The Found Arcana - Chapter 7 [IC] Options

[Tecumseh]

Mato is able to side-step, but only by a handful of meters. He throws an arm up over his face just in time to hear the explosion. The shockwave rolls over him and the shrapnel pings at his suit. Mato isn't one for strong emotions, but he feels his blood begin to rise. If there's so much as a scratch on this suit, I'm going to repay it in kind... he thinks to himself, imagining his cyberspur going to work on someone's ribs and lungs.

AM could fix the suit and that thought would calm him down eventually, but for now - skimming over the river in the mountains at night in the winter with people actively trying to kill him - his blood is hot.

[Beta]

The mage resists the first spell, but can't quite resist the second one, and assumes a new position as a giant jellyfish. Likely to the surprise of the other occupants of the raft. Perhaps not surprisingly the Net spell gets dropped, although Bobby suspects that the brief slowdown may have let the drone close some distance.

Meanwhile Mato and AM have closed the distance somewhat, to a little over half a kilometer, but it looks like it could be a fairly long haul to overtake the raft if nothing changes.

And AM gets a message <<Hey, I don't know you. Are you trying to rescue me? Because I think I'm in a boat. Some people are yelling and I see the matrix in front of me, I've missed it so much, you know? I can just about hear it, but not quite. Are you hear to find the matrix too? Maybe we can find a hovercraft to take us there!>>

[Gilga]

AM receives the message as soon as she channels the spiritual power to petrify the mage/jellyfish using Trouble as a spiritual conduit allowing her to channel even more energy than usual. Additional treatment was needed because the mage could still cast spells as a jellyfish, but petrify would turn him unconscious and he'll lose influence over the dreadful fire spirit.
>> I am AM, and we are coming to rescue you. She does not have the attention to make conversation while sustaining the spells and flying - by the time she finishes explaining it would all be over one way or the other.

[ Spoiler ]

Petrify F6 -3 visibility: 15d6t5 6
drain vs 3: 10d6t5 4

[Tecumseh]

The boat is not particularly close. Mato does some mental math - not well, mind you, since he hasn't freed up the space for a Math SPU - and figures that he's at least half a minute away from the boat.

Nursing the anger about his potentially damaged suit, he continues his pursuit down the river.

[Beta]

<<I'd be screaming about the stings if I didn't know it was an illusion. People don't turn into jellyfish. It is kind of cool to see how much the stinging hurts, knowing it will go away once the illusion is done.>> Brent's message to AM seemed calm, but promised more issues down the roads. Meanwhile,with the benefit of some height, and not a lot else to look at right now, she thinks she can see faint traces of light down the river, and maybe an area of mist on the river, catching the light?

Going up to full speed leads Mato to start catching up to the raft more quickly -- his radar gets a solid ping off the engine, letting him track range pretty accurately. And suddenly he starts closing even faster, as if the raft had stopped or nearly so.

While Bobby was slowed by the Net spell, the drone had managed to close to within a couple of dozen meters and started shooting at Bobby again. He also noticed a hump in the water speeding his way from the direction of the raft

[ Spoiler ]

10d6t5: 10d6t5 3

[Jack_Spade]

'Damn water spirit. I've got to warn Mato - or kill the mage. If only I had a gun...'
Bobby realized, that in fact he had one - following him closely.

'Time to shine as a raptor.'

He went into a loop, to catch the drone behind him, extending his claws to catch the little thing - preferably aiming the dangerous end away from him.

[ Spoiler ]

I assume the roll earlier was an attack roll
Defense: 27d6t5 15

My second pass after the transformation bit is catching up to the drone and grapple it:

Grapple: 18d6t5 4

Should that succeed, I'll use my barehanded adept magic Analyse Device to find out how it works and if there are any mechanical parts that I can trigger with my claws, to turn the thing into a regular gun
Analyse Device F4: 16d6t5 5
Object Resistance: 15d6t5 3
Drain resist: 14d6t5 3 no Drain

[Beta]

Just as Bobby's sweeps up on the drone, talons extended, it suddenly rolls onto one edge and drops under the influence of gravity, falling just below his reach. Definitely not a move you'd expect out of an autopilot.

[Gilga]

Oh, it's real Bernt, but medicine is real as well, and we'll treat you plenty of painkillers.

[Beta]

Bobby shows that he can be just as agile, rolling to one side to avoid the shots from the drone and diving down at it. This time he gets his talons on it. The drone immediately starts fighting Bobby's control, motors revving as it twists in his grip, fighting to get free. Then it does something else with its motors and tries to flip Bobby over, and when that fails it finally pulls straight down, presumably trying to crash Bobby into the river. However Bobby's grip can't be broken that easily, his wing span is enough to keep himself from being flipped, and he is able to use his broad wings to provide enough lift to keep from crashing out.

Finally the drone goes passive in his grip, and Bobby finds himself soaring about five meters above the river. At that level he gets a good look at the water spirit as it races past him toward the rest of the team.

AM and Mato had a view of Bobby's aerial struggles, but could do little to help, other than to continue to close. A dim light appears on the raft, letting them see it more clearly and even throwing a touch of light on Bobby. With relief they finally see Bobby gain full control as they approached interactive range.


When the opposing raft got itself off the rocks on which it was stuck, Bobby and the water spirit are about 300 meters back, Mato about 50 meters further out, and AM another 50 beyond that

[Gilga]

Once the raft comes into visual range, she tries to figure out who is who and then casts the petrify on the Jellyfish mage along with Trouble.

[ Spoiler ]

Petrify F6 -3 visibility: 15d6t5 6
drain vs 3: 10d6t5 4

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby finally had a good grip on the drone, it's rotors struggling feebly, but against one and a half meters of wingspan it couldn't do much. Bobby concentrated on what he felt and made a complicated gesture with his claws alongside the chassis. Information flooded his mind - no, knowledge - everything he could conceivably want to know about the drone and its manufacture. Without having to look, he slipped one claw into a mechanism that was designed to pull the trigger. That had the benefit, that it now couldn't fire without his sayso - or rather that it would only fire now with his sayso.

'You think you can harass me with your mechanical minions? Who's the minion now?'

Bobby realized that his wouldn't have actually been a good war cry and was glad the mental connection to the others was no longer active. Instead he gave in to the drones struggles to go down and swooped towards the boat.

[Beta]

Bobby no sooner had the drone tamed than he had to avoid shot from a hunting rifle wielded by the orc in the raft. Didn't the guy know that owl's were a protected species?

The water spirit continued moving at an impressive rate, past Bobby and on toward Mato ... and past Mato and on toward AM.

[Jack_Spade]

Still out of range, Bobby swerved to evade the shots fired at him. All in all a good arangement, as that meant they weren't focusing on the rest of his companions.
Bit by bit he closed the distance, ready to have the drone fire at the man with the rifle.

[Beta]

Mato veers close to the spirit, and can see an enormous salmon with two tails and an oversized mouth racing through the water, just barely below the surface. The speed of its passage humps the water over it, leaving behind a wake that records the twists in its path. Despite all the challenges, Mato lands a clean hit on it with his arm-mount SMG. Unfortunately the spirit's crimson scales ignored the bullets, not showing any damage. In fact the spirit seems to pay no particular attention to Mato, unless its slightly twisting course is an acknowledgement that it doesn't want to be too easy of a target.

[Gilga]

Looking at the spirit, AM calms Trouble down, hinting when would be the exact moment to strike "Strike hard, with all your might.". AM herself was a bit taxed at sustaining all the spells - so the best she could do was to guide Trouble with his own strike at the spirit.

Only visible in the astral is Trouble flying dashing toward the Salmon, and trying to bite it.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby put on another burst of speed to close the distance. Now that the mage was turned to stone he could drop his own spell and focus on the guy with the rifle.
Though now the drone was a liability and he fumbled for the offswitch, pressing a claw into the button. Then he let go of the detection spell as well.

The Sam no longer had a mage to protect him - so Bobby turned the Sam into Tuna, forcing him to either jump into the water or suffocate.

[ Spoiler ]

Using my remaing two passes to switch off the drone, drop the two other spells and then turn the shooter into tuna

Shapechange Tuna F6: 15d6t5 2

Well, shit.

Sam resists with Body
Drain Resist: 14d6t5 6
At least I don't have to wory about drain

[Gilga]

In physical space, the Salmon's advance is halted and then it suddenly tries to dodge some invisible force. Then it twists and jerks in pain as bite marks appear on its physical body with no obvious reason or signs of impact. The water turns red, as the blood pours off the big Salmon spirit. Invisible to the team, an astral observer could see a cat jumping the much bigger salmon spirit within predatory zeal, and the agility of a well... a cat.

[Beta]

Despite the damage it has taken, the water spirit stays fixated on getting to AM (allowing Trouble to likely finish it off)

Bobby thinks he sees his spell start to affect the orc, but then the spell slips away leaving the orc as an orc. A very angry orc with a rifle, which it promptly uses to attempt to shoot Bobby again, sending another three shots at the owl.

[Gilga]

Trouble continues fighting the spirit, while AM distances herself as much as she can from the spirit not wanting to face it in melee.

[Beta]

This time Bobby's spell holds, and turns the orc shooter into a tuna flopping about the boat. A moment later one of the remaining figures in the boat splashes into the water.

Upstream, the water spirit suddenly dissolves, water splashing into the hole it left behind.

A second later the splashing is done, although the river is far from quiet, providing plenty of noise from water rushing around rocks, standing waves, and from further downstream a bit of a rushing noise from another set of rapids or falls.

[Tecumseh]

Mato sighs as his weapon does nothing against the spirit. He makes a mental note to figure something out.

Blight? Maybe Brad could hook me up with some. But would that even work in the water or would it disperse on the wave and do nothing?

He can't dwell on the matter excessively; he has a boat to catch. Knowing Bobby, he's have everybody in the boat transformed into a titmouse just into garden snails or banana slugs just in time for the boat to go into the rapids and capsize. Brent probably is tied up and, while Bobby could turn him into a fish, that would risk having him swim away. So Mato pours on the speed as best he is able to catch up to the boat before tragedy strikes.

[Gilga]

"Well done Trouble" AM cheers, and they continue approaching the raft. Despite being the slowest of the bunch, actually flying and feeling the cold freezing wind and ground moving fast is quite a thrill to AM, and she feels alive. Her rational half is sort of worrying about the fire spirit but when the mage is unconscious it has likey returned to its own firey meta plane. Or so the young sorcerer has assumed.

[Jack_Spade]

Now that the shooting had stopped, Bobby could hustle. Beating his wings frantically, he tried to gain on the boat, trying to see who had just gone over board - and what that rushing noise was all about.

[ Spoiler ]

Buying sprint hits for additional movement

[Beta]

Bobby can see that the river takes a fairly sharp turn to the right up ahead, and that the raft will be heading around that corner soon. Bobby could fly over the point of land that the river is flowing around, cutting off some distance, however that would likely put him over Salish-Sidhe military base lands. And just past the point there seems to be maybe 50m of white water, no doubt where the roaring is coming from.

He finds it hard to see what is going on in the raft because a large tuna is thrashing around. It looks like there are some other figures in there but he can't easily pick up details.


Mato notices that the current looks faster on the edge of the upcoming curve in the river. Fast enough to have some minor standing waves. Cutting to that side would shorten his route a bit and and give him more speed from the current, but give him a more challenging path. Be could also try skating up over the point of land.

AM is far enough back to wait to see what the others are doing about the upcoming bend. But in the meantime she gets a message. <<I don't like these drugs, I'm seeing crazy things, and now I'm all wet and cold and --OW-- someone keeps slamming in to me but I'm seeing them as a giant fish and I don't understand what is going on!>>

[Tecumseh]

Mato avoids skating over the point of land.

He also avoids the faster current on the edge of the upcoming curve. While it would shorten his route, his challenges on the river so far this evening have taught him a degree of caution about his physical abilities. He is, after all, running on water, which is an absurd enough proposition to begin with. He doesn't wish to press the issue, especially since luck has not been on his side this evening.

He takes the wider, slower course around the curve, avoiding the challenging curve even if it might save a few seconds. Brent could hold his breath for a bit, right?