

Colin nodded, "Excellent - the difference between the corridor and the presumably well lit room should give us a small edge for aiming. We should be harder to make out clearly, but the apartment won't be as relatively bright as to blind us. We should still be able to pick targets with ease."

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

The cyborg nodded at that.
"Before we know how many opponents we have any edge we can eke out is welcome."
He said. Francesca nodded.
"We should stay inside of of the apartments until our enemies are out in the hallway, that will prevent them just coming out guns blazing and mowing us down."
She said and vanished into the apartment she had opened the door to.

[Warpmind]

"Quite. We need the trap set off, though - with luck, it won't hit Liv before I start siphoning..."
Colin looked at the apartment door, eyeing his signet ring, "The timing will be... tricky."

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

"If you need any last minute training with it I can set up a few rotes for you to drain."
Francesca offered before she went into the apartment the group had decided to hide in.
"Providing our friend in there will not detect that."

"Just stay behind me until we know how many they are, then use your procedure on the ward."
The cyborg said.
"I can take a beating better than your all flesh bodies."

[Warpmind]

Colin shook his head, "It's not training I need, it's someone to open the window of opportunity. Just like with the Ball of Abysmal Flame earlier today, I can drain it safely, but I can't get past the trigger on my own. That would require, well, a higher degree of skill, or deliberately tripping the ward with immediate and unhealthy consequences for the offending extremity. But as soon as the damnable thing fires, I can shove the equivalent of a hose in the gas tank and run it out in a safe manner. Well, mostly safe. Safe enough for us."

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

"What then if as soon as our enemies is out I run in an trigger that ward?"
The Cyborg said.
"That should open the procedure for you."
He continued.
"Though if we get them out of there perhaps the wards are of a lesser consequence and we focus on taking our enemies down, unless you need the juice that is."

[Warpmind]

Colin nodded, "That could work - kick down the door, and I'll have a Prime shield on hand, and most importantly, we have no reason to expect the hostage to be carrying the safe passage token, so we must assume her crossing the threshold would be fatal. We cannot afford that risk."

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

"I doubt that she do not have it, I mean we are talking about a child, it is far easier to run after her and catch her again if she should get away from her captors than to raise her from the dead if she should get killed by their Wards, they do after all want the girl alive."
Francesca said.
"Now as for kicking down the door was not the plan for us to hide and then attack them once they run out, since that is easier than trying to deal with the Aegis? Are we back to trying to break in again and if so why are Freddy up on the next floor preparing to gas these guys?"

[Warpmind]

Colin nodded, "I think our best bet is meeting them half-way, essentially - we hold the corridor as a chokepoint. Which means we let them reach the door first, but we don't necessarily go in after blowing the door. We just keep them - excepting Liv - from escaping. If Mr. Kimble can rush in and get her out while I tap out the ward and we provide cover fire, we're golden. We are in any case covering as many bases as possible. It's not a change to the plan - the primary thing is still to get Liv out and away from the Fallen and the thralls - but the more of their aggressive defenses we can take down, the better our chance to maneuver a little more freely when Liv is clear."

[Anja Rebekka Schultze]

"We blow the door? Then why would they come out, what we want is for them to not be within their Aegis where we can not get at them, that is why we are gassing them, to smoke them out into the corridor."
Francesca said.
"Our problem is the Aegis and that doing something about it might be beyond us, if we can get them outside of their wards and then ambush them then they lack that protection, if we stand right outside their door and not let them out into the hallway then they might just retreat back into the warded apartment and find a perhaps slower magickal solution to escape or they will try to go out the windows or through the walls."
She continued.
"So you are saying that when the Nephandi open the dor we rush them in the doorway, Kimble force his way past all of us and into their apartment to get Liv, assuming they do not just run the other way, teleport or get more desperate to flee into the Umbra?"
Francesca raised and eyebrow.
"I do agree that taking down one of their wards is a good thing in case they manage to get back into the apartment, but are you sure it is wise to attack them before they are all out of the apartment Mr ehm Steed?"

[Warpmind]

Colin sighed, "Wise... well, we want them kept off balance, is the thing. We will be at a disadvantage if we go in, this is true - but as they enter the corridor, they'll have a better chance of coordinating swiftly than they'll have with the corrosive gas on one side and us on the other. In this case, confusion will serve us, not them. But we have to let them reach the door first. I did not mean literally blowing up the door, but having Mr. Kimble press through the chokepoint and past them for Liv, shielding her from the immediate firefight. We want to make the apartment entrance a kill zone. Does that make sense to you?"

[Adley]

"Not usually I tend to just stop focusing on the archetypes I am working with, drawing a deep breath and putting my dice away, but I can work with using the dice as you described and laying them down around your sigil." Adjan said and looked down at the finely carved bone dice. "All I need is to be able to feel that I have a connection to those archetypes withing me if you understand what I mean so I should be rather flexible at that point."

"Hm, an externalization of the event that you are experiencing inwardly or some type of ending sign would help I think."

"That works for me."

"Good then."

You can feel Adjan there he was focusing on his own magick and you can feel his strength joining the ritual, though it do not go as smoothly as with another Hermetic... it was not exactly the same as your Paradigm, but it was close enough to understand, it was close enough to work.

As he felt Adjan's working come through as it tried to weave together with his own. Adley kept a hold of the main point of the ritual clearly in his mind, sealing the veil, encompassing the area that they desired, as he stood with his hands closed together. It felt bumpy, somewhat rough at first but something that still could be finished, he thought. But it would need more than one repetition in order to get the Gauntlet strong enough.

// alright, depends what the difficulty was with the Quint- S2 Arete: 7,6 - 8,9 - 8,1 - 4,0

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