Tempête Subtile and John Doe - Session 2

# Boxes and Bucked Biscuits

2 May 2021 IRL

xxxxx 2250 SooN

Tempête, John, Rendak, Max, and Tide are all crowded in a supply closet just off the roof of an 8 story building, dead Orange Robes littering the roof on the other side of the door.

They hear pounding on the doors to the East and West of their closet, and pounding footsteps.  Barely about to make it out, John thinks he hears “Wait for the procter their knowledge is overbearing” in Sylvan, but he can’t be sure.  Tempête is able to make out “Wait”, “Procter”, and “Overbearing”.

John casts an illusion spell on the wall in the closet, explaining all the Orange Cloaks outside.  They’re currently trapped in the closet with no visible exit.  A sudden noise like a loud chainsaw rings out.  Tide is trying to use his earth moving ability to create a new doorway, but it’s slow going.

The stampeding footsteps outside go quiet, and the people in the closet look at each other with wide eyes.  The footsteps resume, along with a new pounding on the doors around them.  John had cast pass without a trace, so although the Orange Cloaks had seen them run into the closet, they’re not quite sure which door the party is behind.

Tide keeps working on moving earth and creating a doorway in a building, which is slow going.  Casting another illusion, John indicates that he wishes to give Tempête a healing potion.  She nods and takes it from him, but Maxime yanks it out of her hand first, and sips it, presumably to make sure it’s not poison.  Tempête yanks it back and hisses at him in French “Stop Max, he wants me alive!”.

About 30 feet away, a door aggressively bangs open, the sound echoing down the hall.  John considers trying to mask the door he’s behind, but he’s not sure what the walls look like.  Another door bangs open, 20 feet down the hall.  Their door is next, and Tide hasn’t made a doorway yet.  They’re in for a fight, and they know it.

Silently, John unscrews the light, plunging the room into darkness.  Seeing what he’s doing, Rendak turns his head to Tempête with a cold look, and casts Hunter’s Mark on her just before the light extinguishes.   Tempête completely vanishes in the dark, and glides like a shadow into a fighting position.  Rendak’s eyes track her as she moves thanks to his Hunter’s Mark.  Still looking at her, he pulls out his white pistol, aims to the side, and without even looking starts shooting through the door at the threat outside.  Because he’s that much of a badass.

A Goliath shaped person, wearing an orange mask covering their entire face, hair in a bun, with all black clothing, bursts the door open.  The huge person, about 6’ 9”, rushes into the already crowded room, and organized chaos erupts.  This must be the Procter the Orange Cloaks mentioned earlier.

The masked behemoth roars and begins attacking the party members.  One after another they shoot arrows, bullets, piercing shots, everything they can think of.  The Orange Mask’s body absorbs their shots, even piercing ones.  The Mask keeps charging forward, completely ignoring any bit of damage, and seeming to grow even stronger.  To the side, Tide has completed a tunnel big enough for Rendak to get through, but the adults would have to crawl slowly.

Tempête spots three Orange Cloaks, and realizes that two of them are magically enhancing The Mask.  Mustering her considerable skill, she shoots through the hand of a gesturing Cloak with and into their other hand, pinning them together like a hand-kebab.  This seems to have some effect, as the Goliath begins staggering and showing an appearance of being wounded, finally.

Despite the hand-kabob and staggering, the Goliath isn’t close to down yet.  The monstrous figure grapples John Doe, and slams him into the ground, hurting him badly.

In a show of either bravery, stupidity, or both, Rendak shoots at the giant attacking his only source of security and affection in the world.  His shots go wide due to his heightened emotional state.  Emitting a noise like an angry sob, completely discarding anything he’s been taught, Rendak charges at the beast.  Using every bit of his young half-orc might, he flails at the leg and thigh of The Mask.

Maxime slashes across the face of The Mask with his scimitar.  He’s fed up with this merde, this unkillable asshole, being trapped in this fucking room, this threat to his Tempête, and these damned Orange Cloak fucks.  The sharp edge combined with the tremendous hammering force behind it shatters the orange mask covering The Mask’s face.  It falls away to reveal, shockingly, a large green male orc.  Is he working with them, or is he under some kind of spell?

Apparently, the Orange Cloak mages are fed up with this fight as well.  They for sure don’t care at all about the well-being of their raging orc.  One of the Cloaks who can still use their hands pulls something out of a pouch, and a giant fireball WOOSHES into the room.  The orc is instantly roasted, and the party fighting him take some damage, including John, who is lying on the floor unconscious.

A wild sob escapes Rendak.  He dashes over to John, unconcerned about anything else around him.  His entire little being is laser focused on reaching his surrogate father.  Falling to his knees, Rendak gently picks up and cradles John’s head in his lap.  All of the trauma and stress he’s experienced in the last few months have finally come to a head.  Hot tears pour out of his eyes and all his fear, anguish, uncertainty, and youth flow with them.  “Don’t die John, don’t die, you can’t die, please don’t die”, the young boy sobs.  All traces of the self-confident young gunslinger have fled, replaced by a scared kid.

Rendak takes a health potion and pours it down John’s throat with shaking hands.  “Oh don’t die don’t die don’t die”, he fervently whispers.  John’s eyes flutter open, looking right into Rendak’s bit shiny wet ones.  “Oh thank you” Rendak breathes.  “Hey.”, John says, looking at his ward.  “It’s okay.  Crying is a free action, kid”.  Rendak lets out a shaky laugh, and John sits up, immediately drinking another health potion.

John ruffles Rendak’s hair affectionately, and stands all the way up.  No longer in danger of imminent death, he takes a moment to look around.  The orc is dead and the people he knows look pretty beat up, but alive at least.  The mages seem to be quite dead as well, arrow shafts sticking out of their bodies.

The party hands around healing potions and diamond shards to quickly heal up.  Tempête perks up - she hears more footsteps coming.  They all finally have an opportunity to use the tunnel Tide made.  Pushing Rendak through first, the adults crawl through the tunnel to the other side.

They emerge one by one.  Rendak, Tempête, Maxime, Tide and finally John Doe make their way out of the tunnel.  They find themselves standing on an interior balcony on the top floor, looking inward towards the glass elevator shaft.  The crew is finally free of the roof.  Now they just need to figure out how to  make their way down eight floors, with no available elevator, while whoever is behind them continues to chase them.  They’re beaten, tired, out of spell shards, emotionally traumatized, and only barely kind of trust each other.  This should be a piece of cake.