Robyn was waiting in the living room when Liam arose. She wore the police uniform, and her enchanted Tommy gun was resting across her lap. A small canvas tote sat on the table in front of her. As Liam drew close enough to see through the top, he noted a bound booklet and a large sports bottle of the concentrated serum. Robyn's knee was jittery.

"Car's all ready to go," she said, quickly rising to her feet in the middle of Liam's Good Evenings. She hesitated for a moment, and then added. "You better drive."

[Roll Fate]

Liam smiled reassuringly. "Its going to be alright," he said, taking the keys from Robyn's hands. "Breathe."

He headed for the door.

Well I cant have two back to back scenes with good luck.

09:35, Today: Liam O'Farrell rolled 16 using 1d100.  Fate.

The drive over to Nex's hideout was quiet and tense. Robyn's nervousness was infectious, and Liam didn't think too much of the greatly reduced traffic. But in truth, they were the only thing on the road. The mooks were all shuttered inside, and even the police seemed to have deserted the streets.

Perhaps it was for this reason that no warnings or interrogation was forthcoming. The road to the dilapidated theatre which Nex was currently calling home brought them dangerously close to the Alhambra. Liam glanced up at the building towering over them as he drove. He caught a glimpse of a small bright flash, and then the front of the vehicle burst open. The engine let out a quick death rattle as it ground immediately to a halt. The rifle report sounded a moment later.

The impact was enough to set off the airbags. Robyn reeled in the passenger seat, momentarily stunned.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Liam muttered as he hastily tore off his seat belt and moved to unsecure Robyn. "We have to get out of here!"

Liam had the forethought to pop the trunk even as he ushered the pair of them out through whichever side of the vehicle was facing away from the tower hoping to keep the car itself between them until they could break for harder cover.

"Are you okay?" He risked a peek into the trunk. They couldn't leave anything behind.

No sooner did Liam remove Robyn's belt and pull her towards him than her seat exploded in a burst of glass and stuffing. Another rifle report soon followed. It took her another moment for the adrenaline to kick in. She lurched out of Liam's arms and spilled out of the driver's side door.

"I need a minute," Robyn said. They'd be lucky to get it. Headlights appeared at the foot of the Alhambra, and tore down the street towards them.

The vehicle offered very little in the way of protection. The high-calibre rounds tore through the squad car's hull like it was paper. The only refuge that provided enough solid material to have a hope of stopping a round was the engine block itself. And that had begun to smoke.

Liam spotted the butt of some sort of long gun in the trunk before he was forced to duck away. The sniper wasn't about to let him go fishing in the trunk.

Liam could see the narrow street that led to their destination. They were a scant two blocks from it. But the Redwatch were approaching so quickly that they would surely wind up between Liam and his goal.

Then, all of a sudden, the view was blotted out by a wall of darkness. With a gesture of Robyn's arms, the shadows between the buildings knitted them a blind. The sniper responded by increasing their rate of fire. The shots went wide.

Liam took advantage of the veil of shadows to avail himself of the long gun in the trunk along with whatever other material aid could be found therein. "We're going to have to break out sideways and work our way forwards," he said, casting his gaze towards the high-rise buildings lining the avenues of the downtown core. He'd take an alley or a door to a building they could push through and exit out the back if there was one.

Spending 2 BP on Abombwe 3 for body empowerment, +2 all physical attributes for the remainder of the scene.

Liam is at 12/15 BP and 3/8 WP. Full health.

The weapon in question was a police-issue Mossberg pump. A square box of 25 rounds was secured beneath it in the rack. Liam knew by the weight that it was unloaded.

There was a convenient narrow alleyway to his right, nestled between two storefront apartments, but this would take him further from his destination. There was a large mid-rise office building to his left. The lobby was darkened, but encased in glass. The doors, if locked, would pose no obstacle to him, but there was little cover beyond the bay of elevators. This building, too, had an alley behind it - though much further away from Liam's current position. This one was much larger and able to accommodate a truck.

There were heavy storm drains on both sides of the street, but this close to the Alhambra the cavernous system would be rife with traps. This was not the section he had familiarized himself with earlier that week.

Robyn, who could see clearly through the shadows, levelled her Tommy gun on the hood of the car and began firing. Evidently, the Redwatch were already in range.

[Roll wits + investigation, DC 7, no autos]

Fortunately realizing that Robyn had neglected to grab the tote Liam ducked back in through the driver's side of the car and grabbed the satchel from across the center console. "Come on!" he said, heading towards the mouth of the alley closet to them. On the way he grabbed hold of the storm grate and heaved at aside. If they were going to have to resort to a game of cat and mouse to get free of their tail - and particularly if they had to start down the path heading the wrong way before doubling back - he was more than happy to confuse their trail and give the cats plenty of choices to explore.

"Can you get Nex on that bracelet thingy?" he asked as soon as Robyn joined him in the alley.

Robyn ducked into the alley, crouching close to Liam. She leaned the Tommy gun in the alley, and made another gesture. Liam's vision went dark as the shadows wrapped around them. A moment later, he felt her fingertips on his temples. And suddenly the dark cloak became a thin veil to his eyes.

The first Redwatch vehicle drove straight through the blind, and impacted the cruiser at full velocity. The two behind it screeched to a halt, and a fourth and fifth pulled up more cautiously. All the vehicles save the first were fully loaded.  The two occupants therein were not quick to pile out.

Robyn tugged at the chain on her wrist, straining for a moment before it snapped.

Sixteen Redwatch, mostly shovelheads by Liam's estimation, fanned out in search. One of them shouted through a bullhorn. "Olly Olly Oxen Free," he chanted in a sadistic singsong.

Liam gripped Robyn's shoulder and nodded further down the alley. Nex wasn't going to appreciate it if they lead a Redwatch search party right to It's door. They were going to have to lose them one way or another and either double back on their own or more than likely wait for Nex to find them and pull them into the Shadowlands. The first order of business was to simply get clear. Once they were a ways down the alley he racked the Mossberg and filled the magazine.

Robyn nodded, and kept moving. When they were far enough down the alley, she whispered. "Only got a couple more spells left in me." Not surprising. It hadn't been long since her last trip through the Tome.

Liam slipped through the alleyway like oiled smoke. Robyn was a fair sight less stealthy. Her foot tipped over a beer bottle, and the clattering drew the attention of the Redwatch. They were forced to duck into cover as a pair of agents made their way down the alley.

Liam began to understand that the call over the loudspeaker was not meant for them. In the street at the other end of the alley, he could see people beginning to emerge. A plump middle-aged couple made their way into the alley, looking carefully in the dark nooks and crannies. They were boxed in.

Liam nodded, eyeing the brick walls from the poor concealment of their little nook. He could hear the footsteps drawing closer from both directions. The last thing he wanted was a firefight in the narrow alley though. There was nothing to do but go up.

"Cloak us," he whispered. "And hang on tight. We're going up."

Even as he spoke four slender articulating limbs pierced outward from his back and found purchase on the old masonry. With Robyn concentrating it was going to come down to a photo finish. He just hoped the photo looked black when he pulled her up and out of the path of the opposing search parties.

Robyn gestured again, and the shadows in the nook knitted closed. She clung to Liam with one arm and gripped her gun tight with the other.

The middle-aged woman reached the shadows first. She squinted, drew closer, and reached an arm into the blackness. Her fingertip brushed the tip of Liam's boot as he ascended.

"Here," she blurted out. The Redwatch agent shoved her aside, and felt around in the blackness.

"The drain's a false alarm," he shouted down the alley. "They went this way." He pushed past the couple, and cast a glance to the skyline.

The rooftop afforded them momentary concealment from the agents below. But without further shadowcrafting, they were well exposed from above.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:10, Thu 16 Sept 2021.

Liam looked down into the agent's unseeing gaze. Up above them they were in full view of the bristling sniper emplacements on the tower. Below, they had to deal with the multitude of mooks. But here - although not for very much longer presumably - they were unseen and unknown. It might just be possible to wait out Nex's arrival.... Hopefully the Nagarajah didn't have far to travel tonight.

Liam pressed further back into the blackness and adjusted his grip on Robyn. He-of-the-many-limbs could hold her easily. The last thing he needed was for her to slip. It was a good thing he was in no need of a breath to hold.

More Redwatch moved through the alley, a few of them pausing to inspect the nook, and the niche further up where Robyn had concealed them. One shone a flashlight up the length of the nook to the roof, at one point resting it directly at the pair.

"This one goes all the way up," he said. "Radio HQ, tell them to check the rooftops."

They clung there for several minutes, as the alleyway filled with Redwatch. Some had made their way inside the storefront in search of the rooftop access.

Then, a thick black smoke belched forth from the darkness. The cloud rolled silently down the alleyway, but the effect was anything but quiet. A chorus of screams rang out as the smoke touched them. The vampires quickly rotted away. The ghouls and the unfortunate mooks were subjected to a far more agonizing demise as the ravages of age rippled over them in a horrible instant. Their knees gave way, then their legs,and soon they all fell under the cloudline. Moments later, their cries ran silent. But the cacophony spread like a round as the clouds washed out of the alley and into the streets. The Redwatch fled in terror. The mooks merely stood and stared like cattle as death overtook them.

Liam felt a hand around his ankle. His limbs lost purchase in the nook as the material world melted away. They fell into the bottom of the alley in the Shadowlands. The forms of the newly-dead corpses making their way across the veil glowed around them.

A mask of comedy beamed at the pair, but no hint of life gleamed from the eye-holes. The hooded figure loomed over them, not even offering a hand to help them to their feet. Breaker towered beside Nex, somehow managing the expressionless ram's skull that served for his face to convey a look of disapproval. Neither one spoke.

Liam hauled himself to his feet and offered the hand down to Robyn that neither of their saviours had given. His gaze fell upon one of the glowing spirits briefly before he turned away in shame. Far more death would be visited upon Verdant Falls before this was over he knew, but he was responsible for these ones even if it had been Nex that had ushered them across the fold.

"Thank you," he said, turning to address Nex and Breaker both. He looked sidelong at Robyn and handed her the tote. It wasn't his to give away.

"You see how we came right to your aid when it was needed?" Nex said, stepping uncomfortably close to Robyn. "How we didn't traipse merrily around for months, sewing discord on a whim while our obligations went unfulfilled? Whatever did we do to earn such disrespect?"

It snatched the tote, and passed it to Breaker, never breaking its stare on Robyn. The wizard examined the sports bottle, and then rifled through the booklet, completely uninterested in anything else.