IC -2 - Yesterday Upon the Stair - Everyone

[Mr. Handy]

Harry focuses his attention on the witch. Now that he knows the secrets of the universe, he has deduced how to use the power of his mind to start fires. It's easy, really. He doesn't know why he didn't think of it before.

[Mephistophilis]

Harry feels indominatable. Everything has clicked into place. There is nothing that he doesn't understand. The whole universe is his plaything. Able to reach beyond himself, his own senses, and mould reality like it is mere clay. He is more than human, he is superhuman. But before he can focus on his higher calling, on the universe itself, on the fundamental building blocks of reality, first of all, he must help his friend. He stares at the profane mound of tissue and flesh that confronts them. The witch is nothing more than fat and sinew and offal. He sees that now. All he has to do is focus, focus his mind, focus on that pile of rotting effluent and will it to burn...

-----

Feeling in his pockets, Louis pulls out a box of matches he picked up earlier. Grabbing a handful of bat guano, twigs, straw, and who knows what else he squishes them together into a ball of mush. Striking a match he places the flame against the ball and it catches alight. The single eye of the amorphous witch is drawn to the flame. Louis gives her a grin a flings the flaming ball into the air and swings his shard of wood like it's a baseball bat. He strikes the flaming ball of dung with a thwack and sends it soaring over the head of the hideous old woman, past the shambling form of Roger, and smack into the middle of the alcove, right into a pile of crisp yellowing papers that crackles and flares into flames, spreading to an adjacent mouldering tome bound in pale leather, the flames licking around the thick black candle in the shrivelled palm, potentiating the spitting violet flaming from the wick. The fire spreads across the alcove behind the slug-like bulk of the witch and before too long there are spits of flame and splashes of burning liquid, fat or oil or something else, that splash against her quivering flesh, searing and charring the pink tissue and giving rise to little spurts of steam and smoke, the smell of charred meat, seared flesh, burnt hair.

As the flames touch her skin the decaying witch shivers, then shakes, rocking her vast bulk from side-to-side. Recoiling from the flames and the pain. Her face transforms, no longer just cruel and sly, it is anguished and angry, beyond human she becomes something more primordial seeming, an ancient evil challenged and defied, no humanity left, just a bright coal of burning hatred and infernal will.

The house itself seems to groan, to shift, the very bones, the rafters and floor boards emit a sound like screaming as the building twists, shudders, writhes against the foundations.

'It burns, it burns...' The witch's self-satisfied boasts transform into plaintive screams. 'Stop, stop. Granny Evelyn will let you go, let you all go if you stop the fire.'

-----

Projecting the flames directly from his mind, Harry watches the foul witch begin to flare and burn, patches of fire catching across her body. He smiles, nothing can stop him now...

-----

As the giant grub-like shape of the naked witch writhes in the flames, Darren heaves his crowbar and charges full pelt at her. And the jerky, puppet-like form of Roger steps between them. The oddly-bulging teenager swinging that same big knife, dark blood congealed along the blade. The blade that slew his own brother in the last hour of this interminable night.



'Oh boo hoo. What're you crying for loser? Someone are your stupid little brother. No one cares. You're gonna be next.'.

You can roll Darren's Fighting to hit Roger or pass a DEX check then roll Fighting to slip round Roger and attack the witch.

Feel free to keep roleplaying Harry's insanity

Evelyn fire damage: 1d10 9

[BoyBlunder78]

The shambling form of Roger catches Darren's attention, stopping him in his tracks, the image of blade reflecting in his eyes as the fire rages. "You! You! You killed my brother!! You trapped us all here! Its your fault Kyles dead! Your the reason all this is happening!! and he swings the crowbar with all his might.

OOC:   Here goes...

1d100

OOC:   Can i spend 2 luck to make that a hard success?

[Mr. Handy]

"Yes!" exults Harry, bending his arm at the elbow, holding a clenched fist up, and pulling it down. "Did you see what I did? That was awesome!" Now he focuses his will on Roger to stop him with the invincible power of his mind.

[LiviaBlue]

There was nothing in Shirley's mind that could convince her the witch was not evil incarnate. A grotesque aberration of the natural world with her creatures and minions and she needed to be stopped. Not just for their own sake, but for every kid who lost themselves trapped in her horrifying layer.

Shirley keep helping Louis with starting fires. The more the better. Like a diseased forest being cleansed by a wildfire this place deserved, no, needed to be burned to the ground.

"Never! You will burn here! You will never create a monster ever again!"

[aine]

Louis has spent the whole night fearing the return of Roger- and here he was, only not, not anymore; he was something else. However, Louis tried to concentrate on his job with Shirley, parcelling away in the back of his mind that somehow Harry was also changed….

[Mephistophilis]

As Darren starts to swing his crowbar at Roger his snarling face twists into one of mirth, he practically laughs in Darren's face as he hefts the large bloody knife and swings it in an arc over the bar of metal, slashing at Darren's face.

-----

Harry focuses hard on Roger who is swinging his knife menacingly towards Darren.

-----

There's a little bulging in Roger's black eyes as Darren ducks under the blade and the crowbar impacts across his midrift with an unpleasant sound somewhere between a thud and a squelch. His body seems to ripple or compress as the blow strikes home and the feedback Darren gets from his hands is odd, and unsatisfactory, like the blow didn't properly connect.

-----

Eschewing anything as vulgar as fire this time, Harry attempts to affect matter itself. He strikes Roger in the stomach with a blast of telekinesis that causes him to double over. Briefly a thought flashes through Harry's elevated consciousness, If E=mc-squared then how much power can I generate just using my mind?

-----

Roger doesn't even seem winded and quickly regains his composure. He grins at Darren, he seems to be enjoying himself. 'You seem to have found some balls Pickett. Let's see if I can cut them off for you...'

Spending those 2 points of Luck you got an extreme success which does full damage with a bludgeoning weapon like the crowbar. Otherwise it would do 1d6 damage. Assuming Roger doesn't have any resistance...

-----

Desperately, Shirley rolls up little balls of bat guano, twigs, and whatever other detritus looks like it might burn, she uses matches to light them and throw the flaming spheres to Louis to bat towards the writhing witch with his plank of wood.

You'll need to roll Gym Class again to hit the flaming bat guano at the witch or whatever other target you choose. Take a bonus die for Shirley's help.

-----

The fire behind the witch is spreading, devouring the wooden shelves in the alcove, the black candle in the shrivelled hand streaming with wax, running down the sides in great rivulets, a deep purple flame rising a great distance from the wick, flickering and spitting in the heat.

The old witch seems to swell, to grow and take up more and more of the space in the chamber. She barely seems human anymore, a quivering tower of corrupted flesh writhing and twisting in the flames. Her shadow projected from the flickering fire to cast giant, shifting blankets of darkness all around her, reaching out to touch all the corners of the room, inner evil probing for more innocent flesh to infect and corrupt. Her malignant expression of hatred and loathing casts around the room but seems to alight on Shirley who feels the woman's anger and animosity burning into her with an intensity that feels almost physical.

The witch's slug-like bulk lurches from side to side, striking against the earthen wall of the cavern, sending clods of dirt and showers of dust into the thick air. She opens her mouth filled with razor-teeth and her thick, blood-coated tongue slowly begins to emit a low sound. A rhythmic chant that grows louder and faster. The deep, booming voice echoes around the chamber, the earth walls themselves seem to shake and out of little holes all manner of insects, spiders, worms, grubs, and other pests stream through and spill onto the floor. The mangy cat pulls something along the ground from behind the witch, from around a corner of the cave. It's hard to make out what it is but there's a smear of blood left behind as it's dragged along the floor. The vermin swarm around whatever it is and as the old woman's inhuman howling reaches a crescendo something starts to rise from the middle of the writhing pile of insects and rodents. Spiders run criss-crossing over the surface as it continues to rise like a slowly inflating balloon.

The crude form of a human body begins to take shape, skin-underfilled, and head flapped behind and trailing down the back so as to render the figure unrecognisable...or, at least, unidentifiable. Because there's something familiar about the figure. And as the deflated limbs begin to fill with something, something writhing and rippling to fill them out, and the head pops up to rise above the shoulders. And standing before them is the body of Ace Simmons. Smeared in blood, bulging and out of proportion, standing awkwardly and ungainly, moving stiffly. His skin seemingly crudely stitched together to contain whatever writhing and wriggling material fills his skin and animates him. He looks like a bigger, meaner version of Roger. If there was any animosity left between them it isn't evident as the grotesque remains of Ace's face stretches into an awkward attempt at a smile and he lumbers beside his brother, his arms stretched out ahead of him towards Darren.

Large Knife fight back 35%: 1d100 70
Choosing someone to attack - 1 Darren, 2 Harry, 3 Louis, 4 Shirley: 1d4 1

[Mr. Handy]

Realizing that the witch is still a terrible threat despite being on fire, Harry concentrates on her now, as attacking her puppets will do no good. Better to bring down the puppet master and cut the strings. He unleashes the full power of his brilliant mind, holding back nothing.

[aine]

Where should he aim? Louis bats the balls of guano with deadly accuracy, straight at that hideous dried hand…

Gym: 40 roll: 2 again

[BoyBlunder78]

OOC:   Whats the damage dor the iron crowbar? Would it be the same as the baseball bat?

[Mephistophilis]

OOC:   Whats the damage dor the iron crowbar? Would it be the same as the baseball bat? 1d6 damage, no damage bonus.

[BoyBlunder78]

OOC:   Ahhh right, just thought id check as the bat did 1d8 damage according to the sheer, rhought it migh've been similar, Question is....do i spend the 14 luck to make it an extreme success?

[Mephistophilis]

OOC:   Ahhh right, just thought id check as the bat did 1d8 damage according to the sheer, rhought it migh've been similar, Question is....do i spend the 14 luck to make it an extreme success? My advice, for what it's worth, is hold on to your luck.

[LiviaBlue]

After helping Louis lunch an assault of flaming balls Shirley grabs for her BB again attempting to stop the witch from getting closer.

Attack (50%):
d%
Damage:
1d6/2

[Mephistophilis]

Scrabbling in the dirt, Shirley struggles to find anything to set light to. Eventually she manages to squish together some stinking white guano with something that could be bark, leather, or even skin. Striking match after match it fails to light until she jams several matches into the little ball and sets fire to each phosphorous head, the combined heat and flames igniting it and singeing her fingers as she tosses it to Louis.

Getting into his groove now, Louis swings the plank of wood to strike squarely and cleanly against the flaming ball. The witch gives a shriek as it flies towards her but her expression is replaced with one of triumph as it sails past. The ball of fire lands centrally in the withered hand, like it's been caught by some undead baseball mitt. The flames engulf the shaft of the black candle which bubbles and twists. The wax melting and deforming until there is little but a misshapen lump smeared all over the charred palm of the hand. The fingers blackened and curled in the heat.

The wick flops and the candle flame is extinguished. There is a shudder they all feel through the ground. The wooden boards of the house springing back against some force that had been restraining them, now suddenly released. The mud walls shake and crack, crumbling lumps of earth flaking onto the ground revealing little wriggling insects and worms deep beneath. Everyone knows something has changed with the house, something.

-----

Opening his mind to his full potential, to his full power, Harry lets rip with everything he has got. He simply reaches out with his mind - a mind that he now feels is completely at one with the universe - stretching through the atoms and electrons, the quarks and the superstrings - slipping between the very fundamental building blocks of reality. He sees the witch looking at him with her single eye, it swivels to focus on him, a look of arrogant triumph on her face. He feels her malevolence. Oh how this hideous creature has misunderstood the situation. Has underestimated you, who you are, what you are! Harry curls the force of his consciousness around her eye like it was his own hand stretching out to grab it. Then, then he squeezes, squeezes with his mind...

-----

Holding out her BB gun in front of her and pumping the mechanism, Shirley fires out several more ball bearings that thud into the witch's face, one impacting right in the centre of her eye...

-----

His emotions hardening, rage at this wicked old woman and what she has done, Harry just squeezes some more and the eye suddenly bursts, a spatter of fluid and tissue escaping from a rupture in the tense membrane. The old witch writhes and shrieks some more, blindly impacting again and again against the walls of mud and soil and tree roots that make up the chamber. Books, and implements clatter to the floor. More clods of earth hit the ground, and little rivulets of water start to break through the cracks in the dry mud, pooling on the floor of soil and guano.

-----

At the cries of their mistress, the twitching, sagging forms of Ace and Roger lurch forward like marionettes. Stretching out to slash and pummel Darren who stands between them, iron poker clutched in his hands. Ace is the faster of the two, his two hands clutch for Darren's neck but he ducks back with ease. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Roger uses the chance to thrust forward with the knife and Darren just sees it flashing towards him...

So he got a successful attack with the knife. You can Fight back but will need to get a hard success or better to beat him. Or you can Dodge and just need to get a success.

Large Knife attack 35%: 1d100 20
Fighting brawl 55%: 1d100 90

[BoyBlunder78]

Cmon dodge...

OOC:   Well.....whaddaya know...... Must've firgotten to roll that furst one. Oops.

[LiviaBlue]

Shirley feels the ground around her shake, the air change, and for the first time tonight she really thinks that they were going to make it out.

Even with her hands blistering, she holds tight to her BB and turns to help Darren.

Attack (50%):
d%

Damage:
1d6/2

[Mr. Handy]

Intoxicated by the sheer power of his own mind, Harry directs his will at the witch. All he has to do is think, and it happens.

[aine]

“Oh cripes, was that the best target- had he just really pissed the witch off now? Louis tries to keep his balance as the ground shakes. “W-what’s happening?” He shouts and spies Darren’s calamity.
“Noooo!” Without thinking, he launches himself at the nearest marionette, hoping to topple it and give Darren a fighting chance.

Roll: 64

[Mr. Handy]

"Now I know how Dr. Manhattan felt!" cries Harry as he unleashes the full extent of his mental prowess.