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09:54, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

[Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower.

Posted by The NarratorFor group archive 0
Mary Murdock
player, 14 posts
City Prosecutor
Daredevil
Fri 18 Jan 2019
at 16:43
  • msg #4

[Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

"Get comfortable." Mary called out, loud enough to be heard over the wind. "There isn't anything to do for the moment but wait. What you described; the van, a group of trained men, Thompsons, victims that may cry out; they will make a fairly distinct set of sounds. I'm not infallible, but it's likely more reliable than patrolling in the hopes that we can be in the right place at the right time in a city this large."
Cloak and Dagger
Fri 18 Jan 2019
at 16:48
  • msg #5

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary Murdock:
"Get comfortable." Mary called out, loud enough to be heard over the wind. "There isn't anything to do for the moment but wait. What you described; the van, a group of trained men, Thompsons, victims that may cry out; they will make a fairly distinct set of sounds. I'm not infallible, but it's likely more reliable than patrolling in the hopes that we can be in the right place at the right time in a city this large."


Dagger looks up and calls back.

"I can go down and be the bait! I'm exactly the kind of person they're hunting for! No one should have to....!"

A sound of screeching metal echoes from that new Roxxon Pavillion at the end of Hell's Kitchen by the waterfront. Didn't they finish building it before?

To Mary it sounds like a hundred fingernails on a blackboard. Worse than that, something in her gut tells her that wasn't a machine.
Mary Murdock
player, 15 posts
City Prosecutor
Daredevil
Fri 18 Jan 2019
at 18:37
  • msg #6

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary's head whipped around. "What the hell was that?"

What she did know was that it wasn't a kidnapping in progress. Her thoughts racing, she tried to narrow the possibilities. Unfortunately, the only connection she could come up with was something Karen had mentioned about a dragon. But that had been nothing more than traveling circus nonsense, right? A komodo dragon when extra spikes glued on. But that sound was no komodo dragon either.

"Something is happening at the Roxxon Pavilion. I don't know what. Could be nothing, but it could be..." she drifted off. "A screeching sound, loud, wrong..."

She had been facing in the direction of the Pavilion as she spoke, but now she turned her face towards her companions. "This is your case. Do you want to check it out to see if it's related or wait for what we came here for?"
Cloak
Tue 22 Jan 2019
at 13:32
  • msg #8

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

The conversation pauses as light flares from the roof of the Baxter Building, and the Fantasti-Car rises up slowly, then with a roar of flame it flies southwards.

"The people below are starving, and the rich waste their money building Flying Cars," grumbles Cloak.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:32, Tue 22 Jan 2019.
Mary Murdock
player, 58 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Thu 4 Apr 2019
at 01:48
  • msg #9

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary could barely hear the screaming over her own labored breath.

Or the breaking glass, or the sounds of flesh hitting flesh, or the ring of bullets. Hell's Kitchen was living up to its name.

And Mary was not at her best. The blood on her hands after the Roxxon dragon incident would still not wash away. And while she hadn't killed anyone at the Fritz-Charlston hotel, had other more capable heroes not been present she would have died along with a huge number of civilians put in the line of fire by a dictator trying to make a point.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. She wasn't supposed to be this helpless. Leaving the DA's office was supposed to unbind her hands. She was supposed to be able to make a real difference now.

The summer crime spree should have been a blessing of sorts. Plenty of opportunity to make amends. A thousand Hail Marys. But this was unprecedented. From what she could tell the Commission had all but disappeared. That should have been a good thing, but the power vacuum was more destructive than Mary thought possible. New York was a war zone. The police were overwhelmed. The Governor had calling in the Home Guard. Violence permeated the city and good, decent folk were getting caught in the middle, and many of them paying for it with their lives.

Mary was exhausted. In the last hour she had broken up two robberies, a shootout and an attempted rape. But she had also had to ignore more than twice as many incidents. And now, on the roof of the Stella Tower, she could hear two distinct sources of gunfire, two women screaming in terror, and four different beatings.

This wasn't working. She couldn't help them. She was failing them all over again. Gunfire started to ring out from a third location. The woman without fear dropped to her knees, her head bowed. What was she supposed to do now?
Logan
PC, 8 posts
Sat 6 Apr 2019
at 19:57
  • msg #10

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Hunting came naturally to Logan. A mixture of careful listening, tracking scents and forceful intimidation got him a lead to a Russian crew that were moving girls. At least one of the other victims had been a working girl, Slavic by the appearance of what was left of her.

He stood across the street from the storage facility he'd been lead to, the cherry glow of his cigar highlighting his searching gaze. In a moment he was loping across the road, approaching the door. There was a man there, a heavyset, brawny type, with the cauliflower ears and splayed nose of a boxer. Logan could smell the gun oil, metal and powder of a gun. The man put out a huge hand to stop the approaching citizen. In a flicker of motion that hand was being crumpled in Logan's grip, bones crunching, muscles and joints tearing. The man was yanked forwards, a headbutt snapping his head back and sending him off to a deep and senseless slumber.

After quietly carving out the lock he stepped into the building. It was a prison, it had the stench of one. He'd come across enough. A stash of human beings. The dense walls had hidden much of the sound from without but within he could hear dozens of heartbeats, smell the women that were kept in the place.

Seemed like the boss got the pick of the stock. He rounded the corner to meet a dozen men, escorting out seven girls. Youngest of them didn't look that old at all. Logan cocked his head, eyeing up Yuri Zaitzevovich and his bodyguards. He'd and his inner circle had been in the Okhrana, the Imperial Russian secret police. "Who are you?" Asked the Russian, inclining his bald bullet head. Guns were already slipping from inside coats, the other men moving forwards. Tight quarters. It would get messy.

"Koschei." The answer evoked a moment of confusion and then laughter. Zaitzevovich nodded his head to his right hand man, Bogdan. He took three steps forward, raised a double-barreled sawn-off shotgun and loosed both loads of buckshot into the interloper's chest. The spray of lead pellets tore through his clothes, spattering into the flesh beneath, boring through muscle and bone. Most of the shot went out through his back. He remained standing, the smoke from his cigar escaping from the holes in his chest. Within a moment the rest of the buckshot began to fall to the ground as ruined flesh was replaced.

Looking past the men, to the girls behind them, he spoke in a firm, commanding tone. "Закрой глаза." The women heard the rustle of a coat falling and the hiss of blades being unsheathed and then clicking into place with a curious snikt! Then guns were barking and roaring. Bogdan was unmanned, disemboweled and eviscerated with a single upwards slash, his innards pouring out through the three slits trailing from his groin up to his chest. As his life poured out in a sloppy mess his killer was bounding past him, taking off both a man's legs with horrifying efficiency.

The air was soon rank. With the hot, metallic tangs of gunsmoke and blood, the dark, sour aromas as what was inside of men spilled out in throes of agony. Many screamed as they bled out from catastrophic wounds. In such close quarters it was over disturbingly quickly. Not a man had a chance to empty his gun before those claws found him. Limbs tumbled away from bodies, viscera, blood and marrow flowed across the floor and walls, in arterial sprays and venous spurts, pooling and spattering as he went about his grisly work.

In just a minute he was done. The girls were coated in blood and screaming but unharmed. Zaitzevovich was missing his right hand but otherwise alive, slipping and scrambling in the various fluids that had poured from his bodyguards.
Mary Murdock
player, 60 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Mon 8 Apr 2019
at 18:29
  • msg #11

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

It wasn't typically one sound that set Mary off, though it could be. It was usually the tapestry of sounds. And in this case it was a huge volume of localized gunfire, an unusually large quantity of men screaming, and the wet sounds of someone's insides becoming their outsides; lots of someones.

Mary was fast, but the first round of violence was done before she could reach the old warehouse. She knew the Russians used the place, but she was upset with herself that she hadn't realized that the building was now being used to package up young women for sale to the highest bidder.

She was furious, and the more her senses told her the worse it became. She could smell the blood and viscera overlaying the unmistakable odors of sex. She could taste the copper even as the mist of blood-spray reached the top of the roof where she was perched. And most importantly, she could hear the bodies, one victim still alive but missing a hand, the lone man with knives held between his fingers, and more than half a dozen woman wishing very much that they were somewhere else.

Mary didn't wait. She dropped silently down to the street, moving through the same shredded door, and then walked towards the man with the knives. She could have snuck up on him without him even knowing it, but this was a monster, and a part of her wanting him to see his death coming.

"That sobbing piece of work at your feet is a pile of trash in a human suit, but if you attempt to touch any of those girls I will happily take my building frustrations out on you, and I've had a very, very bad day."
Logan
PC, 9 posts
Mon 8 Apr 2019
at 18:56
  • msg #12

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

He was a monster, no arguing it. He still had his decency. Turning his head, he studied the woman. She had an interesting aroma. Even a brave person felt a twinge of natural, sensible fear on cornering a predator in the midst of what had once been quite a few people. She seemed like the sort crazy enough to jump him even with what she saw.

Logan wasn't feeling threatened. He was offended. "Bad day or not, you don't go accusing a fella of having those sorts of proclivities. Or even suggesting the possibility." The polished ivory blades he wielded were flicked clean of blood before retracting inside his arms. He threw a jab at his captive's forehead, pulling the punch so that all he did was smack the man's head hard against the back of the wall. Not likely to really kill him. Logan relieved the limp figure of his wallet and some notebooks. "So what're you gonna do? I was just gonna go to the drugstore and call a few dozen ambulances." Murdering armed gangsters came easily. Caring for traumatised women was a far more daunting prospect.
Mary Murdock
player, 61 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Tue 9 Apr 2019
at 01:29
  • msg #13

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Oh... he wasn't holding those knives. Interesting.

"You are standing knee deep in intestines, you have more blood on you than clothing, and you have eliminated all of the male competition. Perhaps you should make more of an effort to align your actions with your delicate sensitivities."

Yet, despite the scene in front of her Mary wasn't convinced she was dealing with the violent psychopath he seemed. As sentimental as it sounded, she could hear his heart. He was actually offended that she had implied he was going to do anything unbecoming to these women. And he was genuine in his desire to help them.

Still, he had just brutally murdered a whole lot of people. Shitty, shitty people, but still people. She was about to press him on it when she looked at the women. They were frightened... bruised. They wore simple shifts, their feet were bare and dirty. They had been through trauma she hoped she would never know, and in that moment, with Hell's Kitchen falling down around her, she found herself unable to find guilt in the monster that had killed these men.

"Besides, I neither accused nor suggested. I threatened. There is a difference."

She started to walk past him, towards the women.

"Go. The hospitals are overwhelmed. You aren't going to be able to get a single ambulance, let alone a dozen. This is my city. I will see that they are taken care of."

She wasn't much of a driver, being blind and all, but these assholes had been about ready to transport the women. That meant there was a van just outside she could use. She would transport them to the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Father there would take them in for the night and help them reach out to family in the morning.
Uatu the Bus Driver
Tue 9 Apr 2019
at 13:17
  • msg #14

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Time were tough for old Uatu. His ice cream truck got stolen and now he was making ends meet driving a school bus. But now, somehow, he missed his pickup and he was hopelessly lost.

(Well, that's his story and he's sticking to it.)

He honked his horn outside the warehouse, hoping for some directions.
Logan
PC, 10 posts
Wed 10 Apr 2019
at 14:12
  • msg #15

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

She was exaggerating, of course, he was shin-deep in viscera at the very most. It wasn't often he met anyone with the nerve to chastise him after finding him amidst the aftermath of his anger. "I was dressed pretty damn well before that asshole shot me." He gestured to half of the man with the shotgun. The other half was around somewhere. "Only wanted some answers. They could have just told me what I needed to know." He clicked his tongue, then gave half a shrug.

"Suppose I'd have killed them anyways." No point in denying it. He didn't mind the woman walking past, noticing that she picked her way easily through the piles of human debris. Leaning down, he rummaged around in the bloody messes, finding three or four wallets that weren't too badly soiled. They, along with the ones from the boss, were emptied out.

"Thanks. This ... well, you know what I'm good at. Helping folk ain't it." It wasn't that he didn't want to help the women. He just didn't know where to start. He left the stack of notes on the windowsill. That was more than enough talking for him. Stepping out into the night, he lit up a cigar and paid attention to see if the men inside had any friends coming.
Mary Murdock
player, 62 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Wed 10 Apr 2019
at 16:28
  • msg #16

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

It was easy for Mary to seem uninterested or dismissive since she didn't need to turn her head and face whomever she was studying. She put that trick to good use now. While it seemed like she was barely paying any attention to the man as she walked by, in fact she was watching for even the slightest hint he was going to continue his violence. And while she was busy inspecting the women and asking if they were able to move, she watched him sort through the wallets, take the cash and leave it where they would see it on the way out.

This was a strange, strange man, and now that he was in her city he was her problem.

The arrival of the bus was just another layer of strangeness. She helped the women past the greatest density of the internal organs, locating the keys to the van as they went, then asked them to wait near the door while she stepped outside. It was a relief to her senses to leave the charnel house smells behind, but she still had to deal with the idiot making way too much noise and drawing far too much attention to them all.

She walked over to the bus, pushed open the door and faced the driver. "I don't know what you are doing, but you really don't want to be here right now. I strongly suggest you drive away."
Uatu the Bus Driver
Wed 10 Apr 2019
at 16:48
  • msg #17

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary Murdock:
It was easy for Mary to seem uninterested or dismissive since she didn't need to turn her head and face whomever she was studying. She put that trick to good use now. While it seemed like she was barely paying any attention to the man as she walked by, in fact she was watching for even the slightest hint he was going to continue his violence. And while she was busy inspecting the women and asking if they were able to move, she watched him sort through the wallets, take the cash and leave it where they would see it on the way out.

This was a strange, strange man, and now that he was in her city he was her problem.

The arrival of the bus was just another layer of strangeness. She helped the women past the greatest density of the internal organs, locating the keys to the van as they went, then asked them to wait near the door while she stepped outside. It was a relief to her senses to leave the charnel house smells behind, but she still had to deal with the idiot making way too much noise and drawing far too much attention to them all.

She walked over to the bus, pushed open the door and faced the driver. "I don't know what you are doing, but you really don't want to be here right now. I strongly suggest you drive away."


He takes one look at the blood stains on her outfit and frowns.

"Whatever you say, Lady."

He pushes the gas and drives off.
Mary Murdock
player, 64 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Thu 11 Apr 2019
at 00:31
  • msg #18

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Once the bus was around the corner Mary turned back to the old warehouse. A moment later she was leading the women out of the building and into a nearby van. With the last one secured, she closed the back door and moved towards the driver's seat.
Logan
PC, 11 posts
Thu 11 Apr 2019
at 00:38
  • msg #19

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

A pebble pinged off of the windshield of the van, from outside. Mary's reaction was studied intently. "How you planning to drive?" He cocked his head, curious. Given what he was, Logan wasn't the least bit puzzled on meeting other oddities. He was still amply curious about what was going on with the Devil. It was nice for someone else to be called that.
Mary Murdock
player, 65 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Thu 11 Apr 2019
at 00:55
  • msg #20

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary's response was hard to track. She noticed Logan moving before he had thrown the rock, but she didn't need to turn her head to track it's flight, or to reply to his question.

"By going very slowly and listening for the screams of those too old to get out of the way."

It was only a half joke. She was better off than blind, but between the noise from the engine and the rushing air from driving faster than about 10 miles per hour, she had about the same capacity to sense her surroundings while driving as a near-sighted old woman. She'd get them all to the church in one piece, it wasn't far and the streets were empty, it would just take twice as long as the trip should.
Logan
PC, 12 posts
Thu 11 Apr 2019
at 19:52
  • msg #21

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

She'd piqued his interest. She was out of her mind but he wasn't without his own eccentricities. He grinned, flashing a set of fine tigrine teeth, flawlessly white and devilishly sharp. "Seems like half the drivers in this city are blind." His footfalls were quiet even to ears like the Devil's, the heavy boots he wore accounting for most of the noise. He was heavy for a man but he wasn't heavy for whatever it was that he was.

Settling into the driver's seat, he got the engine started. It wasn't too hard to figure his way around, he'd driven all sorts of vehicles. "Where to? Better tell them really loudly, by the way. That it's a safe place. They might think I'm going to take them." An understandable suspicion. The name he'd used came with a certain reputation for abducting fair maidens that was more or less undeserved.
Mary Murdock
player, 66 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Fri 12 Apr 2019
at 00:28
  • msg #22

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary slid over to the passenger's side as Logan came in.

"Sacred Heart church on tenth and fifty-first."

She didn't have to look backwards for her attention to drop back to the women. Some of them had flinched when the man had come in, but for victims of sexual assault, that was hardly noteworthy.

"That sounds like a good place to start. Exactly who are you?"
Logan
PC, 13 posts
Fri 12 Apr 2019
at 00:51
  • msg #23

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Logan had a good idea of the route. In the long stretches between his occasional naps he had plenty of time. A great deal of it was spent prowling. The Devil claimed the city, lots of folks did. His claim was to wherever he happened to be.

"Exactly who I am .." The man's fangs chewed lightly at his lower lip while he considered the question. Wasn't even a question he could answer for himself. A low, honey and gravel chuckle fell from his lips. "That's a complicated one. Call me Logan."

He glanced into the rear-view mirror, then back over at the woman. It didn't really trouble him how she did what she did. He was curious but appreciated everyone's right to privacy. At least unless it was something he needed to know. "They never met me before tonight. It's just stories they heard." He wondered if she could smell the fear pouring off of the poor women like a cloying vapour, each one's idividual aromatic bouquet of terror. But that would have been a really creepy question to ask.
Mary Murdock
player, 67 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Fri 12 Apr 2019
at 02:43
  • msg #24

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

"Stories? Of Logan? Should I know that name? I will admit I didn't do great in history class. Braille wasn't a priority for the school district I went to."
Logan
PC, 14 posts
Fri 12 Apr 2019
at 09:55
  • msg #25

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

The man's shaggy locks emphasised the slight shake of his head. "Nah. Koschei. That's who I told those other fellas I was. They didn't believe me." Which was understandable. It was sure that the girls believed him, though. "He was a monster in old Russian stories who hid his heart to become deathless. Stole away pretty girls." People always twisted the stories. They couldn't help it.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:20, Fri 12 Apr 2019.
Mary Murdock
player, 68 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Fri 12 Apr 2019
at 19:52
  • msg #26

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary was silent for a moment. She had to get to the point but she was just so tired of it all. Still, she needed to know if this man was part of her penance or something else.

"The men you killed. They deserved it. But what gave you the right to be their executioner?"
Logan
PC, 15 posts
Fri 12 Apr 2019
at 21:04
  • msg #27

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Logan had grown to manhood in a time when life was brief and brutal, every moment a struggle for survival. Any philosophising he had had to do on the taking of lives had been done and dusted a long long time ago. "Like you said, they deserved it. When I want to put down vermin like them I do it. That's how the world works." It wasn't angrily or ardently spoken, just mentioned as a reasonable answer to her question.
Mary Murdock
player, 69 posts
Private Investigator
Daredevil
Sat 13 Apr 2019
at 00:52
  • msg #28

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

Mary sighed. "So you've got it all figured out then? No chance of bad intel? No chance of misunderstanding? No chance you are just wrong? And if you are going to feed me some line about these guys being obviously bad, where do you draw the line? What is your criteria for death sentence? How do you know that's the correct line?"
Logan
PC, 16 posts
Sat 13 Apr 2019
at 12:26
  • msg #29

Re: [Scene] The Roof of Stella Tower

"No, I mean, they were armed to the teeth, dragging along a bunch of scared, shivering girls, and they shot me, but that's nothing to say they were bad guys." The sarcasm was sharp as those claws of his, yet he gave her a smile all the same. He didn't really feel any guilt. Murder was in his nature. "I don't kill kids, women or normal joes who ain't doing any harm. Don't stab everyone that ticks me off. Most of 'em get off with a beating."

Pulling the bus up to the curb, he peered back at the others and reached for the handle to open the doors. "You live long enough, you see there's no shortage of men like that."
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