Shake it off [closed; quest]

[supernal 22146]

+ 8 posts from Sharpmate's Noodle Shop

"You make a convincing argument . . . "
"I've been known as a reasonable man once or twice in my lifetime."

Jericho said this with the distant tone of a cynic, and the grin he flashed before the beer bottle eclipsed his mouth had the brush strokes of a comedian. He left the empty bottle at the table, a coin slid into place beside it meant as gratuity for their waiter, and he jerked his head towards the main entrance before weaving through the crowd and stepping to one side and waiting for Severin to join him.

Another jerk of the head and Jericho led the two of them to the alley between Sharpmate's and the adjacent building. In this semi-enclosure Jericho took a hand rolled cigarette out of a rectangular tin. The cigarettes wafted floral scents; in one instant this confirmed Jericho did not smoke tobacco but raised questions as to what he did smoke, and why. He left the questions unasked and unanswered.

"I got a bead on two different operations that could use some tactical intervention. Whichever one I take you on I'll send word to someone else to take care of the other. My concern right now though -" Jericho paused here to take a long drag of his cigarette; the smoke it wisped, and which he exhaled, was light purple.

"How much can you do with that arm? Do I need to bench you for a while and pick you up when you're feeling better? Can you fix it yourself, with a potion or a balm, if you had the right ingredients? I guess I'm worried your eye may be bigger than your stomach right now."

OOC thread

Edited October 22, 2020 by supernal

[Pygmalion 136]

As Jericho asked about his condition, Severin took a moment to consider it. Scarcely any time had passed since the two of them departed from Sharpmate's Noodle Shop, and his new acquaintance already had his attention focused on operations. Clearly, the mood had shifted to serious business, and given that all the knowledge of the job at hand rested with Jericho, Severin took no chances and answered as objectively as possible.

'I've seen where 'I'm fine' gets you, so I'm going to be honest with myself and rely on your judgement of the situation.' Severin said.

'I wouldn't rely on my right hand right now unless you can whip up a miracle cure for a broken wrist: I unfortunately don't have the medical knowledge to immediately heal my injury. However, I can throw with my left hand just fine, and since I received this injury I've gotten in some practice at using my staff with one hand. The biggest handicap right now is that I can't sling anything since I need both hands free to place object in pouch, and without my right hand I don't have the full use of staff techniques in a fight.'

Severin paused to think of anything he might have left out.

'Well, also my alkahestry doesn't require both hands. I reckon I can still put up a fight but I'm definitely less flexible in my actions and more vulnerable both in close quarters and at long range. Don't be afraid to bench me if you think it's too risky: it's your call.'

Edited October 23, 2020 by Pygmalion

[supernal 22146]

Jericho blew a plume of purple smoke out of the corner of his mouth, lips settling into the comfortable assignments of an easy smile. "I think I'd rather see how you do without a handicap, at least for your first day."

Jericho stubbed the half-length of cigarette out on the nearby wall and placed the remainder back into its tin. The judicious blend of enchanted herbals brought put him in a righteous mood and gave him enough fuel to give the day some of his level best; the chopping of the tree would come later as it inevitably must, for now it was best to sharpen the axe. Without any motions this time, no hand gestures, no bob of the head, Jericho took off to the south and expected Severin to keep pace.

"We'll take advantage of the fact there's medical facilities close at hand and no one is actively trying to separate our heads from our bodies. At the moment. Elder Company has some decent combat medics. I can't let you get picky on me with quality but it'll get the job done."

It was a fifteen minute walk south to the squat, grey block of Elder Company's commercial office. Jericho did not go to the front door but to another alley, where muted conversation and a subtle exchange of hands saw Jericho return, offering a vial of grimy green mottled with greasy gray.

While Severin dealt with the blind pain of bone growing in spontaneous and unexpected fashion, poking small holes in the soft flesh of his arm (and anywhere else he might have broken bones), and then the hollow pain of the cancerous growths dying off to leave only the necessary bedrock, Jericho was looking further south from their vantage.

"Here's your first mission. Take us to the Glass Road."

[Pygmalion 136]

'Lai chun kah? He went for the miracle cure after all.' whispered Severin to himself as the greenish-grey concoction did its work on his right arm.

It was the first time he experienced an elixir like this working its effects on him, and though it was admittedly a painful experience for him, bone and tendons spontaneously grew within his arm followed by excess matter dying off and dissipating, he nevertheless bore the pain of it all with a well-practiced silence. In fact, he could not help but try and focus, in as much detail as he could make out from pure sensation alone, on the process of his bone and flesh growing in and re-ordering itself with his injured arm. The reason was not only curiosity towards the novel experience, but also a sense of disappointment with himself over his skill set: medical alkahestry, which used its techniques to heal injuries and illnesses within the human body, was one of the most traditionally-prestigious specialisations of the craft, yet Severin had no real practical experience with it. He could have avoided imposing upon Jericho like this, or even patched up his injury all the way back during his quest in the ant colony, if he was more experienced with performing medical transmutations; instead, he was left a tinge of regret at being more accustomed by far to transmuting weapons and bombs than healing the sick and wounded.

He was broken out of his reverie as Jericho gave him his first mission: to take them to the Glass Road. Severin was not familiar enough with Chesterfield to instinctively know where that was though, and after untying his arm sling and shedding the wrist splint that it supported, he reached for his knapsack to fetch a map of Chesterfield that he had picked up when he first came to the city. Painlessly pulling it out with his newly-mended right arm, a part of him was still marveling at the success of the unknown healing concoction as he unfurled the map and shifted his attention to the layout of the city.

'Not too far from here.' Severin remarked, having quickly committed the relevant details of the map to memory as he rolled it back up and put it away.

The two of them were already heading south from Elder Company's commercial office, and it was not long before they found themselves at the south-eastern gate of Chesterfield's city walls. Caught in the transition from daytime to night, the sprawl of the city itself, with its lights and its signs, remained visible into the distance beyond the limits of the city's walls, stretching down the road that ran south-east past the gate and outwards from the city centre.

Their path however, was not straight ahead but to the right where a road ran south-west adjacent to the inner face of the city wall. Despite being one of Chesterfield's most well-known streets, enough to warrant it being specially-marked on the map he had in his knapsack, the Glass Road was not as crowded as he might have expected for such a landmark and the buildings that lined the street were an eclectic mix of both glittering new constructions and decaying structures juxtaposed against each other in a seemingly unplanned layout. With the sturdy stone face of the city wall hemming them in to his left, Severin looked to his right and peered down a random alleyway branching off from the Glass Road, one which was at once faintly illuminated by both the street lamps that hung between the buildings on either side and the glow of twilight that still hung in the sky from the west.

A unexplainable feeling of unease slowly crept up on Severin as he took in the scene before him, and he found himself hungry for details about what exactly he was getting into. Turning back to the Glass Road, he searched around for a relatively sheltered spot on the side of the street to get him and Jericho out of the way of oncoming pedestrians before coming to a stop.

'Well, here we are. Is there something, or some place, that we're looking for in particular?'

Edited October 28, 2020 by Pygmalion

[supernal 22146]

"Don't look so put out."

With one comment Jericho either exposed to Severin how readable his expressions were or exposed himself as been acutely aware to the subtle nuances of facial expression and body language. Which answer was true was a question which would no doubt haunt Severin until he could establish a control and variable and iterate a dozen or so times to arrive a ta satisfactory answer.

"If the human animal could do everything on its own there wouldn't be hundreds of millions of you bastards. Whoever made that potion made it for you, so you could do what we're about to do today. There. Feel better?"

Jericho nudged Severin in the shoulder of what had once been his bad arm, proving it out. Despite his amiability, Severin, analyst that he was, was more likely to notice Jericho's distancing language. That Jericho did not consider himself a human was not surprising in and of itself, lookalikes were plentiful. And yet Jericho presented as human in almost every appreciable aspect. He walked the walk, talked the walk, drank the drink, ate the eat, so on, precisely as you'd expect from a man doing whatever he happened to be doing whenever he happened to be doing it.

This was the second strong suggestion that Severin was about to keep some very curious company.

Jericho was impressed by the fact Severin had a map, but didn't show it. The man didn't need ego-massages shorting out his executive function, he needed to focus and execute. But Jericho knew, or rather made a heavily informed guess, that Severin was circling the drain on broke. He had the skills to survive but that Severin spent what little funds he had left on knowledge was indicative of the kind of person he was, and that he had value to Jericho's broader interests.

Severin led them south to the Glass Road. Jericho, careful not to course correct, allowing the man to get lost and find his way if that's what was needed, followed.

". . . for in particular?"
"There is. You see those buildings?" Jericho motioned to a small strip which had already caught Severin's eye, a row of buildings which were inconsistently new and rundown. "More of that's new than you might think. There's a rust monster prowling the streets, gobbling up on the infra. Maybe it's one, maybe it's family. You and me can take it if its just one, and if its more we can kick it up the line. It's around here . . . somewhere. What do you think?"

Edited October 29, 2020 by supernal

[Pygmalion 136]

Upon hearing Jericho describe their intended target of interest, a rust monster, a flurry of activity went off in Severin's mind as he tried to dig up what he might have seen or heard about it. Unfortunately it did not amount to much, yet he wasn't comfortable proceeding with the mission without knowing exactly what they were up against. Thankfully he wasn't alone, and Severin had from the corner of his eye started to pick up on the small signs that hinted at Jericho being more than just your average citizen; at the very least, Severin was confident that his companion would know something about the creature that he had brought the two of them here to look for.

'I think I've seen something about this actually... a rust monster on the Glass Road: I remember coming across it on the city's public quest board, but I ended up choosing to tackle the city's problem with their giant ant colony instead. Didn't look into the details of this unfortunately, and I honestly never encountered one in person before. Any tactical information that you might know about this rust monster before we start searching for it? What does this creature do with rust, exactly?' Severin said.

'It can sniff out ferrous metal inside of 10 meters and any mundane metal that hits it corrodes exponentially with contact. What's that do to your arsenal?' Jericho responded.

Severin paused to consider the ramifications as that tidbit of information from Jericho sunk in. That it could corrode metal made it easy to understand what made the monster such a menace to the city, but given the mission at hand, he also took stock of his belongings to consider what he had on him that might be affected by the rust monster's abilities. The big standout was his metallic staff-sling: he wondered briefly whether it might have been a mistake to have replaced his old wooden staff-sling with it. He unslung it from his shoulder, holding it with both hands in front of him as he looked it up and down.

'Hm... guess this new metal staff of mine is a liability in this particular instance.' Severin thought aloud.

'Is it?' asked Jericho in turn.

That response caught Severin off-guard; he immediately wanted to ask what Jericho meant by that, but before he could pose his question, he recalled that the staff he currently carried was transmuted from that mysterious throne in the bowels of Chesterfield's giant ant colony. Certainly, he could tell that it was considerably lighter than what he expected for an iron staff of such length and shape, but he now wondered if the material was even more exotic than what that one simple difference implied. Maybe it had magical properties too? He had yet to figure out the secrets of the throne besides the observation that whoever sat on it would inexplicably pass out; Severin wondered if Jericho was hinting at knowing something about the staff that he didn't. One more question among many about his companion that were piling up in Severin's mind the longer he kept him company.

'Well, in truth, the staff I have might not be your run-of-the-mill iron staff—bit of a long story—but I haven't examined all of its properties thoroughly. In any case, based on what you said I'd be more sure of it holding up against this rust monster if it were wood for instance.' Severin told Jericho, opting to keep his questions to himself for the time being and to focus on the mission. 'Now, I still have projectiles, but I'm considerably less reliable in close-combat without the staff. Any chance your own set of skills can make up for it?'

'Yeah, absolutely, I could probably take the thing without you if it comes to that. It isn’t very smart. But it isn’t my efficacy that needs vetting. You’re thinking a direct frontal assault is the best way forward?' Jericho said.

Severin's eyes momentarily went up in surprise before shaking his head with a sheepish smile on his face, feeling slightly embarrassed that Jericho might have gotten the impression that he was advocating such an approach.

'Oh no, I'm not looking to just rush in.' Severin blurted out in response. 'I just like knowing what I can rely on in a worst-case scenario.'

'That's me.' Jericho replied, his confidence showing through his face.

His companion did raise a good point though: what was their strategy? He looked back to the small strip of buildings that had caught his attention and which Jericho had pointed out earlier. Unless Jericho already had some solid information on where exactly its nesting place was, it would take forever to search their surroundings one by one for signs of the rust monster, not to mention somewhat dangerous given the condition some of the buildings on the Glass Road were in. A few even seemed to be undergoing major repair: the buildings and the stretch of the road adjacent to them were cordoned off with makeshift barriers and scaffolding and, with all the workers seemingly gone for the day at this hour, all manner of construction paraphernalia were visibly scattered about each of the sites.

In fact, something in specific at one of the construction sites caught Severin's eye: a large pile of metallic construction beams, uncovered and unsecured, located at the building's ground level near where the walls had been roughly removed and opened up to be worked on. If a rust monster was indeed prowling the area, he though it rather careless to leave such items unprotected overnight. Yet for the purposes of his current mission it also represented a potential opportunity...

'Hm... Jericho, you wouldn't happen to already have a lead on where this rust monster is, would you? I was just eyeing something over there.' Severin said, motioning to the construction site with the pile of metallic construction beams. 'Some construction workers either didn't get the memo about your rust monster, or they just don't care enough. What are the chances it'll sniff out that pile of beams before long?'

Edited November 4, 2020 by Pygmalion

[supernal 22146]

*"Any tactical information that you might know about this rust monster before we start searching for it?"*
"It can sniff out ferrous metal inside of 10 meters and any mundane metal that hits it corrodes exponentially with contact. What's that do to your arsenal?"

The implication of his statement was that the creature ate metal; why else would it be so sensitive to the scent?

*"Any chance your own set of skills can make up for it?"*
"I could probably take the thing without you if it comes to that but it wouldn't be fun. It isn’t very smart. But it also isn’t my efficacy that needs vetting. You’re thinking a direct frontal assault?"
*"I just like knowing what I can rely on in a worst-case scenario."*
"That's me, without question." He nearly radiated bravado, and a cooler confidence beneath it posed an answer to the question of his competence.

As they spoke Jericho started doing light calisthenics, rotating his wrists and ankles, stretching his legs and back.

"I've only managed to narrow its location down to this neighborhood. It could be anywhere in the perimeter. If we dragnet it'd take less than a day but still several hours with just the two of us."

Another wordless suggestion - that perhaps enlisting others to their cause might yield a more certain success, though it also guaranteed less profit because there would be more parties involved with which to divide it. What was the motivation?

"If I'm guessing, and I am, the folks got the memo and clocked out right away. Insurance would rather cover the cost of materials and delays over the cost of personnel. Imagine paying out workman's comp to a half dozen workers because they wanted to stick around and haul in a bunch of I-beams while there was a rust monster crawling around?

"Anyway good eye, it gives us something to work with. I think if we take the high ground we might be better able to tell which places are unfinished and which ones have become a snack, pattern the movement from there to a likely nest, and sprinkle some bait to get it to where we want to go and we can pincer it."

[Pygmalion 136]

Severin met Jericho's explanation about insurance and labour practices in the construction industry with a chuckle: like many things in society it fell short of the ideal, but he nevertheless had to concede that the arrangement sufficed for everyone involved. He caught himself momentarily wondering whether that was all that really mattered sometimes.

Taking in the rest of Jericho's words, Severin then gave the situation some more thought before replying: taking to the high ground made sense, though if Jericho was only able to narrow down the location of the rust monster to just this neighborhood, it would still indeed take the two of them several hours of searching even with the most systematic and strategic of approaches.

To be sure, Severin had already decided to take Jericho's unwavering confidence at face value, and he had also already begun to mentally prepare himself to spend the next few hours on a lengthy search the moment Jericho raised the possibility. But even with the aid of a companion and a sufficient reserve of patience, the inefficiency of a two-man search bothered him. The neighbourhood to which the Glass Road belonged stretched a fair distance to the north and west of their current position: unless they got lucky, it was too much area to go through without wasting a inordinate amount of time to cover the whole place.

'I like your plan, but even if we're able to narrow down the creature's potential locations from the vantage of the high ground, two pairs of eyes ultimately might not be enough to cover all our bases. If it's your estimation that it's going to take several hours with just the two of us, is there any chance you or your organisation could arrange for some extra help? I reckon you're more persuasive than a near-broke newcomer to this city.' said Severin.

As he left those words for Jericho, Severin turned to his surroundings, already looking around for a vantage point from where they could get a more wide-ranging view of the neighbourhood.

[supernal 22146]

"Taking the high ground isn't just some tired military axiom that old generals fart at each other over tea. I'm saying from up there," Jericho took a few steps away from the building they were huddled near so that they could peer around it; his finger aimed about halfway up the half-constructed skeleton of an apartment building. "We'll be able to get a good idea of where to bait the trap, and then we just wait it out."

Jericho completed the very last of his stretching routine then squatted down deep, butt nearly against the floor, hooked his thumb over his shoulder to gesture at his back. "Get on. I'll get us up."

He would hear nothing of counterargument or resistance until Severin positioned himself piggy-back on Jericho's body. He could feel the man's body tense under him, steel-like for an instance, before a sudden explosion of force pulled the blood from his face and chest and pooled it in his feet, making him feel faint for a split second - that was the G-force exerted on Severin's body when Jericho jumped up and out nearly a hundred feet.

After they settle somewhere near the midway point of the incomplete high-rise, Jericho's point is made clear, almost vivid in the light of the wine-red sun which whispered of a coming evening. Despite the fact that it was his idea, in practical terms, Severin was likely to see the pattern first. Jericho had to squint and cock his head to one side to get the parts to line up, but then he could see the pattern. He knew that territorial animals in general, not as a rule for the rust monster but for the mentality afforded them, kept a spread about 120 acres. In the tight packing of an urban environment, a tenth of that. The details guided him to what seemed the likely nest and, true enough, around the suspected nest the damage to the infrastructure was most severe.

"We put it up ahead of that, then pincer it. Do you want me to call some more people in anyways? If you do you got to tell me what you need them to be able to do."

[Pygmalion 136]

Severin wore a quizzical expression on his face as Jericho squatted down and motioned for Severin to... get on his back? Both his sense of modesty and just plain awkwardness prevented him from easily taking up on the offer, and he put up all manner of protest; he was a perfectly healthy young man, no stranger to long climbs from the many years of his life spent in his hometown, a modern and cosmopolitan port city dotted with skyscrapers wedged in between mountains and bays in a dramatic landscape. He also piled onto that a large dose of humility: he could not possibly impose on him after he had already healed his right arm with the potion from back then.

Alas, Jericho would hear none of it; Severin had no choice but to ultimately gave up his resistance before his mouth and throat could dry up. He gingerly climbed onto Jericho's body, tensing up as his arms and legs took up a position to secure his body against that of his companion. He had only few short moments to physically and mentally brace himself for Jericho's first few steps; not that it mattered much: there was vanishingly little that could prepare him for what came next. The sheer speed at which Jericho took off exerted a tremendous force on him, as if he was being launched in a rocket. Momentum kept his body from adequately adjusting on Jericho's way up the apartment building, and by the time Severin was let off at his destination, the brown-haired alkahestrist only just barely kept himself from puking. It was only after several minutes of calm and rest, letting the disorientation from the ride up subside, that Severin managed to recover enough of his faculties to survey their new position.

Their location about halfway up the incomplete apartment building offered a stunning and sweeping view of the Glass Road and the neighbourhood that abutted it. As if looking at an open-air labyrinth from the top down, almost every nook and cranny of the surrounding area was now in plain sight, and there was one particular area that almost immediately came to his notice for how deteriorated it was. Nestled in a part of the neighbourhood that was set apart from the main thoroughfares, linked largely by backyard alleyways, it would probably have required a great deal of time and effort to come across it from a search at ground-level. Yet from their current vantage point, the orange-brownish colour of untreated rust that in places scarred the crumbling buildings in that area stood out clearly amongst the other buildings adjacent to it, even in the reddish glow of the setting sun; a nascent eyesore on the skyline of south-eastern Chesterfield hiding in plain sight. It did not take long for Severin to put two and two together: the range in which he had expected to have to search through for the rust monster just got narrowed down considerably.

It was Jericho who was the first to put that thought into words and came up with a plan however. Severin himself, instead of saying something, had taken out the map of Chesterfield that he had on him along with a notebook and pen, carefully correlating landmarks and useful routes around their location of interest with the corresponding locations on the map. In his notebook, he also wrote down or sketched any relevant details that he was able to make out about his surroundings from this birds-eye view, such as discrepancies between the map and the actual layout of the neighbourhood as he saw it through his own two eyes. Though Severin knew firsthand that it was impractical to constantly pull out his notebook during the mission, much of this information was being carved into his memory just by the simple act of writing it down. Within a half hour, with the glow of the setting sun receding into the looming night, he was already envisioning in his mind several potential ways for how the trip to the suspected nest location would play out.

'I think I'm seeing the same thing as you.' Severin said as he aimed his gaze squarely on the cluster of rust-damaged buildings that Jericho was referring to.

'And nearby, it looks like there's a backstreet courtyard overlooked by buildings on each side. It's a bit off the beaten path, and the map I had didn't bother to mark it; from here I can only make out two alleyways that provide direct access to it from the major public roads nearby.' Severin said, extending his left index finger at the cityscape before them and directly pointing to the various locations in the distance that he referred to as they came up in speech.

'It might be private property, but if you don't mind a little trespassing, we could lay the trap in that courtyard; the surrounding buildings overlooking it could be a good platform for us to lie in wait. Access seems to be a bit restricted in that area, but by the same token, that also means there's only a few open routes that I can see thus far for the rust monster to escape; it's possible that the two of us alone could pincer it. Based on what you've shown me up here, I'm going to hold off on asking for reinforcements until we get more information on the ground.' he continued.

'What do you think?'

Edited November 20, 2020 by Pygmalion

[supernal 22146]

Jericho took a few steps away from the exposed side of the building they chose as their perch. He leaned up against a support beam, this slight motion enough to dislodge a plastic tarp from around its shaft, its end flapping in the itinerant wind with the sound of massive wings. Jericho ignored the sound, only occasionally allowed the breath-taking sight of Chesterfield's glimmering sprawl to distract him, and for the most part focused on Severin as he sketched and thought.

If he felt the exercise was a waste of time, Severin had every assurance from Jericho's demeanor up to that point that the orange-haired man would have said something. It might have been brusque and direct, it might have been meandering and suggestive, but Jericho did not easily strike one as the kind of person to temper his perspective. Time was a resource, and preparation was one of the best ways to leverage it.

Half an hour later Jericho rejoined Severin, his legs hanging over the edge of the platform they occupied, unconcerned by the prospect of falling off and to his doom, a risk that Jericho simply did not entertain. The sun's presence was now reduced to a few remaining shreds and the wind was getting cooler by the minute, at least at this altitude.

"Mind it? Trespassing is damn near a requisite when you're working an urban job like this one. Sounds like a damn fine plan to me. So now we know where we're going to be and where we want to bait it." Jericho tapped his finger on the area Severin had just outlined.

"So now, for what comes next. I'm thinking before we surprise it we set up a block here so that if it runs this way, it gets routed back down to exactly where we want it. Something maybe like illusory terrain, a fire wall to spook it back down where we can have it fall into a pit, or snare it, something like that.

"Hmmm. Can you brew a tranq or a paralytic?"

[Pygmalion 136]

'The fire wall you mentioned is the easy part for me: I can create something like that, or a solid blockade, with little difficulty.' Severin answered confidently.

'But as for a tranquiliser or paralytic...'

The brown-eyed young man left that sentence hanging in the air as he he turned back to his notebook, now flipping through it backwards page by page in search of some misplaced knowledge with which to complete that statement. A brief silence filled the air before he found the necessary words to offer a reply one way or the other.

'...I'm afraid that might be a bit beyond the bounds of my knowledge; I'm actually a bit shaky on how to make a substance that would work against a human, to say nothing of a rust monster. If their biology is much different, I can't guarantee that whatever I brew up will have the desired effect.' Severin stated.

He then put his notebook halfway back in his knapsack, enough to stay in place yet easy to pull out, and then did a little stretching of his own to clear his mind a little. Nothing as rigorous as the calisthenics Jericho did as a warm-up to carrying the two of them up the half-finished apartment building they were now on, but enough to loosen his muscles after all the writing and sketching he had done in his notebook. As he exercised his limbs, he without thinking mouthed off Jericho's plan to himself.

'Block the escape routes, set the bait... but he's got a point. We still need something to subdue it. Preferably something more reliable than beating it into submission with a staff. A tranquiliser would be nice, but...'

Severin continued to go through his thoughts as he lightly stretched his arms and legs, a passing breeze adding to the ambience. By the time he settled down from his little exercise, he already had a faint idea of something that might work in lieu of a paralytic agent. Pulling out his notebook again again, he quickly flipped through its pages before settling on one that contained the information he was looking for.

'Would something like a flashbang help for what you have in mind?' Severin asked. 'I might be able to find the necessary materials around town to make a few. It's no tranquiliser, but the resulting flash and concussive blast from one will disorient it for a short while.'

[supernal 22146]

As they talked through the variables and parameters of their plan to get the jump on the rust monster, Jericho could feel the workshopping process doing precisely what it was designed to do; expose weaknesses while providing them the opportunity to extract further rigor. This was important to Jericho. It was more important to him than Severin's technical capabilities. What a person could do was much easier to shop around for than how they went about doing it - he could always outsource firepower and lockpicking, it was much harder to bid for mental effort and perspective.

"Yes. A flashbang would do it, if you can make three or four of them. And since you're focusing on the opening salvo, that gives me time to do something about the finale. We lure it here, bang, move it down this way, bang, it cuts across here, bang, and here's where it ends up." Jericho tapped his finger on various parts of the map in Severin's notebook.

"And right here, I can set up an area Sleep spell that'll blanket anyone in a five-meter cube. The only hitch for me here is that it takes literacy to trigger. I can put the runes down but someone has to actually read them, or try to make sense of the symbols at any rate. The rust monster don't strike me like the type. So just before it winds up in the net, I can drop on it from above, and ride it like the most fucked up looking cowboy you've ever seen.

"Optimally, I'm fine. Optimally, the thing is so tired from running all around, so disoriented from the series of flashbangs, that it goes down first, hard and fast, and I'm just a little woozy. Neutral-case scenario is that we're both affected, in which case you fish me out and wake me up. I'll show you how. The worst-case scenario is that I go down before it does, and I'm a sleeping duck while its thrashing about trying to stay awake. It might crush my head like a melon before you get to me."

Jericho canted his head from side to side, as if he had an abacus between his ears and the movement of his head moved the beads from one side to the other, aiding his calculation. Then he shrugged. "The odds are in my favor and you're backup. I'm good to do it. You go get your ingredients, I'll set up the trap, we'll meet at the pile of twisted metal and work together to set the lure. Works?"

[Pygmalion 136]

'I have a few potential ideas already on a workable flashbang; I don't have the materials on hand, but it shouldn't be hard to find in a city like Chesterfield.' Severin said, all the while pulling out a pen and circling the locations that Jericho had tapping on his map.

The final location, where Jericho had intended to lay a sleep spell, was marked in his notebook with an arrow; beside it were scribbles in Severin's native language containing a brief summary of the details on the trap that Jericho had just described to him. For good measure, he then proceeded to recap the whole plan with Jericho, all the while jotting down more notes in his notebook and hashing it out it in his head from beginning to end until the entire enterprise could be comfortably recited in his sleep.

Before the two of them knew it, the sun had slipped well below the surface; the momentary passing of a stiff breeze swept across the high-rise that they were perched upon as if to herald the beginning of the evening.

'If you're worried about any worst case scenarios from the flashbangs, I can test one with you prior to going in for the job, just so that we're both familiar with the tools we're using here.' Severin offered. 'Other than that, I'm fully agreed on the plan we've cooked up. I'll fetch the ingredients, craft a few flashbangs, and then I'll meet you back at the pile of metal.'

Severin then gestured a bit sheepishly to the precipice that separated the two of them from a steep and abrupt drop to the ground below.

'... though I'm going to have to rely on you to carry me back down.'

[supernal 22146]

Summary

Jericho contacts Severin, who has earned a bit of a rumored reputation for his involvement in investigating the GASP crisis. Jericho recruits Severin into Justice, a vigilante group, and immediately puts him to task so they can put a stop to a rogue rust monster plaguing a part of the city's industrial district.

Jericho tests Severin's ability to find his way through the city, his ability to think on his feet to trap their target. and his ability to do more than just plan but to actually execute on those plans with grace under fire.

Things are touch and go for a moment, ending with Jericho riding the rust monster into a Sleep trap while the monster is kept disoriented and tired out by Severin's homemade flashbangs. Jericho triggers his trap, knocking both himself and the rust monster on, and relies on Severin to get him free of their target before it wakes - his final recruitment test.

Consequences and Opportunities

C - The rust monster plaguing a part of Chesterfield's industrial district has been dealt with

O - Severin gains a mount and potential friend in the semi-tamed rust monster

O - Materials wholesalers, contractors, and engineers would all benefit from engaging the city in a contract to repair this part of the district

Edited December 19, 2020 by supernal