[Day: Sunday, June 22nd. Time: 11:45 p.m.] [You're walking through the forest. It's dark. The Interpol gang thought to bring flashlights, though. Hope you did, too.] (Trenchcoats of holding FTW!) [Oh, right. Start] * Togo thinks flashlights are for weenies. * Herman didn't bring a flashlight. He did, however, bring a spell that seems filling a small radius around the group with sunlight. Togo would probably recognize that one. * Roseli has a flashlight, which she has in one hand, and her gun's in the other. * Jamie has no flashlight, her ability to see in the dark was attached to a flying machine she no longer has. * Luana lets other people deal with flashlights. And sunlight spells, for that matter. * Keiko is floating along, because it's what she does. And the flashlight floats too. She's holding the pistol in her right hand, hanging under her cloak at her side. * Keiko finally speaks up. "How does this ritual work?" What do you mean? ( Sorry. ) (Hm?) (What's up?) * Keiko speaks, without looking at Herman, "What do they have to do to achieve success?" * Heinrick is a weenie, but not Togo's weenie, as he does have a pocket flashlight ot the ready if need be. It doesn't seem to be needed, however, so it's stashed away. "I believe she means what is the best way to stop it." And if not, that is *my* question. [Xuan looks over her shoulder at Keiko. "It's pretty straightforward. Read a bunch of lines, burn some reagents, murder a virgin."] * Roseli nods. "Probably have to stop them from killing Cyra. Major component." * Keiko looks back at her, then says, "Does it matter when she dies?" All rituals are the same - time, place, and actions matter. * Heinrick snorts at that but says nothing. ["Her death will be at the end. At midnight."] [Claude puts in, "Though if you're thinking about killing her before then, don't. We don't know what effect that could have."] I think I see where you're going with this. * Heinrick looks at Claude. "Pity." * Keiko smiles very thinly. "It is not a secret." Botching a ritual that way can cause some pretty serious side effects. I'm not well-versed in demonology. Never been that interested in it. So what *do* we have to do to botch it in a way that won't kill us or doom us to a horribly excrutiating reality? * Keiko 's smile fades rapidly, though, and then it's back to floating. * Keiko also thinks back, ~Thanks,~ to Luana. [Xuan smiles. "Simple. Keep her away from them until 12:01."] * Heinrick throws his hands up. "Oh, certainly. That will be simple." * Keiko adds, "Especially as she is already in their hands." [Claude shrugs. "No one said this would be easy."] ~It seems simplest, really. A lot easier than playing keep-away.~ ~Practical and satisfying.~ * Heinrick checks over his supplies quickly, not responding to Claude. Especially keeping track of his syringe daggers and such. ~I do love seeing Rose at my side one moment and holding a gun to somebody's head the next.~ ~Simple is nice.~ Can just kill them. * Jamie follows Rose silently, mostly watching her own feet so she doesn't trip in the dark. * Roseli glances at Togo, then amends: "Knock them unconscious. Whatever." They're limited, though. They need to be next to her at exactly midnight. Before that, it doesn't matter. We're patient, manuever, push them back, get ourselves between them and her, and then lay down fire until the clock strikes. d10 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Brett (d10) and gets a natural 6 for a result of 6. [Togo walks into a wall.] * Keiko exhales upwards, then wraps her arms around herself, gun still in hand. ( ? ) (... The guy with sonic vision walks into a wall?) Of course. And also make it excrutiating to get near her. (I'm guessing a magical barrier type wall. I may be wrong. ;P) [It's an invisible wall. ] [But there's a wall! Apparently.] ( s'okay. Magical barrier, doesn't respond to sonar, no biggie. ) * Togo smacks straight into a wall, and reels back. "What the fuck?!" * Roseli blinks. "Togo?" She walks over to where he just ran into whatsit and reaches forward to touch it. * Jamie draws her gun and looks for the correct thing to shoot. [Rose finds nothing!] * Heinrick watches Togo, and then puts his hand out where Togo hit. [Heinrick does, though.] [An invisible nothing, but nothing nonetheless] * Heinrick puts his hand flat against the air. "Barrier, it would seem." Something solid, but I'm not seeing anything. *feels around himself in the other directions* * Luana stops before edging forward towards the invisible wall. Yeah, it's a spell. Let me get a better look. * Roseli puts her hand up to and through the wall again. "Can just walk through... would leave me SOL, though, unless there's a way to bring it down on the other side." * Heinrick turns to Herman and starts to say something, but stops beforehand as it's already been understood, nodding instead. * Togo rubs his forehead and winces. It would be possible that it is not vertical and Keiko could get past but it is best if we can all get through, yes. * Herman walks up to the barrier and runs a hand over it. He glances at Rose with mild surprise, but quickly turns his attention back to the task at hand. * Jamie reaches for a set of electronic minds that arn't there... [Xuan puts a palm on the barrier. She glances back at Herman.] * Herman is looking over the barrier and frowning. Frowning a lot. * Togo traces his hand along the barrier, trying to see how high/wide it extends. [Togo can find no end in his immediate vicinity.] * Luana looks over at Togo, then holds up her hand and tries to send a flicker of fire through the barrier. [That don't work.] * Luana nods to herself, then sends a flicker of fire in either direction to run along the barrier and try to get through. (My range is a kilometer.) (That's a lotta fire!) * Herman murmurs some words, and the whole barrier bursts green for a brief moment before fading. "You can't walk around this one. Or fly over it." But I can shut it down... I'm going to have to stay behind to do it, though. * Herman doesn't sound happy about that. Not at all. [Claude nods.] * Luana frowns and lets her tiny bits of fire disappear. * Togo nods, and pats Herman on the shoulder, grinning a bit. "Leave the fighting to us youngsters, old timer. We'll be back before you know it." * Herman shrugs Togo's hand off his shoulder as he reaches into his satchel for a glass rod. "Oh, get the fuck over yourself. Just because some people never bloody well grow up." He's grinning, though. This'll take a little time. You might want to stand back. * Luana steps backwards obediently. * Togo nods, and does so. "What can I say? Apocalypses make me feel young again." * Roseli takes a few steps back and watches. * Jamie follows Rose's lead. * Keiko snorts slightly and floats back. "Is it a spherical shield?" * Heinrick takes a couple steps back as well. * Luana murmurs, "Couldn't you just buy a fancy car like a normal person with an aging crisis?" * Herman mutters, "And they happen every bloody Sunday." He starts tracing runes on the barrier with the rod; despite it being invisible, he seems to know exactly where it is, and they glow a faint, fiery white when he finishes each one. "Yeah. Ain't got time to burrow under it anyway. Just give me a little room. Thing took a fucking powerful ritual. Can't just break the bloody thing instantly." (Keiko would like to do a trigonometry roll to figure out where the center is, and how far away it is.) (Ha!) (MATH!) * Togo tilts his head at Lu with a smirk. "Do you want me driving a car?" (It's perfectly valid.) * Luana blinks innocently at him. "I'll be happy to drive it for you. A -really- fast one." ["Better hurry," says Claude. "There's not much time left."] * Herman starts murmuring in an old language, and the same symbols appear around his feet as he does so. In a short time, he's traced what looks like two dozen symbols, and then he slams the rod into the center. Lines branch out, from his feet and on the barrier, into red symbols below the white ones; they rotate, align, and the entire barrier shines a brilliant white before it shatters like glass. Go! [Claude, Xuan and Masaru hurry through.] We'll see. Certainly have enough money saved up. *looks up* That's our cue. *starts running* * Roseli rushes through, because... well, she doesn't HAVE to rush, but this is a good time to rush anyway. * Heinrick makes his way quickly through as well. Go bandwagon. * Keiko floats after, picking up Jamie as she does. * Jamie tries not to trip! * Luana runs! In the correct direction, even. (I'm not letting you trip!) * Jamie doesn't get the chance! * Togo calls back to Herman. "Be right back, sweetie!" * Herman doesn't respond, as he's back to chanting. * Keiko moves along, along, along. * Jamie goes with Keiko because she has no choice o/~ d9 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Brett (d9) and gets a natural 9 for a result of 9. [Without warning, one of those yellowish flying demons from before swoops down at Masaru. And yet he almost effortlessly backhands it as it drops, sending it crashing into a nearby tree.] [Xuan looks at it. "Must be getting close now."] * Jamie nods. * Herman has quit IRC (Quit: Busy keeping things from getting worse. Save the world!) * Togo checks the ammo in the Jack of Winchester, scanning the sky as he runs. ( And I'm not entirely sure how much longer I can keep going. I've had a rough day. ) (Aw, what happened?) ( Let's just say I wouldn't mind going to bed early. ) [Funny Togo should do that, because he spots another one of the buggers, circling overhead.] * Roseli glances looks up to see the one Togo's looking at and aims up after making sure the blessed bullets are in. "On three," she tells him. * Heinrick doesn't have much in the way of demon kickers except acid. And he's running out of acid. * Togo blasts at it as he runs. * Jamie lost her anti-supernatural weaponry ages ago o/~ 2d8-3 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Togo (2d8-3) and gets a natural 4 for a result of 1. * Roseli mentally shrugs and shoots it as well while running. If that's the way you want to do it, really... 2d8-4 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Roseli (2d8-4) and gets a natural 12 for a result of 8. * Heinrick shrugs slightly and readies one of his vials into his hands. "Three?" [Between Rose and Togo, they manage to bring it down.] * Togo keeps moving, pushing another round into the breach on the side and cocking the lever. [And as you move forward, the trees thin out to a clearing. There, on top of a hill, you can see some sort of structure, though it's impossible to tell what, and you only know it is a structure due to the light coming from it. And in between you and it, the shadowy forms of hundreds of demons.] * Luana keeps running, fire in one hand and a pistol in the other. [Xuan frowns. "That's.... a lot more than I expected."] * Togo slows a bit. "... it's times like these that I wish I still had the Ace." (Where's an orbital laser satilite when you need one?) * Roseli snorts. "All times," she says, dropping her flashlight to reach into her jacket and ready an explosive. [Xuan nods to Masaru. "You ready for this?" He nods.] * Keiko looks them over and sighs faintly. "We don't have time to manage this many." * Jamie checks for the third time or so that the safty and such are off on the machine pistol she got from Togo. [Then she looks at you guys. "No, we don't. So we'll cut you a path. I'm relying on you to stop my-... To stop Mitsuji."] [Claud nods, pulling out a pistol. A DE, from the looks of it. "I've got your back."] * Togo pulls a couple of bandoliers of grenades out his coat, and holds them out to Claude and the gang. [Claude takes them. "Thanks."] Don't die and I'll call it even. [Xuan readies her naginata. "On three."] * Luana takes a deep breath and bounces a bit, wearing a determined expression. * Togo swaps out for his machine gun. ["One, two... three!" She darts towards the structure, slashing at demons as she goes. Masaru follows behind, delivering a flying jump kick to one demon, strong enough to knock it back into the one behind it, and the one behind that. Claude hangs back and fires methodically, apparently scoring a head shot each time.] * Roseli waits a few seconds, then waves for the others to follow her and runs through the path the Interpol agents + 1 are clearing, firing at the occasional demon that gets too close. * Togo runs at the head of the pack, pouring fire from his machine gun into both sides of the path to keep it clear. * Luana follows after Rose, fire wrapped around her hands in case anything gets close. * Keiko isn't attacking anything that isn't directly on them. Her eyes and senses are forward. d6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Brett (d6) and gets a natural 5 for a result of 5. [A random blast of fire hits Rose! Apparently doing nothing.] * Heinrick isn't as well, but he does have some explosive vials between his fingers just in case. * Jamie floats along with Keiko! [Xuan winds up protecting the front left flank while Masaru takes the front right. Claude keeps anything from getting too close to the rear.] * Roseli ignores it, looks in that direction, and fires at whatever it was that fired at her. See how they like it. 2d8-4 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Roseli (2d8-4) and gets a natural 15 for a result of 11. (Aw.) (With the number of demons out there, she probably hit _something_) [Rose manages to miss every single demon! XD] (I just missed one, you dork. :P) (Or not!) [Or maybe she hit something, but it's so dark there's no way to tell.] * Roseli lets out a sigh through her nose, reaches into her coat, and pulls out some nightvision goggles which she drags over her eyes as she runs. [Eventually you finally reach the building, to find out it's a convent. An old one, apparently. It's fallen into disrepair and was no doubt abandoned until recently, but you can clearly see Jesus on the big double doors.] [Xuan and Masaru herd you to them, then gather at your backs. "We'll keep them outside! You get in there and stop the ritual!"] ( Stupid more popular gods with real followers.) * Roseli glances at the wisp, which goes through the doors, and yells, "Heinrick!" as she rushes for the doors to help force one of them open. [Big surprise, they're locked.] * Heinrick switches to the doors quickly and takes out the acid to melt the lock. But he's running low. [Luckily it's not a very complicated lock, either. In fact it looks like one of those old, huge ones that you'd use a giant two-pronged key to open. It melts quickly] * Togo swaps out for a new ammo drum and pours more fire into the advancing demon horde while Heinrick does his thing. [Thems lotsa demons. Still, Xuan and Masaru seem to be handling things well enough on their own.] * Heinrick slams against the door with his shoulder once the lock breaks because I think the demon fight is loud enough that subtlety isn't really needed. [With Claude sniping from somewhere. With a pistol] [The door bursts inward, revealing....!] [End]