Difference between revisions of "Quad Shot: A Boaring Log Title"

Jim is going to drive on out in his TRUCK. Headlights on. Eyes open. Any boars around, or can he safely drive up there and get out?

No boars around. Not even any evidence of them, save for the trampled paths they've created, and an area of crossing paths that's been... eaten quite a lot. Trampled, routed, defoliated entirely. There's a tree fifty yards off, and there's a tiny triangle of artificial light glowing up in it, along with the red dot of a lit smoke.

Jim turns off the truck, and leaves his rifle inside, so confident is he in his not seeing a single boar. He drives the tree as close to the light as he can, though, before getting out and walking up to the tree. "Howdy!" he calls out.

Kai is up there smoking. Of course she is. "Hey," she says. "Thought you'd show up like a bird." She pauses, blows out some smoke into the night. "You see any sign of the pigs?"

Jim shakes his head. "No ma'am. When you said you were in a tree, I reckoned you were hiding, and I wanted to be able to help you. I can escape better with wings, but I can only help someone else escape with a truck. Need any help down?" He comes up to the tree, braces himself against it, andt hrows up a hand.

<<DICE>> Kai rolls Arete (-1 from Wounds), difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> FAIL (2 2, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
<<DICE>> Kai rolls 1 dice (-1 from Wounds), difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> 1 success (6, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)

"Yeah, sure," says Kai, who is... not typically one for the taking of the help. Does she know about etiquette? She puts a booted foot down into that hand, helping soften the swing down. Which makes sense; she's bleeding, or has been bleeding - something went straight through the denim of her jeans, the acid-wash soaked through to the knee. But she seems alright. Alright-ish. Tired, maybe. The help means she doesn't have to hit the ground so damn hard.

<<DICE>> Jim rolls willpower, difficulty 8 
<<DICE>> 1 success (2 2 9, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)

Jim does see the blood as he does his best to catch/help Kai get down. With a grimace he manages to keep himself together. "There you go..." he grunts. "Let me help you into the truck, and I'll take you anywhere you need to go. Actually... let me run some first aid on that if you don't mind. Come on, it's in my truck."

She's got a gash in her hand, too, though she doesn't seem as bothered by any of it as she might be. There's a grunt; she clearly doesn't mind him looking, anyway. "Not as bad as it looks, but go on" she says, which she certainly means, but - you know, who knows how bad it even looks. "I'll clean it up good once I get on home." Hope he doesn't mind her smoking in that truck; she seems to have forgotten her pleasantries.

Jim pulls out a little first aid kit once he helps her climb in. From the driver's seat, he can pull out some stuff, and says "Hold out your hand, I'll clean it now for you. You don't regenerate, so I don't want to see you getting all infected." So assuming she lets him, he'll work on that hand, hitting it with a disinfecting cream, applying cotton to the wound, and taping the cotton in place. "I made a promise I'd heal a friend. This is what I can do to heal you." He does notice the smoke, but doesn't really mind. He's no uptight mad scientist running a board room in his truck.

<<DICE>> Jim rolls intelligence + medicine, difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> 2 successes (2 4 5 9, Specialty: No, Willpower: Yes)
[POOL] Jim spends 1 points of Willpower. Reason: Automatic Success

It's also not cigarette smoke. Ahem.

There's a sort of explosive little puff of laughter, like a thing she just can't contain. "The day I get an infection -" she says, but - nope, she doesn't finish that thought, just puffs away, lets him clean up her hand as he likes. One less thing for her to do, maybe. Kai blows the smoke out the window at least. "They're real fucked up, Jim," she says. "The charged pretty much as soon as they caught wind of me. Got -real- pissed and like - suddenly they're throwing their heads around about as fast as I can think."

Jim misses what KIND of smoke it is, too! But he's just uh, well patching up her hand. "Wow. Are they smart then? I did see that one torturing a poor rabbit, but..." He pulls the tape taut, then lets go of her hand. "This is awkward to ask, but do you want to clean up that leg, too? Otherwise just... anywhere you need to go i'll drive you."

Kai shouldn't smile like that, like she's -amused- at the awkwardness. She just shakes her head. "Dunno if they're smart. They -definitely- follow a leader though." A pause, then: "Look, I move fast. But these things - I was in the thick of them all of... thirty seconds, maybe less. I spent everything I had just keeping clear of their pointy ends. I killed - almost killed - -one-, like it wasn't going to get up again - and then I ran for the tree. The one, the leader - it charged the tree. Broke its skull, I could hear the pieces rattle, and it kept beating on the tree." Her brows go up like punctuation on the sentence. "And half a minute later, it's fine. All healed. Then they come around and see the one I dropped, see it's not gonna get back up? And they -ate it-. Like - ate it, skin and bones and all, and ate up the grass and dirt it bled on until there was nothing left. But they heal, and they heal fast. The one you shot didn't get a block and a half before the blood trail stopped."

Jim turns to start up the truck. But his ears are on her, listening to every word, even as he backs up, turns around, and gets to the road. "That makes it sounds like they're full on formori. If not, I reckon something just as bad. Demons? Do demons possess animals? Or are demon possessions and fomori the same thing? I don't even know anymore." He drives slowly, carefully. "You must be more powerful than you look, if you healed your own leg without taking your pants off. I can't even do that in this form. I'd have to change." He does stop at a stop sign and look at her. "He didn't even go down?" He smacks the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. "All that and I didn't even do anything. Who heals better, you or they?"

<<DICE>> Jim rolls rage, difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> 1 success (8, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)

In fairness, the wound is still there; it just doesn't look like it's still bleeding freely. In any case, Kai doesn't comment. Except for this: "How powerful do I look?" asks Kai. She has a puff on her smoke, considers the question, looking out the window. "I guess it depends. I don't -usually- heal if I'm fighting. Like - it's a thing I gotta..." she makes a gesture with her hand, wiggling fingers. "Well, there's some different ways. But it's work. You know? And they were healing without it seeming like they were trying. Just - everything knitting back together like it never happened."

Jim starts driving again, swinging around a corner. "Honestly ma'am? You look like you're a tough lady who could hold your own in a mean bar. But you don't look like an all powerful wizard. Maybe you are?" He's heading further away from measure two, and pulling into a Starbucks drive thru. They have those in Detroit right? "Oh I getcha. Want anything? Coffee? Snack? If it's work, gotta keep you hydrated and fed."

Kai laughs. "If I'm in a real fight in a bar, somebody fucked up /bad/," she says. She leans her head back on the headrest, closes her eyes, and smokes a minute before looking back at Jim. "Is it super bitchy to get one of them sandwiches with bacon on it? I feel cheated."

Jim shakes his head. "I'll have a lemon poppy muffin, a bacon and egg sandwich, more bacon on the side, and uh, ven-tie mocha frap, 3 extra shots." He looks over "That one's to bring back to Monday."

"She in a coma?" Kai asks, apparently perfectly aware of how much caffeine that is. "Thanks for the pickup, Jim," she adds, after a minute. "And the sandwich." Her teeth tug at the corner of her lip, and she glances out the window, thoughtful.

Jim adds some milk to the order, and pulls around. "She's a grad student. Same thing. And you're welcome." It'll take a little for the order. "The extra bacon is for us to split. We both earned some pork." Looking over again. "You really are tougher than I'd have guessed. And please do take that as a proper compliment. We can't shoot them. How did you take one down?"

Kai licks her lips and looks back at Jim a minute, assessing. "I don't think you'd get it," she says. "Call it 'the hard way' if you want." A puff, then: "But it's not a good idea. Like - I was holding them off, but I got a lot lucky, too. I think the best plan for getting rid of them is - you gotta rout them into a trap. Hurt 'em bad and fast. And don't hang around waiting to see how a tusk in the leg feels."

Jim isn't sure what she means by that. He's wondering if he WANTS To know what the hard way is. He snickers "I'm just going to imagine you kicking them upside the head and leave it at that, as he carefully brings the tray in, and passes her the bag. Monday's drink he puts in a GIANT cup holder, because Texas, and he drives off. "We need a trap,a nd we need a team. They can be lured. They have goals. That's an advantage for us. Good information."