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"... Yes, let's," Asher replied somewhat hesitantly, seemingly deep in thought, to Alex's prompt to move on. It seemed clear enough that the poor unfortunates in the room had not died here; not really. They had been zombies. They had died their second death, been absolved, here. So the question now became, who or what had done this? And was it likely to give the Riot Crew the same treatment? "Watch yourselves. Whatever did this to them may be up ahead."
”What was that Father? Some prayer for the dead?” "You know you can call me Asher if you prefer, Julian," the priest smiled. Being a clergyman was not exactly a nine-to-five job; one couldn't just hang up the cowl at closing-time, down a forty and go out gambling after a hard day of preaching. Once you were a priest it was less vocation and more identity. But this said, Asher still liked to think he was his own person. The clerical collar around his neck should not erase the person who wore it, but amplify him. He hoped he could be both Asher the priest and Asher the vaguely ordinary dude to the Riot Crew. Also, being called 'Father' by someone just nine years his junior made him feel old. "It's a common phrase within the faith. I'm sure you've heard it before a hundred times in its alternate forms. RIP. Rest in peace. I'm just partial to its original Latin version. Old-fashioned, I suppose."
Asher was distressed at the signs of someone trying to break into the facility. The arms company had no need of forcing a lock they owned the key to, so was this from a third party? Had pertinent information been withheld from the Riot Crew? Well, yes, obviously. This was corporate America after all. Of course they were holding their cards close to the chest. The priest just hoped the unknown third party had given up on breaching the monster infested facility, for all their sakes. Not likely, is it? Sigh. But what really upset Asher was the sight of the bodies. This wasn't his first time seeing a corpse, of course. This line of work ensured that. The priest was a harder man now than just a few years ago. But his faith acted as a constant within him, preventing him from, and indeed reminding him that he shouldn't, become accustomed to violence and death. Once one acclimated to the very worst of sins, what hope was there? Unfortunately, Asher's discomfort prevented him from being much use in surveying the office.
"Requiescat in pace," he said quietly before signing the cross and inspecting the nearest cadaver.
Asher stood ready to enter the facility along with the others. Revolver in hand and clerical collar plain for all to see, he was an absurd sight and about to get stranger still: prayer was not common among modern mercenaries. The priest lowered his head, closed his eyes, clasped his crucifix with his free hand, and began muttering under his breath. The rest of the Riot Crew were accustomed to this by now. It was practically standard procedure for the preacher. They knew what came next. "Lord, we ask that you be with us in our time of peril, to bless our hearts and guide our hands, to defend us in battle and rebuke our enemies. Fiat nobis secundum verbum. Amen." The effect was immediate. Even through his hand, the light shining from the crucifix was every bit as obvious as the impact it had upon all. It was slight but unmistakable. A lightness in step, a confidence in ability - every member of the Riot Crew felt inherently more capable. All the better prepared to take on the dangers of the facility.
I've just moved the party into entering room 1 from the eastern entrance as suggested, in the agreed upon order (slide 4). No idea if I'm overstepping my boundaries in doing so, but please speak up if I am - just trying to get us back into action.
Yup, thought there might be a 'you enter the dungeon' post in the works. Sorry. But yeah, if the onus is on us let's get this sorted. Marching order - gonna drop a suggestion that I want to emphasize is just that; just putting something out there for us to have a starting point to discuss. Cillian being up front seems a no-brainer; his defenses are the most impressive and it probably even makes most sense in RP. Carnival makes a strong second choice though, with his ludicrous HP... Carnival is the obvious choice in the second spot. His survivability is good and he wants to get up close and personal with the enemy as soon as possible. Third spot and onward is less clear cut, as the rest of the party is similar in doing best at range unless I'm missing something (always a possibility). Asher could be next in the order, as beyond shooting stuff he might also want easy access to the front-line in order to buff/heal the two above. On the other hand, his flat-footed AC is also the best of the remaining characters, so you could argue he should be dead last to take any surprise attacks from behind (why do you do these things, Atom?). Cillian - Carnival - Asher - Julian - Kaleo - Alex. How does this look, with Alex taking the last spot both because she has the greatest range out of the lot and because her HP allow her to hopefully take a surprise attack or two? EDIT: And where are we headed? Straight for the basement, or should we clear the ground floor first? The west entrance seems the fastest route to reach the stairs.
”That’s $250,000! I wouldn’t even have to work at all!” He looks around at the others shocked and just leans back in a slight stupor. "That's going to buy you a lot of brownies," Asher smiled to the younger man. The priest rose with the others and prepared to leave, though not before pausing at the sight of the animal people back in the bar. Much like the Riot Crew they were taking the party elsewhere, but unlike the occult mercenaries (happily) they looked to share about a keg worth's of ethanol between them. Brow crinkled in concern, Asher walked up to them. "Excuse me," he said, apologizing for the intrusion, as he laid his hand on the utterly sloshed panda man. Then he repeated Ephesians 5:18 apropos of nothing. "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." A faint glow, like a light bulb underneath the skin, came and dissipated from the hand, and this wasn't the only thing to disappear: every trace of alcohol within the animal man's system vanished. He was completely and painfully sober. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to take the fun out of your evening. But your friends have all had a bit too much, and one of you must be responsible, if nothing else than to drive. Please take care of yourself."
---------- After a quick stop to pick up his armor at the clergy house, one of the older buildings in Portland, Asher was ready to catch a designer bio-weapon. It wasn't how most people spent their Friday night, certainly not most priests, but someone had to do it.
In the past, I've simply used google slides. Slapped on a map, made some tokens with this, and given people the option to move stuff themselves - done. Do whatever works best for you though, dude. GMing can be difficult enough as is.
"No no, Father Anderson, the amoeba is the 'directed bio-weapon'."
"Ha!" He laughs "You wish. The zombies aren't gonna be taken down by anything that isn't a bullet or sword." Berto seemed awfully confident in his words, but Asher couldn't help but wonder. The priest had wielded his little miracles for some time now, and had done what research was possible in these matters. It wasn't UV light, but he had some luminosity of his own he wanted to test against these so called zombies. And at the merest thought of this the crucifix hanging by the preacher's chest, under his clothes, suddenly flashed as if reflecting direct sunlight, unseen by all. But Asher felt its warmth. "Time frame is a bit more tricky. [...] Hey, Father Anderson! What time is that bake sale at the church?" "Hm? Oh! Oh no no, Mr Ardizzone, really," Asher started, clearly flustered at the thought of the crack team of paranormal mercenaries having to schedule around some churchgoers' cakes. "It's uh, tomorrow, 10 to 16:30, but honestly now, think nothing of it. If necessary I-I'll just have to miss it. This takes precedence. I'm sure they'll um, manage." While the priest meant what he said, he really wish it wouldn't come to that. Certainly everything the Riot Crew accomplished was a great deal more significant, impressive and often explosive than daily church business, but Asher had joined both for the same reason: to help people. He didn't want to have to choose between his day- and night job. Mind you, one had almost bled into the other on multiple occasions already. He recalled at one point rushing to a memorable sermon after a late-night mission battling the occult, with not a moment to spare. Asher had delivered the lecture terrified that someone would recognize the lump underneath his robe, and ask why the good priest had brought a gun to church.
The good priest shook his head, not in answer to Berto but instead in exasperation. So this amoeba was the arms company's own creation and had already claimed lives? Asher was relieved that the thing wasn't loose in the city, but Blaze was not exactly endearing itself to him. Still, at least its leadership was eager to fix their mistakes: hiring outside expertise like the Riot Crew hinted as much. "Do you have this 'directed bio-weapon', Mr Ardizzone?" While not at all eager to hand over this amoeba weapon to someone intent to replicate and sell it to the highest bidder, Asher wanted to get underway as soon as possible. People had already been hurt and this threat needed to be dealt with. Besides, it was his solemn duty to answer any call for help. And should something like those samples of zombie virus be destroyed while the group was there, well... that would just be unfortunate.
Asher watched the video with his hairless eyebrows raised. "I don't know much about biology, but either that cell is improbably enormous or that is a very small rat indeed." This was loose somewhere out there? What in the world, any world, was it? Science experiment gone wrong? A bizarre planar invader? Extremely aggressive water balloon? "How does a munition company and this thing relate?" the priest asked following Alex's description of the firm. He was already dreaming up possible scenarios, all of them bad. Was Blaze responsible for the creation of this... being? Or did acquiring it merely serve some greater purpose? Either way, the only way a weapon manufacturer would have any interest in the thing would be because it was deadly. Asher wasn't sure whether he wanted the creature in Blaze's custody, but he knew he wanted it off the street before it got anyone hurt. Anyone other than that rat.
"... This Sunday's sermon will be on self-defense and necessary violence, Mr Ardizzone. You're welcome to attend." The priest's words were gentle but his eyes held the paternal gaze of a father catching their child smoking: he wasn't angry, just disappointed and concerned in equal measure. As a man of the cloth, his stance on bloodshed was, to no one's surprise, not one of approval. Of course, Asher realized his hypocrisy in admonishing anyone else for violence. The only reason his next sermon was slated to cover such severe subjects was because this was what had occupied so much of the priest's free time, trying to reconcile the near-nightly brutal forays into the paranormal, and his faith. Asher was caught between two Christian virtues: the commitment to non-violence, and protecting the innocent from what would prey on them. Adhering to the latter too often forced him to ignore the former. The incongruity chafed at his soul, and while he was quick to extend biblical charity and forgiveness to others forced to used violence, including the rest of the Riot Crew, he spared no such mercy for himself. He was an ordained priest. He should be held to a higher standard. And within his own mind, Asher was failing that standard.
It's cool, dude. Family comes first.
This isn't right... Even as the enormous and much belated Berto entered the bar, Asher's eyes never left the hooded stranger. The guy was wound tighter than a three-day clock and despite his protestations otherwise was clearly expecting trouble. There was violence in the air. As the masked man sat down again after his false start (springs tightening yet again...), Asher was furiously pondering how he could, or indeed should, prevent whatever it was he planned. The priest didn't wish to see anyone hurt, but any effort to placate the man could instead set him off. The priest felt like he was sitting inside a keg of nitroglycerin with an ornery badger: the safest action seemed to be to do nothing at all. Asher didn't like this one bit. "Hey Berto. You get into some trouble?" Alex's voicing of further trouble drew the priest from his reverie and he finally turned to Berto. And in so doing noticed that his hand was tensely hovering over his revolver, concealed in its holster. He had apparently unconsciously reached for it at the first sign of struggle. Asher grimaced to himself. Perhaps he was wrong about not belonging in this world; perhaps he was getting too accustomed to its oddities and brutality. "Mr Ardizzone, are you well? he asked nodding to the other man's brow.
"Apparently our creepy friend over there is either a very scary dude or works for one. The bartender says he single-handedly stopped a fight last week between the Sons of Hell and..."
Sons of what now? Asher was fairly sure he'd never heard of the group, nor whether he should have; having spent the last several years in higher education coupled with his inexperience with the occult, had left the priest a tad out of touch with both the normal and the arcane. Still, he inferred enough from Alex. 'Sons of Hell' didn't exactly sound like the name of a book club. "Hm." One the one hand the fact that the stranger had stopped a potentially deadly scuffle was a definite mark in his favor, however ominous. On the other hand, Asher was not naive enough to believe that the enemy of one's enemy was necessarily one's friend. But then on Zaphod Beeblebrox's third hand, what the priest did believe in was the presumption of innocence: everyone deserved a chance to prove their goodwill and he wasn't about to hassle a man unduly, no matter how suspicious. 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' and all that... Instead he merely endeavored to keep a watchful eye on the man. Virtue was all well and good, but this was a dangerous world - Asher would never forgive himself if any of his teammates got hurt whilst he could have prevented it.
The priest considered himself a fairly good judge of character, but the hooded man was naturally difficult to read with his face obscured. Still, there was no hiding body language.
"How about Batman?" Ding ding ding. Asher had to wonder: was any alias Julian decided upon not doomed to fail? How could it possibly catch on? The young man wanted to create a bat themed vigilante persona, in a world where the most popular fictional hero for the last several decades, to the point of rising to the status of modern myth, was a bat themed vigilante; comparisons to the caped crusader were inevitable. Like it or not, Julian would in all likelihood be known as the real-life Batman. Still, the plea for suggestion had been genuine and the priest wanted to give a sincere answer, and so he furrowed his hairless brow in thought for a few seconds. 'On the bat's back I do fly'... The quote flew its way to his mind as gently as the bloodsuckers themselves. "'Ariel', perhaps?" Seeing that the name evoked no enthusiasm, Asher immediately realized why. "Oh, right, the name was appropriated for a, uh, Disney princess. Yes. Maybe not appropriate then. Sorry. I was alluding to the spirit from The Tempest - Shakespeare describes him as riding on the back of a bat." The priest's brow once again furrowed in thought. "Then again, perhaps the name could reclaim its masculine form in something like 'Aerial'. Which, come to think of it, also doubles as a noun - one that describes you fairly too, at that." 'Aerial': literary allusion, descriptive noun, thematically appropriate, highlights Julian's gift of flight... Asher found himself unexpectedly pleased at the suggestion. It appealed to his scholarly sensibilities.
While he had initially felt foolish in bringing up something as banal as everyday church affairs, Asher was pleasantly surprised at his teammates' positive responses. It seemed no one, not even the hardened mercenaries of the Riot Crew, was above a chocolate frosted cupcake. It was oddly humanizing. Of course, the priest chided himself, he had been wrong to expect anything else. Still not used to the mystical, Asher sometimes forgot that despite their fantastical abilities the Riot Crew consisted of mere mortals, just as much part of the 'normal' world as himself and all equal in God's eyes. Even the panda man currently puking up what had to be several pints of lager was part of the ineffable plan, and with this in mind Asher smiled and visibly calmed down. This otherworldly setting should not unnerve him. God's creatures were myriad and manifold, and it was his privilege to aide and guide them when required, not to judge them. Except maybe Carnival's ability to swallow cheeseburgers whole. That was most definitely not God's design and should absolutely be judged. It was positively unholy. "Your patronage would be very much appreciated," he smiled to the table, "as would any contribution you offered," he added to Alex in particular, at her offer of baking an apple pie. They would certainly liven up the crowd. Heh. "I figured out a new compound that heals, which should be pretty useful. I still haven't figured out how to get them to work for other people, though." "Why, that's fantastic, Kaleo. If that could be applied to others... what a world we'd live in." A mixture that could heal the sick instantly? What a triumph. And what an utter tragedy. Asher often dismayed at the secrecy that dominated the magical world. If people like Kaleo Green were allowed to work their craft freely, it would revolutionize medicine overnight - it would help millions. Instead he had to operate under the greatest secrecy, beholden to shadowy power brokers. It wasn't right - not towards him, nor to the world at large. Asher sighed and let his sharp eyes absorb the room. Anything to distract him from the somber thoughts.
Hello all, and thanks for having me, Atom. Will try to finish the profile as soon as possible and looking forward to get started. And yup, I too aim to get at least one post in daily (thought weekends might be iffier). ... every gp minted... Oh, so actual gold coins are a thing in the setting? Are these used solely in the magical side of the world, or can you walk into a Starbucks and buy some coffee for a silver piece? And on that note, how much has the mystical bled into the normal world? Does Joe Everyman suspect that something is awry? Do conspiracy nutters on the net talk about dragons instead of the Earth being flat? Or does the average person just lead an ordinary life as we know it? Just asking for role playing purposes.
While he didn't like being rude, Asher couldn't help but stare at the animal people drinking at another table. How could he not? It was like standing inside Dogs Playing Poker. So this was what his life had become.
'And you shall see wonders', sounded Shakespeare in his own quiet mind. "Been good, mostly. A little research, a little target practice, same old same old. How 'bout you? Anything going on?" Asher finally tore his eyes from the other table. "Hm? Oh, um, I've kept busy. There's a, uh... bake sale at the parish this weekend. That's had me occupied. It's after mass - I'd love to see you all there, of course..." The sheer mundanity of the priest's 'civilian' life sounded more ridiculous with every word, especially in the fantastical surroundings, and Asher was painfully aware of this. "It, uh, all goes to a good cause... A workshop for the homeless... Get them a skill set, help them off the street, you see..." he finished lamely, clearing his throat. I really don't belong in this world, do I? |
