A Slightly Dim And Not Quite Stormy Afternoon

[whatamithinking]

It is a fairly typical rainy August afternoon. Edie is lounging in civvies with a good book, and Emily is snacking on some leftover birthday cake while transformed and working on a metal sculpture.

"I don't know why you're bothering," Edie says of the copper-and-verdigris design. "I mean, the rest of it is going to go green too eventually, right?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Emily says stubbornly. "I could coat it with clear paint or something to prevent oxidation."

"Fair enough," Edie says, and returns to perusing her book.

Comments

[maggie_of_the_owls]

The villain has excellent reflexes. He manages to dodge--almost. The actual projectile doesn't--quite--hit him, but having something that large and fast pass so close by you is not generally beneficial. He staggers, but frustratingly, the wall opens around him so he isn't thrown into its unpleasantness.

[iamnotpolaris]

But it'll buy time--

Emily hauls Edie to her feet and away from the terrible wall, and activates the Si Vales Valeo mark. She hisses as the pain of whatever those walls did to her sister burns through her nerves for a moment, and then they are both okay--physically, Edie was on that thing for a bit--

[whatamithinking]

Edie's good at putting aside things that are unpleasant to deal with later when she has time.

This man has kidnapped hundreds of people--horrible torture walls--no time to think--

"Perfect Scream," she whispers.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

It's not as hard for him to dodge that one.

[whatamithinking]

So it's just wasted. Fuck, why does she have no AoEs, she needs to fix that, she's going to really really want one, but that's not helpful right now.

"Ironwill Shield," she casts. Between the two of them and the horror wall, not the villain.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

So when he backhands her again she presumably doesn't end up writhing in pain again!

[whatamithinking]

True! It is still not pleasant.

[iamnotpolaris]

And while he is distracted by hitting her sister, Emily can try to Mass Driver him again!

[maggie_of_the_owls]

That...does not comprehensively work either. But it sure as hell distracts him.

[thisbrokenworld]

And—

The wall near him ripples from a hard silent impact, and his left eye violently implodes for no discernible reason, and a heartbeat later the reason is revealed to be a long black dagger, previously invisible but now very obviously stuck all the way through his head.

[whatamithinking]

Well, that's unexpected.

"...Hello?"

[thisbrokenworld]

A pause.

Then a short girl appears, rising from a crouch on the floor in front of the cloaked man's body.

"Hello," she says. "What do you know about this situation?"

[whatamithinking]

"A short while ago, a friend of ours came frantically knocking on my door. She said she had escaped from a villain who had a few hundred people kidnapped for some reason, and gave us directions to his hideout. We came here and snuck in, which was working great until the alarms went off. Which...I am guessing was not actually us."

[thisbrokenworld]

She shakes her head.

"My distraction at work. Now that he's taken care of," a slight nod at the body, "things are much less urgent, but his victims still need rescuing, among other things. Are you the rescuing sort?"

[whatamithinking]

"...That would be where I was sneaking, yes. Absolutely."

[thisbrokenworld]

"Oh good. Then you can rescue the captives and I can dismantle his sacrificial apparatus."

[iamnotpolaris]

"That was originally going to be my job, but you're welcome to it."

[thisbrokenworld]

The tiny stranger smiles. "Thanks."

[whatamithinking]

"We have a map to the prisoners, so that should be relatively easy. ...Unless they moved the prisoners after the breakout, I guess."

[thisbrokenworld]

"And I want the prisoners out before I start trying to collapse the maze, and it doesn't seem like you have a good way to take down these walls one at a time without potentially harming whatever's on the other side."

[whatamithinking]

"Yeah. Okay, weird question, how good are you at learning codes?"

[thisbrokenworld]

"Extremely, why?"

[whatamithinking]

"The Si Vales Valeo is a healing spell that lets the caster know any damage that happens to the target's body. So we have a code--we put the spell on and then bite our hands in coded ways in order to communicate. Unless you want to take one of us with you we couldn't give you information that way but a one-way line of communication is better than none." She bites her left ring finger at the second knuckle to demonstrate.

[thisbrokenworld]

"Clever. But depending how it works exactly, you might not like to cast it on me just now."

[iamnotpolaris]

"...Feedback and 'also feeling the pain' are different or I'd've been screaming when she hit the wall."