A dozen dancing fairies swirl around you quoting relevant sections of the Interdimensional Tax Code on transporting sentient evil swords across dimensional boundaries.

You fall down onto some grass, and they continue to require Form 10X230...

And you realize you are laying on something soft.  Its an old mattress in an alley. A meow wakes you, and you see a black cat hissing at you from the end of the bed. You've disturbed its rest.

PT
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:13, Wed 03 Sept 2008.

I look at it and give it a very evil look, and point my gun at it. (I assume it is still in my hand.)

I get up and take a look around, and make sure I've still got ajax on me...

Ajax, ya there?

OoC: What time of day is it?

The cat does not vanish, as it were, but it gives a very good impression of it as it hightails it.

Its late morning, you think.

*So sleepy, boss.* Ajax replies, and then you feel it drift off.

PT

Pfft... if I recall correctly... today would be my 29^th birthday... but thanks to scriff I still look 26 and can kick ass and kill to my hearts content...

I get up hands on the hilts of my swords, ready to draw them if need be, but still slightly relaxed and walk around taking in the surroundings..

You wander out to the sidewalk where you see three wheeled cars without exhaust pipes parked along the concrete roadside. You see a very heavy newspaper dispenser that claims to be the Mortilaunta Tribune.

Of the front cover you can see...

Day Ten, Fourmon of the Tenth Year of Maxis.
High predicted is 322 R.
Rain unlikely.

Town Commissioner Happy with Change is the lead story. It shows a happy, youngish guy who looks not all that healthy.

The other story is Streetboard Company Under Investigation for Stock Watering.

There is a cafe' across the quiet side street (You can see a busier street two blocks away). Five people are staring at you avidly. All of them are chubby, and several adults have full cases of acne that looks untreated.

PT

I look over the people staring at me, and the slowly start to draw my swords.  If that doesn't scare them off, then once they have left their sheathes, I examine each of the blades, put them back in their sheathes... then quickly draw them both in a slash, examine them, then put them away.

I continue walking and head towards the Cafe.

They are all impressed and delighted as they clap their hands together. They all get up, some slower than others, but none very quickly. You're quite certain you could kill them all in less than two minutes even if they scattered and ran.

And then the healthiest of the unhealthy and slobbish lot looks at you with his bright, clear eyes and steely will.

"You will do just fine." He says, you hear...in your mind as an avalanche of tidal force slams into your mind pushing you back, and out of your mind.

*Remarkable. Such a wonderful body, but not a lick of mental defenses.* The steely voice in your mind continues to press you back even as you push back. You slow his advance a bit by sheer willpower. He smoothly gathers himself. *You're fairly strong, but without technique strengh just delays the inevitable.*

You feel a sense of bilocation. You're looking at the man attacking you, and you're looking from his eyes at your body as shock races across your face. You're being evicted from your body.

"Grr...RAGHHHH"

NO ONE [Edited by Avahur]'s WITH ME, IT IS MY MIND, MY BODY, NOT YOU OR THAT STUPID SENTIENT SWORD WILL HAVE IT!

<From a third person view...>

The man starts to shake a little, grabs his head, and then let out a very pimal scream.  His eyes started getting redder, the white part becoming red, and all that could b seen was his red eyes, with his red and purple pupils.

*Avahur enters a fury*

You let the raw rage out, and in so doing leave open the doors of your mind.  He darts in, and takes control.

You're staring at your body as he smugly grins at you.  Fury is pounding through your body, but even now you can tell your body is simply not up to that much rage. And you feel yourself calming down even though you don't want to.

"Can't damage my body. Its been properly trained by aversion techniques unlike you who really should have had better training in psi defenses." You hear your voice speak, and are astounded by how you really sound. And his lecturing tone grates on your nerves.

He then proceeds to begin to take off your sword and backpack...

"Here, I'm not a thief. Take  your stuff."

PT

OOC: Why yes, that was a botch.

I grab one of my pistols shoot him multiple times at point blank range.  If he's not dead, and I still don't have my body back.. I grab ahold of my body and shoot myself, hoping the next world is better and that I have my body back.

You shoot yourself in the leg without him dodging as he's caught totally off-guard.

Your next shot has him diving out of the way and you miss.  He starts crawling on hands and knees in a full panic for a telephone pole and a garbage can. You miss as the softness of your new hands and the miniscule twitch in your flabby arms betrays your mind's plans.

He makes it to the metal garbage can, and yells at the others to help.  They respond by diving under tables.  But you see two of them whip out cell phones and one of them yells at you.

"You murderer! He took your body fair and square!"

You consider just shooting yourself, but...you can't even get the gun to point at yourself. You tell your fingers to move, your arm to move, and they lock rigid refusing your command. Suddenly you have a memory not yours...of sitting in a chair, strapped to a chair with dozens of other children as an adult administers electric shocks.

"Self-destruction is forbidden. If you try, you..." Electric shock. "Self-destruction is forbidden. If you try, you..." Electric shock.

PT

I continue to try and kill myself.  If I can't do it then I will continue to do so, endlessly.

You shoot near the bodystealer's head, and spin the trash can lid into the street. Another shot takes him in the arm.

Grimly, you aim for the center of the garbage can, and shoot. He goes down.

And you feel power slam into your brain, and before you realize it, you're hiding under a table in a body even more messed up than your second.

"I got the murderer." Your second body yells. He looks at the gun in his hand,and then tosses it into a sewer drain. He bends down to the do the same thing to Ajax.

"I'm calling the ambulance. We have to save his body. Its dying." One woman gets up and starts to walk over to your original body with an obvious view to checking out how badly your original is damaged. "Ewww, sucking chest wound, I think they call it."

PT
Edit: OOC: You first got hit by the Standard Slow Attack, and then with the more risky Fast Attack. These are variants on the Bodystealing skill.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:31, Thu 11 Sept 2008.

I mentally reach out for the link between Ajax and myself, and scream to him..

Ajax, someone is trying to cut you off from ever feasting again.  Kill them nd I can guarrantee a feast for you!

Then calmly looking over towards my original body.

"I can heal the body... but only if I get my original body back.  I can do it in a few seconds, quicker than I'm sure that ambulanc can do it."

If they disagree I aim for my limbs.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:32, Fri 12 Sept 2008.

*Whaaaa?* Ajax wakes, and the hand of your enemy comes down on his hilt but somehow the man picking it up stabs his own hand. He looks startled at the blade in his hand, and then with a sense of dawning horror he tries to fling it away.

*Blood!!* Carrols through your mind. Ajax has gone berserk with bloodlust.

The others stare at you and then laugh.

But one raises a hand.

"Maybe he's an EMT. How are you going to fix him up?"

You don't have a gun on this body. Your guns are over a small metal fence at the edge of the cafe' and past a table in front of you.  The man who is being attacked by Ajax has some of your weapons at his feet. He tossed one gun into the sewer.

Your original body is to your left past two tables and a woman closing in on it to examine it. Its mostly blocked from your view by the tables, the woman, the telephone pole, but the metal garbage can has rolled into the street after you put a bullet through it.

Reminder: You're in your third body of the day.

PT

"I have learned skills in my travels, that allow me to heal, and have devices which have been attuned to my mind that only I can use to heal.  Once I'm back in my own body, it would bea simple matter to heal myself with my own devices and abilities.

Give me my body back, so that I can heal it up, and let me retrieve my gear, I can proceed to teach you one of the abilities so that you too can be healed if your injured... or would you perhaps learn to bless food in a manner so that you can eat only a bite or two of food but be completely filled?  I can do all of this in my original body, however if I don't get it back immediately, not only can I not teach you, my sword over there will kill that person.

I can stop it, but again, I need to be in my own body to do so."

"What kind of nonsense is this? Devices that you can use with your mind. The mind cannot directly affect the universe except through the brain, anyone knows that..." The rant continues while another one shouts.

"He's dying, you twit. Dying I tell you..." The shout trails into hysteria.

Your original body sits up with great pain etched on your face. He looks into your eyes, and you feel contact like getting smacked in the face with a shovel.

*Deal.*

The other shoves his way into your body, and sends you rushing back into yours. You feel terrible. A leg wound, and a clipped arm hurt, but the sucking chest wound makes it so you can hardly breathe. You're quite literally drowning in your own blood you think, and you are sure that your left lung has collapsed.

You can feel your strength ebbing away rapidly. Even if the ambulance gets here in a few minutes you might not survive.

And to top things off you can hear Ajax howling gleefully in your mind.

PT

I reach over to my pack and shuffle through, feeling for the triangle box, and activate it.

And just like that, you're healthy.

The others, except for the man that Ajax is carving up, freeze in utter surprise. The woman who was standing next to you faints.

PT

"Nonsense?  Ok, then explain how I did this."

AJAX! FREEZE! You are coming back to me... we are about to go on a slaughtering spree.

I move over to retrieve ajax.

You better not be teasing me, Ajax warns you as it releases itself into  your hand. The man Ajax had been controlling slumps to the ground barely aware of his surroundings.

PT

I proceed to gather my equipment..

"Now, about that skill I was going to teach you.  I can teach it to you, and a healing one, but I'd like to learn something in return..  How is it you can take someone's body, and what are the techniques to prevent it?"

The ambulance comes up and takes the man Ajax injured off to the hospital.

The others think for a bit....

"We learned it in school, but..."

Another speaks up.

"Mack's Used Books. Thats where to go." It seems a good idea to the lot of them, so they take you down one street, and up another, and diagonally down another. You see a number of people. Nobody looks in good shape, although a few of the more eagle-eyed look to be in moderately acceptable shape. Many people look at you with hungry eyes, but for now you've got an obvious security patrol around you.

You do find you have to walk slower because your 'bodyguards' have to stop to take a breather every  hundred feet or so.

Once in the store they take you to the mental disciplines section and show you copies of....

"So you want to steal a body?"
"The Dummies Guide to Bodystealing"
"How to defend yourself from mind attack in three easy lessons."
"Master Mind"
"Tower of Steel and other mental defenses"

They toss one aside with disgust. Curious you glance at the title.

"The Moral Collapse of Modern Society and the Evil of Bodystealing"

"Religious fanatics." One of them snorts. "Here look at this."

"Probing for Weakness"
"Exercise for the Beginner on Perfecting Willpower"

Thats the entirety of Mikes selection on bodystealing.

"Sounds good.. I'm going to sit here and read a bit.  Bring me some food, a sheet of paper and something to write with, and I'll teach you something interesting in regards to food."

I proceed to read "How to defend yourself from mind attack in three easy lessons." Then "The Dummies Guide to Bodystealing" if they haven't come back yet.

You've read through the introductory chapter which details a theory of mental pattern (mind) and energy (willpower). Its basic stuff but you find yourself looking at things in a bit of a new way.

1@1 Basic Psi Theory

The next chapter is "How to Construct an Endless Wall." It describes how to visualize a moving wall of bricks, each exactly the same, and hold this in your consciousness.

"This affords the attacker no space for him to stand, and no bit of difference for him to leverage." The  book instructs.

The next chapter is on "Dual Mind: How to Hold a Defense in the Upper Layer and Think on a Lower Layer".

You're about to start when...

*Boss, jackals are circling.* Ajax warns you.  You glance around and see several people studying you with predatory intent.

PT

I raise my gun to my head..

"Try it, I'll die before you can get it."

I meanwhile proceed to grab the books on bodystealing and such.

Ajax, protect me from being taken over, I'll create a distraction by shooting at them, then we can go and slaughter them

Their eyes glitter as they stare at you, and then they back up giving you space to leave if you like.  However, you're pretty sure its not over.

*Boss, I know this is a bad time, but this world is like...its grounding me out. Its sucking the power out of me, and the only way I can protect myself is to sleep. I could sure use a boost of power.*

You have the books in hand.

PT

I pull the trigger.

And you're versed out.

PT