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| − | =Participants=
| + | Redundant page, doh. |
| − | * [[Cruz]]
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| − | * [[Deshwitat]]
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| − | * ''[[Narwen]] (judge)''
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| − | =Date=
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| − | 26 Nov 2017
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| − | =Log=
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| − | ''It's 4am and Zephyr HQ is quiet. Apart from the occasional night owl, literal or otherwise, the technicians, administrators, and managers have long since gone home, Even the more aggressive partiers who hang out in the lobby have stumbled off elsewhere, alone, in pairs, or in groups. Only a skeleton staff remains: security guards, a receptionist, the doctor on duty, and, in a poorly lit room, those agents new, unlucky, desperate, or bureaucratically inept enough to end up on night duty.''
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| − | | |
| − | Falling into the lattermost category, a nicely-dressed, grouchy looking avian mutant waited in the lobby for something to happen. Anything to keep her eyes open, she thought to herself, rubbing at her beak with a taloned hand and idly neatening her feathered crest while her eyes drifted over the other poor sods still lingering at this hour.
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| − | | |
| − | A obviously hermaphrodite human sits behind the guard desk. Feet proped up leaning back on in the seat. Shi twirling a laser pistol in hir right hand as shi stifles a yawn with hir left. You can tell that is trying to stay awake in at this wee hour.
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| − | | |
| − | ''"Bored, bored, bored! So bored," announces a latex fox abruptly. It bangs its head against the wall a few times, making an airy plastic 'bunk' sounds. "Someone say something. Anything!"''
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| − | The falconess raises her head and blinks at the display, scratching the back of her head. "Uhhhh.... 'anything'? Don't complain that you're getting paid to doze off..." She mutters under her breath, clicking her beak to create a 'tsk'ing noise. "Zephyr agents, I swear."
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| − | | |
| − | The human stands up, holters hir pistol and stretches before saying "Well it's not like there's a lot going on right now. This is just guard duty and the graveyard shift no less." Shi points a thumb in the direction of the falconess, "I'm going to agree with her. We aren't getting paid to sleep. The names Deshwitat. I got got hired on last mininute because I guess nobody else wanted to be medic this shift. What's your names?"
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| − | "At least someone around here shows a little more discipline." the avian remarks with a faint smirk at the corners of her beak, straightening her posture and neatening out her blazer. She takes a step forwards towards the human, giving a curt but formal wave. "Cruz. Just a temp sent over from Woodfield to keep the peace... not that it needs a whole lot of help being kept."
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| − | | |
| − | ''And then, finally, something happens: the door swings open and an orc in a white lab coat stomps in. "Wakie-wakie!" he shouts, "Any youse medic? Thogrom need medevac team. Two agents. Three if stupider than usual." With uncanny agaility, the latex fox has disappeared behind a couch, out of his line of sight. "Come on, come on, move butts or me kick them! Agent down. Go to dis address, bring them back. Alive, dum-dums. What you waitin' for? Work, work!"''
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| − | Deshwitat barks back, "Hey your medics right here." as shi waddles over to the orc to look at the address. "So who else is coming with me?" as looks around the room.
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| − | | |
| − | Cruz shot a glare at the latex fox, suddenly sight unseen now that work HAD presented itself. Figures. She heaves a sigh and takes inventory of the sidearm concealed beneath her blazer, then moves for the door posthaste. "Well, you look like you could... use an escort, and I don't see any other volunteers." she remarks, only letting her eyes dip below the human's waist for a brief moment to take inventory of her impeded movement before fixing them on the door again, clearing her throat.
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| − | | |
| − | Deshwitat waddles behind the desk to pick up hir combat armor and puts it on. Shi comes back over to the falconess and gives her a smile before asking, "So a fellow RSX operative huh? What's your name job on this shift?"
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| − | "Cruz, and just an extra gun." she repeated, giving the well-hidden bulge of a firearm in her coat a pat. "Guard duty sounded like it'd be dreadfully boring... was kind of my hope, I'll admit. But I'm getting paid to do a job, so... it's getting done."
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| − | ----
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| − | | |
| − | ''At this hour the streets of Fairhaven are quiet but never silent. Most mutants have hidden themselves away for the night, but there are sounds of movement from the ruined buildings: muffled thuds, and concrete scraping against concrete. The stars don't cast a lot of light, but from time to time you catch glimpses of dark shapes up ahead, sloping off into side-streets.''
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| − | | |
| − | Deshwitat waddles as silently as possible along down the street. Heading in the direction of the address keeping hir head on a swivel.
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| − | | |
| − | Cruz stopped by the checkpoint at the gates to collect the more obvious of her armaments, slinging the scoped rifle over her back. Not that checking her armaments at the door was a necessity, just a courtesy. Re-armed and reinvigorated, the falconess took point and moved ahead of the encumbered medic, hand never venturing far from the trigger. "Keep close." she quietly requests, eyes darting toward the occasional movement in the dark with a nervous gulp.
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| − | | |
| − | Deshwitat keeps quiet following the more agile Cruz at hir slow shuffling pace. Shi keeps to the left of the street making use of shadows of the collapsed building. As they approach the end of the block, Deshwitat taps Cruz to get her attention before give her hand genstures of as they cross the street Cruzs should be keeping eyes on left while Deshwitat will be looking right.
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| − | Cruz glances back and nods in affirmation, falling in line with Deshwitat and training her eyes on the left side of the street as they proceed, unmaligned - insofar, anyway. Once they begin to close on the address given, she raises a wing-arm in a gesture to hold up, crawling atop the nearest convenient vantage point and taking a moment to survey using her scope.
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| − | ''You approach the address that Thogrom gave you. Here on the outskirts, the towers and malls have been replaced by low-rise apartment blocks and townhouses. Wood and plasterboard don't stand up to nanites so well but they're still standing. A few have lost chunks of the roof and upper story walls, and by the sound of it gryphons have moved in. At the corner of the block is an old 7-11 convenience store, long since looted. Looks like it matches the co-ordinates. The windows of the store must have been smashed, boarded up, and then smashed in again; the walls are scarred by bullet holes and claw marks even more than the average building in Fairhaven. This place must have drawn looters like flies.''
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| − | Deshwitat gives Cruz a wave and gestures for her to keep overwatch before waddling slowly over to the closest broken windows staying low. Shi pulls out a small hand mirror and uses it to look inside the convenience store.
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| − | Cruz nods in return and maintains her position, covering Deshwitat as she approaches - keeping her eyes peeled for any movement from behind while the human waddles forth.''
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| − | ''Deshwitat's footsteps seem loud in the stillness. Shi makes her way over to the door, stepping over trash and mess. It's hard to see in the moonlight, but some of it looks fresh. There's an unpleasant crunch of glass on glass at one point -- but no answering sound of movement from within the store. Peeking into the mirror a few anxious moments later, you can see clearly that the shelves were stripped a long time ago. No Twinkies here, though a couple of empty bottles rest forlornly on the floor. Still, it doesn't feel entirely abandoned -- the floor is covered with tracks rather than dust. The sign on the front door, barely hanging on, reads CLOSED.''
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| − | Deshwitat gives the all clear sign to Cruz and gestures for her to come down. Shi unholsters hir laser pistol and checks the charge on it as shi waits for Cruz to get here.
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| − | Cruz furrowed her brow and watched Deshwitat's advancement into the building from afar, hopping down at the signal and moving up to reconvene. "All clear so far... where'd they get to though?" she inquires quietly, casting an anxious glance over her shoulder.
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| − | Deshwitat gives a shrug and whispers, "I don't know? It's pretty dark in there. I can't see the whole room but I noticed some recent footprints in the dust. Looks like I'm goig to to shift forms if we want someone that has nightvision." the sound of cracking bones and poping sinew is sharply contrasted with the silence of the night as Deshwitat shifts into a Vampire Herm.
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| − | ''The store has a strong animal smell; it would've been obvious even to Deshwitat's human nose, and it's almost overpowering now. Ferals have clearly spent time here. You can make out a few hints of blood too. There's shed fur and feathers -- quite a lot of feathers -- on the ground. The place is somewhat smashed up and it's difficult to tell old damage from recent, but there are a couple of toppled shelves resting on a puddle, and the blood tang is stronger over there.''
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| − | Cruz winces and recoils a little at the paling of flesh and popping of bone, gripping her weapon tight and proceeding into the building. "Handy talent." She remarks, giving a low whistle at the scene, and moves in the direction of the toppled shelves, crouching down to examine the puddle and surrounding area a little closer - dipping a talon in and taking a whiff. "This place is a mess. We're sure this is the right address?"
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| − | In this new form form the smell of blood is arousing evident by hir slowly engorging cocks. Shi blushes, "I'm sorry about this. I guess I should have choosen a different form." as shi pulls the address and looks at it. "Yeah were at the right place. I'm going to follow where this blood goes." as shi crouches down and sniffs at the blood puddle and follows it to where it leads.
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| − | ''There's a glass bottle lying on its side a short distance from the puddle, and for a moment one might have hoped that it was something innocent left over from the old world. But no; this is Fairhaven, and the puddle is mostly milk -- not soured yet -- with a hint of salt. Nearby there are a few spatters of blood; they're still damp but starting to clot. You also spot a tuft of fur, orange-ish, glued to one of the shelves by a glob of blood. It's not a _lot_ of blood -- seems like someone might have been thumped or clawed, but they didn't bleed out here.''
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| − | "You do you, as long as it's the blood on the ground that keeps your attention." Cruz remarks gruffly, following behind her. She pauses and turns her eye to the bit of orange fuzz amongst the blood, rubbing it between her fingers. "Yeah... there was definitely a struggle. Maybe they were chased out of this building... but where to?" She wipes her hand off on a counter as she passes by.
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| − | Deshwitat shrugs "Ok so the blood trails a dead end. It ends in the store." Shi picks up the tuff of orange fur from the counter and examines it before taking a sniff also.
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| − | ''The fluff looks like a tuft of animal fur, torn out by an impact -- ouch. By the colour and the smell, maybe fox? After examining it, Cruz wipes her hand on the counter -- and as it trails over the wood, she feels it run over a few gouges from claws. Definitely a struggle here. But what happened? If they were taken out of the building, where'd they go? You didn't notice a big blood trail outside the door, just some smashed glass and shed feathers.''
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| − | Cruz lets her hand linger on the deep notches made in the wood, running her fingers over them with eyes narrowed. She moves back towards the door, wings folded at her sides. "I'm thinking our abductor might've taken to the skies... I can take a quick flap around, see where they may have gotten to. Just don't want to draw too much unwanted attention." She looks back to the half-cocked vampiress. "Would you be okay on your own for a minute?"
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| − | Deshwitat checks along the floor of the convience store feeling for any hidden panels. "Yeah seems like the best plan right now. Text me if you find anything. It seems like this area is mostly safe right now." as shi climbs over the counter and sits on the floor. Shi closes hir eyes and focus on not being aroused.
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| − | | |
| − | ''Cruz takes to the air. As you ascend, your sense of the area changes -- from the ground the 7-11 drew your attention, but from up here it's just one squat building. The apartment block just opposite dominates the thermals and currents, and the sound of squabbling gryphons carries clearly to you. The gaping hole in the top-floor wall looks less like gradual decay and more like an entrance.''
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| − | Cruz manages to clumsily click on her comm unit, speaking just loud enough for her voice to be heard over the rhythmic thump of wingbeats. "I think I may have found our abductors... blue gryphons. Something has them riled up - taking a closer look, but not too close. Will be back momentarily, maintaining silence for the next minute. If I take longer to report, come get me." She glides down towards the obvious entrance to the building, perching at the edge and keeping as quiet as she can manage for the time being.
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| − | Deshwitat double clicks signaling acknowledgement as shi sits there. Thinking about rainbows and butteries and not about blood. Oh that delicious, delicious blood. Shi licks hir lips unconsciously. Cocks slowly still rising to full mast.
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| − | ''From up here, the hole seems a lot larger; easily enough for a big fridge-freezer -- or a gryphon -- to fit through. You peer in through. The first, and loudest, thing you see is the pair of blue gryphons copulating. Both seem to be full of energy and enthusiasm and seem unlikely to notice you. The rest of the place is somewhere between an apartment and a nest; someone's brought whole branches up here and woven them around the couch. Although it's strewn with discarded food, eggshells, torn clothes, bottles, and geegaws, it feels like more of an organised, inhabited chaos then the other feral dens you've seen. It's hard to see from this angle, but it looks like there's a third gryphon stretched out on the couch, apparently asleep despite the racket.''
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| − | Cruz chooses not to push her luck and takes advantage of their preoccupation with each other to duck back out of view, gliding back down towards the 7-11, returning to the aroused vampiress. "Three gryphons, doing standard gryphony things. I... didn't see any fox, but I didn't see hide nor hair of the furball they made off with." she reports in.
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| − | Deshwitat opens hir eye at the sound of Cruz's voice and looks at her before saying, "You think he got changed into one a gryphon? What do you want to do? Get some evidence so to report in that the Agent we can to look for it's sane anymore but feral?" as shi gets to hir feet.
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| − | Cruz inclined her beak towards the ceiling, thinking back on it. "There was a third, who seemed kinda... beat. Worn out. Not quite physically the same as the other two, either. So it's... a distinct possibility. Probably worth investigating, we don't have any other leads to pursue and if he has been abducted by ferals, poor thing is probably injured and traumatized. They seemed a little more organized than your average group of roosting ferals though, should proceed carefully."
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| − | Deshwitat nods, "Ok which building is it and what's our entrance strategy?" as shi tightens hir combat armor looking ridiculous with 12 erect cocks bobbing in front of hir.
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| − | Cruz gestures for Deshwitat to follow - almost, almost cracking a little chuckle at the sight of the poor girl fumbling with her own armor. "I don't know if it's accessible from the ground, let's find out. C'mon." She retraces her movements back to the base of the building she'd found the gryphons roosting in.
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| − | ''The garden in front of the apartment building is overgrown, weeds and bushes everywhere. There's probably a paved path under there somewhere, but you'd need a flamethrower to find it. A few tendrils creep inquisitively towards your legs as you force your way through. The door itself is a hefty wooden affair; its paint is peeling but the door's still intact and seems to have swollen with the damp, wedging itself shut.''
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| − | Deshwitat hops back over the counter. Climbing through the window now takes a bit more time with 12 hugely erect cocks getting in the way. Now outside the scent of blood is near nonexistant. Deshwitat cloes hir eyes and takes a couple of deep breaths. Cocks finally starting to go flax. "Ok that's better. We'll see how we are going to get in." As shi comes up to the swollen shut door. "I think might have a way in." as shi shoves hir nail inbetweent he door jamb and door cutting the crack wider as shi goes.
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| − | "Careful about making a noisy entrance... they were preoccupied with bumping uglies last I saw them, but the less advance warning they get the better." She looks down at the rifle in her arms, then back to the door. "Need a hand jamming that open, or... you good?"
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| − | Deshwitat keeps on cutting as quietly as possible, "Let me finish doing this and then give me a hand on opening it." After shi finish cutting. Shi puts a hand on the door handle braces hirself against the door and waits for the extra help.
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| − | Cruz wedges the butt of her gun into the opening and applies a bit of elbow grease, warbling out a low growl and giving a firm shove with her foot.
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| − | ''The door resists for a moment, then gives with a satisfying wooden groan. You wait for a moment, tensed up in case of an attack -- but nothing. The hallway is a mess, though you've seen much worse. Looters, ferals, and survivors have all spent time here and left their mark, but it looks like it's not been used much recently and the nanites have cleaned up the worst of it. There are dusty doors to the ground-floor apartments, and just opposite is a stairway leading up.''
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| − | Deshwitat makes hir way up the stairs testing each wooden step carefully making sure they support hir weight. Knowing the nanite they might be dry rotted all the way though. Shi unholsters hir pistol keeping it trained upwards listening to any sounds that might indicate something coming in thier direction.
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| − | ''As you climb the stairs, you notice occasional feathers on the ground. With each floor there are more, and those with sharp ears can hear gryphon cries from up above. And... maybe scratching and thumping from one of the floors above? But a ways off, in an apartment; you're able to slip on up the stairs. After a long trudge -- especially for Deshwitat, hauling that extra weight -- you reach the uppermost floor. There's a breeze running through the area -- it must be blowing through that apartment whose wall had been opened up. You can hear roars and caws coming from just around the corner, in an apartment whose door hangs off its hinges; definitely more than one gryphon, though you can't tell how many, and judging by the thumps they're moving around some too.''
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| − | Cruz offered a hand to Deshwitat as she ascended the stairs, mindful of where her talons went. She perks to the sounds of gryphons overhead, moving a little slower and more cautiously as they reach the top floor, hunkering down and moving towards the thumping noise... towards that destroyed door, looking to Deshwitat for confirmation that shi was ready.
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| − | Deshwitat takes a look at the offered hand, "I'm good I can make my way up under my own power." as shi stacks up behind Cruz and giving her a double tap on the shoulder letting her know shi's ready to breach.
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| − | ''Inside: The two gryphons that Cruz saw earlier are, apparently, still going at it. On the other side of the apartment, easier to see from here, the tawny gryphon is still lying on the couch, out of it. They look like they're in poor shape, battered and cut, one ear torn. But something's changed: there's a gryphon now, another blue, though unlike the others it's wearing clothes, a sort of uniform: a shirt and pants with a white jacket and a white peaked cap. It's squatting down by the two mating gryphons, holding a glass bottle over the cock of the one on the bottom. Its interest doesn't seem purely professional, though: the other clawed hand runs over the crotch of its pants.''
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| − | Cruz nodded back to Deshwitat, then burst through the room with her gun trained on the first moving thing she saw - and froze at the peculiar sight of the injured gryphon being treated... and well, the 'doctor' treating itself. "... hands up. If you understand me, cooperate and this goes much nicer." she states, training her aim on the one in uniform treating the one on the couch. "I've got... so many questions here."
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| − | Deshwitat buttonhooks left as shi enters checking hir corner before pointing hir pistol at the three conscious gryphons and shouting, "Claws in the air and no moving or someone is going to get hurt." as shi scans the room for any other beings.
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| − | ''The ears of the gryphon in uniform jump up, and it turns with a snarl to face the two RSX agents. "Intruders! Milk-thieves! Egg-hunters!" it snarls; its clawed hand comes off its pants and points menacingly at them. "Get away! Place orders at store! Get away!" It rises into a crouch, ready to leap -- and the bottom of the two mating gryphons chooses that moment to begin filling the bottle. The uniformed gryphon hesitates a moment, glancing down at the bottle. You can tell it doesn't want to let it go, but it also wants to pounce you...''
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| − | "Stupid things... Can't say I didn't try." Cruz trains her aim on the bottle, partway-filled with the seed of the lower of the two gryphons. She slowly edges forward, slowly, slowly... giving Deshwitat a subtle nod indicating the injured gryphon she dearly hoped didn't turn out to be some random feral considering the stupid thing she was about to do... and the second the bottle filled or the uniformed gryphon made a sudden move, she'd fire a quick burst at the glassware and make a break for the unconscious avian on the couch.
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| − | Deshwitat reaches into hir pocket and pulls out a medical grenade, pulls the pin and tosses it at the gryphons feet. It releases it's nanite smoke. As shi rushes in to the downed gryphons side.
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| − | ''The bottle fills up squirt by squirt, worryingly quickly. Cruz and the uniformed gryphon look from the bottle to each other and back. As the glass fills, the gryphon's eyes light up with satisfaction, and its beak widens in a grin -- and then its eyes meet Cruz's again and its expression turns to one of alarm. But it's too late: a few bangs in quick succession and suddenly there's glass and 'milk' everywhere. The uniformed gryphon stares at its hand, shocked. One of its clawed fingers drips blood copiously -- it's not clear if it was hit by the bullet or a shard of glass. Miraculously, the gryphon being milked seems to be unscathed, or possibly just enjoying itself too much to notice. Either way, the healing grenade goes off a few moments later, obscuring them and, one presumes, fixing up the injury. A frustrated yowl comes from inside the cloud.''
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| − | Cruz didn't pause to consider the terrible thing she'd just done to both the uniformed gryphon's hand or the cock frighteningly close to that shattering glass - she could feel guilty later, right now her focus was on getting to the unconscious bird and helping Deshwitat drag him back out of the room, slinging the rifle over her back and switching to her sidearm to free up one arm. Her eyes dart for an easier avenue of escape than a huge flight of stairs - and then go to the hole she'd spied on them from earlier. She gulps, then looks to Desh. "I'm going to try and fly him out of here. I don't suppose you have the ability to be anything more... vertically-capable?"
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| − | Deshwitat drags the downed tawny gryphon with the help from Cruz. "If you can support the gryphon's weight in flight then do I'll meet you down on the ground." as shi leans out looks down and drops down at about half way down stabbing both claws into the wall slowing hir descent.
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| − | ''The injured one is slender for a gryphon, which helps when Cruz hefts him and starts heading towards the exit. Still, he's a dead weight; it's gonna take some fancy flying to get him out of there...''
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| − | Cruz nears the ledge and releases the gryphon from her grip to shift his weight to her powerful foot-talons, beating her wings furiously in an attempt to lift off. This... quickly proved to be more weight than she was really used to bearing however, and in lieu of that plan to take flight from the building, she flapped as hard as she could to slow their fall as they descended towards the ground - it was about halfway through her descent that she realized what an absolutely terrible idea this was, and screeched out a vulgarity. "SHIT!"
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| − | ''Just before she swoops out of the apartment, Cruz hears wailing coming from back in the cloud. "My hand, aaauugh... oh. My hand? That feels nice. Tingly. Slippery... no, you fools, this is no time for that. They're getting away! They're--" At around about the same time, and at about the same speed, Cruz, Deshwitat, and the tawny gryphon thump into the dense, tall undergrowth at the bottom of the apartment building. It breaks their fall -- and when, a moment later, a blue-furred head sticks out of the hole in the apartment wall, all that can be seen is gently rustling greenery. "Crap!" it yells, clutching its hat, then ducks back inside. "They're still in the nest. Find them before they find the eggs. And stop wasting milk!"''
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| − | Deshwitat pulls out hir laser pistol and fires multiple shots it at the hole as shi waddles over to Cruz. Shi get up under 1 of the tawny gphyron's shoulder, "Hey get the other side and lets hual him back to base." laying down cover fire all the while.
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| − | Cruz was only partly grateful for the bed of sticks cushioning her heavy fall, wincing and gingerly rubbing at the spot where one was jabbing right into her side. She waits until the sound of ferals overhead is good and gone before pulling out her communicator and radioing in, leaving the matter of inspecting the injured... god, hopefully this guy was the operative they were here to find after that fall. "This is the medivac group. Everything hurts. We're coming back with someone in tow." She released the button and heaved a sigh, then dragged herself out of the brush, taking the other shoulder and nodding to Deshwitat.
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| − | ----
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| − | ''It's a long, but thankfully uneventful, hike back to Zephyr. You haul the comatose gryphon across the lobby and into the elevator, down a level, and into triage. The orc in the lab coat looks up from-- is he sharpening an axe? "What you want?" he demands, glaring at you, then at the gryphon. "Stupid dum-dums! Not just stand there, put on bed! No time to waste!" It's both a relief and a disappointment when he pulls out a regular hypodermic needle and begins to apply standard, modern nanite therapy, bluntly ignoring you all the while. After a few tense minutes, the gryphon's wounds have closed and it shifts onto its side, breathing more easily. The orc relaxes too, though his eyes remain fixed on his patient. "He okay. But next time, you bring faster! Thogrom is doctor, not necromancer. Now go get pay, then back to work!"''
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| − | [[Category:RPLogs]]
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