Feb 17 15:10:40 109 PA - Mages Are Kind of Useless

From Chronicles

Feb 17 15:10:40 109 PA.

BERNARD'S APARTMENT

The apartment is fairly empty, all things considered. A couple pieces of secondhand furniture, including a couch. An inflatable air mattress for a bed, and very little in the way of decoration. The place is kept clean, however. Bernard is sitting on the couch, his flintlock in his lap, and he is currently reading a faded old book.

Gabriel arrives at Bernard's door in concealed form. Industrial lunchbox in one hand, he raises the other to wearily tap the door. Three knocks, no less, no more. Well, a fourth one, louder, just to be safe.

Bernard slips from his seat, the book tucked away into his pouch and the flintlock taken up as he moves towards the door, taking a moment to peak through the peep hole, "Who is it?" he asks, looking over the odd fellow on the other side.

"Name's Marek," comes the word with a bit of a southwestern accent. "Comin' off shift, gotta find a guy named, ah.. Bernard. Guy with a funny drawl says he wants to talk to you. Nice guy, carries a funny pistol. Kinda sticks his nose inna stuff. Wanted to ask something, but I guess he's not around. Kinda guy who could be standing right in front of you waitin' for the door to open. Gabbey, somethin' like that."

Bernard's hand dips back into his pocket on the other side of the door and pulls out his neuro-mace. "Yeah, just a second. Let me get dressed." He says before stepping back. It's only a couple moments later that Bernard's head pokes through the wall several feet down, peaking left and right before he steps through, with the two weapons in hand, "Go ahead and open the door, step inside, and don't try anything too stupid." He says rather simply.

"Oh man, I'm just comin' off shift. Not causin' trouble." Marek opens the door, steps inside, but doesn't close it behind him. Never know exactly what 'stupid' might be considered. "Yeah, okay?"

Bernard follows you into the apartment, pushing the door shut behind him with his foot, "Your supposed friend and I were never on house visiting terms, and I haven't heard anything about getting any visitors, or a fellow named Marek." He says, "So how about you start talking and I'll start listening, yeah?"

When the door closes and clicks, Marek stands up. Not tall, but by the way he carries himself, Gabriel appears. Sure, his face is still wrong, but his gait is right, his stance is secure with itself. Even his Kentucky drawl comes back. "Hey, Bernard. Sorry, took me a while to track you down and I didn't have any way of contacting you." He circles his face with a finger and points to the tags on his overalls. "Got a lot of dangerous people who'd like to see me dead, so I've had to disappear for a little while. How's it going?"

Bernard slips the mace back into his pouch, his pistol into his belt, "And why's it that you have a lot of people out to kill you, huh?" he asks, reachin to lock the front door before moving deeper into the apartment.

Gabriel smiles, even if the face is wrong. "Because there are people with a lot to lose, and I've dedicated months to making sure that they lose it. I had my last inside man make a sweep. Had to come after the meeting, unfortunately, but at least it's done. Some good but very bad information, if you know what I mean. So - I want to screen it with someone, and believe it or not, you seem to be the best option. I don't trust Sebastien to not just whine. Or Monique and her bear to do much else other than brag about how tough he is, except that he can't do anything. Tek's just a tech. As for Bart, he just seems to make money by carrying shit around." He offers a shrug. "So, whaddya say, wanna take a look? You being a mage and soldier in one bundle?"

Bernard shrugs his shoulders at that then and makes his way over towards the couch, settlin down onto it, "Sure, I'll take a look at it, I may have some ideas about it." he adds, "So let's hear the 'good news', eh?" he says, offering a bit of a smirk your way.

Gabriel looks around for a chair, perhaps settling on the couch if there's nothing else. "Not much to see, actually, just to hear. The good part is that the area on the main floor behind the vault should be open and clear. No zombies or anything waiting to scratch. The girls in the little dorm seem to be in 'good spirits' -" he air-quotes that one "- so hopefully they'll be wise enough to just stay out of the way. The walls, the floor, all armor plate as far as we can determine." Whoever 'we' is, he leaves unsaid. There's clearly more, but as is his style, he doesn't try to shove more information down Bernard's throat more is than necessary, as there' ample time to discuss it.

Bernard gives a faint nod at that and shrugs his shoulders ever so slightly, "They should be easier to deal with if they cause any trouble then zombies would anyway." He says at that, "And I think we suspected it was armored, yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah, but it made sense to check. If nothing else, would've been bad for them to shoot the floor out from under us. Anyway." Gabriel takes a deep breath. "There's nothing to see really, unless you've forgotten the map." A map that he provides anyway, handing a folded copy across to his host. "The bad parts come two-fold. First, the staircase is so small that the fighting front is going to be one man at a time. Once you're down, the basement only has an eight-foot ceiling. That may or may not be good. At any rate, it's a serious choke point, and I'm trying to figure out the best order to send people down. Maybe just blow the staircase and drop. So, my question. How would you do it? The best I have so far is that the polar bear goes first. Big, bulky, fast and scary to clear out anyone blocking the stairs. Then... you. Freeze time, hold people in place. After that?" He shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe even that's wrong. Hitting a bunker like this is something that I've done, but not against vampires and zombies."

"They wouldn't want a soft ceiling, because they don't want someone shining sunshine down on them," Bernard notes, "And, I don't really know the capabilities of everyone involved, so your opinions on the order are better then any suggestions I might have. How do the vampires get out of their holes?" he asks curiously.

Gabriel taps the map. "It looks exactly like a morgue. If you've ever seen a morgue to know what it looks like?" He cocks his head to the side, then explains, "Basically square metal hatches, two-foot on a side, hinges, swings open. In a normal morgue, there's a tray that pulls out with a dead body on the slab. Here? I don't know if there's a tray, but at least from the outside, they look identical." Again though, he asks, "Consider the bear as a dozer there to break open a front. Figured you'd be next because you can freeze things, put up time walls, whatever - I want to talk about that later, too - toss down one of the regular soldiers, then Sebastien and Monique so that they're on hand to fight things coming out of the walls. Another foot soldier, then me and Bart to hit what we can." He shakes is head. "It's rough having to go down spiral stairs like a snake."

"I'm wondering if it may be possible to just lock their doors on them. I may be able to do that if I can find out which doors they're sleeping behind. The more energy I can siphon off before we start the more I'll be able to accomplish, though. With enough, I could get down quicker to at least speed things up by one man at least." He shrugs a little.

"I was hoping someone could do that," Gabriel says with hope. "There's only the four doors, and four vampires. No guesswork involved unless it's all an incredible ruse. How would you stop them? One of those time bubbles?"

"Well, I could just keep the doors from opening for anybody but me. They may still be able to mist out, but I suspect they'll have to leave any armor behind if they do. Best case is they won't be able to mist out, however. Though if we can surprise them that may be something that could be dealt with as well."

Gabriel's eyes go wide at the thought of genuinely being able to shut the doors. "This is purely theoretical, but I'd think that they'd keep them completely sealed so that people like us couldn't just bring in a big hose, floor the basement and kill 'em. You could do that for four of them, maybe still have something left in you to freeze a few zombies? If you can do that, maybe Sebastien should go down before you, to give them something else to shoot out, as you may have just become the most important person in the room."

"I would need to do them one at a time. But yes, I could do all four of them. I may not be able to freeze the zombies afterward, it depends on the energy reserves I can draw upon. It also depends on them not having an alternate escape route either." Bernard says at that, "And I could probably just bypass the zombies completely." He adds.

Gabriel's head nods slightly. "Like I said at the meeting, I'll tell people what to do, but not how to do it. So two questions. First, what would you need to support you to get to those doors? Second, if these doors can only open for you, would that mean that you could pop them open at your leisure, peek inside, then shut it again if it was done fast enough?" He holds up a hand. "My reasoning is that Donna is the only real target in this whole soiree. She goes down, the thing starts to fall part, making it easier on the rest of us."

"If the doors were locked, no, if they were unlocked, yes." Bernard answers rather simply. "And they could still be broken down, so it would only buy us so much time as well. But it's something."

"Right. It's my understanding that if a vampire wants to get through something, it's going to claw through it. But at least it would be a delay," Gabriel allows happily. "Tell me this, if you're going in after the bear, so that you can shut those doors - what and who do you want backing you up? You can't watch your own back, unless you can create a separate head to stick through the wall." He grins and yanks a thumb in the direction of the apartment's door. "Nice trick, by the way."

"Well, I don't know the spell, but somebody with my skills can summon a me from an alternate dimension for a little while." Bernard says with a smirk. "And If I were to go in I'd go through the walls and be invisible and such." He says, "I'd just need you guys down rather quickly as a distraction."

"You'd sink through the floor, invisibly?" Gabriel asks quickly.

Bernard nods at that, "More or less, yes." He says, "It'd take me a little bit to get down, but not too long. How far down is the basement, your typical basement depth?"

"Don't know exactly, just that the ceiling down there's only eight-feet high, like I said before." Gabriel taps the map again, this time near the staircase. "I'm wondering about blowing the stairs, then just having everyone drop in. Not going to hurt yourself dropping that distance. But, it would obviously be one big giant announcement of our presence."

"If it's only an 8 foot drop you wouldn't, no. If it's deeper you might. And you've also just cut your escape route too." Bernard adds at that, "But if you don't plan on needin to get out at all that's fine."

Gabriel smiles. "Yeah, I thought of that. The escape route, part. The way I look at it, it's twofold. It's largely all or nothing for those of us who can't walk through walls. If it came time to retreat, all of us trying to retreat up a staircase that small would mean that we're probably die anyway. When we win, I still have the two guards and a technician up there to call for a ladder, plus, I'm sure that a bunch of strong people such as ourselves could simply give a leg up and push-pull through the exit." He grins, grimly. "When Columbus landed in the New World on his second trip, to look for gold and riches, he set fire to his ships - thus, his troops were highly motivated."

"Indeed. If that's your choice of command philosophy, I'll be sure to hold back to make sure I can take care of myself then." Bernard notes at that, "But like I said, your choice there."

The man frowns. "Not exactly command philosophy, just morbid humor. No one's going to be escaping back up that staircase without someone laying down fire. When it comes to vampires and zombies, where covering fire has to be very hard and specific? I just don't think it's realistic. Still, that's what I came here to talk to you about. Send in the bear to let him charge in like a fullback? You get to zip down and start doing your thing while Sebastien, then one of my hires, then perhaps myself comes down after, followed by Monique and Bart, then the last of the remaining soldiers? Possibly working. Thing is to start putting up those walls and freezing people, one way or another so it cuts down the odds."

"Don't expect multiple walls. It's something that's quite taxing, you'll probably only have one, for less then a minute and only effecting a small area. And that's a best case scenario. If I'm goin to try to lock doors on the vampires you may not get one at all, depending." Bernard says. "Especially havin to concern myself with my own escape route possibly."

"I didn't mean to put it all on you, Bernard. I meant others putting up walls, and not literal ones. Sebastien with swords blazing. Tornaq doing polar bear stuff. Monique with whatever the hell it is that she does." Gabriel shrugs. "If I can get a clean shot at anything, putting in my two cents. Incidentally, I've done a little outfitting of my own. Look like a cheap sci-fi robot, but if I point the right place, it will in theory really hurt the vampire bastards. But between all of us - Monique's globe, your locks, my lights, Bart's lamps... I think we can do it. But... I guess unless you've got more to add on the order of things, I'll just leave you to contemplate what you'll want backing you up, and be on my way."

"Well, I don't think any of you will be able to move in and back me up. If things go poorly I'll just wink out for a minute or two and hope you guys have held out that long. The best backup will just be you guys coming down the stairs quickly." Bernard says with a smirk, "Maybe have Monique ride her bear down to speed things up?"

Gabriel chuckles. "Fucking bear. I'll tell you where it'd look good - stuffed, and either in a corner somewhere, as a blanket or over a fireplace. People are always quite ready to be tough when they have a five-hundred pound magical beast on their side," he says with a grimace. Points to the map that he'd retrieved and leaves it out for Bernard to keep, then starts to rise, fading slowly into Marek. "Maybe if you can give me a communications frequency, I won't have to hit up every contact in town to find out where you are again, Bernard." He smiles at that. Of course, perhaps he'd prefer a telephone with a cranking mechanism.

"Don't use radios." Bernard says in response to that, shrugging his shoulders slightly, "Just make you easy to get ahold of. Have a good one though."

Gabriel accepts that, as it's true. Then he finishes his fading, and disappears into the hallway. Perhaps not entirely happy with what he was looking for, but maybe with something new to look forward to that he didn't know. *Click* goes the latch behind him.