Attune is risky/standard. Devil’s bargain is that Velaris hears you shouting.
Hutch, the ghosts advance on you. You feel compelled to run away into the night.
Velaris comes out, the greycloak's pistol in hand, and his spirit-bane charm around his neck. as he sees the scene, he asks Hutch, I don't recall you being at the hideout for the ritual. has something gone wrong?
Hutch grits his teeth and grunts, scanning the foyer for a route around to the sanctum. Then, Velaris walks in. "Tarnikos is in place. I was just... stopping by to check on your progress." He gestures to the ghosts. "Who let the dogs out?"
Tarnikos checks his three pistols and the utility knife he'll use to cut the caltrop bags and waits for greycloaks to come round the corner after Hutch.
We are prepared for the next step in the ritual, though I had to use the accolytes to dispose of a greycloack away from the sanctum. Velaris says, throwing Hutch the Greycloak's ghostbane charm It probbaly isn't safe to be here at the moment, perhaps you could assist them.
Tarnikos, sure enough they come pouring around the corner. Cutting the caltrop bags is a prowl roll, controlled/standard.
"Acolytes... yes." Hutch snatches the charm out of the air, then looks at it, as if confused. Licking his lips, he shakes his head and looks around the foyer again, brandishing the charm to ward off the ghosts. "Where would you say they have gone? The appointed time is at hand... -and you're sure you can finish the ritual on your own? This ritual is more important than any of our safeties."
---
A healthier, better-kempt Hutch traces the laundry chute out of the service room where Tarnikos will be holed up. "Mender, when you're done with the distraction, you will need to circle around to the sewers to facilitate Tarnikos' escape. Make sure you have this drain open before midnight."
Squatting just inside the drain was uncomfortable, and Mender kept glancing at his pocketwatch waiting for all of this religious mumbo jumbo to be over.
I am the prophet of Halthar. with him nothing is impossible. Velaris says A headache forming But if you would activate the spark craft devices at the appointed time, it would not be unwelcome.
Not totally happy with the caltrops' spread, but recognizing it will have to be good enough for government work, Tarnikos books it to the end of the alley and gets cover, poking his head out occasionally to see where they are relative to his trap.
Once they get to the caltrops, fire your two shots, then run to the next corner, fire one more, than get scarce.
Tarnikos, the spread of caltrops is not likely to assist you at all. Shooting from concealment is hunt, controlled/standard.
The pack of Greys enter your kill zone, what do you do?
Sanctum crew:
It's nearly time for the ritual. Any last minute actions?
The ritual is prepped. Velaris is just waiting on the signal to begin.
The grandfather clock begins to chime midnight, a baroque melody to precede the struck hour. Hutch follows Velaris into the ritual sanctum, and closes the door behind them.
"What is there left to be done, Blackstar?" The charm has been tucked away, but his hand shifts uneasily on the handle of his pistol. "You said the spark craft devices?" Hutch stays within arm's reach of Velaris.
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Ok! Narrate it out, please!
The grandfather clock in the hall chimes the hour, and death follows.
The darkness ebbs from Hutch's vision. The pistol clatters to the floor, smoking. A dark circle grows around the cooling corpse of Velaris. An unhinged laugh echoes through the sanctum. "Blackstar indeed." Hutch grasps, in an unsteady hand, the knob on the spark craft device in front of him preparing to complete the ritual...
Velaris hears the bang, and is knocked to the floor. he barely registers the pain. Why? he asks weakly, trying to get back to his feet, unable to even raise his arms.
Hutch doesn't look up from the equipment. He's clearly bothered that the shot wasn't enough to finish the profit off. "You had me burn that woman in her home. No one uses me as a tool." Felfiz tugs at his stained cravat and unbuttons his collar. The button hits the floor and rolls under a shelf.
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You know... Velaris chokes, feeling everything go cold and dark By the time I met all of you, I knew it wasn't Halthar he smiles a little as oblivion finally takes him.
It'll be attune to complete the ritual, risky/limited because you're not Halthar's anointed...yet.
Pull this off, and that might change.
Tarnikos, it's go time.
While Hutch confronts Velaris Tarnikos is fighting off a small army of greycloaks.
"Down here, ya useless rats!"
"With the Bluecoats distracted searching for the escaped prisoners, Tarnikos will lie in wait until the clock strikes midnight. He'll slit the unconscious guard's throat, and slip down the nearby drain to escape with Mender." Hutch leans back from the map, scratching the stubble on his chin.
As he works at the instrument panel, Hutch's shadow swells and scatters. The birds circle the room in a panoply of darting shadows.
Your gun goes off, clipping one of the Greys in the chest, but the others are armed as well. One gets a shot off that connects in your center mass. What do you do?
[bigger]Hutch[/dice]
You can feel the power surge within the bone, pulsing with eldritch power. But...if Velaris was speaking the truth...who lead you to find the Leviathan bone...and what does this ritual truly do?
Two children stand in front of a funeral pyre for two adults. They hold hands, neither of them facing the fire. The boy looks up at the birds circling in the grey expanse of permanent twilight.
A man on a goat, adorned in braids and silver coins, stops beside the children without a word.
"What good God wishes this?" The boy's question hits the man like a second shoe hits the floor.
"God's plan isn't always clear to us, but we must carry faith nonetheless."
Back at the ritual sanctum, with one sort of bell fading to the arrhythmic toll of another sort of bell, Hutch begins to laugh uncontrollably to the point he has to brace himself against the Blackstar's strange equipment.
A timer upstairs is tripped, and a phonograph begins to play some haunting music in a lost language.
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When you open your mind to the thought tendrils of a forgotten god, you suffer 1 trauma and become an adept of its cult. You gain access to the following special abilities as veteran advances:
The Closing of the Eye: You no longer suffer terror from the supernatural, and can choose to take only 1 stress when you resist mental, electroplasmic, or spiritual harm, regardless of the result of your roll.
Glorious Visage: You may extend the thought-tendrils of the god from your own mind to those around you, granting them a vision of its formless form. This is a psychic attack that inflicts 3 stress on you and has an effect determined by your trauma level. trauma 1+: all those who can see you must look away and leave your presence, or be paralyzed with dread. trauma 2+: In addition, you inflict level 2 harm (formless dread) to all who can see you. trauma 3+: Instead of level 2 harm, you inflict level 3 harm “Catatonic”. trauma 4+: In addition, you may also focus on one person who can see you and inflict fatal psychic harm “Shattered Mind”.
When you suffer your fourth trauma, you mind is prepared and you ascend to mastery in the cult of your forgotten god. You receive permission to call upon your god to briefly manifest in the physical world and enact its will, at the cost of 6 stress. You receive permission to continue to play your character rather than retiring, with the following restrictions:
You may now heal stress only by serving the will of your forgotten god. Your vice becomes Servitude.
When next you suffer trauma (your fifth), you transform into an avatar of the god, losing your human mind and will as the thought-tendrils of the god fully manifest within you. Retire your character to their dark fate.
Tarnikos breathes a sigh of relief as the armor deflects the bullet and sprints back down the side alley. Again, leading them away from Hutch and Velaris.
Mender listens to the fighting in the distance, hoping that things wrap up soon. Sounds like that in the city usually attract far too much attention...