Elegy

GM A twisting hallway, the walls covered in purple curtains and the floor in crimson carpeting, led deeper into the old building. Eerie music sounded from speakers placed every few feet. After several twists and turns, the music growing louder further down the hall, Seth emerged in a room half occupied by a life-size diorama. In a stone courtyard overgrown with lichens, a strange, sparking electrical apparatus had been set up above a white-sheeted bed. A greenish monster lay restrained on the bed, and a wild-haired man in a lab coat stood over him, lowering a brain into the creature's open head. The story of Frankenstein was, of course, entirely lost upon Seth. As the young mage made to move on, however, a voice issued from the mechanical doctor's throat. "This brain is no good." Seth turned to stare at him, bemused by the interactivity of the display, and found the lifelike model staring right at him. It had discarded the brain in favor of a rusty bone saw. "I think I'll take yours instead!" The doctor pulled free of his moorings and dashed forward even as the monster snapped its restraints, rose to its full towering height, and made to do the same. "IT'S ALIVE," The doctor shrieked. "IT'S ALIVE!"

Seth brushed aside the chills that ran up his spine like cobwebs. As eerie and distorted as this place was, it would have to do better to frighten someone who had feared for his love and family, sat in a prison cell facing a noose on the morrow, and lived through three hundred years of maddening emptiness. To frighten him something had to stand a chance of taking something he cared about, and he doubted he would find any such thing within these halls save the people who, for whatever reason, wanted to hurt poor Albert on his watch. Blinking rapidly and shaking his head, he tried to throw off his fatigue. It didn't do him much good; danger would have to set the fire, and that was easy to arrange at the moment. The young mage crept forward over the creaking floor, around the bizarre little mechanical man, and pushed the hanging sign aside. Dusky magic blazed around his hands before his Second Sight, ready to leap out and strike anyone who came at him. He was powerful now, and knew how to put that power to use. He could handle this. Taking a steadying breath, he threw the door wide.

GM Just inside the door, Seth found himself face to face with an old-fashioned (though not so old-fashioned as the mage himself) mechanical fortune teller. The brightly-painted wooden doll sitting inside its glass case had been made to resemble a tuxedo-wearing, wand-twirling magician complete with top hat. It immediately rose up at his approach, and a crackling recording issued from a speaker beneath it as it moved its arms and clacked its wooden jaw in a crude imitation of conversation; it had clearly not been repaired, or even cleaned, in years. "HEE HEE HEE! Welcome, one and all, to Midnight Manse! For those who enter, only screaming insanity and hideous death await!" The voice was grating, its pitch oddly altered by the aged speaker. "Take your tickets and enter... but first say a prayer, for few ever escape the curse of this house of madness! HA! HA! HEE! HEE!" And then, with a whirring, grinding sound, the recording came to a stop and the mannequin ceased moving again. A paper ticket spurted out from the case with far too much force, striking Seth's jacket and falling to the floor. Printed on the paper in small type was a disclaimer: "not responsible for personal injury or death." Behind the booth, a "closed for renovation" sign hung loosely in front of the door that led further in. But the door was slightly ajar, and the sounds of booted feet on creaking wood and low-voiced conversation drifted through it. Perhaps there was a back door somewhere, but time was running out. The fastest way was straight ahead, through whatever it was people paid to be scared by and whatever ambushes could be set up in these dark confines... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "He's here, brother," the man in the hockey mask told the man in the Frankenstein mask. The latter nodded; it was not entirely unexpected. They would simply have to buy a little more time. Despite the advantage of numbers, he knew all too well that their weapons would be insufficient against the might and determination of a superhero. But if they could hold the interloper off just long enough to complete the ritual they would not need such mundane weapons. Even if captured they would be victorious. "Be swift, brothers and sisters," he ordered. "And brother," he told the man in the hockey mask, who was monitoring the cameras, "activate the exhibits."

Seth uses his Will Save blast on the door guard, scoring a hit. The door guard, being a common cultist, doesn't have much willpower. He fails his save hard, and is immediately rendered unconscious.

7:30 PM "Found you." Seth sat back from the pool, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The barrage of images, condensed into a single hour, had left him bone tired; it was only through an exertion of great willpower, and the simple knowledge that he had to succeed or something very, very bad to someone who didn't deserve it, that he was still functional. But he had finally figured out where they had taken Albert. Unless they'd ditched the car, or there was another white van near a haunted house, or Albert's wife had misheard his one and only lead... But there was no use thinking that way. At first he'd nearly been stumped, he reflected as he looked down at the image in the pool, because of his lack of knowledge of the modern world. When he'd heard haunted house, he'd assumed a house that was literally haunted, which was rather difficult to distinguish from an ordinary house at a distance. He'd had a lucky break when he'd spotted a billboard advertising a haunted house, not as a historical landmark but as an entertainment venue. Apparently, people in the modern day liked to be scared, and paid for the privilege. That made little sense to Seth, but perhaps that was because he'd been truly scared enough times in his life that he knew it wasn't much fun. With a weary shrug he called up another portal, and an instant later he was across the street from a boarded-up building. The place had been built in a faux-gothic style, and shaky blood-red lettering proclaimed it to be "Midnight Manse". A white van had been parked in an alleyway on its right. And thought the place looked abandoned, someone was lounging in the shadow of the front door, devoid of boards. Seth walked across the street, his coat billowing out behind him in the evening breeze, and the door guard stepped out into the open. The man wore a black motorcycle jacket and a werewolf mask; a machine pistol was clutched in his hands. When it became clear that the young mage wasn't going to stop, that gun came up to point at his head, meant to threaten him away. Seth flattened the guard with one flick of his wrist, covering his brain in a cloud of dusk and leaving him to drop with a stifled grunt to the ground. Easing him aside with one foot, Seth pulled the door open, ready to confront the madness within.

GM Bound and gagged on the stone altar, Albert decided that it was a good time to panic after all. Men and women in halloween masks, leather jackets, and black jeans loomed out of the darkness all around him, carrying an impressive array of knives, machine pistols, and sawn-off shotguns. They moved with practiced efficiency, carrying engraved brass bowls, skulls painted with runes, and flickering torches. Candles marked the corners of the rough stone on which he lay, dripping hot wax uncomfortably close to his face. Above him, barely visible in the dimness, a serpentine symbol had been painted on the ceiling. It hurt his eyes to look at it. So, he thought, crazy cultists after all. But why him? It seemed he was going to die without ever knowing. But he'd been here, wherever here was, for what felt like hours, and the whole time they'd never even looked at him. Whatever their preparations were for whatever they were going to do, they were certainly taking a long time. He kept hoping that Gloaming would show up any minute to kick down the door and rescue him, but how could the hero possibly know where he was? It was a big city, and he himself had only the faintest idea...

6:35 PM It finally occurred to Seth that he was going about this all wrong. There was no guarantee that the kidnappers' lair would have traces of the same magic; even if it did, picking it out of the jumble that was the Fens was nearly impossible, as the past hour of fruitless searching had demonstrated. The young mage mentally kicked himself when he realized that he'd had the perfect tool for the task all along. Conjuring up one of his portals, he warped himself back to Havenglen House. But rather than ending up in the atrium, library, or kitchen, he reemerged in the cavern below. What had once been a small cellar for wine and perishable foods had been utterly changed by exposure to the infinite planes. Instead the staircase led down to what seemed to be a natural, water-carved cave. Smooth stone columns, stalactites, and stalagmites dripped moisture down to the uneven floor. Huge crystals of the same dusky orange as his magic studded the walls at irregular intervals, pulsing unevenly with some inner energy. At the center of it all lay a pool of startlingly clear water, cold, deep, and still. Seth hurried over to the pool, his footsteps echoing loudly, and dropped to his knees beside it. The water glowed brightly before his Second Sight; he'd recently discovered its powerful scrying properties, though the way it searched meant that it wasn't much help in finding the mask. But here was something to which it was ideally suited. Drawing on his reserves of stamina, Seth called up an image of the Fens, which immediately began to fly at breakneck speed past his one good eye. He would cover the whole district in an hour. All he needed to do was find a white van near a haunted house. How hard could it be?

In which a strange gang known as the Wickermen kidnaps a descendant of Seth's family for some nefarious purpose... Partially adapted from a section of the classic Marvel RPG adventure module Night Moves. Seth performs an extended search of a five mile area using ESP. He increases the DC by 10 to do it in an hour rather than a day, and uses extra effort twice over that period to get +4 and a total +6 Search bonus. He succeeds. He then burns a hero point so that he is only fatigued rather than exhausted.

GM In the back of the van, Albert did his best to remain calm. He'd had only a second to take in their hideous halloween masks at his front door before he'd been hit with some kind of dart. Now he was sitting on the carpeted floor of his captors' vehicle, his hands zip-tied and a foul-smelling sack over his head. He had no idea what these people wanted; he was just a mid-level manager at an insurance company, and his wife was a second grade teacher, so it wasn't as if they could pay much in the way of a ransom. Maybe a denial of coverage had really, really pissed someone off? He always felt bad when that happened. His captors were talking quietly to one another. He picked out the word "ritual" several times, and that set his heart to beating faster. Was he going to be some kind of sacrifice for cultist nutjobs? But that didn't make much sense. It would've been easier for them to round up homeless bums from the Fens; no one would even know they were missing. Why barge right into his house to kidnap him in front of a witness? His stomach dropped out at the thought that they might have hurt Molly to keep her quiet. He couldn't bear to have that happen. From what he could gather, they'd taken the highway back downtown, the same way he went to work every day. But they'd turned off well before Wading Way, so they weren't planning to use him in some sort of scheme to rob his workplace. It was almost like they were heading for... yes, it had to be the Fens. But why? Nothing about his broad daylight kidnapping added up. The thought that he would miss Gloaming's visit momentarily depressed him, then gave him a surge of hope when he thought about it. Surely the hero would come looking?

5:20 PM Seth was early, but he could hardly help himself; he'd gone through his new searches, though they were no more successful, with renewed enthusiasm. The fact that he knew nothing about what had happened to his family after his death gnawed at him daily. He doubted knowing would ease the pain of their absence, but it might provide him with a little closure at least, and he was glad of something to look forward to. Teleporting through the darkened subway tunnels while dodging the speeding trains couldn't pass fast enough for him. Not having a watch was a bit of a problem, so he'd popped out to check the big digital readouts on the Wading Way banks every few minutes. Albert Syme's place was small, especially after Havenglen House, but nice nonetheless. It was colonial-style, red brick with symmetrical windows, a slate roof, and a weather vane in the shape of a rooster swinging gently in the breeze. The white front door and windows were freshly-painted, as was the white picket fence around the place, and the lawn was well-kept. A bay window at the back broke with the style, but provided a nice spot to sit and read; it overlooked a little vegetable garden of herbs, pumpkins, and zucchini. It was a little odd that the front door was open, Seth reflected as he approached; Port Regal had a fairly low crime rate, but precious coolth was escaping the house, and as he understood it people paid for that coolth in the form of "air conditioning" now. There were two cars parked out front, but Seth had no idea if either of them belonged to Albert. It was not until a young woman burst from the doorway, tears spilling from her wide eyes, that the young mage was entirely convinced that something was amiss. "Help," she whispered between sobs. Seth rushed forward, taking her by the arm and escorting her back inside. "You are safe now, madam. What happened here?" He kept his tone gentle as he eased her into one of the kitchen chairs, the pulled one up for himself. "They... they took him. They took Albert! They said if I called the police they'd... they'd... But I knew you were coming, and I..." Seth's mind reeled with this information. He knew nothing about Albert, least of all why anyone would want to hurt him. The man wasn't poor, but there were far better targets for a ransom. Then the magical residue caught his eye. It was a dark, twining thing, like a serpent made of smoke: a warning charm, set to trigger when someone new entered the house. And, distracted as he was, he'd stepped right through it. Suspicion took hold in his mind: whoever had kidnapped Albert had known he was coming. "Did you see which way they went?" She nodded. "Back downtown. They... they said something about a haunted house in the Fens when they thought I couldn't hear them. They were in a white van..." She trailed off, staring at her hands. "I will find him, madam. I so swear before almighty God. Now come with me; we must get you somewhere safe." Settling one arm gently around her waist, Seth conjured a portal around himself and fell through. He waited only a moment to take in the stunned expressions of the precinct's receptionist and off-duty officers before conjuring another that would take him toward the Fens. There was only one thought in his mind: that whatever had happened to Albert was tied up with Seth. He would not allow anyone to get hurt on his account.

GM Dear Seth, My name is Albert Syme. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get in touch with you; this is all really, really strange, and I wasn't sure if I wanted any part in it at first. But you wanted to talk to people who knew a little about our family's history, and I fit the bill. I'll tell you upfront that I don't know exactly what happened after you were hanged and your house vanished. Most of the Symes left the area, but no one knows which ones or where they went. The only thing I know for sure is that your brother Andrew stayed. I know because he's my ancestor. I can tell you what I know about him and his immediate family, and I can put you in touch with some people who might know more about your other siblings, if you're interested. I get off work at five, so I should be home by half past unless the traffic is really bad. I live in Port Regal; you'll find my address on the back of this letter. Given what I've heard about your powers, I don't think you'll need directions beyond that. I'd say call me before you come by, but I don't think you have a phone, so just pop in when you can, I guess. -Albert

12:00 PM A circle of orange light appeared in the dining room of Havenglen House, and Seth Syme stepped out, stifling a yawn. He collapsed into one of the gilded, ornately-carved chairs and decided that getting only four hours of sleep had been a poor idea. Still, it'd been two weeks now without any sign of the mask; he had no idea how long the Twilight Angel intended to give him to find it, but he'd personally expected to have it by now. Later nights and earlier mornings had blurred together as he searched, block by block and alley by alley. Perhaps it was time to start on the subway tunnels. His stomach grumbled, and a china platter immediately materialized on the long mahogany table, laden with food. Seth smiled; there were benefits to having a house as saturated with magical energies as his. Tugging his chair closer, he wolfed it all down in a matter of minutes, allowed himself another few minutes to simply sit stunned in his chair, and then prepared to head out again. A flick of his hand brought up another portal, but he reconsidered. He would walk in the gardens for a few minutes before he left; the roses his mother had loved were in bloom. Appearing in front of his house, a sight he'd decided his neighbors would simply have to get used to, he was immediately glad that he'd hesitated. An envelope was tucked between the double doors. Seth initially found it odd, even suspicious, but reconsidered after a moment; how else was anyone to get in touch with him? And then excitement seized him, pushing out his exhaustion. When he'd been interviewed a week ago, he'd put out a call to modern-day Symes, hoping to speak with them. Could this be a response? Heart beating fast, he sprinted up the stairs two at a time to take hold of the envelope.

8:00 AM GM The young man lingered on the sidewalk near the colossal mansion, captivated by its brooding old world mystique. It was hard to believe that the place, which seemed to loom over its two neighbors despite the fact that they were some of Lantern Hill's larger houses, had appeared overnight two weeks ago. Past the iron gates, which were worked with patterns of twisting ivy, neatly-tended hedges lined the path up to the grand staircase of dark stone. Two tall doors of polished mahogany waited at the top, somehow undamaged by the wet weather. Gazing down at the letter in his hand, the young man sighed. He would have preferred a phone call, but as it turns out a house that suddenly reappears after three hundred years is unlikely to have a land line. Its occupant didn't seem to have a cell phone or email address either, and there was no mailing address (or mailbox, for that matter) for an empty lot, so it'd been necessary to do things the old fashioned way: by hand. He could've asked to be invited in, but he didn't want to impose. He had no idea what the man would be like. Mustering his courage, the young man squared his shoulders and walked through the gates. He walked quickly between the hedges, feeling a little claustrophobic, and headed up the stairs. Staring around for a good place to leave the letter, he finally settled on wedging it in the crack between the two doors, where it couldn't possibly be missed. His task complete, he fairly sprinted back to the gates, closed them behind him, and jumped back in his car. This whole business creeped him out, but he owed his ancestor this much. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "He's made this very easy for us, brother," the young woman told her companion, putting down her binoculars and revving up her unmarked van. "He has no reason to suspect anything, sister," the man in the passenger's seat replied, sliding a dart into his tranquilizer gun and sighting down the barrel. Behind their grimacing halloween masks, both wore smiles. As their target's car left the circle and headed back downtown, the white van followed at a distance, keeping it just in sight. "The Nightmare Architect will have his due."

Thursday, August 1st, 2013 6:30 PM If this was the price of urban expansion, Seth reflected, he favored the Freedom of his day all the more. The young mage crouched on the roof of a crumbling tenement, his glowing gaze sweeping across the surrounding buildings. He took in flickering neon signs, boarded up apartments, "adult" stores, seedy bars, women of negotiable virtue, all without pausing or reflecting further, as he might have done under better circumstances. Nothing glowed in his Second Sight. Seth let out a long breath, trying to calm himself. He would find the place. They wouldn't get away with this, whoever they were. Opening a portal, he warped deeper into the Fens. It was the same story from atop the sparking XXX sign: dirt, desperation, and no sign of the shadowy, serpentine magic he was looking for. He punched the metal full-force, causing his brazen bracelet to vibrate as it absorbed a blow that would otherwise have broken his hand. Someone had finally come to Seth, giving him complete trust, and had promptly been kidnapped on his watch. Trying again to steady his breathing, Seth cast his mind back to when this debacle had begun, desperately seeking some clue he'd missed...

Wonderful work, Ari! This must have taken you quite some time! I salute you; this will be very helpful. Minor gripe: Seth's mysterious love was named Emmaline, not Elizabeth.

And that's a wrap for Seth's intro. One thread down in its entirety! Time to go get me some more.

GM To Seth Syme, the Void had been an empty hell. But Seth had only a paltry six senses; how could he understand? The Twilight Angel had forty-seven, and saw the place for what it had created it to be: a sanctuary. It had molded its realm out a discarded sliver of the concept of concealment and a million unanswered prayers for safety. There were few mortals alive who could imagine the place, let alone perceive it. Even the entity's agents knew only glimpses, parts of the whole. Such a place was necessary; the Twilight Angel's power was great, but it was hardly on the level of the gods whose clash had created it, gods that would have considered it an abomination if they knew it existed. The entity listened calmly as the Succubus gave her report of the past hour's events. Syme had handled himself well, for one fresh out of the grave. Concerns lingered, of course; mortals, with their short lifetimes and shorter attention spans, became easily distracted with each day's happenings, and Syme's newfound sense of responsibility would make that much worse. Time was of the essence, and if the Angel's new tool slowed too much he would have to be... reminded of the reason for his continued life. For now, however, all was proceeding according to plan.

Seth finally released the breath he'd been holding. Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock boomed: one o'clock. He'd been alive an hour, and in that time he'd very nearly been sent back to the void in little bloody scraps, or else sacrificed something nearly as precious as life itself. Slumping down on the hard stone floor next to his hastily-drawn pentacle, Seth chucked, then barked, then roared with helpless laughter. At the absurdity of it all; at how close everything had come to unraveling again; at the fact that the half-remembered mumbo-jumbo his father had hated had saved his life. He laughed so hard he cried, and then he wasn't laughing any more. He listened to the echoes, stared at the vaulted ceiling, and remembered that he was alone now, in this vast house. It had been built for seven children, considered bloated in its day, a monument to excess. Now it was twice the size it'd been when the preacher had warned of indulgence, and Seth was the only one in it. He threw up his hands, chuckling again through the tears. Alone, till death came for him again. The multiverse, he mused, had a truly nasty sense of humor. He had power, knowledge, space to himself, control of his destiny. Everything he'd wished for, and he'd paid for it with what he took for granted. One often feels better slumped on the ground, letting emotions roll out. But the problem with crying is that, sooner or later, you have to stop. That time came, and Seth wiped his eyes on his sleeve and levered himself to his feet. If he didn't get himself moving, focus himself on something, he was going to feel helpless forever. The imminent threat of suffering the same guilty, miserable feelings while trapped between life and true death in the hellish void, he reflected, ought to be enough to keep him focused. He managed a grin at that. Passing through the heavy doors the departed Succubus had thrown open, he took a deep, steadying breath. His family would have been so disappointed to see him mope and curse fate. Wherever he was, wherever they were, they wouldn't want to see him waste another opportunity. He was a man now, not a mewling child, and he needed to act it. Regaining his home was a blessing, one he would not squander. He would live here, and he would come to deserve it. He would find the mask. He would put things as right as he could make them. Squaring his shoulders, he set out to explore a much-changed Havenglen.

GM The Succubus had time to take a single, frantic step forward before all hell broke loose. With a sound like shattering glass, energy rippled out from the pentagram in an amber wall, spreading in all directions. It passed through walls, furniture, and Seth as though they weren't there, which was true enough on the plane on which it operated. The demon and her spirits were another matter. There was not time for the creatures to so much as let out a cry before the energy scattered them, turning their bodies to radiance and then to nothing. Havenglen House did not quake or howl; its transformation was subtle, silent, nothing anyone standing outside would have noticed. The cold blue candle flames rose into higher orange ones, lengthening shadows but driving away the thick pools of darkness. But beyond that, something lifted. A heaviness that Seth had mistaken for forlorn memory, a menace that dragged at his spirit, lifted from his shoulders. Havenglen settled around him like a warm blanket on a cold night; it was as though the threat had never been. He did not hear the Succubus shrieking as she hurtled back to her distant master, frothing with rage...

Ironclad quickly deduces that this is serious stuff. It contains a compound of lysergic acid, the active ingredient in LSD, which comes from a fungus called ergot; it overwhelms the serotonin receptors in the cerebral cortex and locus coeruleus regions of the brain, resulting in vivid hallucinations. It also contains traces of the dissociative anesthetic hallucinogen Ketamine, which blocks communication between regions of the brain; this results in amnesia and sensory detachment, increasing the intensity of the hallucinations. It also contains caffeine and adrenaline, speeding up the rate at which the toxins are processed. The end result is a massively fearsome chemical weapon. In its natural form it is a liquid that spreads rapidly in other fluids; even a drop can eventually taint a large volume of water, and once diffusion is complete its purplish color will vanish, leaving no sign of the danger. It evaporates on contact with air, becoming an invisible gas with the same potent properties. Anyone who drinks (or, in the case of a fish, inhales) the equivalent of a glass of water with one drop of this stuff, or takes in a normal breath of it, will almost immediately be assailed by terrifying hallucinations, becoming jittery, confused, and violent. The amount they could fit on this ship could cause the population of four entire city blocks to turn on each other in a panicked frenzy. And now it's leaking, gallons and gallons of it, into the bay. Even diluted by the vast volume of water, it could cause terrible harm.

I don't think any rolls are needed. 600 feet is about half the length of the container ship, so it's easily enough to cover the several jagged ruptures in the hull with plenty left over. It's not quite big enough to both contain the spill on every side, but it can severely constrain it and slow its spread into the surrounding waters.

"It's Sumerian, actually," Seth calmly replied, finishing his chant and turning to face the demon. Seeing the confused expression on her face, he continued. "The Dark Sacrament, the Black Man of the Wood, they are but recent inheritors of the pentagram. It originated in ancient Mesopotamia, where it was a symbol of protection and warding. It has since been used both by Satanists, when inverted to represent overturning the natural order, and Christians, for its reflection of the five wounds of Christ, as well as Greek mathematicians and Chinese philosophers. Are you not a particularly old demon, or did you expect ignorance of me?" His bravado was a sham; he had no idea whatsoever whether this would work. But if he could show no fear in the face of being hanged, with no chance of fighting back, he could certainly do the same with a fighting chance. "Anywhere else in the world this would be quite impossible for me," he told the demon. "To banish one creature is difficult; to banish a host of them, nigh impossible. But the Pentagram first marked the temples of Babylon. They were defenses for sacred ground, the most important places to the priests that scribed them." He looked her full in the face, answering her faltering grin with a molten glare. "You are standing on my sacred ground. And now I have a ward."

GM The heavy doors of the library, which had swelled in size along with it since Seth had seen them last, flew open in a burst of howling wind, smashing into the stone walls and rebounding on creaking hinges. The Succubus walked through slowly, languidly, a needle-toothed grin once again splitting her face. "You can't get out, Seth. I've made sure of that." Finding the young mage so quickly had taken the edge from her temper, and she was once again confident and composed. "My deal is your only chance." She peered around the shelves to see him crouched on the floor, swaying and murmuring over a pentagram, and clucked her tongue. "Please. You don't have the juice to go toe to toe with someone like me; it's not like some fancy dark sacrament ritual is going to help you." She stepped closer, her bat-like wings stretched high over her perfect flesh, at once taunting and inviting. Her spirit legion swarmed behind her, half reluctant sorrows and half frothing hatreds, all held in check by her will. The threat was perfectly clear.

The car's bulk, combined with the entanglement, ensures that Comrade Frost's attack is a hit. The car fails its toughness save by more than ten, so it's disabled (though not entirely destroyed) and out of the fight, crashing back down onto all four wheels in whatever manner you would care to describe!

Seth smiled wistfully as he realized that the two young women knew each other. It made sense, he supposed, but it only reminded him that it would have meant the world to him to see someone he knew. That smile turned genuine as Tsunami politely returned his bow, then a little embarrassed as Wisp sized him up. "Thank you," he replied to her compliment on his garb, unsure whether she was making fun of him but deciding to offer her the benefit of the doubt. He hadn't the heart to tell her that his tailor was long dead. It occurred to Seth that, if the crew wouldn't negotiate, this would be the first time he had an automatic weapon turned on him. The guns of his day had taken a minute at least for even a skilled wielder to reload; the idea of a weapon that fired a steady stream of bullets was terrifying. He wondered if the prospect bothered Wisp at all. She seemed entirely confident, though upset by the spreading contaminants. Then again, she'd probably faced much worse. He wished he had her coolness in the face of danger; if this became a battle, it would be his third ever. Pushing his tingling, icy nerves to the back of his mind, he offered her a friendly nod. "Shall we?"