Amelia

GM Grimalkin was more fortunate than Mister Strix. She evaded the creature's lashing tentacles with the grace of a gymnast and the speed of a fencer. Her terror at the sight of the monster grappled with the bloodlust stirred by its song, and the latter won out. Glamour, the pure energy of the fae, coalesced around her fingers and solidified into razor-sharp claws, which she used to slice into the monster's flesh. The creature howled in fury and pain. She cut deep, but no bones were exposed, only muscle. Her fingers dripped with blood and vitreous gel from many ruptured eyeballs. She looked down at them just in time to watch tiny eyes sprout from the skin on her hands, and to simultaneously look through those new eyes back up at her own face. The rush of so many visual perspectives all hitting her brain at once was too much. She doubled over and vomited into the already blood-soaked stagnant water the vigilantes had all been wading through.

Strix will stay in mist form, cling to the ceiling, and follow just behind/above the guards until they reach Lady Horus. Then he'll drop down behind them, swap from mist form to solid-with-Autofire form, and start wailing on them. All-Out Attack for +/-2, Attack +10, take 10 if they're minions, DC23 (+1 per 2 points over their Defense DC) Toughness for them, Takedown Attack 2.

Grimalkin's got 4HP, so I'll burn one of them to double her dodge bonus for a round so the Deep Spawn's attack misses. I'll also say that she's unable to flee because of the others in her way. So the Confuse forces her to attack her attacker, and the Frightened condition leaves her Shaken while she does it. Grim pops claws. Attack roll: 16. Would have hit if she wasn't Shaken. She'll burn a Hero Point for a re-roll. Attack roll (re-roll): 24. That "2" becomes a "12". Toughness save (DC23): 14. It fails by 9, so it sustains an Injury, and it's Dazed for a round. Initiative & Condition Summary Deep Spawn: 25 (Injured) Grimalkin: 22 (Confused, Frightened, 2HP) Mister Strix: 20 (Destroyed, 2HP) Set: 16 (5HP, Disabled, Staggered, Bound, Confused, Dazed) Temperance: 16 (5HP, Blind, Confused) Sekhmet: 13 (Unharmed, shares Set's 5HP) Strix makes a recovery check to Resurrect. Recovery check (DC10): 2. Better luck next round. Initiative & Condition Summary Deep Spawn: 25 (Injured) Grimalkin: 22 (Confused, Frightened, 2HP) Mister Strix: 20 (Destroyed, 2HP) Set: 16 (5HP, Disabled, Staggered, Bound, Confused, Dazed) Temperance: 16 (5HP, Blind, Confused) Sekhmet: 13 (Unharmed, shares Set's 5HP)

In Heritage's absence, I'll take control of Grimalkin's actions and keep her in the background, basically turning her into a silent NPC. I'll get this moving again later tonight. @Heritage feel free to jump back in and resume control whenever you want, but unless/until you say otherwise, I'll assume you're not coming back to this thread.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but Strix wasn't heading down to the camera room. He was creeping upstairs to whatever's being guarded.

GM During any given second, roughly one out of every ten to twenty of the hundreds (thousands?) of eyes lining the creature's body weeped blood into the standing water flooding the basement floor. The shrieking continued to echo back and forth between the basement walls. Grimalkin, Set, and Temperance could all hear the song between the sounds. Sing His Song Become One with Him All voices, singing as One All eyes are His eyes With His Kiss, you will See With His Song, you will Hear After sinking its teeth into Set, the creature directed its attention, and its many eyes, at less divine fare. A lone tentacle remained wrapped around the god's limp, bleeding body, while others shot out at the faerie and the vampire. Mister Strix was caught in the monster's slimy grasp. The creature pulled Strix up under its maw and clamped down with its dozens of razor-sharp teeth. Its horrendous bite broke his ribcage in half, then tore it out, along with most of his internal organs, and the skin and muscle which had formerly shielded them. Strix fell limp in the monster's grip, and the monster dropped what was left of him to vanish face-down in the fetid pink water. Its fanged sphincter squeezed shut momentarily, before forcefully spitting out the chunk of the vampire's flesh it had torn free, leaving it, too, to disappear into the water. The shrieking became more shrill for a few seconds. The strangest part of this disgusting spectacle was that Strix's grievous wound did not bleed. Not a single drop of blood accompanied his flesh, bones, or organs as they were ripped from his body. The organs themselves were shriveled and blackened. What was less obvious was that, unlike with Set, none of the few spots of bare flesh which made contact with the creature's tentacles sprouted any new eyeballs.

Deep Spawn Free Action: The Spawn will maintain the grapple on Set. Move Action: None. Standard Action: The Spawn will make a melee attack against Grimalkin to initiate a grapple. It will use its Additional Limbs power to grapple multiple opponents instead of focusing all its tentacles on one, so its Grapple bonus drops by -4. It will All-Out Attack for +2 Attack / -2 Defense. Attack roll: 19. Miss. The Spawn will use GM Fiat for a re-roll. Grimalkin gets a Hero Point. Attack roll (re-roll): 23. That hits, barely. If Grimalkin burns a Hero Point as a reaction, she can double her dodge bonus for the round retroactively and the Spawn will miss. Otherwise, she needs to make a DC20 Fortitude save against the Nauseate effect as she grows new eyes in places where eyes don't belong, and she needs to make an opposed grapple check. Deep Spawn's Grapple check: 34. If the Spawn wins the grapple, then it will have Grimalkin in a Chokehold (she can't speak, and eventually she'll have to start making Fortitude saves not to pass out), and it will use its Requires-Grapple Bite attack, so Grimalkin will need to make a DC27 Toughness save against lethal damage. Since, if Grimalkin loses the grapple check, she will be Pinned (or Bound, if she fails by 5+), her Defensive Roll ranks will not apply, so her Toughness will only be +4. Free Action: The Spawn will use Extra Effort for a second Standard Action, which it uses to make a melee attack against Mister Strix to initiate a grapple. Attack roll: 30. Ouch, another critical hit. Grapple check: 42. Mister Strix's opposed Grapple check: 19. Natural "1". Mister Strix is Bound. The Spawn uses its Requires-Grapple Bite attack against Mister Strix. Mister Strix's Toughness save (DC32): 16. Mister Strix fails by 16, which is 15+, so he's Destroyed. Reaction: The Spawn will use GM Fiat to recover from the Fatigue it would normally suffer from using Extra Effort. Since he used the Extra Effort to attack Strix, Strix gets the Hero Point. The Deep Spawn's Defense drops to +6 (DC16) until its next action. Initiative & Condition Summary Deep Spawn: 25 (Unharmed) Grimalkin: 22 (Confused, Frightened, 4HP) Mister Strix: 20 (Destroyed, 2HP) Set: 16 (5HP, Disabled, Staggered, Bound, Confused, Dazed) Temperance: 16 (5HP, Blind, Confused) Sekhmet: 13 (Unharmed, shares Set's 5HP)

Grimalkin fails the Fear save by 8, so she's Frightened. If possible, she has to flee from the Deep Spawn. On any round when she can't (which might happen from the Confusion), she's Shaken (-2 to all rolls). Initiative Deep Spawn: 25 (Unharmed) Grimalkin: 22 (Confused, Frightened, 3HP) Mister Strix: 20 (Unharmed, 1HP) Set: 16 (5HP, Disabled, Staggered, Bound, Confused, Dazed) Temperance: 16 (5HP, Blind, Confused) Sekhmet: 13 (Unharmed) I'll get another GM post up for the Deep Spawn's combat actions later tonight.

Initiative Deep Spawn: 25 (Unharmed) Mister Strix: 20 (Unharmed, 1HP) Set: 16 (5HP, Disabled, Staggered, Bound, Confused, Dazed) Temperance: 16 (5HP, Blind, Confused) Sekhmet: 13 (Unharmed) Grimalkin: ?

Officer Friendly only has Defense 8 (DC18), so that hits. Toughness save (DC23): 18*. Officer Friendly fails by 5. He's Dazed for a round, and he takes a 3rd Injury. Initiative & Condition Summary 17: Arrowhawk (1HP, Bruised x3, Injured x2) 16: The Tattered Man (3HP, Bruised, Injured) 05: Mister Strix (3HP) 05: Officer Friendly (Injured x3, Dazed) *The linked total says 20 instead of 18 because the die is "1d20+12" when it should be "1d20+10" because he already has 2 Injuries. I screwed up.

Mister Strix: Will save vs Confuse (DC20): 24. Will save vs Emotion Control (Fear) (DC20): 26.

Dazed, not Stunned. House rules. And that goes away after 1 round. The big difference would be that Set defends normally, instead of being flat-footed. But since Set is being super-grappled, that's moot anyway. But since the only character who would attack Set already has Set super-grappled, it's another layer of Mootception. But other than that...yeah. When it comes time for you to roll on the Confused table, feel free to burn a Hero Point for a re-roll if you want. Initiative Deep Spawn: 25 (Unharmed) Mister Strix: 20 (Unharmed, 1HP) Set: 16 (5HP, Disabled, Staggered, Bound, Confused, Dazed) Sekhmet: 13 (Unharmed) Grimalkin: ? Temperance: ? (+1HP)

Pay attention and read carefully. This is a long one. Everyone has a lot of rolls to make, some more than others. Let me know if any of you need me to walk you through it individually. I know a lot of front-loaded effects like this may seem excessive. But I'm confident that the PCs will annihilate this thing as soon as they get the chance to retaliate. So please just try to enjoy the change of pace for the brief moment it lasts. I'll reveal the Deep Spawn's stat block piece by piece, as it becomes relevant, for dramatic effect. I will not, however, force you to spend Hero Points for re-rolls blindly. I will tell you if an attack roll, saving throw, or skill check succeeds. Thank you all in advance for (hopefully) being good sports. This is, after all, supposed to be at least partially a horror story. The Deep Spawn of He Who Watches Through Ten-Thousand Bleeding Eyes gets a surprise round. I think that's reasonable, since it's using a Teleport effect to enter the scene. The Deep Spawn has a Reaction Emotion Control (Fear) effect, with a Perception(Visual)-shaped Area. Everyone who looks at the Spawn needs to make a DC20 Will save against it. It's a Reaction, so the Spawn will just keep pumping it out the entire time, but it's also got a 2-point variant on the Unreliable flaw, so you only have to make the Will save against it once per scene, the first time you see it. Anyone who wants to close their eyes or otherwise avoid looking at it can make a DC20 Reflex save to do so, bypassing the Will save. However, the Spawn will have total Visual concealment against anyone who does this (you suffer a 50% miss chance against it, and it attacks your flat-footed Defense with an extra +2 attack). If you make the Reflex save to avoid looking at it, and then look at it later, you'll have to make the Will save. But you'll only have to save the first time you see it. Emotion Control 10 (Extras: Action 3 [Reaction], Area [Perception, Visual], Flaws: Limited [Fear], Range 2 [Touch], Uncontrolled, Unreliable 2 [One Use: Other characters only need to save once per scene, when they first see it]) [5PP] The shrieking is an Area Confuse effect. Everyone who hears the Spawn's song needs to make a DC20 Will save against that, too. It's a Perception(Auditory)-shaped Area effect, so anyone who tries to cover their ears can make a DC20 Reflex save to avoid it, bypassing the Will save. But anyone who does this is going to be considered Deaf for as long as they maintain it (everyone has total Auditory concealment from you, and you suffer -4 Initiative). Barring some other method of plugging up your ears, it's also going to keep your hands occupied for as long as you maintain it. And as soon as you stop maintaining it, you'll have to make the Will save. It's a Free action effect, so the Spawn can just keep pumping it out every round. But it's also got the same 2-point variant on the Unreliable flaw, so you only have to make the Will save against it once per scene, the first time you hear it. Confuse 10 (Extras: Action 2 [Free], Area [Perception, Auditory], Flaws: Range [Touch], Unreliable 2 [One Use: Other characters only need to save once per scene, when they first hear it]) [10PP] (Song) COMPLICATION: Because Temperance has Comprehend Spirits and is tied by blood to extradimensional entities, I'm going to rule that she's more susceptible to the insanity inflicted by the Song. Temperance suffers a -4 penalty to her Will save against the Confuse effect. She will not suffer this penalty if she chooses to attempt a Reflex save to avoid it first. At the end of the surprise round, Temperance will gain one Hero Point for this setback. Anyone who fails either of those Will saves gets a Hero Point for the setback at the end of the surprise round. Because of the Elongation and Growth, the Spawn has a melee reach of 15ft. Everyone in the basement is within that reach. The Deep Spawn will use its standard action for the surprise round to make a melee attack to attempt to grapple Set. It will Accurate Attack for +2 Attack / -2 Damage, and All-Out Attack for +2 Attack / -2 Defense. Attack roll: 32. Ouch. Natural 20. That hits automatically. Set has Luck Control, so I assume they'll want to force a re-roll. I'll use GM Fiat to avoid the re-roll, so Set will get a Hero Point at the end of the surprise round. As soon as the melee attack hits, Set is subject to the Spawn's linked Nauseate and Transform effects. The Transform effect is No Save, so it just happens. It makes eyeballs grow on the parts of Set's skin that touched the Spawn's skin. That's it. The Transform itself is just a cosmetic effect. It's just gross. However, since Set sees through the eyes, just like they see through their own "real" ones, with the views all combined as translucent overlays, they're also subject to the linked Nauseate effect from the disorientation. Set needs to make a DC20 Fortitude save against the Nauseate effect. As with the other attack powers before it, the Nauseate has a 2-point variant of the Unreliable flaw, so each character only needs to save against it the first time they're subject to it. After the first time, they adapt to the horrible new sensation. Nauseate 10 (Extras: Action 3 [Reaction], Linked [Transform], Flaws: Uncontrolled, Unreliable 2 [One Use: Other characters only need to save once per scene, when they first touch or are touched]) [20PP] Transform 1 (Makes eyes grow on living flesh, Extras: Action 3 [Reaction], Duration [Continuous, Lasting], Linked [Nauseate], No Saving Throw, Flaws: Range [Touch], Uncontrolled) [7PP] The Spawn and Set get an opposed Grapple check. The Spawn suffers -2 for the Accurate Attack, but gets +5 for the crit. For the moment, the Spawn is applying all its available limbs to the grapple. Grapple check: 44. (Ignore the bonus listed in that link, it's too high, I messed up the arithmetic before I rolled.) Even if Set rolled a 20, there is no way they wouldn't lose by 5+, so Gizmo doesn't have to bother rolling. Since Set lost by 5+, they're Bound (Helpless, no physical actions, considered an immobile object for attacking purposes). Since Set lost (regardless of the margin), the Spawn applies its Chokehold (Set can't speak, and in 14 rounds, they will start having to make Fortitude saves to avoid passing out), and the Spawn's "Bite" power takes effect, a Requires-Grapple Mighty Damage power (that's a DC30 Toughness save against Lethal damage; it would normally be DC27, except for the Accurate Attack and the crit). Set needs to make a DC30 Toughness save against Lethal damage. Set will most likely lose any future opposed grapple checks to escape, but I assume they'll just use their Shapeshift power to acquire Insubstantial 1 and slip out automatically on their next action. Because of the All-Out Attack, the Deep Spawn's Defense falls from +8 (DC18) to +6 (DC16) until its next action. Everyone needs to roll for Initiative. Once everyone does that, I'll post the complete list of Init counts and conditions. Below is a partial list. Initiative Deep Spawn: 25 (Unharmed) Mister Strix: 20 (Unharmed, 1HP) Grimalkin: ? Sekhmet: ? Set: ? (+1HP) Temperance: ? (+1HP)

GM The basement was a square roughly fourty feet on a side. It had been used for storage of excess stock. Metal filing cabinets of various sizes and boxes of books lined the walls. But someone had flooded the basement floor and drenched the walls by bludgeoning open some exposed pipes. The assembled vigilantes waded through water halfway up their shins, tinted pink and smelling of the sea. The standing water had consumed the books and papers. Black mold had climbed up the piles and the walls in streaks, reaching far above the water line. The cabinets were rusted. Even those without enhanced olfactory senses were now overwhelmed with the combined stench of mildew, salt, and blood. But those so blessed enjoyed the addition of copious amounts of saliva, diluted but still distinctive. The assembled vigilantes barely had time for a cursory examination of their surroundings before the center of the room exploded. Everyone was splashed with spatters of blood and spit diluted in stagnant saltwater. A creature rose from the depths, despite those "depths" being no more than a foot to a foot and a half before hitting solid ground. Those who looked at the creature, fighting the sudden urge to look away, to run away, saw an oblong mass of flesh surrounded by a dozen tentacles, taking up half the basement floor with its bulk. The scarlet skin had a texture and a glistening coating of saliva which made it appear as though a human tongue had been inflated and stretched out to form something between a starfish and an octopus. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of eyes of various sizes, ranging from a pea to a baseball, lined the body and the tentacles alike, in roughly the same pattern as the spots on a leopard. The creature pushed itself up, exposing its underside, to reveal not so much a "mouth" as a sphincter, which stretched open to reveal countless rows of razor-sharp teeth, like the mouth of a lamprey or a leech. The mouth was surrounded by several concentric circles of even more eyes of seemingly random sizes. When the creature's mouth stretched open, it unleashed an unending cacophony of shrieking and bass vibrations. Those who listened too long also heard...singing. "He watches...He sees...sing for Him..." Several of the creature's tentacles lashed out at Set, wrapping around the diminutive deity, squeezing the breath from their throat and dragging the god across the floor, through the tainted water and into its great fanged maw. For Set, the tactile sensation confirmed the visual suspicion: The tentacles felt like great slobbering tongues. On every spot where the tentacles touched Set's divine flesh, the god felt the sting of several needles, and clusters of new eyeballs instantly sprouted, the god's skin parting as eyelids to expose them. As soon as the new eyes opened, Set could see through them, as through Set's "real" eyes, and any touch to the new eyes felt the same to Set as the same touch to the old ones. The dozens of different perspectives all invaded Set's field of view simultaneously, as translucent overlays over one another. Bile churned up in Set's throat. Set's stomach clenched. The eyes growing from Set's flesh moved of their own accord, guided by some other force, some other will. Set watched from a hundred different angles as the creature's sucking tube of teeth clenched down onto Set's torso and began shredding their flesh. The tentacle wrapped around Set's throat crushed any screams before they could leave the god's throat.

Do people want to describe their descent down into the basement, or should I just assume everyone walks downstairs and do a GM post to move things forward?

TK, I know you're busy with wedding stuff right now. Just check in when you can.

Toughness save: 27 He loses 2HP due to the edits. He ditched both Luck ranks.

Initiative result edited to account for the rank of Improved Initiative he picked up in the last two months. If possible, I'll take that circumstance bonus as a circumstance penalty on their Will saves against the Emotion Control (Fear) effect Strix is going to unleash upon them. Move Action: Stand up. Free Action: Shift the Vampiric Power array to the slot with the Emotion Control effect. Standard Action: Use the Emotion Control effect and show them a glimpse of the Schattenwelt. That's a DC18 Reflex save for anyone who has the presence of mind to look away from the sense-dependent perception-shaped AoE, and a DC18 Will save for anyone who doesn't (or who tried to look away but wasn't fast enough).

If I have to give these clowns a beating, then I'll have to drive them away from here myself, to keep them out of the hands of the Mafia thugs on the other side of that fence. And if I have to do that, then the Mob gets its cargo. Unacceptable. So I need to scare them away instead. The man in white rose up from the ground, most of his body obscured by his massive cape. The youths were close enough to him now that they felt colder inside the van than they had outside under the night sky. Once he'd regained his footing, the man in white pulled his cape up behind him once more and snarled at them. "Death haunts Bedlam this night, Mortals. Run while you can, and pray I don't follow you!" His mouth opened wider than any human mouth should, as though his cheeks had split open. His mouth seemed to take up the entire lower half of his head, filled with an impossible number of gleaming white teeth. Four of those teeth stretched out into fangs, like a cobra preparing to strike. His tongue stretched to three times its normal length, tapering to a point as it danced between his fangs. He clenched his fists and roared at them. His eyes turned completely black, and anyone who looked into them saw a darkness deeper than they'd ever imagined before, a hungry darkness full of Things that would snuff out their Light forever. I may sound like the villain from a bad movie. But I'm dealing with the type of people who watch bad movies. You have to play to your audience.

Mister Strix raised a thick, dark eyebrow at the chipper lady in the black and blue jumpsuit. "You're the first vigilante I ever met who worried about courtesy. I tried to scare you off, you assumed I was a vampire, so let's just call it 'even' and move on. Besides, you're hardly the first person to make that assumption." Because it's true. "I don't know anything about the book he was studying or the eyes he was ranting about. And no one's been in here for at least the last two nights. Every time I found another body part, I followed the trail..." Tread carefully. But how else do I explain it? Maybe some way that doesn't make me sound like a vampire. No. If I dance around it, I'll just raise more questions. "...The smell of the blood. But it always ended abruptly, like whoever had left the trail just vanished. Until a couple nights ago, when one of those trails led here. I've been staking out the store ever since." As the assembled vigilantes moved through the store, searching for clues, it became obvious to everyone that the man in white was doing everything in his power to remain constantly aware of Sekhmet's location, but also to avoid looking directly at her. Whenever she turned to face his general direction, he would grimace and stop moving entirely, sometimes mid-step, and stagger backward, as if he'd been struck. The vigilantes could see his black veins bulge beneath the white fabric of his costume whenever he found himself facing her, despite his best efforts. Strix's eyes narrowed when Grimalkin spotted the dust patterns in the crawlspace. "Two nights in this dump, and it didn't occur to me to move some boxes. Some detective." He tried to make up for his lack of observation by helping to clear the way. Each box of books weighed fifty pounds or more, but the man in white casually picked them up and tossed them aside like they were empty cardboard coffee cups. Strix cringed. It really is that obvious. When Sekhmet conjured more flame, Strix turned away from the crawlspace, groaning and hissing. Once the fires died down, he crept back inside. The man in white knelt down beside the brown stain Sekhmet had found, and sniffed at it. "Definitely blood." He extended his index finger toward it. The reason he chose fingerless gloves became obvious when a razor-sharp talon burst forth from his fingertip, almost as long as the digit which had deployed it. He scraped at the wood, pinched one of the shavings between his fingers, and brought it to his tongue. He grimaced and quickly spit it out. Then he gagged, clutched his forehead with one hand, and stumbled for a few moments. "Not...not human." He leaned against the nearest wall, steadying himself with both hands. "It killed them. Whatever It is, It saw us, and It killed them." He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and rested his forehead against the wall, still holding himself up against that same wall with his other hand. "When I found the body parts, I...it's hard to describe what I did. What I can do. I 'looked' into their blood. Your thoughts, your feelings, they leave echoes in your blood. You know the legend that a dead person's eyes capture the last thing they saw before they died, like a photograph? If you know how to look, a person's blood can tell you a lot more than that. It can tell you everything. I looked into their blood, and I saw them die. That's all I saw. They were cut open, and they were torn apart. So much pain, so much terror, I couldn't see anything else. But That..." He pointed down at the bloodstain. "That...Thing showed me a little more. It tore them apart, from the inside. That's how It's coming 'Here,' from 'There.' Don't ask me where 'There' is; I don't know. I smell the ocean. I hear...singing. I see darkness. I see eyes in the dark, looking back at me. Back at us, right now. But that's it. Wherever 'There' is, I just know it isn't 'Here.' But someone over 'Here' is cutting people open, and using them as...tunnels. And these Things...this Thing...It's coming through. It's Them. They're It. And It's coming Here, a piece at a time."

Strix's Mind Control effect has a Lasting duration, so even when he swaps to the Mist Form AP in his array, the effect will persist. It should be at least another minute before the guard gets a new save to shake it off.

The man in white had been running his fingers along the spines of the books on the shelves lining the office walls, but when the guard mentioned the top floor, he snapped back around, moving so fast he seemed to vanish and re-appear in front of the guard, his black eyes so close to the man's face they took up his entire field of view. "Who? Who are you guarding up there? What did you see? What did you hear?" He probably doesn't know anything else, but even a rumor could be useful. "Cameras don't see me. I'll take a peek upstairs." Mister Strix pointed at the guard. "You." Then he pointed at the woman in the blue and yellow armor. "Do whatever she tells you." Then he evaporated into a cloud of mist, floated up to the ceiling, and seeped through the cracks in the office door.

GM (6) Siren Song of The Void (5) To Serve and Protect (1) Mister Strix (8) Enough To Pay For The Coffin (1) Golgotha Tenement Blues (2) Ink (3) Siren Song of The Void (1) To Serve and Protect (1) 6 GM x2 = 12 8 + 12 = 20

The broken remnants of a soda machine and the broken bodies of hired thugs were scattered about the cracked lobby floor. In the middle, Mister Strix licked the blood off his knuckles, listened to the accelerated heartbeats of the gangsters on the floor immediately above him, and smiled. Then he took a moment to reflect, and the smile melted back into a scowl. I'm enjoying this too much. It's not a game. Stop playing with your food and get the job done. The life of every innocent person in this building is in danger every second these scumbags remain standing. One stray shot, that's all it takes to kill someone in their own home. Take them down now, hard and fast. The man in white crouched, then sprang into the air, his powerful legs launching him up onto the second floor. He landed inches away from one of the thugs, who barely had time to register his surprise before Strix grabbed his shirt and pulled him close into a brutal head-butt. By the time the concussed thug hit the ground, Strix had already kicked one of his friends hard enough to break several of the man's ribs and send him flying several doors down the hallway, simultaneously elbowing a third man who stood behind him in his stomach. That third man collapsed onto his knees and immediately started vomiting onto the tattered hallway carpet. One, two, sometimes three at a time, Strix lashed out and battered thugs fell, until only one man remained unscathed.

Strix is going to stop short of taking out all of the thugs on the second floor. He'll leave one standing.