ic No Head Unturned(IC)

[Ari]

GM

 

May 1st, 7.45 P.M., 2014, May Day

Freedom-class cruise liner 'Supernal', just outside the mouth of the Great Bay, North Atlantic, auditorium...

 

The magician clicked his black suitcase shut, looking gravely at the distant sea of faces beyond the inferno coming from the floodlights.

"Really, ladies and gentlemen? Despite my best efforts, are you still not sated? Do you need more? Do you need...her?"

An answering roar of "Yes!"s resounded from the packed seats, the audience thrumming with excitement.

 

"Very well, my honored hosts! Then it is my inestimable pleasure to present the one you've all been waiting for! The one, the only..." Wiping his forehead in a motion disguised by a flourish of his resplendent top hat, mentally cursing the blazing stage lights once more, Jethro de Seine, master magician, gestured to the red curtains with his white-topped black cane. On cue, the floodlights zeroed in on the thin line between the massive sheets of cloth.

 

"The magnificent, the elusive...Lara Drake!"

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2014 by Arichamus

[Tsura]

Lara Drake

 

Lara listened from behind the curtain. Opening nights were always important, doubly so for a cruise, since all of her potential audience members would likely going to be hearing about the show from the crowd now gathered in the auditorium. She wasn't tense, but perhaps a tad anxious. You would think that a veteran to the stage would have long since grown immune to the sensation of butterflies in their stomach. And yet, Lara felt the all to familiar flutter from within her gut. But even if she couldn't entirely ignore the pre-show jitters, Lara could at least manage to push them out of her mind. 

 

Just as he had in rehearsal, Jethro's performance had gone on splendidly. Even though Lara had beat him out as the headliner, he none the less kept up a stellar degree of professionalism, which said a lot about his character really. Lots of talented performers have trouble sharing the spotlight at all, Lara included. So it was nice to see a gentleman who would go out and do his best, opening act or no.

 

Hearing Jethro build up to Lara's entrance, she took one last moment to shake her limbs loose, brushing aside whatever distracting thoughts or anxieties she might otherwise have felt. It was showtime, and she was ready to put on her game face. Beaming from ear to ear with a mirthful grin, Lara stepped out from behind the curtain and into the spotlight.

 

"Thank you, Jethro, For that phenomenal introduction. Lets hear it one more time for him, folks!" Lara cheered, giving her peer the chance to receive the adulation due to him from the crowd. Once the thunderous applause had died down, Lara turned to address her audience once more "And big thanks to all of you. I know that each and every person her tonight, at one point or another, had the same exact thought. That you wanted to spend an hour of your time disoriented, confused, with little to no idea as to what is and isn't real. So I say thank you, for choosing to come here and see my show, rather than just purchasing your preferred hallucinogen" Lara paused a moment as her audience chuckled a bit "Which,and lets be fair here, would have been vastly cheaper" The second punch line got a much bigger response, just as Lara had hoped "On behalf of the Supernal and all the wondful folks who make what I do possible, we've got a great show for you tonight. Lets make some magic!"

 

 

[Ari]

GM

 

At first, things went swimmingly.

 

Not a prop went awry, not a wire twitched more than she wanted it to, and the talents honed from a life devoted to persuading people of the impossible stood her in good stead. Even those in the audience who saw gods walk the earth, children wield forbidden power in battles across the sky, and felt the touch of the Scarab's ka held their breath at the sight of someone vanishing before their eyes, of flight without the faint thrum of superhuman power.

 

Lara was preparing for the water-tank escape, trussed securely to a slowly descending pole, when it happened. A soft, almost unnoticeable in the din *whump*.

 

There was a second of worry before the ensuring silence calmed their fears, and all eyes were once again glued to the young magician, a murmur running through the crowd as she slid into the(actually nicely warm) cylinder of glass and steel, the lid clamping over her with a resounding clang that echoed like the stroke of doom! 

 

Through the curved plates, Lara saw several of the audience grow pale.

 

"Ladies and gentlemen!" announced Lara's lovely assistant as he walked to the edge of the stage, gesturing grandly to the tank "within the next five minutes, the Inestimable Lara Drake will have freed herself from her prison!" Drawing out a watch large enough to be seen from the back of the hall, he began the slow countdown, the lights increasing ever so little on him as they dimmed just a touch on the tank.

 

"Starting, now-"

 

A sharp *CRACK* split the air, and one stage light smashed onto the platform! Stunned, the assistant and the stagehands froze in bewilderment, even as the armed men came charging into the auditorium!

 

One leapt onto the stage, grabbing the hapless young man in a headlock and putting a pistol to his skull, looking out at the crowd behind a balaclava mask as similarly masked men, all in camouflage gear and carrying small carbines, surrounded some of the wealthiest citizens of Freedom.

 

"You've eaten well," he said, and his deep, slow voice rolled through the air like thunder, even clear through Lara's glass and water prison "you eat of the world's riches, its fields, its people. But now the time has come, when the feast ends."

 

He clicked the safety off the pistol "Comply, and you just might see the dawn. But let me be clear: from this moment on, none of you are safe!"

Edited May 16, 2014 by Arichamus

[Tsura]

Lara Drake

 

 

Lara took several deep breaths as she was lowered into the water, starting her own mental timer. Escapes were always a crowd favorite, though any good one came with an inherent risk. If your having an off day when doing a card read, or palming, its not the end of the world. Just means somebody notices the trick. Have an off day while locked in an airtight tank full of water? You either end up in the hospital or the morgue. 

 

Which, come to think of it, is probably what makes these sorts of things so popular. The risk, the excitement, and the anxious anticipation.

 

Lara began to wiggle and struggle as the clock began ticking. It was all for show, mind you. She'd put on a good effort, like she was really having a hard time of it, making her audience think that she was working at slipping her bindings. Then, at about the minute and a half mark, Lara would jerk her head backwards and 'accidentally' bash it against the pole she was restrained to. From there, she goes limp, and with a deploy-able pack of fake blood in the water, the whole crowd thinks she brained herself. Her assistant would act all distressed and concerned, before trying to smash the glass casing. That was when the real trick happens. Lara would slip the ropes and vanish right as the glass shattered, only to reappear uninjured from behind the ticking clock. 

 

However, things didn't play out like they were supposed to. Right as the clock started, Lara heard a muffled Crash, seeing a spray of broken glass out of the corner of her eye. Though the tube distorted her vision, Lara could see men rushing the stage, and what looked to be guns in their hands. Terror spread like wildfire through the assembled crowd, panic clear on each face.

 

Time to go to work.

 

Lara twisted her shoulder abruptly to one side, and wiggled free of the ropes, which drifted lazily to the bottom of the cylinder. No points for style, but she'd make up for that later by including some extra flare in her routine. More important was getting out of the trap she'd placed herself in. 

 

Lara pushed herself through the water, to the edge of the tube, where she rasped her knuckle against the glass a few times, trying to get the gunmen attention. Once she had it, Lara childishly stuck her fingers in her ears, bugged out her eyes, and stuck her tongue out, mocking the man who had her assistant captive. Thats right, shoot me She thought, gripping her top hat in one hand.

 

For my next trick, I'll make this crisis disappear. 

[Ari]

GM

 

The seeming leader smiled when Lara caught his attention, relaxing his grip on the young man below him to turn his gun on the tube of steel and glass, and the seemingly ready-made victim within "If you want us to prove how serious we are that badly, well...allow me to demonstrate."

 

With great precision and care for all its speed, the masked man leveled his pistol on Lara, glanced down the barrel, and fired.

 

Almost before the first *BANG* had cracked through the hall, the noise of shattering glass and water bursting free filled the air, the contraption falling apart with all the theatrical grace of a drunken elephant, water spilling out onto the stage as massive hunks of glass fell out of the steel bands. A large patch of red streaked the main pillar where Lara's head had been moments before, the illusionist nowhere to be seen amidst the wreckage. "As you can see, " the leader began, turning once more to the shocked audience, their mouths gaping and eyes bulging "we are quite serioooouuuuaaaaagh!"

 

The leader had had exactly five seconds to look smug before the wires swept around him, and in moments he was struggling madly in a mesh of wires suspending him just above the floor, his arms and legs bound hopelessly together.

 

One of the other soldiers laughed openly at the sight, only to be given a quick knuckle-sandwich by his fellow, a stocky man who boomed "Eyes open! Watch the walls and the crowd! You see someone moving, yell once and open fire if they don't stop." With that he lunged onto the stage, drawing a knife as he advanced on the jerking figure of their leader beautifully illuminated by the stage floodlights.