Statement 4: Lime Grove

[Philulhu]

”Wot u gunna do?” Des asked Jordan. ”U gunna sneak up on ‘em an’ ‘it ‘em when they ain’t watchin’?”

[Snapper]

1d%50%

Regular success.

[Mr. Handy]

Jordan nods. He approaches the door as quietly as he can.

[SaintMeerkat]

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"Thanks, luv..." Leo replied as he wrote the information down in his notebook. "It's wonderful to hear your voice, as always, too. Oh, and I met a guy today. You'd love him!" Leo looked up and some of his colleagues headed into the house. "Sorry, I hate to cut this short, but a bunch of skinheads just showed up, and if I don''t get a chance..."

"I knew you'd understand. Ciao!"

Leo turns and looks back toward Barry's flat. While he's still a safe distance from the flat and the cars, he engages the jury-rigged battery apparatus to separate the his phone from the battery, slips the battery in one pocket, his phone in the other. Then, still on the sidewalk, he casts Shield, just in case. Nice and low powered. Then he walks cautiously toward Des and Jordan.

[jp1885]

Izzy almost skips through the allotment, nimbly dodging Eli as he flounders amid the cauliflowers, earning himself some muddy knees and a damp sleeve.

They round the corner to find Jordan and Des sneaking up to the external metal staircase that leads to the door of Barry's flat. Here, a group of skinheads (around 5 by your reckoning) are trying to surreptitiously break in.

Slightly behind Jordan and Des, Leo can be found. Those sensitive to such things detect a wheezing, groaning sound; a waft of dank air, and a feeling of hot steam as he starts casting a spell.

Leo, please spend 2 Magic points and make a Magic roll.

Meanwhile, skulking around the skinhead's van and preparing to knife the tyres, Skipper suddenly pauses, catching the light of a phone screen in the driver's wing mirror. Someone is clearly sitting in the driver's seat, using their phone.

[Philulhu]

”Did u bring yur truncheon?” Des whispered to Jordan. ”Or ‘ave u got a machine gun?”

She mimed gunning the skinheads down…

[SaintMeerkat]

OOC:   Failed the Magic roll, and I am going to pass on Pushing it. I'll proceed without the Shield.

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Magic (70/35): 1d100

[jp1885]

Oh dear… Leo, you’re still Impaired from the magic greenhouse, so a 95 means a fumble… You have a few options; Spend enough luck to improve the result to less than 90 (the fumble figure for impaired characters). Spend 10 Luck and describe how you managed to shake off Impairment (I’ll let you do this retrospectively, as I haven’t mentioned this mechanism before). Keep your luck and make a POW roll to see if you suffer from hyperthaumaturgical degradation.

[SaintMeerkat]

OOC:   Leo will spend 5 luck to negate the Fumble. Current Luck is 63, so the new score will be 58. Would Pushing the Roll also override it?

[Mr. Handy]

Jordan shakes his head. "My body is a weapon," he whispers back. He was never issued a truncheon, though he can see how it would be useful. Seeing Leo approach, he pops the battery out of his phone so it doesn't become an expensive paperweight now that he has decided to start slinging spells.

[jp1885]

Leo - yes, you could also push the roll.

[jp1885]

Leo's spellcasting fails, his shield shimmering slightly before disappearing with an audible 'pop'.

"What was that?" one of the skinheads grunts.

"What was what? I didn't 'ear nuffink," answers another. "C'mon, let's get his stuff and get out of 'ere.

"Yeah alright."

There follows a 'thunk' as the door to Barry's flat is forced open and the skinheads pile in.

[Philulhu]

”Go on! Do sommat!” whispered Des, simultaneously elbowing Jordan and digging her phone out to pop the battery before it got bricked….

[Mr. Handy]

"The important thing is to make sure they don't leave," whispers Jordan as he sneaks closer to the door. "If they're messing around in there, they're distracted. Let them find the stuff for us, and then we'll stop them when they try to leave. Then it's evidence and we can confiscate it. We need to buy time for the proper coppers to get here too."

[Snapper]

Hoping the driver was distracted playing Candy Crush or swiping right on a hook-up app, Skipper paused a moment near the rear passenger side tyre, diagonally opposite the driver and the least visible point, so he hoped. Skipper locked open the frighteningly sharp 'Leatherman' knife "tool", crouched down and drove it into the tyre then wrenched it back out.

[SaintMeerkat]

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Looking around at the building the flat is in, Leo thinks about the sign in the lobby of the atrium saying "42 days without burning down a building! Only you can prevent skittles fires..." and rules out a fireball.

By this time, Leo is close enough to hear Jordan and nods silently. And they're doing all the hard work for us, he thinks silently. Just like in the Indiana Jones movie.

After having been knocked on his arse a couple of times today and having a spell fail, Leo was feeling much more Rincewind than Harry Potter, but he cleared his mind and prepared to cast Impello, or as Leo preferred to call it Force Push.

[BoyBlunder78]

Cursing under his breath, Eli slowly makes his way up the allotment, his jacket sleeves covered with mud and vegetation, his feet sinking into the mud, a schlup, achucking noise accompanying every step as he attempts to escape the quagmire, heading towards the flat.

[Trivun]

Seeing the others, Izzy quickly takes out her Airwave, which unlike her mobile, has been jury rigged to avoid any magical sanding (she silently thanks Peter for showing her how), and, around the corner and out of earshot of the skinheads, requests backup from the nearest station to an attempted break-in by potentially armed thugs at the address the group are present in.

She doesn't exactly feel too guilty about suggesting the skinheads might be armed - for all she knows, they could be... and she's seen plenty of them trying to pick fights at London Pride, both when she's been on duty and off. Not to mention the lingering feelings of resentment to the late Karl Chichester and all his misogynistic ilk.

"I've just called for backup," she says to the others, meeting them just as Leo is about to cast his next spell. "Don't know how fast Surrey response teams are though, so we need to think quick. At least we don't need a warrant to prevent a robbery in progress."

She looks around, noticing an absence. "Where's Skipper?"

[Mr. Handy]

"When we make our move," whispers Jordan, "I can block the front door and prevent any of them from leaving that way. But are there any other exits? Skipper's gone after their van."

[Trivun]

"It's a first floor flat, so I doubt there'd be any other exits up here. No back door anyway, no other stairs that I saw and you'd just have a five metre drop to the ground. Break your legs trying that."

Then Izzy realises what Jordan said before, and lets out a slight huff of indignation.

"Excuse me, Leo and I are proper coppers! Well... I am, anyway. Didn't go through two years at Hendon for that, thanks..."