It had been a long day in the shop, but after working most of the afternoon and evening, only a couple rigs were left on the lifts. The sun had set more than an hour ago, and the garage was lit by flickering halogen safety lights. Mark sat at his desk, trying and failing to balance the books from the day. "Lisa," he called  over his shoulder, <brown>"Just finish up on the red skycharger, then get out of here . . . it's been a long enough day as it is."</brown. Snatching the remote off his desk, he powered-on the tv mounted up in the corner.

A slim woman in a smart suit, skin the color of caramel, sat behind a desk reading from a stack of papers in front of her. "Thanks for that, Ron. Today marked the one year anniversary of the attack on Harbor Towers. Mayor Fokuf read a commemoration at the sight, honoring those civilians and citizens who lost their lives in the tragedy. Solstice Blake . . ." A picture flashed up on the screen of a young woman, little-older than her early twenties, pale with dark hair streaked through with brilliant blonde. " . . . escaped NMPD custody and is still at large. She is to be considered extremely dangerous . . ." The news continued, ranging through a melange of topics, most dull local interest stories.

The skycharger was up on the lift. It's problems were easy enough to diagnose, especially for someone like Lisa with far more advanced training than your typical grease-monkey. Its fuel line needed patching, and the essence transformer was skipping on its second rotation. Halfway through working on these issues, however, she heard something terrifying.

" . . . Police are now seeking Lisa Avine, a young researcher for the Tempus Group, in connection with the disappearance of Dr. Sean Valkuria. Authorities believe she may have information related to the doctor's disappearance, as well as the disappearance of experimental prototypes from his lab . . . Her picture, the one taken for her employee I.D. badge, was spread large across the screen. Her hair was cleaner, her mechanics clothes replaced with a bright labcoat, but it was unmistakably her, and Mark sat speechless in his chair, jaw hanging open slightly as he stared at the screen.

This was bad.

I'm gonna wake up, yes and no
I'm gonna kiss some part of
I'm gonna keep this secret
I'm gonna close my body now

Lisa bobs her head to the jaunty pop tune from nearly 2 decades ago as she carefully applies the last torque to the bolts of the transformer housing of the '90s Krinstet Cry she's working on. To an outsider, she appears to be doing nothing more than humming to herself, but the truth is that her Charms grant her a direct mental link to the Internet, which she is using to stream the song she's currently listening to.

However, it doesn't do anything to interfere with her actual hearing... which is why she reacts instantly the moment she hears this.

" . . . Police are now seeking Lisa Avine, a young researcher for the Tempus Group, in connection with the disappearance of Dr. Sean Valkuria. Authorities believe she may have information related to the doctor's disappearance, as well as the disappearance of experimental prototypes from his lab . . .

There's nothing for it. Without a moment's delay, Lisa drops everything she's holding and runs out the front door. Working at the V'neef Springs Auto Shop has been her life for the past year, but she knows - after seeing the kind of forces brought to bear on them that night - that her life as she knew it is now over, and what followed life... was death.

Or not.

I guess I'll die another day
It's not my time to go

The window to her car unwinds itself as she approaches, and the lights inside come on as she throws herself foot first through the aperture. The catlike agility granted by the control medallion ensures she pours into her seat like she belongs there, and her internal Metaneural Uplink Node conveys her will to the car, the windows winding back up even as she finishes buckling in. The tendrils of her Universal Pilot Keys snake out of her calves and discreetly plug into floor-mounted ports of her vehicle; she still grips the steering wheel as a formality, and also because she needs something to do with her hands.

For every sin, I'll have to pay
I've come to work, I've come to play

The chorus echoes in her head as she feels the bass of the car's engine thrum through her body, and Lisa bolts down the street at breakneck speed.

I think I'll find another way
It's not my time to go

She doesn't know where she's headed or even where she should be. All she knows is that Mark is calling her... and she's in no mood to answer. She can't let him get caught up in this. This is her cross to bear.

She mentally calls up a satellite map of the area. Time to ditch town.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:23, Mon 19 Oct 2020.

As Lisa's car peels away, Mark picks up the phone, finger flying over the keys as he dials the authorities. "Police!? Yeah, I think I know that young woman you're looking for . . ."

Lisa flies through dark streets . . . riding right past a cop that had been idling behind a sign near the highway. The officer sputters, coffee spraying the dash as he watches her speed past, just as a voice comes on the radio confirming a tip on the fugitive Lisa Avine. Flipping his siren on, he pulls onto the road behind her, lights flashing as he signals for her to pull over, his car closing in behind her.

You're now in a chase with a beat cop.

11:52, Today: The Grand Design, for the NPC beat cop, rolled 2 successes using 5d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((5,6,8,8,6)).

He just makes his difficulty, so he's only got 1 success towards the chase. If you can beat that, he'll take 3 hazard going forward. If you can force him to take 10 hazard, he'll spin out. Alternatively, if you can build up to 10 successes ahead of him, you'll simply escape him completely.

The wail of the sirens breaks through the music Lisa's playing inside the car. Thanks to the miracle of her Alchemical charms, she doesn't even need to look back to tell exactly where the cop car is behind her.

And you just couldn't live and let live, she grumbles. Still there's no point whining about Mark now; she needs to lose her tail ASAP. While this car DOES have weapons... no, she's not going to kill some donut eater just for doing his job; and it would only make all his friends hunt her that much harder. So this is her challenge, to lose him without getting either of them hurt.

Yeah, I can do this, she thinks. In her mind's eye, a wave of silvery starlit Essence washes out and coats everything in sight, highlighting buildings, passengers, vehicles and the contours of the road in the various colors of the maidens. Her field of vision distends until she is now seeing all around her at once through the internal cameras on her car.

The cop car is red; the color of Battles (not that she actually wants to fight him). The pedestrians and other vehicles are blue; the color of Serenity (that is, they're neutral and should be left alone). Racing past a bridge, she sees that the water is highlighted purple, the color of Endings (in other words, don't go there). Drivable surfaces are the dark green of Secrets (because every journey is a mystery) and as her neural processors plot a course through traffic, they trace a golden line - the color of Journeys - through a wild, haywire course that no mortal driver could possibly complete.

The silent hum of her Locomotive's engine fills Lisa's bones as the vehicle suddenly goes into a mind-bending slalom through impossibly dense traffic; one minute it's here, the other minute it pops up in an empty spot across the road behind a thick wall of vehicles, and then it's far ahead past a traffic light, as though it's crossed the distance between one point and another without going through the motions of actually traversing the physical space between them. Of course, from Lisa's point of view she's simply negotiating the pathways which open up in the brief moments where traffic flows align, but to anyone else it seems thoroughly miraculous.

OOC:
Lisa makes a Cunning Maneuver.

Int + Drive pool of Int 3 + Drive 5 +  Maneuverability (3+2) + Stunt 2 + Cunning Maneuver 3 + 3 successes from 2nd Intelligence Excellency, total 18d + 3 sux vs difficulty 2. Hazard to her is 1.

10:27, Today: Lisa Avine rolled 10 successes using 18d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Cunning Maneuver.

10 + 3 sux - 2 difficulty leaves 11 sux. That should be enough to lose him.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:57, Fri 23 Oct 2020.

As Lisa fell into the rhythm of the road, the golden path of mercury shone before her, and somewhere in a distant, dimly lit room, a floating maiden smiled for a moment before a shock twisted her face once more in agony. The stalking tiger comet's exhaust blazed with particles of starlit essence, moving like a phantom through traffic and leaving the patrol car trapped in a closing jam. Like a knife, her car parted the road and found its fated path, the last remnants of daylight fading on the horizon like dim embers.

Now alone once more, she had a chance to settle into her thoughts, at least for a time, as she cruised the dark city streets. Other people dotted the sidewalks, and she passed cars only infrequently. The outer city and its low-rise tenement houses made the neighborhoods a blur of brick, concrete, and chain-link fences.

Where would she go from here?

Exceptional success on your part, but remember that the stunt houserule we're using has stunt dice awarded after the fact and banked for future actions. It's not really a problem here. That definitely qualified for a 2 die stunt, but in the future, keep that in mind.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:44, Fri 23 Oct 2020.

Lisa's nerves are still wound tight as the cop car's siren fades into the background behind her, the Locomotive cruising through the night like a phantom, the only trace of its presence the mandatory head and backlights. She knows that she could turn them off and still see decently in the darkness, but it's best not to endanger others.

Where the hell am I going to go now... she thinks. I should get out of here. Flee the Blessed Isle, maybe hide out in Nexus or something.

But she'll need transportation there, long-haul stuff. And she'll need money for that. Money which she left behind in her old place when she decided to take off. Things just keep piling up...

She'll have to avoid places with lots of people too, in case they recognize her. Well, she could try and change her face... but even then, she'll need time to reconfigure her abilities.

I guess I'll just hide out somewhere first and look different, then think of what to do next.

She looks for a deserted garage, then dismisses her Control Medal before locking the doors and reclining the seats to maximum. The interior of her Locomotive is as comfortable as a bed, but it's hardly comfort when she knows what awaits her out there.

OOC: Swapping out Transcendent Multimodal Artifact Matrix for Husk-Sculpting Apparatus. It'll take an hour or so, I think?