Question: When paying health, can it be assumed it goes down by one level, a different number or levels, or is that not necessarily predictable?
[x] Your supply of improvised explosives
This is why we brought them. It would be silly to try to hold onto them.
[x] One Gift (offensive)
I would choose to use the gift to try to figure out at least one weakness of the squadcars, ideally one that might translate to others of the nightmare beings that inhabit the new world.
[x] Any pretense of stealth
It is very difficult to use improvised explosives stealthily, especially when you need to clear a path.
We have, A LOT of people that need us right now. and i dont want anyone getting hurt let alone dying, a defensive gift helps us in fights, and im sure it will come in handy in other places.
This does raise some fascinating questions about oneiromancy. On the one hand, people like the research team inside Station 104 are clearly influenced by their own personal thoughts on their body: see, fursona, and Brianna's comment clearly following on from my autistic-person-gains-empathy-ability joke from earlier. It's what you want, how you see yourself, reflected.
But, on the flipside, we have large groups where we're not certain if their morphing was internal (the collected fascism of police and corporations warped them so their outsides were as evil and monstrous as their inside) or external (ACAB turned metaphorical pigs into literal ones.)
And the strippers meanwhile were clearly forced by external pressure. I doubt they wanted themselves to become spider-women, or at least, in this specific way.
This does raise some fascinating questions about oneiromancy. On the one hand, people like the research team inside Station 104 are clearly influenced by their own personal thoughts on their body: see, fursona, and Brianna's comment clearly following on from my autistic-person-gains-empathy-ability joke from earlier. It's what you want, how you see yourself, reflected.
But, on the flipside, we have large groups where we're not certain if their morphing was internal (the collected fascism of police and corporations warped them so their outsides were as evil and monstrous as their inside) or external (ACAB turned metaphorical pigs into literal ones.)
And the strippers meanwhile were clearly forced by external pressure. I doubt they wanted themselves to become spider-women, or at least, in this specific way.
[X] The excellent health of your squad
[X] One gift (Defensive)
[X] Ammunition
Use what we've got an abundance of, while we have it, and use a gift to keep our team as safe as possible. This won't be the only obstacle we have to deal with.
EDIT:
Also, could we use the Mime's Knack to make our bullets armor piercing rounds or explosive rounds? Might help us pinch through those cars.
While true, the problem is that unspent gifts don't do anything. While I think keeping one gift in reserve for an emergency is a good idea having more than that seems like a waste when we could have a power instead. It's like leveling up in an RPG, getting a bunch of Stat points and never spending them. Plus with the amount of combat Orchid gets into a defensive or offensive power is always going to be useful.
You're changing more, aren't you? Part of you wonders how much this can alter you. It may be that something you've already acquired will start changing instead of something new showing up. But for now, this is how it is, and besides...the Lady had said she changed a lot. That's a comforting thought. This won't be subtle, but it'll be heroic.
You lose your supply of improvised explosives Actually, we won't be needing these.
You have acquired Glazier's Dominion.
Glazier's Dominion; you can exercise control over glass that is not part of a living being; assembling it into new shapes, making it act 'like' another solid substance, shattering it, and more. You need to be touching the glass. If it was all part of the same conceptual object (ex. "this door" or "the windows of this house"), you can return it to its previous shape and location by touching any part of the glass; to assemble a new shape, or use pieces from many conceptual objects, you gotta touch them all. It's barely any mental or physical effort but it will take time, and probably demand heavy-duty gloves if you like your blood being on the inside rather than getting sliced up.
"So, can you make the net?" you ask the gathered spider-women. They all look at each other; there is a chorus of nodding, but the blonde one you've been thinking of as their 'leader' makes an eating gesture with her hands. You open your backpack to take out some of the leftover money from the liquor stores, but when the wad of bills comes out she shakes her head and repeats the gesture. "...Oh you can still eat food!" She nods excitedly. "That's great news! Will you um...die without the money?" She bites her lip, and then shrugs, unsure. "...Well, we'll burn that bridge when we cross it. In the meantime..."
You don't know if anyone else here has ever seen fifteen athletic (spider) women really let loose on a meal, or, for that matter, have such a feast made more or less entirely out of every last snack y'all packed (and eventually the sodas people had looted, offered up with a range of emotions from 'bemused' to 'grumbling'), but it's quite a sight. You'd thought the pole dancing in the movie looked really hard to do...
"I have. A. Carnal. Need," Sasha whispers in awe.
"Same," someone who sounds a lot like you says.
"Orchid," Jill chides. You blink at her, confused, and - oh that was you that said that. Um. Okay. Let's repress that for now. It's getting crowded in your emotions but you are, legitimately, too busy to unpack all that at this time. You turn back to the battlefield and raise your binoculars; soon enough, you start detailing orders, while your newest allies family friends gather into a circle and begin extruding web.
* * * *
The only part of this you're sketch on is the bit where you, personally, need to be on the ground. Well, no, you're doing just fine with that, but Jill and Sasha and also the blonde spider somehow? did not like that bit at all. However, Jill, reluctantly, ends up confirming to the others that as far as she knows your idea will work and you are, in fact, the expert on it insofar as any experts exist. High above your head, a vast net of glass webbing, chiming in the spring winds, is just about in position; two trailing cables of it are tucked into your belt. The hostages...well, maybe you'll all miss them. And then it will be fine.
You get on the walkie-talkie as you reach a car whose hood has been popped open by crashing into a mailbox, and speak quietly into it: "My compliments to the duty weavers; drop the net." This done, you immediately pocket the comm device and get the two strands of webbing into your hands. The trick with the key will fix the battery up...
Hey, your damaged mind informs you. Did you know that glass doesn't conduct electricity very well?
What? Why not? Glass on wool makes electricity.
But your useless fucking memory continues: that would be static electrici -
The extent to which the mental image of you throttling your own brain is a mnemonic vs. it being something literally happening to an aspect of your personality is something the world may never know; without hesitation, you tap into that warmth over your heart, and focus. You've seen glass do all sorts of things it "shouldn't" do. Whatever the conventional laws of physics were, the book has been rewritten. You've cast the object from a reflection, you've had a conversation with a coma victim whose power let her help people become people again, you're not going to be stopped by something as banal and moronic as 'oh no, glass isn't lightning's favorite thing, waaah'. Lightning needs to grow up.
The net slams into the squadcars and their puppets, and you jam your ends of it into the car battery, which is not a car battery; it's a live generator, isn't it? And then you touch the net, for a fleeting moment, and find that either glass is inclined to listen to you, or you and glass have very similar opinions about how it should behave.
First the net spirals, avoiding the hostages with unnatural grace, and tightens into a ball around the squadcars and their puppets.
Then it becomes a second sun as your encouragement and power convince it to suck in the electricity. The screaming is immediate, as are the scents of charred flesh and slagging glass, but there's no time. You race towards the hostages, pointing each one towards buildings with open doors and hoping they can hear your shouts of "GET INTO COVER!" over the sounds of agonizing death by forces once thought impossible for mortal oneiromancy. Two of the nine flee the field of battle entirely, but there's no time to worry about them, no time at all.
The pickets are coming next, the ones you avoided on the way in.
As clean an ambush as you could ask for. Lose 1
[ ] Squad ammunition
[ ] The explosives you didn't need for this first strike
As with all -mancy words, a strict translation would be 'divination via glass', though here I'm pretty sure Kermie is aiming at a meaning closer to the vernacular; 'glass magic'.
As with all -mancy words, a strict translation would be 'divination via glass', though here I'm pretty sure Kermie is aiming at a meaning closer to the vernacular; 'glass magic'.
