S@@!! Smyrna sputtered as she glanced at the screen. I've seen enough of these races to know there won't be much professional medical help. I can't let some street urchin bleed out alone, do you know that part of the track?
"That's more than enough. Let's go straight to Jin's. Then we can send the car off on it's own."
Amaryst swivels around to look at Rollo. "What were you trying to do last night?"
While she waits for an answer, she starts pulling off armor, and motions for Rollo to do the same.
Korvan puts in Jin's address, which is then promptly deleted from the car's memory. It changes course, speeding off towards the witchwyrd's townhouse complex.
Rollo looks at Amaryst, but doesn't begin taking his armor off. "Where are you taking me? Why are you helping me? What are your names?" he rattles off, although weakly.
Korvan raises an eyebrow but otherwise remains silent, waiting to hear what Amaryst has to say about the situation.
Amaryst points at Korvan then at herself. "Korvan. Amaryst."
She unstraps one of her grieves and waves it back and forth between herself and Rollo, inviting him to follow suit.
"He's helping because he's my friend and now I owe him a favor, no, two favors."
"First, we're taking you to a friend's house who's offering me some work. All my units are on one little cred stick, and we're going to need money. "
And you cost me today's wages. She thinks to herself.
"Don't worry. I don't plan on you meeting him. Korvan will be in enough trouble if the police tumble onto us. I don't want any more of my friends in that situation. You and Korvan can wait in the car. I'll even give you your piece back if it will make you feel better."
"The Transcendent Mind only knows why I'm doing this. Perhaps you're punishment for misdeeds in an earlier life. " Maybe we're bound by ancient ties of blood and soil. You seemed to think that was enough when you were in bed pointing a gun at me."
Korvan smirks at the two favors comment.
"Wait...we're only here at Jin's so he can float you a loan? I thought we were bringing him here so Jin could patch him up. God knows he's put my sorry ass back together enough times after a job's gone sideways."
"Yeah, c'mon," Cross said. He had raced most of the courses previously, there were a limited number that could reliably be raced without police or other interference. It should not be hard to figure out just where that screen was showing.
Korvan, Amaryst, and Rollo arrive at Jin's house. Rollo responds to Amaryst, saying, "Ok, sure. You're a good samaritan. But I'm not taking my armor off until you tell me why I need to. We're going to your friend's house? Why do I need my armor off for that?"
"If we're walking down the street, you know that the bleeding wounds all over me are going to be just as conspicuous."
- - - - -
Cross and Smyrna race out to the racetrack while the rest of the crowd scurries to clean everything up and get out of there. Explosions means police, and police means illegal-street-racing-ring-gets-arrested. The drones are called back, tech is packed away, and the crowd filters away.
It takes about ten minutes for Cross and Smyrna to jog to where the crash happened. When they arrive, they find the crash scene a mess. One motorcycle has been blown apart into little bits, two motorcycles have lost control and spun out into a wall. Three men - the ysoki Missile, the Las Vegas Racer Flashfire, and George. "The Dominator" is missing, as is whomever caused the explosion. There is no sign of them.
The ysoki and George don't appear obviously wounded. They lie on the ground unconscious, perhaps bruised or scraped. The Flashfire, however, flew off his motorcycle head-first, as is evidenced by his massive bleeding head-wound.
Korvan smirks at the two favors comment.
"Wait...we're only here at Jin's so he can float you a loan? I thought we were bringing him here so Jin could patch him up. God knows he's put my sorry ass back together enough times after a job's gone sideways."
Korvan, Amaryst, and Rollo arrive at Jin's house. Rollo responds to Amaryst, saying, "Ok, sure. You're a good samaritan. But I'm not taking my armor off until you tell me why I need to. We're going to your friend's house? Why do I need my armor off for that?"
"If we're walking down the street, you know that the bleeding wounds all over me are going to be just as conspicuous."
- - - - -
Amaryst taps the overcoat that she lifted, no stole, from Carol's house.
"Rollo, still hasn't said what he was doing last night, but based on his armor and weapons, and wounds, I'm guessing he helped try to blow up the security tower. Who walks around with a bag of frag grenades? So he's hot, glowing, blue, radioactive, hot. He's definitely not legit or he wouldn't have broken into Carol's house.
"Korvan, I'm sorry I dragged you into this, but I needed a way out of the house that couldn't be easily traced. Two heavily armored lashunta walking out of Carol's neighborhood would have been noticed. And Rollo wasn't up for a 20 mile hike anyway.
"The healing serum I gave Rollo seems to be holding him stable. We can grab another. Once we get to a hotel, I can check him. I've got some first aid training. I don't want to drag any more friends into this. So, right now Jin might get us some cash. He says he's got a job for me, or maybe I can get a loan. "
"So, we're going to see what we can get out of Jin. We're going to ditch the car. We're going to look inconspicuous. And we're going to find a safe place where we can figure out how to get Rollo back to his friends, or whatever our next move is. It's not much of a plan, but it's all I've got right now."
"Alright...I guess. Go talk to Jin and make it quick. Time's a tickin' and every minute is another chance someone at Lyfuber is gonna figure out something isn't right with this car."
"Do you think we'd be better off if we ditch the car now?"
"Might not be the worst idea. No idea how long Jin will keep you in there...he's pretty chatty, you know." Korvan offers. "Easy enough to hack another car when we're ready."
Amaryst sucks her breath in slowly.
"You know better than me about the car. We'll all go in to Jin's. But Rollo can't walk in wounded and in combat gear. No way we could lie plausibly about that. If he's not wearing armor, we can say it was an industrial accident. Jin will know better, but he can pretend he doesn't."
Amaryst looks at Rollo and nudges the weapons bag. "If you're really worried about losing the armor, I'll give you the semi-auto back. Two rounds loaded, and you've got to promise to shoot me first."
While she waits for Rollo's answer, she finishes stripping her armor down and stuffing it in her pack.
"George, hey George!" Cross shouts, skidding to his knees by the unconscious form of the amateur racer. George was treated to the unlovely feel of Cross's inorganic palm slapping across his face. There was no easy way to do this, if he could rouse George and get him to help Missile to safety, he and Smyrna could attend to Flashfire properly.
Rollo rolls his eyes. "You want me to tell you so that you can plausibly get tortured to death looking for you?" he says. "Fine. Yes, I was a part of that raid on the UFIA building. I flew a fighter. I got shot down, and then got into a gunfight with police before running into that neighborhood and hiding in the first house I could find that didn't have motion sensors and guard drones."
He takes off his armor, and will go into Jin's house with Amaryst.
- - - -
George gasps at Cross' slap, waking up. He coughs, and then curls up to hold his shoulder. "Owwww," he moans.
Korvan dismisses the car and follows the pair of Lashunta warrior into the house.
Smyrna quickly glances over George and Missile, looking for obvious signs of trauma.
After assessing these two, she briskly walks over to flashfire, removes his scarf, and bunches it lightly against his head to staunch bloodflow while also tenderly feeling for damage and analyzing how deep the wound goes.
Cross, I know my way around a heap of flesh, but racing is your thing so I'm gonna level with you on this. Flashfire doesn't look good, and his best chance to come out of this alive would be at a hospital. You know I'm as a good as any quack, but I ain't got the facilities for this kind of injury. So, we have a choice. Smyrna stops, takes a practiced breath, and takes a level look at Cross. If you were where Flash is now, would you rather live and deal with the consequences, or take a risk to get off scot-free?
"Focus George. Take Missile and get out of here," Cross ordered, "Get yourselves checked out." That problem handled he turned back to Smyrna and the still unconscious Flashfire.
"Flash has got a death wish, I don't. I'd want whatever help I can get. Ain't enough of me left to risk a scrambled brainpan. He can b@+!& later, when he's recovered."
"Absolutely." Smyrna says as she wraps the scarf around Flash's head, moving him as little as possible.
We probably have 2 minutes tops before pigs get here. Tay, do you see the boy anywhere?
George struggles to his feet. He seems fine, although his shoulder is clearly injured. Dislocated probably, or maybe a minor break. He looks around at the wreckage scene, at Cross, and he nods. He goes to collect the unconscious ratfolk, lifting him up with one arm. Then he pushes his bike up onto its kickstand with his legs, mounts it, and carefully drives away.
The boy is nowhere to be seen, but perhaps he went somewhere nearby?
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As the trio arrive to Jin's door the holoprojector springs to life, revealing the head, shoulders, and upper pair of arms of the witchwyrd doctor "Amaryst, wonderful, I've been a little worried, good to see you're alright. Korvan? A surprise but a pleasant one, and.. oh.. I see you have a patient. Bring him around to the side door and I'll see what I can do for him." he says, his jovial familiarity fading to a clinically professional tone as he began to get a grasp on the situation before the projector turned back off.
Meanwhile inside the house he turned to the two kids and explained "They are here, Amaryst is a friend so I think we can trust her but I only know Korvan as a business associate, regardless just stay in here out of sight of them and you should be fine until I return" he finished as he turned and traded his duster for a white lab coat and headed into the makeshift clinic.
Amaryst swears a little internally, Should have known Jin would spot the pain, even with the overcoat.
Stepping inside the surgery, Amaryst bows and positions her arms stiffly in front of her so that her palms align vertically with her left hand's fingertips a few centimeters below the heel of her right hand, which is in front of her nose.
"Jin, honey. It's good to see you."
"My friend here had a bad accident. I think he's stable, but he lost a lot of blood. Sorry to drop him on you like this."
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"It's good to see you too dear." Jin said, assuming the complete pose for a few moments before looking to Korvan "And you to Korvan. Is he a friend of both of yours?" the doctor asked, indicating the wounded man before addressing him directly in his more professional working tone "As for you, hop up on the patient table and I'll run a scan. I need to determine how badly you are injured."
Korvan raises an eyebrow seeing the exchange of odd postures, opting not to say anything about it.
I'm more along for the ride this time, Jin." he says wandering around looking at the surroundings, but not touching anything.
"How's Cass treating you? Still good I hope."
Korvan smirks and looks over toward Amaryst. "See...I knew helping you out would eventually lead to creds."
Emily nodded quietly at Jin's instructions. She knew how important it was to avoid suspicion; if she and Mal were discovered by the wrong people, they'd be on their way back to the facility -- and with much stricter security from now on. Yet her curiosity flared at the potential for meeting others, especially Jin's friends!
Once Jin was gone and the door was closed, Emily quietly padded over to it. "Can't hurt to listen, right?" She whispered to Maldor, then cupped her hands around her ear and pressed them to the door.
Amaryst smiles back at Korvan, "First thing that's gone right today."
She lounges against a counter, in a corner, out of the way.
"Cassius, are you listening? Can you let us know if anyone approaches the house?"
Maldor nods affirmatively at Emily, following her to the door and listening with her.
"Sounds like someone is hurt in there," he whispers to Em. "I bet I could help...should I?" Maldor grips the door handle, but looks to his friend to see what she thinks before moving it.
He had always been a helper - someone more concerned about stopping others' pain than his own. The Institute had honed that attribute, and the experiments and chemical treatments opened his psyche to a greater universal power that Maldor could channel to mystically heal others. But he had also learned some degree of skeptical restraint, and so hesitated before rushing in to a potentially dangerous situation.
Rollo's eyebrow seems permanently raised as he slowly limps into Jin's workshop, supported by Korvan. With a huff, he plops himself down on Jin's examination table and allows the witchwyrd's simple apparatus to scan him for injuries.
Checking him over for injuries, Jin can tell that even though Rollo appears to be a tough customer, he's quite near death. He appears to have some physical trauma - sprains in his hands and possibly a concussion. He also has been shot twice - once in the shoulder and once in the rib. He has a laser wound across his belly, and several electrical burns. He's also clearly lost a lot of blood. Rollo chuckles as he's examined. "Must have run into both of the aliens that live on Earth, huh?" he jokes.
Without proper facilities, Jin won't really be able to provide long-term care for him, but a medpatch or sprayflesh could go a long way. A week or more of rest would see this man mostly recovered. A blood donation from Amaryst could also help him a lot.
Emily and Maldor can hear what conversation there is through the door. Emily can feel frustration, suspicion, concern, and Jin's clinical lack of emotion radiating out of the garage.
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As Jin looks him over he chuckles a bit at the joke "Maybe not the only ones, there are also some Kasatha around I seen, thank god or else i wouldn't be able to get clothes, and I also have a Shirren friend further into the city."
Meanwhile, he drew some gauze and a few burn salves from a drawer and began to wrap the wounded areas, adding the ointment to the bandages over locations of the laser and electrical burns. "A small comfort i'm sure, but that should prevent any infection and help you to heal a little quicker. If i had better supplies I might be able to do more."
He then pulled a ice pack from a nearby minifridge and a pair of painkillers from a first aid kit, handing them to the Lashunta man "Hold that to your head and take these, you've got signs of a concussion."
Emily nodded to Mal, while she listened through the door and processed the emotions in Jin's voice. "I'll try to contact Jin...we'll see what he thinks. But I think we should help if we can, right?" Emily concentrated for a moment, and tried to send a mental whisper to Jin.
{Maldor can help,} She sent. {He can heal your patient almost instantly.}
Mal only hesitates a little, but as soon as he hears Jin say he couldn't do anything more, the young man opens the door and walks slowly over to the wounded lashunta. With his hands raised slightly and palms up, Maldor says, "You helped me escape from the Institute. Many of your comrades died so that I could be free. I can help you where the good doctor can not. Please, I don't want any more of you to die because of me..."
As long as he is not stopped by anyone, Maldor will stand next to the lashunta, place his hands lightly on Rollo's chest, and raise his head slightly. Looking off into the distance, he begins to pray. "Everyone who hurt you will be hurt; your enemies will end up as slaves. Your plunderers will be plundered; your looters will become loot. As for you, I come with healing, curing the incurable, because they all gave up on you and dismissed you as hopeless..." As he talks, a blue energy seems to emanate from Maldor and seep into Rollo. This process goes on for ten minutes or more, Maldor praying beneath his breath, blue energy flowing from him, and Rollo's wounds closing over and color coming back to the lashunta's pale face.
Healing Channel (Su): You can heal yourself and your allies. You can spend 1 Resolve Point to channel this energy. Healing yourself with channeled energy is a move action, healing an ally you touch is a standard action, and healing all allies within 30 feet is a full action. This energy restores 2d8 Hit Points.
Healing Touch (SU): Once per day, you can spend 10 minutes to magically heal an ally up to 5 Hit Points per mystic level.
Mystic Cure (1st level spell): With a touch, you heal and invigorate your target, restoring a number of Hit Points. If the target regains all of its Hit Points as a result of this healing, you can apply the remaining healing to yourself, as long as you are a living creature. On the other hand, if this isn’t enough to restore all the target’s Hit Points, you can transfer any number of your own Hit Points to the target, healing the target that amount. You can’t transfer more Hit Points than you have or more Hit Points than the target is missing. Mystic cure restores a number of Hit Points to your target depending on the spell’s level.
- 1st: 1d8 + your Wisdom modifier
Remove Condition, Lesser (1st level spell): You remove any one of the following conditions affecting the target: shaken, sickened, or staggered.
The door opens and Amaryst bolts upright. Her hand drops down to her gun and sweeps the pistol clear of the holster. But she doesn't raise it further. Something in the man's demeanor, his posture, and his words reassures her that he's no threat. The pistol stays drawn, pending Rollo's reaction.
Her eyes flit to Jin and she forgets to speak.
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Jin puts a pair of his hands up and interposes himself between Maldor and Amaryst and says "Don't shoot!" with a telepathic response undertoning it.
He then turns to Maldor and, waiting a moment till his magic fades to a lull between spells, hisses in a whisper "Kid I told you to stay inside, this just got a lot more complicated thanks to you. Do you even know this person?" he finished, gently tugging Maldor to the side and away from the Lashunta man before turning back to Korvan and Amaryst, his tone and expression pulling a 180 back to pleasant in the process.
"He's, well, part of the job I wanted to ask you about. If we can just all calm down, I can explain further." he said to the two armed and hopefully friendly mercenaries standing before him in this delicate situation.
Maldor is clearly drained after his healing, but Jin's unexpected response brings out his anger. "Please stop calling me 'kid.' I stopped being a kid a long time ago...As for knowing this person, he is like the others who broke in and helped us escape. His wounds are clearly from a battle - just like the wounds of all the other lashunta who I saw dead or dying yesterday. How can my helping someone who helped me escape make things more complicated? In fact, I don't know you any better than him, or them..." he indicates each of the others in the room in turn.
"You know what? I'm just going to go back in there and let you all figure out what's important to you. Don't bother me until I've had a chance to recover, myself."
Maldor turns on his heel and storms back through the door to Jin's apartment, slamming it behind him. He goes back to the couch where he was napping before and throws himself down, one arm over his eyes to block out the light - and any other conversation.
Korvan spins around as the newcomer enters the room. The hacker regards the man curiously and watches in amazement as the Lashunta warrior's wounds begin to heal.
"Wh...who...no, scratch that, what are you you?" Korvan asks. Getting a better look at the man, Korvan quietly says to himself as more so than anyone else, "Mal? Nah, it couldn't be..."
Snapping back to his senses, Korvan turns to Jin and says, "Look, I've done some pretty low things before Jin, but I draw the line at sentient trafficking."
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"It's not trafficking it's... look. He showed up on my doorstep talking about a mistake i made a long time ago. He came from that attack last night, and had a commlink that pointed to some sort of safehouse." Jin explained "What i wanted your help with was helping us scout it out for more information, and as for you Amaryst" he said, turning to the Lashunta woman "I was thinking of trying to break your ship out so we could get offworld." with that out of his system he sighed heavily before looking back to the man on the table, and noticing just how much Maldor had healed him.
Quickly Jin ran a second scan and... Wow, just what did that kid do to him? It's like he spent two whole days in bed resting!
"Sparky is stable right? Do you see any sign of that kid or Dom?" Cross looked around, trying to find any indication of where the last two unaccounted for persons had ended up.
Emily stood in the doorway, not prepared for the burst of activity as Mal went into the garage lab. With two antenna-people -- one pointing a gun -- and another man present, there was sudden and palpable tension. She didn't even need her powers to sense that. Emily still reached out with her senses, however; first to the woman holding the gun, then to the patient while Maldor worked. With harsher words shared between Jin and Mal, she read them next, reflexively. Last was the quieter man.
Despite Rollo's look of wonder as Maldor stitches his wounds shut with psychic power, he still maintains a quizzical upraised eyebrow as the exchange between Amaryst, Jin and Maldor happens. "What's that old human saying?" he says, as Maldor leaves the room. "Something about dirty clothing?"
He chuckles. "That is what we all risked our lives for?" He scoffs. "Well, great. That's amazing."
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"Dirty clothes? I can't say i know that one." Jin says as he finishes cleaning up the workspace and putting everything back where it belongs. "And what's this about risking your lives? Was what Mal said actually right?" he asks, looking the Lashunta up and down.
He smiles. "I dunno, are you a cop? Human friend of mine told me that cops have to tell you if you ask them."
He shrugs. "I didn't choose where to go, this lady brought me here," he says, obviously feeling much better after Maldor's attentions. "And yes, it is true. I flew a fighter for a lashunta paramilitary group and attacked a United Earth Federation military base. Wasn't totally sure what we were there for, to be honest. They just told me - 'protect the big ships, shoot down human fighters, take down human tanks'."
He scratches his military-cut brown hair. "Uh, also... thanks. All of you. I'll be getting out of your business soon, if you could lend me a few credits and point me to a hospital. And maybe somewhere to get clean clothes?"
Amaryst holsters her pistol nearly as quickly as she drew it. She waits out the whirlpool of outbursts.
"Looks like we all have stories to tell. Maybe we should just go through them one at a time. "
"Jin, who are those two anyway? They have names I assume."
Emily took a small step into the room, once the gun was holstered and tensions had eased. She listened intently to the conversation, feeling out many important details. It surprised her some that the two antenna-people didn't seem to know about her and Mal, and the injured man's story saddened her. It hadn't occurred to her that some of their rescuers might not have known what the mission was even about.
"I... I'm so sorry," She told the patient. "You risked your life. And so many others lost theirs... And you didn't even know anything about us." Emily glanced back through the door, towards Mal. "I hope more made it out than just Maldor and I."