"That sounds amazing," Abe said, "But also sad."

When she opened the portal, nodded stepped through.  "So, is Rejuvenate magical, or more just mundane skill at picking up the pieces and making something new?"  He asked.  "Or some combination of the two?"

"It's just what I call it," Sparrow said. "It's the process of changing your legal identity. No magic necessary. But it helps."

They stepped through the portal to a tropical beach. She opened another portal to the top of a mountain. It was night and there was no light pollution. Only the moon and the stars.

And then she opened a third portal to a new luxury apartment. This one was smaller than the last one.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:57, Tue 21 Sept 2021.

Abe stepped into the new apartment.  "I was thinking we were going to be on the lam for a bit, but you had this ready the whole time, just in case?  Smart.  And with magic to move between there's little to no risk of being traced from one to another... except our phones.  But those are much harder to track than someone walking around."

"When it hits the fan, the time to prepare is already past," Sparrow said.

"I would expect phones being easier to track than people. At least if you know the phone number. Which is why my old phone is trashed. Yours should be fine though and I'll text you my new number."

Looking out the windows, you saw a large city on both sides of what could be a bay, surrounded by a lot of water. It was early afternoon.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:07, Thu 23 Sept 2021.

Abe appreciated Sparrow's thoughts on being prepped.  She was all too right.

"That's twice in recent days I've been caught thinking like an old man - I was imagining cell tower triangulation only, but with wifi connection and GPS link-ups, you're pretty certainly right."  Abe agreed with her assessment.

As he looked out the window, he thought for a moment before asking, "Hawaii? No, has to be farther west than that... Sri Lanka?"

"It's Hong Kong," Sparrow said. "And though Rejuvenation is a top priority, your battle against the werewolves requires something else first. We're going on a trip."

She opened another flame rimmed portal to a wooded area. More tropical looking than where you left the tracker.

Abe followed through that portal as well, impressed with Sparrow's ability to just drop these one after another with little to no preparation between.  He wondered just how old he would be before he could cast on such a diverse set of locations so quickly.

"Is it a PPG assault rifle?  I feel like if the vanilla humans get to pull weapons out of a sci-fi show, we should get to pull some out of another one."  He joked as they went.


A thought occurred to me as I thought about what B5 weapon to jokingly ask for: did the Ranger staves serve as the inspiration for Fayrlan's silver tube?

And this time, they might actually be in Hawai'i. Not at the beaches or the cities, but among the mountains and the trees.

"I have a new attack for you to learn," Sparrow said.

She reached out her hand and a torrent of 2-3 inch long blades shot forth from her hand and sliced into one of the trees. But it was more like a flamethrower than a ranged weapon so as she moved her hand, the point of impact moved too.

And then she let it go.

"The disadvantage of that is that its a shorter distance, but the advantage is that the distance doesn't make it harder to hit. And more importantly, the blades are made of silver!"




[OOC: Yes, it very much did. It is the best TV show ever and the Rangers are awesomely cool. So why not.]

"Wow, that's devastating."  Abe commented as he moved up to examine the damage done to the trees, as well as examining whether the blades mostly slipped off after cutting, or stuck in the wood.  "Will those blades stick around for a while?  And how do I start?"

"They stick around for as long as you use the power," Sparrow said. "They cannot be used for anything else."

Abe examined the leaves and they were mostly cut.

She provided meditating, breathing techniques, and searching for balance within so that he could unleash that power.

Abe carefully did not say that "cannot" is an invitation to adaptation.  He did not even let his mind wander there over-long, but he couldn't help imagining being able to spray the ground with silver blades and have them stick around long enough to cause trouble for werewolf feet.  He banished that thought and began meditating as Sparrow instructed.

[OOC: Above, I was intending whether the silver blades stuck in the wood or slipped off the tree after cutting - do they penetrate into wood a bit and stick?]

[OOC: They penetrate into the wood, but they don't stick as the blades remain with your power. You could liken it to a sword with a really long blade. It cuts, but the blade remains with you. And these shorter blades remain with you too.]

When he felt like he had gotten to the right state of mind, Abe raised his hand, and willed the small blades to fly from his hand into the tree as they had for Sparrow.


17:03, Today: Abe Griffith rolled 9 using 3d6.  Trying the new thing!

After about an hour, he could activate the spell consistently. And after training with it for a few more hours, he could use it effectively.

[OOC: PM with abilities on the way.]

Abe was pleased with getting to learn the new spell.  If he were boxed in, out of ammo, or for some reason unable to use it, the silver blades would likely save his life - or those of his cohort.  He bent and limbered himself after so much work, and began to feel the number of hours he had been awake.  Nevertheless, he thanked Sparrow and asked if there was anything he could do to help with the rejuvenation.

"Right now, that will mostly be to learn the process," Sparrow said. "So that you know what you need to Rejuvenate and how to find the people who can help you do that. Do you like Chinese food?"

"Yes..."  He hesitated for only the briefest of moment before continuing, "I was going to make a sarcastic comment about the nonexistence of people that don't chinese, but then I realized that my working definition of "people" was broadened expansively recently to include things that don't have a heartbeat.  So I'll keep my mind open that even that kind of person could exist somewhere in the world."

"Learning sounds good, chinese sounds great."  He concluded.

"Excellent," Sparrow said and opened another portal to an empty Hong Kong alley. And as before, Abe learned the exact location so that he could open a portal there too. And not far away, Sparrow bought Chinese take out for the both of them, only to return to the alley and open a portal back to the apartment.

And so over dinner, she started explaining what documents they needed, how to get in touch with fixers, how much time they needed to produce them, and how much that would cost. As well as any premiums they might use to expedite things. As well as other things of a similar nature.




[OOC: I probably haven't explicitly mentioned that you learn the coordinates to create a portal there before.]

Abe took careful (mental) note of everything Sparrow had said, as well as a to-do list for himself including that he start socking away enough money to be able to have at least one Rejuvenation banked.  He dug into his lo mein, then performed his egg roll ritual.  He bit off the end of an egg roll, then fished and ate out the pork and veggies.  Next, he stuffed the eggroll shell with pieces of fried, saucy chicken and ate it with gusto.

He asked occasional questions, showing both his reasonable intelligence as well as his mild paranoia carefulness.  He had some hooks to hang the information on from his work and criminology studies... though more from stories told during those courses than actual material covered.

[OOC: I believe you said I had to be very familiar with a place to be able to portal there.  Are you saying that by portaling to somewhere with Sparrow grants that familiarity, or that it just takes an intentional mental act to mark a place as a possible future travel point?]

Because of his background, Abe picked up the details faster than he otherwise would have. Asking much better questions than a newbie would have. The meal was delicious. Sparrow was beautiful. And if you hadn't discussed business all evening, this could almost have been considered a date.



[OOC: Yes, you need to be familiar with the destination, and traveling by portal to a location grants you the familiarity to open a portal there yourself.]

[PM on the way.]

As she had talked and he filed information away, Abe thought about Sparrow for a long moment.  He appreciated her beauty, no question.  But more in the way that he had once appreciated a perfect flower by the side of the road at a mountain highway rest stop.  There was a pressing desire to take the moment and burn it into his memory, but he did not want to take the flower away with him and destroy the scene.

So he had sat there staring at her for a long moment before realizing she had asked him a question.  Shaking his head briefly to clear it he thought over what she had just said and gave an appropriate answer.  In the back of his mind he ran over ways to try to convey what he had been thinking, but she had likely heard it all before - she had apparently been pursued by Willy Shakespeare - and he did not want to be mistaken for pursuing her that way.

As they finished dinner and the lesson, he decided to give it a go anyways.  What's the worst that could happen?  That she think he was weird?  Well, no.  In the bizarre world in which he found himself, far worse could happen.  But he had to hope it wouldn't.  "An eagle soaring on a sunny afternoon with just the right three clouds in the sky.  A game that pushes you to the very limits of your emotions and skills before the end.  Some things are just right.  You blending expert knowledge and enjoyment of magic, people, and living... with a select audience to enjoy it with you.  It fits."

"I didn't figure you for a poet," Sparrow said.


[OOC: Where Abe's appetites take us is completely up to you as long as it doesn't break site rules or the rules of this game. So either of those would work.

I was trying to portray that it might appear like a date from a distance, but that those hearing the conversation would have realized the truth that it wasn't. That this was a work dinner.]

"I am not...  Was not?"  He queryingly corrected.  "I've experienced right things before.  I've enjoyed them.  But now they seem.. brighter?  Realer?  Almost, I could have walked off through any of your wilderness portals and searched for a right moment, even as I died of exposure.  Strange."

Sparrow patted Abe's hand, in a completely different way than she had patted Tom's hand when all of this started. She rose from the table. "Let's take a break. It's been a long day." And she walked away.

Abe retired for the night and pulled up Stargate SG-1 on his phone to start binging.