Tiger Laredo [THREEPIO] (cybersexual) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-08-13 19:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, !plot, !plot: act i, tiger laredo |
Narrative: Tiger Decryption [ 2 of 3 ]
Who: Viyagraya, High Enchantrix of the Order of the Nine Sanctums. Cameo appearances by her allied company.
Where: The Black Cathedral, deep in the cursed city of Astreon.
When: Thursday August 13th, evening.
What: A stranger in a strange land comes seeking advice from her companions. They are not as useful as they could be, but provide her with valuable clues nonetheless. Part 2 of 3.
Warnings: Swearing, violence, fantastic racism. Mild peril. Disturbing devotion to rule-keeping. Ambient demonry.
The burnished oak doors were ancient and carved from a single block of wood each - they were immensely heavy and as strong as iron, which made them perfect for the easily defensible cathedral. The door was an indeterminately grimy colour: streaked from centuries of penitent hands, the filth of the hopeless masses that crashed upon the cathedral's unholy shore had left indelible marks. The dark walls and buttresses stretched up high into the sky, dark granite and smooth obsidian that sent a clear message to the town built around it. This was not a merciful or welcoming place - this was a church of fear and death, a monument to evil rather than an oasis of calm and a sanctuary. Hanging lazily above the twisted, talon-like spires, a clear and moonlit night provided the perfect backdrop for the night of mayhem and murder that was to come; underneath the moon, a procession of robed figures entered through those large doors. They moved sedately, and as the last one passed through it muttered an incantation in one dark, unknowable language or another. The doors began to swing shut, and as they closed three shadows detached themselves from a large stone column and raced to enter the cathedral before the doors latched. With a resounding boom, the doors shut and, as before, the night was still. Minutes later, the stillness was broken as a woman appeared. She was tall, and extremely stern: her glowing purple eyes were framed by voluminous blonde hair, her sumptuous arcane robes barely concealing an expansive cleavage and a long runed staff clasped between her elegant fingers. She hurried along, heels clacking on the bloodied cobblestones, and as she walked she left a trail of starlight: this was Matriarch Viyagraya, one of the most powerful elven sorceresses in the realm. Her command of magic was unparalleled, and even here in this dank pit she seemed to glow with an inner fire: the grime and filth shrank away at her touch, and the evil miasma dissipated as she approached. She arrived at the doors to the cathedral, still solidly barring her entry. The woman sighed (her chest rising and falling like a blancmange on an ocean liner) and placed her hand on the wood. Immediately it began to wither and warp, the oaken door collapsing under its own weight in a shower of dust and rot. She stepped over the pile of detritus, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead: moving into the cathedral without fear or hesitation, Viyagraya's expression was filled with determination. A twisted, malformed creature lurched out of the shadows with a terrifying wail, but the sorceress swept out a hand and the creature collapsed, now shrieking in pain from the fire which had burst out from under its papery skin. She moved through the church, pausing only to destroy more wretched monsters as they crossed her path: by the time she was halfway down the aisle, the air lay heavy and thick with the stench of burning and rotted meat. "You tarried in the marketplace," came a hissing voice from the shadows. Two pinpricks of light hovered in the darkness, until they came forward and revealed themselves as the eyes of a reptilian woman. She held a knife in one of her four hands, her teeth sharp and bright. "We chose to arrive ahead of you, Matriarch, to clear the way before your triumphant procession began." Viyagraya rolled her eyes. "Listen to me. I haven't got the time to p--" she began, but was silenced by an angry hiss from the lizard rogue. "The Doctrine was agreed!" cried the lizard, furiously waving her dagger in the elf witch's face. "It was agreed upon, and it must be upheld. You will not flout what we do here!" "Aye, the lass is right Matriarch," came another voice. A dwarf was leaning against the column, a pipe cradled in one hand whose stem periodically disappeared into a magnificent and ring-bedecked beard. An enormous greataxe was balanced insouciantly next to him, it's razor edge glinting wickedly in the candlelight. Viyagraya watched them talk with her usual stern aura, her eyes growing colder and colder with every second that passed. "We all agreed tae the Doctrine, ye cannae jus' pick an' choose frae it when it suits ye. Ye turned up late fer starters, an' then ye swan in here wi' ye talk o' whatever...I mean tae say, if yer nae gonna take it seriously...?" Reasonably sure they were finished, the elven sorceress held up a hand. "My deepest apologies, friend adventurers. The hour is late and even the High Enchantrix finds weariness steals upon her at time: you must forgive my lack of haste at the market, but I bear unto you most urgent tidings. We must speak of this ere the day dies, or all shall be lost. I speak of the gods and their machinations!" A benevolent-looking priest, with sumptuous long hair, a neat goatee and resplendent gold and white robes, smiled at the elf. "You speak of the gods? Allow me to counsel you on this, venerable matriarch. Which God speaks to you? Horgath the Mason? Berrimar the Hearth-Keeper? Varimarva the Unrelenting?" Viyagraya shook her head impatiently. "No, simple priest. I speak of Zeus and her covetous cohorts. She is--" "You dare!" shrieked the rogue, her scales reddening with fury. "You trample upon the very first tenet of our Doctrine! We solemnly accept the decree that we do not bring out-of-character drama into the game! I will have thee banned for this, Laredo!" "Will you give it a fucking rest, Daisy? Nobody actually cares." A fifth voice, squeaky and unimpressed, joined the group. A gnome knelt on the floor, in the shadow of a broken pew. Carrying a golden shield and a hammer almost as long as she was, her brow was furrowed deeply under the bubblegum-pink hair. "What's up in 003, Tiger?" The elf finally smiled, grateful for the ally. "Thanks, Miguel. They've got me investigating one of our own: you remember Stonewall?" "Aye, the one the agent shot?" said the dwarf, still smoking the pipe but with the accent long gone. "They want you to look into him?" The elf shook her head. "Not him, exactly. His computer. It's got all kinds of security on it, much more than I'd expect from...well, from someone who wasn't us. I mean, it's not unheard of: people get security on their desktop all the time, and he'd been here long enough to know someone who could fix it up for him, but...it's really good security. As in, I can't break it." The gnome sat deep in thought, the dwarf muttering and even the humourless rogue found the challenge intriguing. The priest, in contrast, had pulled a bag of jelly beans out of his pocket and begun to throw them into the air and catch them in his mouth. He was humming a tune, but Tiger paid him no further interest. Nobody really liked the priest, but he was a good healer so he had to stay...and he rolled Need on all of the leather armor when he didn't actually need it. He, like all of them, was a cyberpath - but from one of the facilities in France, where life by all accounts was much easier and more comfortable than they had it in Chicago. In point of fact, all of the others in Tiger's group had life easier than Chicago, and perhaps that was one of the things that kept Tiger from getting too close to the administration: he knew how tight the screws were at 003. "Have you tried setting up a Truman loop?" asked the gnome eventually. "You want to bridge that gap but you need to keep the firewall occupied long enough to slip past the feedback. Look, try this." She pressed her hand against the elven mage's thigh, a tingle of blue light suffusing them both. Immediately a great abyss opened up before them, cracking the cathedral in half. A line of monstrous demons stood beyond it, snarling and clacking what Tiger charitably referred to as their teeth. The priest slapped him hard on the ass, having snuck up unnoticed while they were transferring data, and sent Tiger tumbling over the edge of the ravine: it only took seconds before a blue bridge appeared under his feet, and took him across the gap with ease. As he stepped up onto the other side of the crumbling gap, blue orbs dripped from his elegant, painted fingers: they drifted away from him, hovering in front of the demons' mesmerised faces and holding them utterly still as Tiger slipped through, his long blonde hair whipping behind him as he picked up the pace at the end. "I can't believe that worked!" he said with a grin. "This is perfect, guys! Thanks so much, I'll get to work on it right now. I'll see you all next week? I'm overgeared for this dungeon anyway: give me a call when we reach the eight warlocks boss? I'll DPS that for days." With a shimmer, the stern elven woman vanished. There was silence for a few minutes, before the French priest spoke. "She is so hot," he said, his lip curling into a lewd grin. "Do any of you have her Facebook?" |