Azyrah Faynore - Session 6

# Who Are You, Really?

9 May 2021 IRL

XXXX 2250 SooN

Quelle burst in, "Wait it’s a set up!"

She’s panting and heaving. She slaps a photo on the table, and explains how Photoshop works. "The monster that was attacking people in this picture isn’t the Mayor, it’s a bugbear.  Someone replaced the bugbear with the Mayor."

The blood rises in Azy’s cheeks as a wave of anger washes over her. She was duped, and worse, she just killed an innocent, terrified woman. Fruitlessly, she checks for a pulse, but the woman is fully dead."

She remembers how Mike, the other mayor’s assistant, had popped in and out of visibility. Could Mike have been behind this, maybe? Clearly something caused all the carnage in the building and stuffed a severed finger into the poor dead woman’s mouth.

Azy makes sure the hallway and conference room doors are closed, and then spreads the contents of the paper shredder bucket around. Seeing no evidence of invisible men disturbing the paper, she turns to her friends.

“I think Mike and Nathanial set us up. I don’t know why, but they wanted us to kill this woman." Quelle is furious with Azy, and with an acid tongue, rips into her.  “You didn’t have to do this! It took me an HOUR to find this picture. You were so sure she was a monster, and you didn’t even try to be sure, and now she’s dead!”

Vic tries to placate the two with some patronizing words about the ladies not fighting. He literally reaches up and pats himself on the back for his amazing words of manly wisdom, and saunters out into the hallway.  Azy looks at Quelle, who glares back.  She may never forgive Azy for this, and Azyrah knows it.

Back in the hallway, Azy grimly hacks at the nearly-severed head of one of the attack victims. She has blood literally and metaphorically all over her hands now.  Glancing around, she spies a garbage can.  She dumps the garbage out of the bag and places the “Mayor’s” head into it.

“So what do you think?”, she asks her crew.  Wisely pointing out that the last time they just went without research, someone innocent got murdered, Vic suggest that they look into it.  Perhaps less-wisely, he suggests that they go speak to the Mayor that ordered the hit, show him the two doctored photos, and ask about the pictures, since they’re already on alert for subterfuge.  Quelle just glares and says nothing.

Azy leaves the substitute severed head in the car, and storms into the Mayor’s office, Vic and Quelle in formation behind her.  “What the fuck did you have me do?!”, she demands of him.  Through a mouthful of KitKat’s, he squeaks out in his whiny voice “What are you talking about?”.  She slaps the pictures on his desk and demands answers about the doctored photos.

With a smug tone in his high pitched little voice, he informs her that from where he sits, she was given evidence, investigated, and then took action.  The Mayor pulls a bag from under his desk and puts it on the table in front of her.  “You can take your money and leave, or you can just leave, but either way, you can calmly fuck off.  That’s the only thing I want from you.”

Azy  fumes that she doesn’t want his money, she wants to know why she killed an innocent woman.  The slimy shithead Mayor, through another mouthful of crispy chocolate coated wafers, has an adult tantrum.  “Do you know what it’s like to have everything you want and then have it slip through your HANDS?”, he growls at the end.  Engaging in a bit of amoral philosophy, he proclaims that she could not have learned at her tender young age that nobody is innocent and sometimes things need to be handled, and he’s just trying to serve his community.

They trade verbal jabs, going back and forth about why he wanted the woman killed.  Azy learns nothing, except that he’s an amoral sleaze covered in a fake sweet candy shell.  He threatens her that “we” will force her to leave, though she doesn’t see anyone around.  Not wanting to engage (ie kill) him until she knows where invisible Mike is, Azy glares at him and walks out, shooting him a deadly ‘I’m gonna come back and kill you’ glare.  Vic and Quelle glare at him and walk out behind her. They go to the car.

An office worker comes out to smoke a few minutes later, and Azy engages him in conversation.  She’s trying to find out where Mike, the Mayor’s assistant, is today.  The baffled smoker informs her that there’s no mohawked, yellow-skinned Orc in the building, and that the Mayor doesn’t have an assistant.  “Have a problem?” a voice asks from behind her.  It’s Mike, of course.  She starts to yell at him, and the baffled office worker gapes at the crazy lady yelling at the parking lot.

Covered in bloody, ripped clothes, carrying a bone bow, Azy doesn’t look like the most respectable person in town.  She asks the smoker if he can see Mike, pointing at him, “Look, he’s RIGHT THERE!”  “Uh there’s nothing there lady.  Frikken homeless people....” , he walks away, annoyed at his smoke break being interrupted.

“Can he see me?” Mike asks. He turns to dust, and drifts away.  *What is seeing anyway?  People used to say ‘seeing is believing’, but is it?   Can you believe what you see?  Can you believe what you don’t see?* , the disembodied voice echoes in her head.

Shaken, she returns to the car.  As she’s trying to explain what happened outside to Vic and Quele, she looks in the rear view mirror.  Shocked, she sees Mike where Quele should be in the back seat. Spinning around, she still sees Mike in place of Quele.  “What the hell? Quele you look like Mike right now. What's happening?”  Quele leans forward, sickeningly appearing out of Mike’s chest like a ghost.

Without thinking, from the front seat, Azy reaches out to touch Mike.  He lets out a soft chuckle, smiles and reaches out, and snaps her wrist before disappearing again. Azy lets out a howl of pain, her wrist flopping like a flamingo’s head, having taken 25 pts of damage. Cradling her injured hand, Azy begs Quele to fix it, and tries to explain that Mike just somehow broke her wrist. Vic and Quele look at her wrist, which is completely fine. “There’s nothing wrong with your wrist,” Vic haltingly informs her.  “It’s broken, he just broke it, oh god, Quele, please!” Azy begs.

Her friends look at her in shock, she’s acting crazy.  With a dubious look, Quelle does as she asks, and sings “Fixing your wrist” to the tune of “Staying Alive.” The diamond shard doesn’t work, and only heals 9 pts of her perceived damage. Still in incredible pain, she pushes a ruby shard at Quele and begs her to fix it more.  Visibly angry, Quele sings “Time After Time” about healing her time after time.

Azy just wants to get out of there, and asks Vic to drive them to a hotel or some place safe. She gets out of the car to walk around to the passenger side. As she passes the trunk, Mike appears. “This is your payment, your thanks for all the work you’ve done,” he says, and then walks directly at her.  She can’t get out of the way fast enough, and he walks right through her.

Her body can’t move. She’s paralyzed, she can’t move or speak.  Without her willing it, her hand reaches up and readies Bone Shot. Mike is in control of her now.

Azy shoots Vic, and then smashes her face into window. Under the control of Mike, Azy says, "This is your punishment, Vic. I've never needed you and it is time I get rid of the dead weight. You have two options at this moment: Fight or Die. You know I have always been stronger than you." Casts Hexblade’s Curse on Vic, broken glass rises from the ground around Vic, flying at him. She hasn’t got her arrow back. Vic is freaked out an confused.

Quele runs out of the car to stand by Vic. Holding her action, she puts up her hand and begs Azy to stop.

Still under the control of Mike, Azy tries to swing her bow at Vic. He grabs it and wrestles with her over it, singing “Shake it Off, Shake it Off.”  Quelle grabs her bass from her back and adds a sick beat to his song, and casts Shatter.  Azy feels a splinter of pain in her head.  As a bonus action, Azy casts Hex on Vic, who is already dealing with Hexblade’s Curse.

Vic struggles mightily, despite his injury, to rip the bow from her hands.  With a heave, he yanks it free from her grasp.  He uses a free action to cry.

Azy retaliates with an Eldritch Blast, that thankfully doesn’t hit him. Azy’s desperate to stop fighting her friends, but Mike’s control is too strong. As her Blast reaches Vic, he instinctively holds his arms up, raising Bone Shot. The energy she shot at him is absorbed by the skull decoration on the bow, and returned to her with double the force, knocking her back. As she falls back, for a split second, Mike’s control of her is knocked loose, before returning.

Quele casts Charm Person, but it has no effect on Azy, who is grappling in her mind with Mike. Quele backpedals, trying to put space between them. Vic slumps to the ground, the bone arrow having done it’s work.

The arrow returns to Azy, and Bone Shot falls on the ground at Vic’s feet. Despite her best efforts to resist, Azy walks over to him and picks up her bow. “No, no no,” her inner voice is howling.  “This is your punishment,” Mike’s voice replies.

A feminine voice blasts into Azy’s head “GET!!! OUT!!!!”, and she can feel the energy of Mike shoot out of her. She sees him skidding on the ground far away from her, as she’s in mid-strike trying to smash Bone Shot into Vic’s face.  With just enough time to stop, Azy manages to halt the downward strike before delivering the finishing blow.

Quele, not understanding what’s going on, casts Vicious Mockery at Azy. “You’re a terrible leader. You suck. You’re a horrible person,”  she screams. Azy feels the emotional dagger of the words, but the spell itself fails to wound her.

Azy whirls to Mike, who is slowly getting up, with a smug look on his snotty Orc face. She pulls the sapphire bracelet out of her pocket and casts Mind Spike on Mike. “DIE!” She mentally screams. “With pleasure,” a quiet voice replies.  A smoggy hand of dark magic emits from the skull on Bone Shot, and creeps across to where Mike is trying to shift. The hand reaches out and grabs him, and squeezes, stopping him from going invisible. Blood spills out of his ears from the psychic damage.

He casts Misty Step, appearing in front of Azy in an eye blink. Before she can block, he reaches out and stabs her with a silver and black extra long dagger, so long it’s almost a sword. Howling in rage, Azy stabs Bone Shot at Mike.

The bow spears through his open mouth. It slides across the roof of his open mouth, jabs into the soft palate, punctures through his skin, grates across and then severs his spine. The light dims from his eyes, and his suddenly limp body sags against her bow.  Azy braces a foot on his chest and pulls Bone Shot free with a meaty squelch.

Slightly panting, she turns around. Vic and Quele see her, standing there, bloody clothes, wild hair, breathing hard, grasping a gore stained bow. They stare at her in horror. What the hell just happened here?