Once again, well played Tamrin.Also... Aananda looks really young to be the mother of four... well done Tamrin.The perks of draconic aging. :)
Search Posts
Oh dear....I appear to have a clone wandering about. Hmmm.... (^.^)
Sorry I think I missed the memo what's going on?Here is my gunmage his profile is currently bare as I'm unaware of what is needed yet.'Gunmage', huh? I guess that's one way to put it.... (^.^) Just an inside joke - and the 'memo' is the entire Realms of Agartha PbP. Can't expect you to read all of that in just a few hours! ;) This particular avatar is one of the core characters from the original Realms of Agartha PbP. He's based on a character I made for a homebrew Dragonstar campaign back in the 3.0 D&D days. Essentially, he's based off of the character of Gene Starwind from the anime series Outlaw Star. In D20 parlance, he's a fighter/wizard with a gun, though more formally known as an Arcane Gunslinger. Hope that makes the comment slightly less confusing for you... :D
Here is my gunmage his profile is currently bare as I'm unaware of what is needed yet. 'Gunmage', huh? I guess that's one way to put it.... (^.^)
"I am still not very familiar with what is and isn't normal when it comes to human physiology."
"Okay, I think we need to get you back to bed. I'll get them to whip something up in the kitchen to get some fluids and energy back into you," Tam says as he waits with her a few more minutes to make sure she is good to move, then helps her out of the chair and back upstairs to their room.
Cursing to himself briefly, Tam switches to looking in Aananda's pouches and finds a small pack of transdermal nausea patches. He tears one open and slaps it on her arm, activating it. "It's alright baby, we're gonna get this to stop..." O.o
When she doesn't stop, he looks quickly around the room. "Adsila? Have you got any healing magic in your druidic bag of tricks that could help her?" as he starts feeling around in his Haversack with his free hand to see if he had anymore nausea medicine...
"The truth?" He says confused, "Look, if you don't want to tell me I don't want to know, whatever it is it's deeper than I usually like to get." Tam grabs the nearest bucket, gets Aananda's ponytail out of the way and then throws some cleanse cantrips on her and the floor. "What is it? Does something feel different? What's wrong...?"
"It looks like Master Quo and your mother have the rest well in hand," Tam says as he lands next to Aananda. When his full weight is back on the ground, he wobbles slightly, his arms shaking almost imperceptibly. "Whew - guess I need to pace myself with those kind of spells until I get used to this new body," he says, shaking his head as he holsters his Caster. "Not to cut off the conversation too abrupbly, but we should probably go make sure the injured kids are okay."
Seeing that Master Quo and Ryleh are alright for the moment, Tam redirects his attention to the shadows ganging up on Kar. Noting how easily they fell to his claws, he risks spreading his attacks out to thin their ranks. He fires three Orbs of Force at three of the shadows.
Sounds of battle can still be heard from the other side of the house. The only combatants not currently present are Ryleh and Master Quo, so they're probably dealing with more shadows. "Oh crap..." Tam says as he quickly casts a Fly spell on himself. He then soars up above the roofline to get a bird's eye view and see where he can be the most help.
Tam just smirks. "Watch me," as he drops the Forceward around the children while slamming another shell home. He then fires at them.
Once they are down safely, Tam spares a glance over at Kar (and all the wet popping noises he is making), nodding as he finishes the change. "I believe your new chew toys are right over there," he says, pointing at the shadows. "Let me get you dressed to play..." as he loads another shell, then shoots at him.
"Go get 'em, tiger."
"Just the moment of pride I was waiting for..." Tam slams shells home into his Caster as he sends a volley of spells downrange.
Kar looks out at the child struggling and at the creature torturing her, rage flaring in his eyes. "She needs help." Kar says, "We can't just leave her out there to suffer and die." "Assuming we're dealing with the real thing here," Tam mutters as he slams another shell home and takes aim....at the girl.
The voice chuckled. "Sunshine. How perfectly....ironic. Personally I couldn't care less about you little flea. I am here for the girl. If she doesn't choose to come out of these wards and surrender the consequences will be unfortunate. Especially for little Mary here. Or was it Laura? Humans are so short-lived. It's hard to keep track.""Disturbing isn't it," a cold voice hissed. The voice carried surprisingly well, audible even within the house even though he wasn't shouting. "The poor thing might die of fright at any moment. But you can stop that. All you have to do is step outside the wards, girl. Step outside and surrender to me and I will let the girl and the other children I've collected go. And your friends will get to live. Isn't that nice of me? It's all up to you now." "Yeah - I get that a lot. Hurts my feelings, truly." Tam's hands move in a blur, and he slams a caster shell home and fires.
"Disturbing isn't it," a cold voice hissed. The voice carried surprisingly well, audible even within the house even though he wasn't shouting. "The poor thing might die of fright at any moment. But you can stop that. All you have to do is step outside the wards, girl. Step outside and surrender to me and I will let the girl and the other children I've collected go. And your friends will get to live. Isn't that nice of me? It's all up to you now." "Or I can just stop you from here," Tam replies as he steps out into the yard, one hand at his belt, the other clenched shut. "Now as I'm still sleepy, and the list of ne'er do wells who have a beef with us is pretty long, who the heck are you playing fetch for, sunshine?"
A second scream rent the air, coming from just outside the wards. It sounded human and terrified beyond reason. "I heard that" Tam replies with a start. "I don't recognize the voice..." as he gets up and heads for his clothes.
Aananda will continue working on her calculations until someone takes the datapad away and tells her to go to sleep. Her eyes will revert back to human as soon as her concentration on her work is broken. Thinking better of trying to set up the lab when she's in 'think tank' mode, Tam gives her a few hours, gets stuff unloaded in their room, then comes back down and gently pulls the datapad out of her hands. "I think that's enough brainstorming for one day, hon," as he saves her work then powers the device down. "C'mon - let's get some rest," as he pulls her up from her chair and puts an arm around her waist.
"Yeah - we definitely don't have enough wall space for that. I like my solution better" he replied, shaking his head. ;)
At that, Tam snaps out of his fugue state. "Oh - I took care of that before we left. We actually scored some nice bits of tech from the supply pallet," he says with a wink. "I just need an empty room to activate it in." :) Kar watches the holodisplay with a mixed face of wonder and skepticism. "What is that, I've never seen anything like it before?" He says, not taking his eyes off of it. "That's because it's from where I come from, which isn't Agartha," Tam replies. "It's a datapad - essentially an electronic 'book' that holds a lot more than one book ever could. Well, barring magic, of course," as he corrects himself. As Kar turns at the sound of his voice, he notices that the elf is actually not dressed like any of the others either. The coat/duster he had on before they went inside doesn't look too different from outerwear he's seen in his travels, but the form-fitting garment underneath is new to him. All he can see of Tam's skin is his hands, neck and head - the rest is covered in the dark gray material, which almost looks like it is a single piece. The belt he wears has many small, cylindrical pouches along it, and an odd-looking, wand-like item is secured in a larger pouch/frog that depends down on the left side and attaches to his mid thigh.
Tam, starting to get a bit self-conscious about the whole elf body thing, is quietly grateful for the arrival of the newcomer, as it gives him some time to his own thoughts as conversation whirls on around him - and food flies every which way. (^.^)
Kar bows deeply when he is mentioned. "Hi." He says, shaking each of their hands (Who will shake his) "I was just... passing by." He says, "And there was an.. incident.""Oh?" she asked, eyes twinkling with amusement. "Is this like the 'incident' where Razule picked Tam's pocket?"
[Blink, blink] Makes sure his Alarm spells are in full effect.
As the introductions were made Ryleh slipped away to go and check on her scrying equipment.
As the introductions were made Ryleh slipped away to go and check on her scrying equipment.
As the introductions were made Ryleh slipped away to go and check on her scrying equipment.
"Um, hi, Kar. I'm Aananda. And that's Tam. So, uh, what brings you here?" "Hello," Tam says with a wave as when Aananda points over to him.
"But....but....He's an elf!!!" Adsila spluttered. "He was human when he left here. What happened??!" "Ermm...I caught a bug?" Tam replies from over at the hover pallet, a little embarrased. (^.^)
"Okay, so we still have to give Fivain the extra autocasters, and then it's time for us to go home. We are going to need to talk about this more later, Ryo. If for no other reason than to figure out how to help your brother. But Tam was right. We can wait to talk about it until we're back at home."
"Alright - we'll take care of that. Ryo, pull yourself together" Tam says with a grin as he tosses the arm back at him, "and get some food in you. When we find Ryleh we'll come get you and head back to the comet." Tam and Aananda head off to find Fivain.
"Since she worships a god of time - yeah, I think she knows what she's talking about." (^.^) "And what you saw in that vision could very well be the end result of everything we're doing here now. Have you stopped to consider that?" "All we can do is try to make a better future. That's all any of us can do, Ryo."
"If I had to guess...I'd say probably the tampering by the time demon and the attempts to correct it by the alternate versions of ourselves caused the changes. With the sheer volume of temporal magic flying around (that we know of), I wouldn't be surprised if there were 'ripple effects'." "Buy even if we go our seperate ways when we go back, even if we never see our talk to eachother again... I won't be sad that I knew you." "And there you go, assuming again..." he says with a sigh.
Tam nods at Aananda's words. "Because you let us believe that you had already destroyed him, and that you had exhausted all other options already. And I don't know that it would work, but if the results are either freeing his soul to go to his final rest, or bringing him back to life - those are still better options than leaving him stuck between life and death, if you ask me."
Tam scratches his chin, realizes he's using Ryo's mechanical hand, then makes a face and drops it back on the bunk. ;P When Aananda moves to leave, he heads over to the hatch, and when she starts crying he puts an arm around her and pulls her to him. Looking over at Ryo, he takes a deep breath, then speaks his mind. "Okay. You helped stop that Silver from bringing back everything he tried to get for Chan, and you brought me back from the Beyond. I can't be overly mad at you for doing that. I can, however, be a little hacked off with you for making Aananda cry." "Truth begets trust, and trust begets truth, man. I get that people in your profession are persecuted, believe me - I've lived it every single day since I decided to become a wizard in the Dragon Empire. But I also don't buy using that as an excuse to mistrust everybody - especially people who haven't ever given you a reason not to trust them." "You keep saying we're 'family', yet you hide stuff from us that could come back to seriously bite us in the rear if something went wrong. You say you want to save your brother, but you slap a collar on him and essentially enslave him to your will. I don't know about you, but where I come from, that's not the definition of 'family'." "What price are you willing to pay to 'save' Keaton? What are you willing to do, and who are you willing to endanger, on the hope that you can reverse what happened to him? If you've tried wishcraft and it hasn't worked, maybe it's time to accept the fact that the only way to free your brother and at least put his soul at rest is to end his unlife. Not to mention the simple possibility that if you did 'kill' him, you might just be able to resurrect or reincarnate the body - I've seen it happen with other intelligent undead before, and it's one option I haven't even heard you mention...which speaks volumes to me." He shakes his head. "Ask yourself this, Ryo: What would Adsila, Ormarr and Razule think of you if they knew you were like this? Could you live with yourself if they knew? Because those kids depend on you, despite their bravado. They are your family, your siblings now. And they are suffering because of your obsession with this. That's not fair to them, and you owe them better than that." "Alright, you still need some sleep, so get it. You're no good to travel exhausted. We're heading back to the comet once you're back to 100%, and once we get back to Agartha, we'll talk things out from there."
"Wait...what? Lied to us about what?" he asks, trying to find a convenient place to put the arm down. ^.^
Tam grabs Ryo's cybernetic arm to shake him, and is a bit shocked when the whole thing comes free and he is holding it aloft. "GAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!" :D
"Ummmmm....Tam? Why is Ryo covered in mites? And why is there such a big concentration of mites over there in the corner? " she asked, concerned. "Crap - maybe Zeppler already fed him something," he replies (with some concern) as he invokes a detect magic cantrip. "Huh...that looks like a dome over in the corner. Ryo? Man, wake up! Are you sleep-casting or something!?"
Tam and Aananda wheel in a small cart of food and park it by Ryo's berth. Tam then gives him a good shake. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead!" he yells with annoying good cheer. ;) This is your last chance to pick up any space-borne food poisoning before we head back, so eat up! We've gotta drop off some autocasters with Fivain and find Ryleh, then we should be ready to go."
"Ryo probably needs some grub. Let's wheel some food his way, then we can take the autocasters to Fivain."
"mmmmm....time to ourselves....I like this plan." ^.^ "I can be quite the dastardly mastermind when the right motivation presents itself," he says innocently as he helps her up and they retreat to his quarters on the Harbinger. "Let's work on making some sweeter dreams."
Several hours later (enough for Ryo to have actually gotten some decent sleep), they'll head back and bring some more grub for him to munch on ^.^
"Yep - I don't think he's moved an inch since we docked. He must still be wiped out," he replies, pointing at his berth. "Let's go back to my cabin and get some food in you (and use my workshop, yes). We'll bring some back for Ryo, so he can stay here and get some more rest. Besides, I'd rather you and I have some time to ourselves," as he rubs his nose against hers. (^_^)
"Yeah - your mom was pretty adamant about me going over what happened in the last part of the fight," he says, holding up the mirror. "You two were pretty amazing. Not that I want a repeat of that kind of stress-induced power, mind you. And you weren't confused about Keaton - it looks like Ryo has concocted some kind of shadow card magic thingy that looks like him. He used it to lay the Silver low so you could make sure he...didn't get back up again." "Needless to say, the whole thing was pretty surreal to watch. Another reason why I don't think I want to make a habit of it," he says with a smile.
"Hey...yeah, I'm here. My cheeks are still a bit sore from my verbal spanking courtesy of Fivain (and a few others), but, I'm still here, baby," as he hugs her back and plants a long kiss on her. "And I patently refuse to allow you to have bad dreams regarding me. I'm serious - if I catch you doing that again, I'll....I'll hide your tools. So there," he says with a warm smile that belies his mock sarcasm. ;D
"Why, what's up with...." Tam starts to reply, but Ryleh has already left the shuttle. "...hmmm. Ooookaaaay." Tam sits down and fiddles with the mirror, replaying the battle from the point where he 'left'. Highlights include - His pulped body falling: "Ewww..." Aananda going 'nova': "Woooowwwww..." Ryo conjuring what looks like his brother to finish off the Silver:[/i] "Wait...wha....? Okay, that's kinda tacky..." Aananda tearing the Silver apart afterward: "..." (O.o)
Thanks to a well-timed intervention by Doc Zeppler (who, thanks to Ryleh, knew he was coming), Tam's containment by the ship's security systems is relatively brief. The 'dressing down' by his former teacher over what just happened, on the other hand, goes on for hours....the only thing that really grants him a reprieve is getting dragged off to Medbay to have that pesky life energy drained by the reincarnate magic restored to him. Afterward, both he and Fivain briefly return to the comet while Aananda and Ryo sleep, and take measures to dispose of the Silver's body. Once that is done and they are back on board the Harbinger, Tam makes an escape from her withering glare to go check on the other two...
|