Session 36 - Gunbroken

Previously, across the Horizon...
Our heroes traveled to Machanon in search of an agent for their burgeoning bounty hunter career, following a recommendation from Justine Menard. Decker Avant, a tonberry down on his luck after a series of teams abandoned him for other agents, was their preferred option, though the notoriously slow-to-trust Bast entered into this decision cautiously after he was unable to badger more information for Avant's luck out of the grouchy agent.
Their first assignment was given to them, the only option Avant had available. A wealthy client, Robb Hourne, lost a vessel northwest of Thalatte and requested the retrieval of a valuable chest of goods. A simpler task than their previous ones, though not without its own struggles -- namely, that no one, client included, knew the area at all.
An old schoolfriend of Isa's was in the neighborhood preparing for a presentation, so the party went to visit Celeste Meracydia, a budding cartographer, archaeologist, and about fourteen other professions. Best described as 'plucky,' the young woman eagerly greeted Isa and her friends, and then showed them her current project.
Celeste had mapped the path to the city of the Forgotten, somewhere in the mountains of Cardia, and in two days, would be presenting this to the Nanab Foundation. Another visitor came to see Celeste, failing to introduce himself, though it was very clear that he knew her.
We join our heroes...
...just in time.
**
The man in the doorway is human, dressed in black and silver clothes, a red cloth tied around his forehead and knotted in the back. "Miss Meracydia?" he asks.
"Yes?" she affirms.
He raises a long, silver cylinder, the funnel end aimed right at her heart. "Remember us."
Before the cylinder is even halfway up its arc, Isa has launched herself off the windowsill with a backwards kick. She does not reach for a weapon; there is no time. She lunges open-handed, one arm sweeping down to throw the weapon off-target while the rest of her mass aims at bringing down the assailant himself.
Isa successfully knocks the weapon off line and the assailant to the ground, one fist already balled up and slamming into his ribs before the two of them hit the floor. "Get her clear!" she yells.
He grunts with the shot to his side, but the collision with the ground separates the invader from Isa and he rolls to his feet, separated from Celeste by Isa and the rest of the group. "Well now, our little explorer has friends," he growls.
"Oh now you want to talk."
His eyes light on the cylinder, closer to Isa than to him, and he grunts again, disapproving. "Just to regale you with some charm and wit before I do what I came here for," he responds.
The invader's black and silver clothes are, more precisely, a long silver coat over a black bodysuit, his brown hair long and falling forward over his face, held back by the red headband tied around his forehead. He flicks his right hand back and draws the sword he kept folded up inside the coat, the blade not much longer than Orrey's. With his left hand, he twitches his wrist up, and a nozzle slides out of his sleeve.
"Cheers," and then the fire comes.
The flames shoot out, missing Isa but catching Orrey in the initial spray, a fire that roars to furious life as one of the shelves of maps and keepsakes bursts into flame. There is a bang from his direction, and a light blue aura shines around him for a moment, though it's already wavering and threatening to fade.
Orrey yelps in pain and then in horror as the maps light on fire!
"--even I know that's not right!" declares Yves, in startled yet righteous indignation.
Linnet screams like a wounded hawk - at the library fire, at Orrey being on fire, at the gall this bastard has to threaten an innocent researcher, at the thought that something like this could be happening to Director Thornwell at this very moment - and whips her hands toward the flaming bookshelf. The maps sizzle as a light coating of snow hits the shelf and the eyes of the bastard on the floor. "Celeste! Run!"
In the flames, the mystery assailant taps the edge of the doorframe with his sword, as if inviting the cartographer to run.
Confident in Linnet's ability to save the books--she always manages to save everyone, so this is a natural progression, right?--Yves flicks his hands about in the air, ending with a stern point that would've done his most fearsome kindergarten teacher proud. "NOPE."
One hopes that his kindergarten teacher never shot anyone in the face with a snap of lightning, the way Yves is doing right now. It's a good solid bolt. One can tell by the way the whole timpani corner resounds a split second later from the shockwave in the air caused by that bolt.
(It starts out as a perfect B major chord, then fractures as the lightning reverberates and one of the smaller drum skins splits from the effort.)
Bast yanks a glass vial full of something black and viscous from one of his pockets and throws it in the same motion...until his elbow meets the nearby bookshelf mid-throw, and the vial arcs high. Bast almost lunges after it, watching it with a grimace of pain as it sails through the doorway and smashes somewhere outside - then steps over to the balcony, checking outside for any other surprise guests.
Orrey focuses his concentration on his timepiece, and launches a ball of darkness at the assassin that expands outwards and then contracts rapidly as Orrey contracts his fist.
The would-be assassin grits his teeth as this latest entry in the magical barrage barrels into him.
One of the shelves cracks and falls, sending smoldering books and two carved wooden statuettes tumbling to the ground.
Outside, there is a lot of pointing and panicking, but no one is brandishing weapons to help or hinder, Bast notes.
The blue aura has all but melted off the attacker.
Celeste has run toward Bast, toward the railing, away from the door and the fire. She is clutching the map to her side, and even now she lingers, thinking about running back for something else, so many attempted ventures threatening to go up in smoke.
Bast is somewhat distracted with untangling his crossbow, but he takes a moment to mutter "Don't give him a clear shot" in Celeste's direction.
Isa thrusts her hands down along her hips in a practiced mood, acquiring spear and gauntlet in one go. She keeps the spear short-hafted as she moves in towards the assassin in a long curve, forcing him to decide who he's paying attention to. "Little blue crystal?" she asks, "feel like you need a little help?"
"I don't know what she's paying you, but I assure you it isn't enough," he snaps back.
"Don't like it when people try to kill my friends," Isa says. A short thrust with the spear tries to guarantee his attention is on her.
His attention keeps moving toward Celeste, tracking her movements through the smoke.
...and he pays for his inattention, as Isa's spear snakes out to slide through his coat and along the back of his shoulder.
The spear almost flexes back in Isa's grip, that blue aura solidifying around the point of impact, blunting the affect.
Isa takes the momentum of the impact and uses it to spin the haft of the spear in her grip, coming around for a second backhanded strike.
He grunts again, his frustration growing, as the blue aura crumbles away. "You're trying so hard," he quips over top of it, raising his sword in the air above his head and pulling the trigger built into the handle, setting off the orange shell slotted against the side of the blade, a new orange aura shimmering weakly into existence around him.
"And you're failing so much," Isa replies. He then snaps the sword down and tosses out a small clockwork bauble that bounces twice and explodes into a cacophony.
Celeste throws her hands over her ears, pinning the map against the side of her head as she tries to withstand the sudden sonic shock.
Any satisfaction the attacker feels is mitigated when so many of the angry people between he and Celeste seem perfectly fine.
"Fall back to me!" Bast shouts.
Linnet isn't paying the least bit of attention to whatever orchestral tuning mess is exploding behind her. All her attention is focused on the shelf of maps and books, still on fire. She's no longer screaming; instead, she's hyperventilating and almost sobbing.
Linnet is, to put it lightly, freaking the fuck out.
She throws both hands at the bookshelf again, trying to push every ounce of her being into fire suppression.
The fire is almost out, but there is still so much to burn....but then the wind drops, causing the last of the fire to die out underneath the icy blasts.
"Not...this...time," Linnet gasps through her panic, shaking a few last snowflakes from her fingers. Then she hides her face in the bookshelf and tries very hard to get her shit together.
"Rude," Yves mutters, his ears still twitching from that burst of sound. "Some people have no /manners/, were you raised in a /castle/." There would probably be a dramatic thunderclap if there weren't already so much noise in the room that this round of BOLT TO THE FACE is more a bright flash of light than anything else.
Bast eyes the area around the unwanted guest and apparently decides it's sufficiently clear. He stops fiddling with the crossbow, looks with mild regret at the second vial he has dug up during this fight - the contents of this one seem to be trying very hard to turn into gas without quite having the space for it - and tosses it high.
The vial shatters almost on top of the assassin's feet. The contents don't spread very far, but even a whiff of the gas from halfway across the room is vile.
There is a great deal of very large, wet coughing coming from the other side of that spreading smoke cloud.
Orrey wobbles side to side for a bit, mouthing a few curse words that he can't seem to make audible, then winds his watch backwards and suddenly seems to be standing up straight and doing just fine. Orrey runs over towards Bast at the balcony, encouraging Linnet on the way by with a "You got this, c'mon!"
The smoke is spreading back through the open doorway into the rest of the Foundation's building. The fires are out, though the stench of the fire remains, mixing with the horrible smell of whatever it is Bast does with his free time.
There are crowds starting to assemble at what they think are safe distances below.
Isa circles back around at the edges of the smoke, spear ready. She squats enough to scoop up the strange cylindrical weapon, and flips it up and towards Bast in one motion. "Move!" she calls, and starts backing slowly towards the balcony, making sure she's between the coughing sounds and the rest of her crew.
More coughing comes from the cloud, a few very thick hacks, and then fast footsteps -- retreating ones.
(Linnet is still not thinking clearly with this much smoke around, but she manages to track "everyone else is leaving and nothing is actively flaming" and stumble her way out of the room.)
The attacker does not return.
"Is everyone ok?" Orrey scans his friends. "I think I took the worst of that... No, those poor maps took the worst of it." Orrey frowns at the damage. "Quick thinking, Linnet. The whole building could have gone up."
"I'll get you healed up in a minute; still not...entirely with it." Linnet collapses against a railing, head in her arms, still breathing very hard.
Isa keeps an eye on the door. "I'm good. But Celeste, you want to tell us if you have any idea what that was about?"
"What was /his/ problem?" Yves demands, of no one in particular. "Setting a fire in a place like this!"
Bast shrugs, crossbow still in one hand. "I'm fine."
Celeste makes about a dozen faces as she tries to come to terms with the ringing in her ears, and then she inspects Orrey with a critical eye, holding his chin to the side to peer at the burns on his neck, turning him around to look at his clothes. "I'm just going to focus on him here to see if there's anything one semester of field medicine can help with," she says in a strained sing-song tone, "and not think about everything else that just happened, thank you!"
"It's okay, I'm a white mage. And I'm sorry for flipping out in there; you really didn't need that along with everything else. Your maps are probably quite wet, but hopefully nothing's irreversibly damaged."
Two moogles burst through the doorway about two minutes later, one holding a knife and one holding what might be a priceless statue, both drawing up short when they get the double-hit of terrifying smell and Isaline Osler's full attention.
Isa tilts her head to the side, considering Celeste. "Celeste. Is this the first time someone's tried to kill you?" She seems almost surprised. She then sweeps her head over to the moogles. "Good afternoon. There's a man with a red headband who may still be on campus, is heavily armed, and definitely a threat."
"First time's always the worst," Yves says sympathetically.
(Linnet tries to clean up her tearstained face with one sleeve while sprinkling healing sparkles over Orrey like powdered sugar over a cake with her free hand.)
The moogles salute, definitely not nearly hitting themselves with dangerous weapons/not weapons, and take off to investigate.
"Thanks, Celeste, but I think I'll live. Tell me those weren't the authorities..." Orrey looks around for a more official response.
Celeste fumbles around herself for a moment as Orrey is healed, frowning when she realizes one of the pairs of glasses hooked in the ties of her dress broke, goes for another one, and then pulls a notebook out from a pocket in the cloak, turning Orrey around to use him as a bookstop as she jots down notes.
"Apologies for the smell. The poison disperses quickly; the rest of it...well, pretty sure it'll be gone by the end of the day. Haven't tried out that formulation recently."
"What in all the fires of hell did you put in there, Bast, pureed skunk elemental?"
"We don't have guards, why would we have guards? That's the first time anyone has tried to kill me, specifically, and just me, although I've been caught in the blast radius a time or two, let's say," Celeste says, probing the healed burn with her fingertip.
Bast smiles at Linnet's flabbergasted question. "Oh, let a moogle have his secrets."
Isa's look softens, then. After securing the door, she comes over to put a hand on Celeste's shoulder. "So, here's the bad news: there is some very weird business going on right now, and you're probably at the edges of it. But there's good news."
"Did you know," Celeste says, tapping Orrey on the shoulder while still holding him in place, "that the way your body is reacting to White Magic is unprecedented in at least my three classes of study? I don't know what it means but it's quite interesting, honestly, and not just a distraction from what very nearly just happened to me." She looks up at Isa, gives her a very wide, weary, toothy grin, says, "I'm gonna sit down for a minute," and then does so, on the floor of the balcony, both her arms around her knees, just breathing in for five long, deep breaths.
Isa nods, and waits to deliver the good news.
"I'm not sure what you mean..." Orrey looks worried. "First fight aftermath is rough."
Linnet kneels behind her and rubs her back quietly. "It'll be okay. We may not have killed him, but I think we scared him off. You'll be okay." "We're all still here, nothing's on fire, and we have lots of interesting questions to pursue. And they include 'who was that bastard and how many blizzards can I pump into his eyes next time I see him.' But that's just one of many questions."
"We could probably try to go kill him," Yves offers. "...I mean, if that's... ethical... under the circumstances?"
"He struck me as the sort that's going to try again at some point, Yves. You'll have your chance," Isa says.
Celeste takes a sixth deep breath for good measure, stands up, and walks back into what remains of her office. She chokes back a sob as she picks up the books that burned, handling them with absolute care as she sets them on the corner of her desk.
"I mean, I wouldn't want to murder someone unnecessarily," Yves says. "Because that's probably bad or something. But, hey, if he shows up again, and not just to apologize..."
Celeste then opens the bottom right drawer of her desk, kneels down, and pulls out a jeweled dagger that probably set off an ancient tomb's deathtrap. After setting it to dangle from the three ties that held her broken glasses, she stands back up. "Okay. Presentation's in two days, I'll be fine. What's the good news you wanted to share, Isa?"
"Oh, the good news? We're not on the edges of the weirdness, we're aimed straight at the center. We have an airship. And we have this (gesturing to the Nerd Herd) collection of intellects to apply to the problem. Want to come along?"
Celeste beams. "I would love to!"
"We'll help you pack. We've got plenty of library space," Linnet says.
"In three days," Celeste then clarifies. She brandishes the map like Isa did her spear just moments ago. "I have a presentation to give."
Isa looks at Bast, before replying. "Not without protection."
"Ms. Meracydia, would you accept the discreet-ish services of a coterie of bodyguards for the next three days? I promise not to get snow on any more of your maps unless something catches fire. ...and this is not entirely a request to stick around and just shelf-read for hours, but that might be a tiny part of it." (Linnet's expression: tired, slightly embarrassed and slightly soot-streaked smile)
"Certainly!" Celeste says. "I don't think bodyguards are strictly allowed, because we had a situation where mercenaries were being hired to sabotage other presentations a year ago, there was quite the to-do over it and I believe someone even lost tenure. But an old friend visiting, that's absolutely allowed, and I'm sure we can spin up similar stories for the rest of you. I only have a one bedroom place, so you'll likely need to get rooms at the inn."
"Pretty sure we can stretch 'visiting scholar' thin enough to cover Yves and Linnet, at least," Isa says.
"...lost /tenure/," Yves repeats, in a tone of awe.
The cylinder in Bast's hands is an engineering marvel, in that Bast isn't entirely sure how it works, but the gist is that you point one end of it at something you want to go away, and you squeeze the base, and then something absolutely nightmarish is going to come out that one end, and it's going to go very fast, and then this cylinder isn't going to work anymore.
"I mean. I've heard /rumors/, but I always thought those were academic legends. Like the one about the undergrad with the hook hand?" Yves shakes his head. The world is truly full of marvels.
(Linnet has retreated from the main conversation to carefully sponge snowmelt off the materials on the shelf she attacked.)
"Oh, Simon? Simon's a sweetheart," Celeste says. "When he graduated last year, he put a tassel on it." She keeps giving Orrey appraising looks, and then: "Also, you'll be staying with me. I have a million questions for you."
Orrey blinks. "I, uh..."
"Be gentle with him," Isa says.
The dagger swinging from the loops in the middle of Celeste's stomach could probably go for a solid two, three hundred thousand gil in the Triad, Bast figures. Valuable. Not open-street murder valuable, but valuable.
"But not too gentle." Linnet winks at Orrey.
"No, if he was still wearing the hook, it's not the story I heard," Yves says absently. "I suppose there could be a lot of hooks going around. Especially in some of the more applied sciences."
"It'll be great fun! Any dietary restrictions? I'm vegetarian myself, but I don't mind preparing meat if you're wanting some, but I won't touch chocobo, not after Lawrence saved my life last Caelonde. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would ever eat chocobo, it just doesn't make sense to me. Have you seen their eyes? And they're so smart! The year I judged dressage..."
Bast takes advantage of the distraction around Orrey to securely pack away his newest toy.
Celeste continues, undaunted, as the rest of the world slips into soft focus as far as her attention is concerned.
Isa gives Bast a discreet "you're welcome" wink.
Bast raises his eyebrows minutely to acknowledge it, brushing his green pom out of the way. After another couple of glances through the doorways, he unloads and packs away his crossbow as well, and leans against a shelf to see where things go with Celeste's spirit of inquiry. From a safe distance.
And with that...
End session.