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Post by Faustus on Apr 27, 2014 19:19:14 GMT
~The Slums of Bancur~  |
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Post by Faustus on Apr 27, 2014 20:26:11 GMT
One man stalked through the streets of Bancur unquestioned and unhindered. There were many there. Many that knew he did not belong, many that even had a direct responsibility to stop this man's invasive presence, but none moved. Bancur was a lawless townette, somewhere to the far south of Telaris. No government, prostituiton rings, murder, extortion, fear. It was a town of hardened criminals, where the dogs on top called the shots. If you weren't on top, there was no middle, you were on the bottom. It was also home to a notorious gang of bandits calling themselves Le Asesinos; The Murderers. They forced the people to pay them to continue living there in exchange for their protection. Sounds fair, right? Well you might rethink that when you hear that they also do whatever the hell they damned well please. They had this nasty habit of busting into homes and raping mens wives, and beating the children just for the hell of it. They extorted the people. Whatever money they made, they took three fourths. Anything less, and you were beaten or killed. Cowards, the lot of 'em. Jericho didn't like cowards. In his right hand were five ropes. Connected to those ropes were five bodies that he dragged behind him, all of them dead and twisted. A simple sign made of paper and drawn in red ink told the world what they were. EXAMPLESJericho stopped when he was in the heart of it all. He was surrounded by corpses -those of the thugs no doubt- and the town had stood by as they watched him lay the bandits to waste. Probably the reason no one dared question the man who had single handedly just ended a thirty-year long ass-holing streak. Whatever his purpose for being there, it wasn't just to cleanse the world of the bandits. He removed a knife from some hidden compartment on his overalls, its blade glinting and gleaming off of the sunlight. He pressed the tip against his opposite palm, carving into his flesh. The town watched in confused horror. He carved deeper, and more intricate, unreadable markings. By the end of it, no one could even make out the scripture he was writing, just a disgusting red mass of caked blood. He bent low at the knees, and placed his hand to the ground, his wound transferring in a sudden apparition of sigils and unreadable words from some ancient language. When he brought his hand back up, the wounds that would have made his hand useless were gone, and his hand completely fine. A mist began to seep from jericho's body, engulfing the immediate area, and continued to expand quickly, obscuring, but not fully hiding him from sight, and continued to grow at a quick, steady pace.
Spell Craft: Jericho summoned via spell architecture a haze of thick mist to begin engulfing the area. As of now, the mist is 12 feet in all directions with Jericho at the center.
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Post by Osrybb on Apr 27, 2014 21:20:35 GMT
Viktaal had only heard the occasional story about these kinds of places, so he found a slight hint of amusement within himself for finding his way into one of them. The first few seconds of his looking around were spent forcing himself to accept that he was here. He didn't like it. His dulled sense of hearing meant that he was oblivious to the murmurs of the goings on deeper within the streets. His peripheral vision meant that he saw the conversations, the hushed whispers, and the occasional thinking aloud, however his gaze never once met any of the inhabitants of this obviously neglected environment. If any were watching him and judging his presence there, he didn't care enough to note it. The air of Bancur made him more suspicious of anything and everything, but on the surface he kept a composed demeanor. It was a flawless poker face complete with body language that gave no hints of his mental processing of everything. Viktaal may not have often verbalized his outlook on things, but he had an apathetic outlook at his core towards the condition Bancur was in. He knew not everything could be as nice as he would like it to be, and when something was how he didn't want it to be, he automatically developed a cold shoulder to it so long as he himself couldn't change it. He had a sense that he himself wouldn't change how Bancur would be, so he already noticed his loss of care about the condition. Something in the back of his head seemed to praise him for it. He smiled lightly despite his discomfort. Being that he was already uncomfortable with the environment, he raised his weapon, he called it "Manducare", from its previous position by his side loosely so that it would rest across his shoulders. It looked like it was just a relaxed position to hold the weapon, however it was also a ready stance of sorts. He wouldn't allow himself to be caught off-guard. When he stumbled across the very outer edge of the mist that was spreading, he muttered a quick word in Latin under his tongue. "Initium." For any who knew Latin, it was the word that, very roughly, translated to "Start", or, "Initiate". No changes were apparent, as if he merely said it to say it, however he seemed to ease only slightly after saying it. He already knew that mists like this were not natural occurrences, so if he wasn't already guarded enough, he was definitely more guarded now. His index finger of his right hand, the hand that was holding the handle of his gunblade, stretched up to rest by the trigger in anticipation. Slowly, now, he progressed further into the mist. His curiosity led him to do this despite his better judgement.
{Spoiler}
Initium: Viktaal used the verbal command to activate the arm band's magical property that hardens the carbon within his body, making his skin harder.Initium: Viktaal used the verbal command to activate the arm band's magical property that hardens the carbon within his body, making his skin harder. |
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Post by Faustus on Apr 28, 2014 23:35:56 GMT
There was a reason Jericho evoked a swath of mist from his person. Two, to be exact. Firstly, when you walk around a town carrying around dead bodies, it's hard to get any privacy. Secondly, via mental disturbance, he could feel anyone enter it, and he wasn't entirely sure he had cleaned up the hub of the outlaw problem. Not to mention the fact that what he now occupied his time with was something most would vomit at, and he was a decent enough guy to obscure his work from sight. He put his knife to work on one of the corpses, cutting his armor off with with with a quick pull, and and an almost effortless clice down the center. From there, it was something akin to surgery. A careful incision in the solar plexis', and then carefully down the symmetry of the front of his body, revealing all of the gooey insides. Jericho's face became a grimmace. "Well shit," he said more to himself than anyone else. "Every damn organ in this pig is pretty damn useless." He cleaned up his work, and huddled quickly, the mist expanding farther out, now seeping through the wooden cracks, and breaks in cementation in the homes on either side of the wide dirt street. As it expanded enough to start engulfing the townsfolk everything erupted into a panic. They scattered like a bunch a' roaches. Some jumped through windows to escape, some just hit the deck. But Jericho felt something. Not movement against his mist in a hurried stupor, but someone walking with a steady pace. Someone who wasn't afraid, and coming nearer. First assumption it was a cocky ass bandit out to avenge his dead brother or sumsuch nonsense. He switched to the offensive. Jericho's hand -the one he mutilated earlier- shot out at his side. He usually wouldn't go for flashy antics like that, but with his mist becoming ever more dense, especially with the closer anyone got to him within it, it wouldn't matter how telegraphed it was. A light, burning and bright pulsed from his palm like a heartbeat. To quotidian senses, it would seem something like a smothered flashbang, though for those many whom employed sight-beyond-sight, among the many implications of preturnatural sight, it would be a flashbang and then some. But the passive attack did not relent there. With a flex of the hand, and mental impulse, the suffusion of that majesty applied to the other senses as well. While Jericho left his opponent to deal with his incredibly simple, yet brilliant quarry of attack, he changed his pace from offensive to evasive. With a powerful push off of the earth, his giant-like leg muscles flexed and vaulted him upward. First five feet, then ten, peaking at a whopping fifteen, until he landed on the edge of the roof of one of the shoddy houses. He reached into his pocket again, withdrawing seven small, pocket-knife sized blades, and launched them down with a force so powerful and supernatural it seemed the kickback fluttered Jericho a foot or so into the air. Five of the seven landed blade first into the earth, buried to their hilts, forming a peculiar shape, one that can not be described by anyone from the material plane. The other two were not seen, but they were surely heard. The sound of armor being pierced, and flesh sundered violently echoed throughout the quiet town block, followed by the faint sound of crackling electricity. Jericho watched, and more so felt the mans reaction from his perch, which granted him a birds-eye-view.
Mist[1]: Mist now covers approximately 20 feet in all directions.
Metaphysical flash + Synesthesia for sense overload. primarily sight and touch. The overload can temporarily blind, and can stimulate the illusion of physical pain via overloading the sensation of touch. Any damage is slight, and non-permanent.
Spell Craft
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Post by Osrybb on Apr 29, 2014 0:16:08 GMT
Viktaal did not enjoy a single second of the dulling of further senses. It was bad enough his hearing was already impaired. The mist that he traversed in made him slightly more disgusted than he was apathetic. He wanted to be rid of this mist, and to do so, he knew he'd have to figure out the mist's source. That could be a problem, his mind warned him. He agreed with himself. When was anything easy? And then nearly all of his senses were attacked. The first thing he did was shift his body so he spun lightly as he ducked down. He knew nothing of his attacker's position, due to the mist and attack on his senses, so his first decision was to duck in case an attack would strike at anything from his diaphragm-up. He spun so that the momentum of the spin, plus a little bit of inertia, would mean that the gunblade, that was previously resting across his shoulders, would fall into a position that was more ready to fire at an average-sized human's torso, but he didn't pull the trigger. His index finger was getting antsy, but he didn't want to give himself away if he was still hidden any. He needed more knowledge. When he heard the blades impale into the ground and armor, and the charge of electricity, Viktaal frowned. It tugged at him that there would be no peaceful resolution to whatever this conflict was. That bothered him. You want to debate morality now? His mind chided. Once again, he found that he couldn't argue the logic. But he wouldn't be opposed to peacefully resolving it. Deciding not to waste any time, he begins to concentrate as he looked around and his senses slowly recovered. He tried to get a closer look at the blades before the mist got too dense to see them clearly. He needed to know the angle they were thrown down at. When he did recover enough to see just how they had impaled into their targets, he sighed. I need to be quicker.He turned his head to where the daggers should, by any indication of the way they had stabbed into their locations, have been flung from. He didn't like this one bit. There was no way of being sure. He slowly readied his feet for a pivot. You're taking too long.He needed to be quick. So, quick he was. His next movement was a sudden, explosive one at that. In one deft movement, he allowed his body to spin from the pivot and he swung his gunblade in a backhanded, blade-down style uppercut, but instead of the blade pointing directly out from his body, it paralleled it until the last second, where his wrist flicked out as his arm went from a motion as if elbowing something to a snapping outwards towards where he honestly believed the daggers should have come from. At the same instant his arm had the tip of the blade and the barrel of the gun that hugged the blade by design pointed in what should be the right direction, his index finger that hugged the trigger squeezed in. The bullet that launched from the barrel of the gun flew towards the building. To the opponent it may seem like an odd target, the edge of the rooftop instead of where a body may be, however Viktaal could have hoped for one of two results. The explosion that would follow the bullet's hitting the building could either scare off the opponent, which was unlikely, or it could provoke him to move, which Viktaal could hopefully then follow since he had a better idea of where his opponent was currently. As this happened, the sense that a new presence was there started to seed into anybody within the mist. {Spoiler}
Explosive Bullet: Upon a sudden stop of the bullets' pathing, they explode. No bonuses since the blade had not acquired any Energy Stacks.
Replication(0): Only the sense that someone else was there could barely be felt. |
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Post by Faustus on Apr 29, 2014 22:34:48 GMT
Jericho grimaced, and went to his work. Palm outstretched to the base of the roof, knees bent low. He had time, noticing his flash bang had been effective. seventeen seconds seconds -tops- between the time of launching his blades, for the man to come to his senses, and then his rebuttle. His hand cracked into life with a bright flash of crackling electricity, and the wood of the house creaked and whined in its death throws before finally giving in and collapsed beneath him, dropping him down into the house. As Viktaal would fire, his bullets would meet nothing and no one. Jericho was long since hard at work on his next antic well out of harms way, not to mention his chances of hitting were slim to none, what with Jericho's mist, and his ability to feel all presences inside the mist, his attack was choreographed, and Faustus was the choreographer gently plotting his opponents moves as they happened. Jericho looked up from his concentration, noticing several huddled bodies in a corner, staring at him with fear in their eyes. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head with an inclination of irritation. "What? No thank you? No praises at all? I just saved yer' whole town. Y'know, no big deal." "Just take whatever ya' want! We don't want no trouble, mister." The man said, coddling his wife close. Jericho took him up on the offer. He booked into the kitchen, which looked from the window out into the open. He moved fast, grabbing a handful of knives of varying sharpness and lengths from a drawer, a hand full of random spices liquids and herbs, a bowl and a silver plate, which found themselves inside of his satchel of holding. The mist continued its steady growth, now enveloping the whole block just about[1]. It was thicker than before for sure, ones field of vision limited to just five feet in any direction they looked. As his newly concocted plan budded like a flower in his mind, he needed to buy time. Now Jericho had tussled with all types of weird cats and people, and they rarely ever stood around for too long while he put together his prods and schemes. This guy wouldn't give him too much time. The two blades from just perhaps a minute ago continued to crack with electricity, and their marks, while shrouded earlier, now became apparent. The blades were imbeded deep in the back of the neck of one of the dead men, and just off-center of the back of another. The chagrin crackling lightning erupted into mature, monstrous bolts, whom's current spread along the decayed bodies visibly. Howling and hungry, the bodies were awakened in a fit of un-life[2]. They were still dead, but were now animated, slaved to Jericho's will. Their hands were not empty, they fitted themselves with the weapons they branded from their 'past' lives, and sought for nothing else than to destroy he whom had acted against him. They were without thought, so no tact came into play. There would be no stealth attack, or clever meneuver on their part, but instead a lot of noise, and a straight forward mundane attack. They came at him full speed, indifferent of the mist which clouded vision(via being bound to Jericho's will, they know where Viktaal is) and sought to sunder him thoroughly. The first took aim for his throat with a hatchet from the front, while the other looked to stick him like a pig with a knife from the back.[2a] Meanwhile, Jericho bent low behind the table which sat between the window and the other side of the kitchen, and began mixing the spices, herbs, and juices into the metal bowl with haste. A power began to surge up within his hands as he did so.[3] 1. Fog[2] 2. Necromancy ↓ 2a. Both undead bandits are attacking Viktaal from the front and back. Doube penetration  3. Jericho is a damn cook. |
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Post by Osrybb on Apr 29, 2014 23:59:50 GMT
Viktaal fired at nothing. Son of a...And then the dead came to life soon after. First his senses, then when they were finally through recovery, he found the now undead rising. He had only until they got up to think. His first thought was that he could really use a little magic of his own right now. Multiple bodies, why would he raise just one? his mind had warned him. It won the instantaneous logic debate. While his hearing was dulled, it wasn't completely out, so the scuffling behind him, although softer within his own ears, was all that he needed. One in front, one behind... doubtful that a simple maneuver would work, he thought quietly as he pushed off with his right foot, causing him to launch forward to the side of the animated corpse to his front. As he kicked off, he did two things. The first was that he even used the tip of his blade to help push him forward, and the thought of his blade hitting the ground to do so as his jump would come to a close launching him even further made him smile ever so slightly. It was almost like a mini pole-vault. The second was that he was sure to pivot his foot slightly so that as he launched past the side and then back of the undead in front, his back wouldn't be to it. He didn't forget about the weapon in his right hand. When his initial jump came to a close and he used the weapon to send him further, he made sure to ready his entire two arms to hold the handle of the blade so that it wouldn't end in a disastrous tumble, although he would at least finish sliding against the ground in a crouched position. As he slid back against the ground, he held the gunblade with both hands so that the tip was pointing at the undead that was originally approaching him from behind. He pulled the trigger. With high, and possibly naive, hopes, Viktaal had sent the bullet after carefully making sure to almost slap the blade to the ground with his vaulting maneuver so that the resulting attack would be stronger than it would originally have been. Hopefully, the slightly enhanced bullet would create an explosion large enough to, at the very minimum, disable both, if not seriously damage them. At the very minimum, at least one should, hopefully, have taken a good shot, and explosion to the chest. Viktaal stayed crouched with both of his feet at the ready. Viktaal had thrown himself with a bit of a spin to the side of one of the undead and also used his sword to launch him a little bit further with a vaulting technique.
Energy Stack(1)+Explosive Bullet: Viktaal had slapped the tip of the blade onto the ground, allowing for the blade to absorb some of the force for it's following attack... a single shot that would have an enhanced explosion as well as the bullet traveling very slightly faster from the charge. |
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Post by Faustus on Apr 30, 2014 20:41:41 GMT
OoC Note: I and Osry worked it out in Pm's. His Energy stack(1) is reduced to Energy Stack+ due to improper prep accumulation. Jericho flinched as he remained hoddled close to the floor. He felt his attachment to one of the animated, unnatural corpses sever like the strings of fate. He was disappointed, but not surprised. Shit. He hurried the pace at which he did his work. The blast emitted from Viktaal completely desecrated the bandit coming in from the front, yet, by location did nothing to deter the second. Placed from behind the strange man or creature, and the bullet limited only to one direction, a bullet(even with minor explosive properties as per gained by the '+')With his swift aimed in the front of him could never live to see itself kill a man in the opposite direction as well. The second bandit, we'll call him Benny, Benny is a good name, pivoted as Viktaal leapt and fired, brandishing his sword and recklessly sliced for his mid chest section. He showed no care or want for the other bandits re-death. As it positioned itself for its strike, it released a gutteral, hollow screech that could only be permitted to one of his nature.[1] Back to Jericho's kitchen chemistry. He must have hit some sort of jackpot! Whoever this family was, they could've unknowingly been running a chemistry lab out of this place with the shit they stocked in their kitchen. He filled the large metal bowl half full of water, pouring in a more than sizeable amount of ammonium nitrate(courtesy of several cold packs they had laying around in the cabinets) into the concoction. He stirred it with a wooden spoon until the crystals dissolved coompletely, turning the water a cloudy grey coloration. If he were giving a do-it-yourself chemistry lesson, he's be smiling at the class right now, eager for the neat trick he was about to show them. He drew a pencil from his pocket, etching odd angular, abstract figures into the side of the bowl. He'd usually not go with something so mortal, and would opt out for a more permanent mean of crafting his spell circles, but he was hard pressed for time, and couldn't afford to take the extra thirty seconds or so it would take to carve the design into the metalwork. However, to make up for the small lack in potency offered via a more permanent marking, he drew blood from his finger with a tack, smearing it across the simple sigil. The bowl began to heat. The power swelled further in Jericho's hands.[2] 0. Fog. continuous effect.
1.'Benny' uses undead ability to 'shriek'. causes moderate pain in eardrums, which can be disorienting.
2. Jerry puttin' in wurk in da kitchen, bruh lol[1] |
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Post by Osrybb on May 1, 2014 19:39:18 GMT
Viktaal smiled slightly as the bandit sliced for his chest. This fool is going for a strike while I'm like this? Viktaal felt that this was a break of sorts. Being that he was crouched, it meant that the undead would have to slice both downward and at an angle to hit his chest. The howling wouldn't affect him as much as, what Viktaal perceived to be, the ringmaster's hopes due to Viktaal's already being hearing impaired. He heard the shriek, though it was, at best, a slight murmur in his ears. As the Benny swung its blade towards Viktaal as he crouched, and Viktaal looked up at him with his slight smile. Viktaal not only just raised his weapon, but he had also returned his hold on it to a single hand as he would parry the blade, either in a disarm or at least a way to expose Benny's chest by a circular movement. Following this, he was already poised to counter. As Benny's arm should hopefully fling to the outside of his own attack due to the circular movement of the parry, Viktaal would counter with a determined speed. These undead weren't the focus of the attack. Viktaal had his suspicions about that fact, so he'd rather play it safely than to find out. His next motion was a vicious, but calculated, slash that was angled upwards towards Benny's temple. Viktaal wasn't aiming to sever the head, however, he was attempting to swing his blade so that the sharp end would stab into Benny's skull. If he was lucky, Benny would stumble or fall. That wasn't the priority. The barrel of the gun was what the awkward holding of the blade for such an attack was what Viktaal was keeping mind of. Such a slash, with the back of Viktaal's hand that wielded the blade pointing down, and his fingers that wrapped around the handle pointed upwards, that meant the barrel of the gun that hugged the blade of his weapon would in fact be pointing at Benny's jaw. Viktaal wasted no time firing as he braced himself. Viktaal had parried Benny's attack and swung his gunblade more like a blunt weapon than slicing, but his main priority was firing the gun with where the blade would have been positioned from said attack.
Energy Stacking I(+) and Explosive Bullet: The parry provided the slight bolster for his explosive bullet. |
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Post by Faustus on May 2, 2014 0:54:44 GMT
^ Meanwhile!Benny and the other served their purpose perfectly; distractions. A simple, and often overlooked tactic, but it was that overlooking, that inclination that it was never a viable means of strategy is what made it the best strategy for the situation. The corpses were not meant to maim or kill. Jericho did not expect them to, by any circumstances, even lay a finger on the other person. What they were meant to do, was pin him in place more or less. Keep his focus kept somewhere else. And that they did. Poor Benny, though. Jericho sorta' liked him. Jericho continued to work his tasty concoction into the bowl low to the floor. It was in its final stages. The ammonium nitrate and saltpeter solution crystallized in the murky water, and was drained henceforth. With the dull pencil, he etched another quick spell circle, speed cooling and drying the crystals in the mixture. With blunt kitchen utensil, we'll say a dough roller, Jericho crushed the crystals down into a fine, powdery substance. He filled a cup full of a predetermined amount of sugar and added the final ingrediant into the concoction. The result? Powdered Potassium Nitrate, and a damn large amount of it. The power that has been growing between he and the bowl would finally be made evident. The boom from the gunshots, and the sudden disconnect of power to the host bodies helped Jericho keep a bead on Viktaals location the entire time. Hard to be discreet when you are firing off explosive rounds every four seconds. Jericho would capitalize on it. While he maintained relatively low profile, his opponent had decided to "go loud". We'll see if that idea would fair well for him. It wouldn't. Another spell circle was hastily strewn across the bow of the bowl, glowing a faint orange, its power not concentrated, but surely made its physical presence known. He moved so fluidly, in a singular, long motion, unbending the knees and twirling his body , bowl in hand. His muscles stretched in tandum, synergetically, the sinew of his bones bolstering the speed and flow in his joints. He flung the bowl at a speed that made it nothing but a faint glint, a barely noticeable shimmer of reflected light for half a second before.... BOOM![1] The glow of the spell circle released its full bounty; a haze of sparks and positive energy around the bowl. The contents inside were highly explosive, potassium nitrate served as knockoff gunpowder, but in its quantity was something close to the power of an IED. The bowl was aimed at or around Viktaal's body. No specific point mattered to Jericho. The result would be the same. An explosion, and a pretty big one. As all this transpired, the mist seemed to congeal and convulse, thunder whispering, and lightning crackling through its bank in the tell tale signs of a thunderstorm, becoming cumulonimbus in shape. The mist now became a cage of death[2] through Jericho's clever scheming. The explosion now engulfed the entire city block for as far as the mist could stretch its influence(and a little beyond that via concussive/kinetic influence, about ten feet for fair game). Everything in the town was smothered in the blast radius, tombstoned with ash, and buried 'six feet deep' with the sudden change in pressure. Jericho was also susceptible to this. His obvious answer was to get below ground. Just as he shunted the bowl off into the pale, reactive mist, he booked it into the basement of the house, prepared to leverage his weight and shift should everything come crashing down on him. Viktaal, out in the open, was not afforded this luxury. Jericho wondered if there'd be anything left of him not blown half across the town that would be of value. He doubted it. 1. Jericho magnetically shunted a bowl full of home made gunpowder out of potassium nitrate and sugar, and ignited it via spellcircle somewhere near Viktaal's immediate position. Speed inhanced through preps.[2]
2. The mist has been alchemically transmuted into Hydrogen Cyanide which is highly explosive, and vitriolic.
3. HCN[2] + Gunpowder Explosion[2]= 4 prepped giant vitriolic explosion spanning almost as far as the mist does[17 feet] with combined distance for the shockwave.
Note: All or most of the preparation for this is being done as Viktaal is fighting the undead. Everything up until the explosion, and maybe a little before it, is assuming Viktaal is mid-action as per the timeline dictates.
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