Jan 12 108 PA - Dumpster diving is dangerous
From Chronicles
Johnson strides towards the dregs, Isabeau in tow. He's wrapped in his usual armor, svelte yet overengineered, while she's apparently in street clothing -- a slimline body suit hiding underneath her winter jacket. The new moon yields only a tiny slice of light that peeks around light grey clouds, hardened snow and frost a cool white blanket that makes this part of the dregs seem almost clean. "There," Johnson speaks, waving at the wall beyond them, and he leads Isabeau down the road towards the entrance. "When inside, keep mind open. Be ready. Maybe they show early. Maybe they wait for you make move. I protect us. You sensor. Use my energy for spells. Keep reserves."
Following after Johnson, Isabeau is dressed differently than what she normally is. Yet this difference is mainly attributed to the fact that she's actually wearing armor. And that her long hair has been caught at the nape of her neck, twined into a braid. She tilts her head slightly to one side at his words, and then she gives a small nod. "I will do my best," she says quietly. She's a little nervous, but she hasn't been drinking at all, so she's of sound mind.
The couple(?) make their way into the junkyard find a vast yard of junk. Nothing unexpected so far. Doesn't last long though as it looks to be much more inhabited then may have been surmised. There are several well traveled paths through the piles of junk and armed and armored gangers walking them a random intervals. Upon spotting the pair one approaches, demanding five hundred credits to let them continue, on their current path which doesnt happen to lead into the more crowded section. Indeed, Isabeau's sense of supernatural evil is leading her in the right direction. She may hope its the right form of which.
"Wait," Johnson speaks, grabbing Isabeau's shoulder. "You sense them, yes?" He narrows his eyes and looks, peering out for invisible beings or magical auras, before ducking his head to feel for magic in use. "How far? Over there? Real close, not close?" That armored head peers at the redhead, and he brushes a hand across her shoulder. The cold doesn't sting quite so much after, but otherwise not much seems to change.
Isabeau blinks a little at the unexpected grab of her shoulder, and her blue-eyed gaze turns to him to study him briefly. "I sense something, whether it is what we seek or not is hard to say," she says softly, her tone holding a thoughtful cast to it. "Give me a moment, please," she requests, one of her eyebrows quirking upwards slightly. She doesn't pay much attention to the cold, turning it instead towards what she can sense beyond.
What is sensed is still atleast two hundred feet ahead among disorganized junk. After less than fifty feet the path veers from there abruptly, although it looks like it may have gone that way one time before. No other paths seem to currently lead to where the evil resides.
Johnson stays close, eyes up, watching their surroundings. "More people than thought," he muses, though that awful translator. "Some truce with things here. Thought it no-man land. Many man land. May not get money worth." He stops to take a quick 360 look around, waiting for Isabeau's report.
Isabeau raises an eyebrow slightly and looks to Johnson, in part wondering what he means for the butchery of the translator. "Sometimes it happens. But, we will not be going towards them. We go that way, about two hundred feet or so," she says softly, lifting her right hand to point in the direction the evil lives. "We should offer some deal to them... if we convince the entities to move on, they should pay us something," she muses, wrinkling her nose slightly.
Johnson looks up the pile, where the path doesn't see to go much any more, and he utters, "Think they pay? Seem to have truce. No need. See blast marks, see sign of struggle? Seem clean. But we look, see what there." He takes a few steps forward, climbing the mound, and peers back over his shoulder, bidding, "Stay back. Maybe halfway up hill. Where can help, but out of sight." And then he simply disappears. One moment he's gone, and the next? Like the cheshire cat. She could have blinked, but she didn't. There's a vague sense of motion moving up the mound, small things shifting, and then even that disappears as Johnson more carefully chooses his footing to take a look.
Isabeau chuckles softly, and then she lightly shakes her head. "Of course I don't think they would. I don't think they particularly care to part with their coin," she comments, her tone holding a thoughtful cast to it. Lifting her right hand, she pushes a stray bit of hair from her face, tucking it behind one of her ears. She gives a nod to Johnson's words, even though she doesn't see him after he's vanished, and she walks to that point half way up the hill before stopping there. Near, but not too near, and she looks for a spot that would give her some bit of cover. Against... well, hopefully anything that could threaten. Over the next pile of junk is more piles of junk. No structure apparently different than the rest of the junkyard. All that can be detected is Isabeaus' sense of supernatural evil and that type of suspense you get in a horror movie when you know someone's about to die. That or paranoia..
The night is quiet. A little too quiet. Johnson's tracks aren't easy to see, but they're certainly not invisible. The light dusting of snow up the hillside is scuffed most recently by his passage, and his speaker adds in monotone, "Advance to top of hill. Just follow. You sense me like sense them?" The small scuffs in snow and frost continue down the rise, hard to notice unless you're looking at them. Johnson doesn't watch horror movies, and if he did he might not make the connection. He's the token black guy. Quiet isn't necessarily bad, but too quiet is, and Isabeau nearly starts to fidget more than once only to rather intentionally place her hands at her sides to prevent it from being done. She gives a small nod to the words spoken, then quirks a smile. "Yes. I sense you as I do them. That you are evil has not changed so much that I do not," she comments, keeping her voice down. She follows after him, to the top of the hill. She doesn't bother looking for his footsteps, instead keeping her attention on the sense of evil that isn't Johnson.
Johnson crouches at the bottom of the pile, looking around without success. He's suddenly visible then, at the bottom of the hill, to wonder, "Where sense? I see no hidden, no magic, no heat. Seem empty. Big waste." He raises a hand, reaching out to Isa to come down to his side, and wonders, "Maybe try sense for them? Open self?"
In Johnson's head a familiar yet distorted voice asks: "Will you kill her like you did your sister? Perhaps you brought her to us as an offering?"' The redheaded woman tilts her head slightly to one side, studying the sense of what she feels, attempting to get a better location for it. Her blue eyes half close, and she gives a small nod. "I will try," she says quietly. Her concentration turns within, to open herself to the supernatural, and she can only hope that things'll not go all awry by her doing so. The fingers of her left hand slightly spread, her hand lifted a little from her side.
Johnson's head snaps to the right, and he growls something in Draconic. His translator picks that up real well. Tone, tenor, tempo. It's almost like he has a second mouth in his chest. Shame it doesn't do so well in American. He spins in place, growling something louder, and then jogs towards Isabeau, throwing up a shield around them both.
For her part, Isabeau is likely aware of what Johnson does on some level, but she holds her attention to what she does. It never lasts for very long, unfortunately, but hopefully it will last for long enough. A distant cast creeps into her blue eyes, what of them can be seen for that she has them half closed, and though she hears the words he says, she offers nothing in the way of reply or response to them. Her focus needs to be, and remains, on what she does.
The voice cackles in Johnson's head, "You wouldnt leave her out of it, why should we? Oh look, the 'god' is scared and cowering. That didnt take nearly as much as the others thought it would."
A hundred feet ahead the junk piles shift and stir ominously.
Johnson stands over the redhead protectively, head on the swivel as he looks about for the source of the voice. When the junk piles begin to shift the armored head ducks, and his right hand raises to point at the source. "Things less quiet, Mouse. Say what see." He taps at his left arm and his chest piece buzzes, apparently not quite understanding what he says.
Isabeau tilts her head faintly to one side, noticing what might pass by the senses of another, and a hint of a smile touches at the corners of her lips. "They are within the piles. Where they move, it is one, and there is another laying still a little closer in another pile," she says quietly. Blinking a little, she holds her attention to the shifting piles. She doesn't seem to mind being called Mouse by him, interestingly enough. But she's used to it.
The shifting coalesces into a mass metal in humanoid form as Isabeau breifly fortold. With a lumbering gait it shifts and ponderously walks towards the errected field.
"You talk them?" Johnson wonders, in his broken American. He lifts his arm and watches the moving pile, and then tries to gauge the closer pile, pointing. "That one?" Before he drops the arm and just looks up, at the lumbering giant. "Please say talk them," he utters, stepping closer to the edge of the field. Johnson stares up at the hulking giant, waving slowly.
Isabeau gives a soft chuckle to his question, and she gives a small nod. "I can but try. It is up to them if they will listen and respond in kind, or if they will come to try to kill us instead," she says softly, tilting her head slightly to one side. Her attention turns to the humanoid form which starts to come towards them, and one of her eyebrows quirks slightly. Her focus shifts, and she loses the trance, which she doesn't mind, and turns her attention instead towards communing with the spirits. It's the best chance that she -- and Johnson -- likely have to actually communicate with them.
Is it too late for that? Maybe not, but that doesnt necessarily mean the approaching entity will change its plans either. No with a mighty crash its fist rains down on the shield very solidly. Also now that its this close its easy to notice itws composition is almost entirel old sets of armor. A myriad of ganger symbols decorate the colage of defeated combatants.
Johnson peers up at the accumulation of trash, ducking faintly at the blow before he sees the shield hold. "Take your time," his armor speaks in American, voice as flat and unattenuated as always. He tentatively straightens to utter in much more fluent Dragonese, "We're here to talk. Call him off."
Isabeau gives a glance up towards the impact on the energy field, then returns her attention to the creature itself. "There is no time, and there is reasoning with it. It's evil is the sort that cannot be reasoned with... and it laughs in the face of even the invitation. The pain and suffering it causes, they cause, they likely enjoy," she says quietly, a flicker reflecting in her blue eyes. "There is no calling off such a creature," she ventures, her attention turning to Johnson.
Indeed the creature raises its arm and hits again, showing no interest in parleying with the mortals. 'Talk all you like. You have until your screams make talking prohibitive to make us interested.' One of the entiies mentally conveys to Johnson.
Johnson ducks again, as the armor-bound 'fist' comes crashing into his shield. His own armor's translator buzzes softly as it fails to quite catch what he's saying, and Johnson says, "Another there, can talk. I trap one. You have other tricks?" He points his hand at the creature and then lowers it to point at the earth beneath the entity, trying something that probably won't work.
The attempt to communicate is let to fade away, since the entities have no interest in doing such a mortal thing as that. Isabeau tilts her head faintly to one side, studying the armored creatures, and her brow furrows. "None of them are interested in talking, they all laughed in the face of it even being offered," she points out, raising an eyebrow slightly and looking to Johnson. Her attention returns to the entities, but mostly the one attacking, and she frowns slightly before giving a nod. "Other tricks, I have. But if it is successful, then the entities would be banished," she says.
Another blow to the weakening sheild is made. The construct shows no notice or care of the adhesive spell. But the other does rise from its pile to turn towards the unfolding situation.
Johnson ducks again, deeper this time, hands flying up over his head at the sheer mass of steel and composites crashing down above. The energy shield above them flickers out entirely, and he turns towards Isabeau, head swiveling as if to say something else. Then, as a marionette with his strings cut, Johnson collapses before her into a ragged pile.
Moving quick, Isabeau crosses to the downed Johnson, lowering to a knee next to him. She doesn't touch him, but she does erect a new energy field to cover them both and give them protection from the entities, at least for the time being. She lacks the preparation for an exorcism, and the junk heap isn't a living thing, it wouldn't help anyway. Thinking over the options, there really aren't many available. So she uses one of the few that are, casting shadowmeld on herself while knowing that Johnson can use it for himself even though he's paralyzed. The object being to get as far from the entities and as close to the exit of the yard as possible.
Johnson's body simply vanishes as well, into the night. Which is less impressive when one considers there's still a bubble there, over the tops of them. Perhaps it was a teleport!
The construct pauses momentarily as the victims disolve into the night. But as the shield remains bringing it down does seem the prudent thing to do regardless. Nearly thirty seconds pass before the hulk manages to pummel the field down. It doesnt look convinced the prey has truly moved on. No the frustration and anger coming off of Johnson is far too strong for that. Not to mention the fear and depression from his partner. But still, they cannot be seen. Blindly it swings into the darkness as the other hulk circles around the adhesive area.
Though the redheaded woman is a little afraid of just what the entities can do, she does what she can to keep her emotions under control. She's concerned about Johnson, but not to the point of being too worried since she knows he's resilient. Looking to a point somewhat distant to where they are, a hint of a smile touches at the corners of her lips. It might work. It might. It's worth a shot, at least. She casts another energy field, at that distant point, to have it appear there. A fake to draw their attention, and hopefully good enough.
The other entity turns to take in the field, delaying it a bit further but continues towards the first in the end. The first entity makes another blind swipe, clearly hitting nothing but junk last time.
With the entities keeping their attention on the shields, Isabeau brings her own attention back to Johnson. The options are few, but at least there are some other than simply waiting. So, the redheaded woman looks briefly towards the entities, then back to her companion, and she casts levitation on him before reaching out to take hold of him. If she can drag him out of the junk yard, then they will have regained safety. If. It's what she tries to do, at least, and with as much haste as possible.
Johnson is so much dead weight! Maybe he's even dead? But no, his PPE is still there. Waiting. Willing. Available. Something inside that armor must be alive, but as he's dragged out it's a little hard to believe.
