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Part 20b: Jack of shadows
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Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Dworkin (GM)
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Night never really comes to the city of glass. The sun sets, but
any stars are lost in the glare of the flyers' lights and those of the
city itself. A shadowy dusk settles across the city, and the
buildings (if such they are) seem even more ethereal.
But nothing stops. The inhabitants still run their unknown
errands, never needing to sleep. The silver spiders, their metal
limbs clicking against the transparent surfaces, clusters of emerald
eyes glowing dimly, move tirelessly across the seemingly endless city.
One of the spiders (the term is not entirely accurate, since it has ten
limbs and is clearly mechanical in nature) descends a wall of glass to
the lowest level of the city. It pauses briefly whenever it meets
another, and a humming, whistling dialogue ensues, before both continue
on their way.
The spider reaches "ground" level, a sheet of thick, translucent glass
several yards above the actual soil and stone of this world.
Shadows seem to pool down here; blots and splotches of umbral gloom
amidst the gleaming transparency of the towers.
The machine creature stops suddenly, its glowing eyes locked on a patch
of darkness which had seemed to move in an anomalous fashion.
Strange senses reach out and find nothing lurking there. The
shadows don't move again, and the thing soon turns away, moving faster
now as it hurries to complete it's appointed task on schedule.
Behind it the darkness flows, pulling itself inwards and reshaping until a human form can be dimly seen within.
Jack has arrived.
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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Jacks are wild tonight. Jack thought and waggled shadowy eyebrows comically sliding into the
deep pooling shadows and blending into them as a chameleon. He looked
the city over remembering where his tendril had shown him the complex
with the orbs was at. Studying what lie before him he chose a route
that would best keep him in his twilight safety zone.
He started flowing along the darkness and breaks
in this worlds pattern at high speed, but not so fast that he could not
react to what was coming up. Always keeping an eye on places to run,
storm drains, back ways or anyplace small and inconspicuous away
from any light.
He was not certain how well the link with Kali and hunter worked this far apart, or if Cyan’s card tricks worked. So he though Kali, Hunter, Cyan can you hear me? searching for the comforting mental contact of his friends as he moved
onward. He would send out a tendril to be certain of where he needed to
be as soon as he was certain of their contact or lack there of.
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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Jack was greatly relived at contact, there
was a part of him that was just waiting for something to go wrong. At
one with the shadows he slipped through them blending with them unseen.
He had been about to send a tendril out to guide him to his target now
that he had the comforting feel of friends. When the man entered camp.
Jack stopped uncertainly, remembering the entrance of the lord of light
looking as a trusted face.
Are you certain all is well Cyan? He asked
through the power of the card. He trusted Berd, Hunter and the women to
handle anything that came their way. Still he had to ask I can come back if you need me. Though he hated the thought of having to start on this again later.
Though that was a bad habit of his, he hated leaving anything not
completed and acquired a single bloody minded tunnel vision when
working on important tasks.
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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Okay I am pressing on, pull me through if you need me Jack would have like reassurances from Kali as well, but he had faith
in them to handle whatever may come their way. He would have never
thought he would have felt this way, but he wished Aaron was there in
his absence.
With that he called his broken pattern to mind and sent a
tendril questing for what he sought. As soon as he found it, he
propelled himself through the night and along the breaks in the pattern
at incredible speeds. Flowing for all he was worth and taking full
advantage of his insubstantial form, the world around him rushing by as
little more then a shadowed blur.
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Dworkin (GM)
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Jack hurtles across the city, using the breaks to bypass the silver
spiders and other, even stranger, machines which swarm everywhere.
As he nears his destination though, he is forced to slow down for fear
of missing the storage structure. Finally he sees it, the
building he had detected earlier. A broad glass dome, topped with
sky-scraping minarets and towers of crystal, each with a spiralling
core of silvery metal. The dome is surrounded by a wide area of
open space, slightly concave, as if the dome sits in the bottom of a
shallow bowl several times the diameter of the structure at its centre.
Inside the dome, large shapes can be dimly perceived, some of them
moving in regular rhythms, as if taking part in some bizarre dance.
Perhaps a mile away across the bowl, Jack can clearly see wide openings
around the edge of the dome. One of the spiders scurries out of
an opening, it's man-high body giving Jack a better idea of
scale. The dome is perhaps two hundred feet across, and fifty
high, with each of the openings some twenty feet high and wide.
As he watches, lurking in the shadow of a building, Jack sees the
spider start to perform a complex series of movements across the bowl,
and where it moves it leaves behind a trail of silver metal.
Moments later several dozen more rush into the bowl from various points
around the rim, laying their own patterns of silver which connect and
intertwine with the original one.
Suddenly one of the moving lights drops from the sky, plummeting like a
stone and stopping with an impossibly-fast deceleration just a few feet
above the spiders, all of which turn to face it. It hovers there,
a huge wheel of metal, flame, and light revolving sedately in
mid-air. The hairs on Jack's neck prickle as a booming voice
issues from the thing, all metallic notes and screeching tones, and the
spiders move away in ones and twos, some returning to their work and
others heading for a point on the far edge of the bowl.
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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Jack looked on knowing there were several options
as to what could be done at this juncture. That meant there several
paths that could be followed and limited time to follow them, the night
was only so long.
Kalika, Cyan. . . Do you have any
observations or ideas at this time. I could try to find out if any of
these things have minds, but that might give away the fact that I am
here. I would like to see the pattern that these things are laying
out. He says flowing up the dark side of the closest
building to get a batter look at it. He wanted to see if it
resembled his or Aaron’s Pattern or was something all together
different. He even went so far as to look with his dark well lens.
I may be able to search out any
underground access, drains, conduits anything else if it is there. Or I
could follow the other spiders to see where they are going. I might
have to ride in inside of one of the spiders, if I can pull that off.
Any ideas or suggestions?
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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Yes
the Wheel is what made me think that perhase these things do have
minds. I will keep an eye on it and try to passivly see if there is
anything there. He continued to watch the wheel and try to figure
out what the pattern was of. Examining all as closely as he could
therough the lens.
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Dworkin (GM)
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A loud, angry-sounding blast of sound comes from above, and a second
wheel drops into the bowl. The two start circling each other,
their inhuman voices echoing from the surrounding buildings. Both
shift from white to crimson light and the shouting gets louder.
All of the spiders press themselves flat against the ground, and the
green glow of their eyes dims.
The wheels spin faster, and start clashing their rims against each
other sending showers of sparks flying in all directions, and shadows
dancing across the bowl.
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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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Jack Stood watch the two things
fight, he was pushed father back into the darkness by their light with
filled the bowl. All of this time he had been keeping the contact
with Cyan and through the link Kali and Hunter in the back of his mind.
It was far easier for him to divide attention because his mind seemed
to perpetually work on multiple tracts at once. With a rapid change the
scene before him which should be most important falls into the
background and the fire side scene back at the camp comes to the front.
Cyan, pull me back. . . He knew Kalika
and Cyan could hand anything, but he had to be there for support. If
nothing more, Jack bristled with indignantly and fumed with what little
bit he had caught. His reasons were simple, it would be dangerous for
him to do this with distraction. What’s more is he felt the need to
simply support and be there for Kalika and Hunter. Either to defend
them or just quietly support them.
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