,
codenkir@excel.net says...
> Jeff Huo wrote in message ...
> >Turnberry smiles. ["...yes, how about doing that -eleven-
> >different times? How about accompanying a Virtual Adept team on a
> >little stroll through Autochronia? How about being involved in a
> >plot to try to steal money from a Syndicate-run casino so that we
> >could blackmail a NWO Controller? How about being trapped in an
> >stuck elevator car for forty-one hours with a Black Fury and a
> >charuvnistic pig of a Toreador in the middle of a Pentex
> >corporate skyscraper? How about trying to break a Tremere Magus
> >-into- an Assamite stronghold? Or crash-landing a Son of Ether
> >airship into a caern of Red Talons? Or getting into a martial
> >arts contest with a Chantery of Askathic Brotherhood mages? While
> >posing as a Euthantos? One thing has to be said about running
> >rescue missions with the Order of Eiletheya --it isn't boring."]
> >["And would you believe that all of the above were at least three
> >times more sane than the alternatives?"]
>
> Mahri laughs. "Well, I can't see as how the Fury and Toreador
> would be much of a problem for more than a few minutes."
> She grins wickedly. "Oh, you were
> all supposed to be working _together_."
Turberry laughs. ["No, unfortunately --or fortunately, depending
on how you look at it..."]
> Stalks looks over, "Stuck in Pentex el'vator with
> Black Fury and Toreador? Must tell all story."
Turnberry smiles. ["With pleasure, m'lady,"] he says, tipping his
hat to Stalks and to Mahri.
["It was as simple as missions get,"] Turnberry recalls,
chuckling darkly. ["The Order was attempting to track down a
particular Dauntain who had been responsible for the assasination
of over a dozen Fae. He was slippery and had evaded our grasp a
number of times, but we finally managed to get a lead on him. We
discovered by various means that he had contracted a very, very
rare species of venereal disease --created by Tzmisce
fleshcrafters, actually. A long and very sorid story, that,"]
Turnberry says with distaste, ["and one I really do not wish to
repeat."]
["You probably wonder how on earth we seem to know so much about
folks that value their privacy greatly,"] Turnberry notes. ["As I
once said, Kithain magic is easily defeated by Banality or
disbelief. But when one believes...or, perhaps more relevantly,
when there's nobody around to disbelieve...why, much is possible.
The old stories of how the good elves and faries did their
amazing work only when nobody was watching? Exactly."]
["Fae magic is capable of much at low levels that is difficult by
Garou, Kindred or Mage arts,"] Turnberry explains. ["Take the
first art of Primal --Willow Whisper, for example. With it, one
can ask questions of anything, say...walls. Stones. Mooch the
lint off of a Hermetic's trench coat and ask it about the
conversation they just had in closed executive session. Set some
sugar down-tunnel from a Nostrafu's lair and grill the roaches
for answers. Similar tricks are possible with other arts --Portal
Passage your way through a eight-foot-thick reenforced concrete
wall without a blink. Flicker-flash a blade of grass into a
Tremere's lair, then Tattle-tale to get a peek inside. You get
the idea. If you need fast, sudden, violent force, go with Garou,
Kindred or Mage arts. But for the subtle...we Fae have a few
tricks up our sleeve. And when you've got money to blow on dross
to burn for Glamour to use on cantrips...like in the pursuit of
rescuing Kithain...anything is possible."]
["Anyway, we knew that this Dauntain we were hunting needed a
particular medicine...and that records of this would be within
Magdalon, the medical subsidiary of Pentex, databanks. We had a
contact inside of Magdalon --a senior computer administrator--
with which we had an arragement...this gentleman had a thing for
fantasy anthromorphic erotica...a 'furry fetish', they call
it...and when one of our Order's agents approached him with Pooka
porn [1]...well...we had our inside contact."] Turnberry looks
disgusted. ["Real life intelligence work is never as antiseptic
or glamourous as James Bond makes it look...and -Pooka-
pornography?"] Turnberry shrudders. ["Granted, we're on the
opposite end of the scale as Nostrafu porn, but it's still just
plain old -wrong-...."]
["Anyway, we got him to draw up records of when and where this
medicine was given to our target...information with which we
could use to ambush this killer before he struck again. Not
exactly fair, but... 'inter arma enim silent leges,' "] Turnberry
says, regretfully.
[OOC: 'In War, the Laws fall silent.' ]
["Now, our contact could hardly e-mail or fax us that info...but
he -could- put it on disk...and have someone pick it up. Someone
whose presence in Magdalon would not attract attention, someone
who might concievably have legitimate reason to be there and have
the data...someone, like, say, a Hematology/Oncology researcher
at the Children's Memorial Hospital who routinely came to
Magdalon on legitimate business...someone like me. So in I went
late one night..."]
["The real danger, frankly, was on the way in --having to explain
being caught with a porfolio of photos of Miss Kitty in a lacy
red teddy doing the nasty with leather-bound and gagged Miss
Bunny would have been quite difficult, to say the least,
especially for a pediatrician. But once the trade was made...as
a physican, I could reasonably explain having the records...I
even carried forged authorizations to cover that eventuality.
Information in hand, I boarded the elevator at the 75th floor to
head on out...and a Kindred boarded with me."]
["The real fun began when the Fury boarded on the 60th floor."]
["The Fury got in --in homid form, obviously-- and sniffed.
Sniffed again. Turned really, really slowly to face the Kindred.
Instantly the two of them on some instinctual level figured out
what the other was. Everything stopped. Nobody breathed a word.
Every beat of one's heart rang like a drum. Time ground to a
halt."]
["So did the elevator."]
["Everyone was startled for a second, and I seized my chance.
'You realize,' I said far too calmly, 'that if you two start a
fight, Pentex will come in and finish you both off? I hardly
think they're just going to let a Garou or a Kindred stroll on
out of here alive...'"]
["Lucky for me, they both realized the truth of my words. They
scrunched down on opposite sides of the elevator car, me in
betweeen. And so began a very tense wait for someone to let us
out of the car..."]
["Little did I know that that day a force of Garou
Monkeywrenchers had struck a major blow at Pentex by sending one
of it's Directors into the next life via a well-placed explosive
charge...let it not be said that Glass Walkers cannot be
effective warriors. To cover their tracks, they shorted out the
building's electrical systems...which is what stopped, among
other things, the elevator. The building was going ape, of
course, which is why no help came for a long, long time..."]
["The Kindred started talking. He started insulting the Garou.
He started making lewd passes at her. Not a smart idea. Then
again, it was clear -somebody- didn't get permission to sire a
Childer...cause this particular neonate was as dumb as a brick
and had lips as loose as a worn buttonhole. He didn't just break
the Masquarade, he fricking shattered it with a sledge. I guess
he was claustaphobic or something --or maybe just scared witless
by the Fury sitting just a claw-swipe away and looking murder at
him the whole time-- and he kept yammering about what a bad-ass
13th generation Kindred he was, how bad-ass his sire was, how
they had their fingers stuck in Pentex and we've be both lucky to
get out of here alive, how much she knew she wanted him, etc."]
["It was about nine hours in when the Toreador started glibbering
about the atrocities he had helped commit against the Garou. That
did it. No self-respecting Garou was going to sit still for that
one. I told him to shut the frick up or I'd Portal Passage his
ass through the floor. He had no clue what the hell I was talking
about, since he hadn't seen me as a Fae...but when the floor
disappeared from under him and he suddenly was hanging by his
fingers over a six-hundred foot tall shaft, he shut the frick up
fast."]
["It also helped that when he crawled back into the car, I then
ambushed him from behind and clubed him senseless before he
could piss of the lady more..."]
["I had to fast talk like a maniac to convince the Fury not to
rip him to shreds -anyway-...frankly, I have no idea how I
managed -that-...it was rounds of cajoling and convincing her...a
lewd comment from the Toreador as he semi-regained
consciousness...a quick whack to the head to send him back to
Dreamland...more cajoling...I didn't fall asleep. I didn't dare
to. This went on...for almost forty-one hours."]
["Eventually, a rescue crew finally wedged the doors
open...letting the blessed rays of the sun into our little
prison. Well, okay, our Toreador friend didn't like the sun so
much. All hell broke loose. Again. At least the Garou --her name
was quite complex, but it translated into something like "She-
Who-Beats-the-Shit-out-of-Sexist-Pigs"-- was smart enough to do
absolutely nothing while a whole ream of Pentex's finest went
down like Imperial Stormtroopers before a Rebel attack...I'm sure
the Prince must have torn his hair out trying to cover that one
up..."]
["So now we were home free. All we had to do was walk on out of
there and we'd be home free. All we had to do was stroll on out
of a floor covered in dead bodies and pockmarked with machine gun
rounds like nothin' doing. Right. Didn't help when one of the
surviving armored Pentex goons catcalled my Garou friend. 'Hey
baby, nice ass!' he called. That's when she decided to Rage for
Gaia. Okay, maybe -she- thought she could take on -unarmed-
three-dozen armored mecha armed with las-cannon, but somehow I
thought that might not have been such a swell idea. And call me a
fool, but I wasn't just going to leave her there...so I did the
logical thing and Hopscotched her and my ass out a broken, open
58th story tall window before she could hurt herself."]
["Alright, I didn't mean to push us out a window six-hundred feet
above the ground --I was trying to jump clear across the room,
grab her, and then Flicker-Flash us to safety. The momentum just
carried us where I hadn't expected. She was a bit upset about
falling out of a skyscraper...she was trying to choke the crap
out of me...thank God for neck armor...which made it easier for
me to Flicker-Flash both of us to safety..."]
["So that's how I managed to turn a simple pick-up mission into a
gun-fight and a vertical base-jumping episode...yes, I know,
I'm an idiot."]
> >-Turnberry
> > You know, compared to us, Ethan Hunt has it easy....
>
> Mahri
> Isn't that the point?
>
> Stalks Hidden
> sounds like it should be a rather interesting story
>
-Turnberry
Interesting enough for you? ;-)
[1] Inspired by one of the most disturbing passages I have ever
read in a White Wolf sourcebook: the section on sexual habits in
Kithbook: Nocker... to paraphrase: "But for real excitement,
nothing beats a Pooka...those waggy puppy tails? Those furry
kitty bottoms? Spank me, Miss Bunny, I've been a Bad Nocker..."
