IGNITION'S RECOUPERATION
- Location
- England
Thinking about the overwhelming task before you, you take a long breath, hold it until your lungs ache and then slowly let it go, feeling the flames within rise and fall as you do so.
First things first, you need to heal, you can't do anything if you can't even walk across the room. Your magic seems to just set things on fire, and your control is flimsy enough that you don't feel confident enough playing around with it so near your sister. You distantly remember something about the body needing energy to heal and while it does give you some ideas you don't really feel like risking it. Though... considering your circumstances you feel that if you are really careful and leave the caged flames alone, maybe you could make a stop-gap measure for now?
No, it's not worth the risk right now, once your sister wakes up and moves away you might try something, but for now you let the idea go. You do get the impression that you are healing faster than normally anyway, seeing as the pain is dulling a lot faster than you expected based on past experiences. For now though, the best chance you have is to rest for the night, get some proper sleep and see how mobile you are in the morning.
(Overnight Rolls
Sisters Hiding: 15 + 15 Cerys = 30 (Hunters need to roll higher than this to notice something amiss.)
Military Searching: 5
Looters Searching: 19
Cerys Health: 33 + 15 = 48)
When you wake in the morning, Una still sleeping lightly, you instinctively stretch your legs. A sharp jolt reminds you that just the day before you were on the verge of death, cringing back into where you were lying. Thankfully you don't wake Una up and get to watch her adorable sleeping face for another hour. You do eat one of the apples she left for you, and it's delicious, one of the best you've ever tasted despite being refrigerated. Maybe letting cooling then eating them just when they warm up adds to the taste? You'll have to try it with some of the others in the fridge, if there are any.
Shaking your head away from thoughts on food, you look down at your legs, wiggling your toes a little. The slight movement sends jolts of pain all the way up your legs and into your spine, taking a sudden deep breath, you slowly breath out. At least it isn't nerve damage, it hurts like fuck. You think you might be able to shamble around in a couple of hours, if Una is there to help, so you certainly aren't going to be going anywhere for now. Sighing, you close your eyes and try for a light nap, awake enough to pay attention to things around you, but asleep enough for time to pass very quickly.
Several hours later, Una wakes with the rising sun, sleepy smile on her face as she nuzzles into your chest. She's aware instantly, but once she notices that you're holding her, allows herself to fall back into a sleepy nap. With a soft smile you clutch her closer to your chest and revel in her warmth for a little longer.
After you feel that she's had long enough to doze, you start gently running your hands through her hair. They glide through her naturally silky locks and starting gently bringing her out of her doze. A good ten minutes later and you are fairly sure she is just faking it for the attention now, but... Considering everything that has happened recently, you let her cuddle into you for that little bit longer.
Eventually you lift your hands with a sigh, a cute grumble protesting your movement as you gently poke her in the forehead and whisper. "Time to get up now."
She frowns cutely, but still wiggles her way out of your hug until she's sitting on the other side of the bed. Before she can say anything you pass her the other apple with a smile. She starts to protest for a moment, but you just give that look, that one when you know she's done something silly and is about to get a talking to. You let her start sheepishly eating the apple before you say anything, these conversations are always easier when she has something to occupy herself with.
"So, considering the racket you made with your little adventure last night, did you find anything worth mentioning?"
You can see her try to hide a wince behind the apple at the knowledge that you heard her looting spree. She actually thought she managed to sneak past me? Even if she had the quiet whumph she made when she tripped on the way out would have woken you up, being a light sleeper was a necessity for you. You let her think about her question for a little while, genuinely curious despite already having a good idea of her answer. Instead of words, she sheepishly wanders over to the box, apparently trying to hide that she's avoiding putting weight on her right food as she does so. Ah, that would explain that godawful noise last night. Curiosity satisfied, you see her wander back over holding several books and random little pieces of office supplies.
"There were some books that looked useful, manuals or something, some ductape and other little things. There is loads of food in the fridge, I didn't check the upper cupboards but in the lowers ones there was some cleaning supplies." You see her eyes dart to each as she mentions them, then over at the still open box. "I found that in a shoebox by the door, I didn't think about it and put some random numbers inanditopened." The last part of the sentence comes out in a nervous rush as you stare heavily at her.
Keeping up your gaze for a minute, you let out a soft sigh and reach out to ruffle her hair, to much futile protest as she tries to pretend she's not leaning into your hand. "I'm not angry at you for looking around like you did. Though it looks like I'm going to have to go over how to search a house quietly with you, again." You see the realisation dawn in her eyes that you had been awake the whole time and she starts toeing the floor with her foot.
You look back over to the box. "I am disappointed that you let your curiosity get the better of you and toyed with something you know to leave alone. I've been over this with you Una. Finding things like this can get us in deep trouble if people realise that we were the ones to find it." She starts looking more downcast with every word, nuzzling further into your hand like a wounded kitten.
"That said... I am glad that you found this now." Her head snaps back up at your words, expecting a scalding about her carelessness. "I had been thinking of just leaving the house like this, but since it's clearly involved in some sort of crime we are going to have to cover our tracks more thoroughly." Considering your newfound talents of setting things on fire, you don't imagine you'll have too much difficulty with that, though it will definitely draw the attention of the military to see a fire burst into existence when everything is calm.
Una just shuffles closer to you on the bed and tries her best to crawl into you. Seeing as that's impossible, she just snuggles close enough that you bite you lip to hide the pain her cuddling brings. "I'm actually really proud of you, you know." You whisper into her ear softly. "You kept calm when I was injured, made sure the house was secure and checked out the house while I was down." Ignoring her little drinking habit, I'll bring that up later, you really are. She was calm, sensible and follow the commands you gave her in spirit, if not letter. Stay safe, stay calm, stay secure.
As much as you want to snuggle with her all day, you need to start planning on what to do next.
"Can you pass me the paper, a book and one of the pens?"
She scurries over to the pile of things and roots around in it for a moment before coming back to you with what you asked. Taking them from her, you put the book down and then the paper atop it, starting a list.
1 - Secure new hideout. (Need to heal. Fireproof?)
2 - Remove evidence at current hideout. (Check cameras for local recordings? Burn it down?)
3 - Test powers. (Fireproof Room, Garage?)
You scribble down your list in your own messy scrawl, you and Una can read it, so it's good enough. You already know the layout of the house from when you arrived and it's about as secure as you can make it without starting to board up the windows. The garage islocked, but you know ways around that and the camera equipment is probably kept there. The house itself was made of fancy wood and has lots of furnishings, you have no doubt that with a bit of effort it will go up like a pyre. For your powers, you guess the garage would do for testing. The walls and ceiling were concrete and there isn't a smoke detector there because of car fumes, it's a little small but it should do the trick.
Tapping the blunt end of the pencil against your lip you try to remember any safe areas nearby, the forest at the edge of town isn't far, so that's an easy way to escape. The railway is probably being guarded by the military, but if you could get some nice-clothes and a backpack, you could pretend to be on a trip to an aunt with your sister, it had worked before. The warehouses over by the industrial sector are promising, but probably crawling with military, criminals and the like right now. You suppose you could try another nearby house, you'd checked the entire street and there was an empty bungalow near the end of the cul-de-sac. Though you imagine it won't be empty for long...
Gah, too many places and most of them are bad choices. You figure your best bet is to skip town entirely, if you can find a car it wouldn't be that hard, if there isn't any military presence near the entrances or exits. The train has merit and you figure that the buses aren't running. Train might not be either, but I doubt it, probably being used for relief efforts
With a sigh, you put your list to the side and look at where your sister is latched onto your side like a limpet, giving her arm a poke, you get her attention.
"I don't think I can walk properly right now, do you mind helping me over to the bathroom, I smell awful and so do you."
She sticks her tongue out at you childishly and slides herself under your arm as you stand up, helping you hobble your way over to the bathroom.
An hour later, thoroughly relaxed and much cleaner, the two of you make your way back to the bed, walking under your own power this time. The blissfully hot water feels like it's rejuvenated you and you feel much better than you did before. You doubt you'll be running anywhere, but for now the ability to walk is a godsend. With Una dressed, you realise your predicament, your clothes were incinerated by your transformation earlier, meaning you had nothing to wear.
With a quiet grumble -I liked that hoodie- you poke your head into the closet of the master bedroom. None of the underwear fit, they are all too big, but you do manage to find a pair of black jogging bottoms and a dark blue t-shirt that's about the right size. You have Una help you change your bandages before putting on your new clothes. They feel a little strange and smell odd, like another person obviously, they do the job.
With clothing acquired, you move over to look at the Box, something you'd been avoiding to this point. The huge stack of money was both a good sign and a bad sign. It was good because now you have a huge stack of money, it was bad because you very much doubt the owner wants you to have said stack of money. Flipping the lid on the smaller box confirms your fears, an expensive looking gun and lots of ammunition. You look at the gun for a long time before you letting out a long sigh.
You gesture Una over from where she was lounging on the bed, reading through the encyclopedia she found and wait for her to her skitter over.
"Since we have this at hand, I might as well give you a more practical demonstration that the verbal one I gave you before."
Something lights up in her eyes as you reach towards the gun and lift it out of the box. It's a little lighter than you were expecting to be honest, though you suppose that seeing how customised it is, part of it is probably made of a lighter metal than normal. You place the gun on the floor in front of you and reach for one of the empty magazines, then several bullets with the other hand.
"First, to load a magazine, you do this."
You walk her through loading the magazine, then loading the gun itself, pulling back the slide. You look at her and ask her to recite what you had just done and why, once she does so to your satisfaction you show her the safety and explain how it works. Afterwards you unload the gun and give it to her. She tenderly takes it in an awkward grip that you gently correct. You spend the next several minutes explaining how to use a gun to the best of your knowledge, and you are incredibly proud of how seriously she is taking you.
She keeps the gun pointed at the floor when you aren't showing her how to aim and listens to every word you speak attentively. Once you deem her informed enough, you put the gun back in it's slot and let her try to load a magazine. She fumbles with a bullet several times, but she fills the entire thing fine. You take the opportunity to lift the smaller box out of the larger part and tell her to load the other magazines. While she is doing so, you notice a small black belt of some kind underneath where the smaller box was.
When you pull it out, you see what looks like a leg strap of some sort. Ah, a gun holster. It makes sense that you would need one of those if you were actually going to be wearing a gun while going somewhere. You put it with the other pile of things for now and go back to observing Una's progress. She's loading the last magazine now, apparently having gotten the hang of holding a bullet without slipping and is sliding them in one after another quickly. Once she's done you take all of the loaded magazines and put them back in their slots next to the unloaded gun.
You aren't really comfortable with the thought of using a gun, but if you need to protect Una you will be much more capable with one in hand. Though... if you spent longer teaching her you suppose you could give it to her. It's still a little heavy and large for her hands, but it would be a lot better than her having to hide and being helpless against anything that gets past you.
Ruminating on your thoughts, you close the smaller box and stand up while looking at the alarm clock on the bedside cabinet. Seeing that it's nearing ten, you decide it's time for breakfast, a little late but better than never. The two of you make your way downstairs, you much more carefully than your sisters bouncing steps, and wander over to the kitchen. Seeing the vast supplies that is that fridge makes you smile, you like cooking, but you rarely get the chance to cook an actual meal rather than something you've managed to cobble together.
Today, you decide, will be boiled eggs and soldiers. It was an old English recipe that you'd learned years ago from a chatty sailor that gave you a lift upriver for free. Reaching over, you turn flick the gas on and fill a pot with water. Setting one of the rings alight, you gently place several eggs into the pot, and put said pot onto the ring, dropping four slices of bread into the toaster. Once that is done, you butter the bread and cut it into strips about an inch wide.
Once the eggs have been boiling for about five minutes, you take them out and lay two eggs each, with eight strips of bread each. While you've were doing this, Una laid the table and made the both of you some milkshakes from a pot of powdered milkshake she found on the side. You flick the oven off at the wall and wash out the pot, then sit down at the table with a relived sigh, taking the weight off of your legs. The two of you devour your food much faster than you expected, but then, it is good.
You hadn't taken the sailor at his word at the time, but when you dunk the bread into the still slightly runny egg and take a bite, it's amazing. It only takes you two minutes to finish both of your eggs and all of your bread, but Una was done even faster and takes your empty plate with a smile of gratitude. Once they are in the sink, you both migrate over to the sofa and lay back with a long, content sigh. After the bath your wounds have stopped hurting so much, you are safe for now and your belly is full. Today is a good day.
You suppose you should take advantage of this moment of peace to talk to Una about what happened yesterday. She's not asked, but you can tell she's really curious. You tell her roughly what happened yesterday, leaving out how many people died and emphasising that it was gone for good now and they were safe. The conversation ends with both of you smiling as you lead her thoughts away with silly jokes and terrible puns.
You spend the next hour or so just chatting idly with her about random things, briefly getting her opinion on the things on your list. She hasn't had time to have a look around herself, so she doesn't know any other places to stay and she really doesn't care where you go. She really wants to see you use magic again, you promised to show her, after you manage to control it without bursting into flames. And thinking about that, your eyes move over to the garage.
You'd kept your sister out of there because she would probably find a way to cut herself with a rusty piece of metal or something, but it probably houses the camera's hardware and that should burn nicely. With a sigh, you decide you should get this under control as soon as you can, you doubt you'll manage to set the building on fire through concrete. Just in case, you have Una sitting by the back door, in case she needs to escape it's unlocked, though the blinds are still down.
Making your way to the locked door, you poke and prod at the rusty old door for a little while before bracing your foot against the floor and your shoulder against the lock. You rear back and push off of the ground as hard as you can, an unexpected slither of energy flowing into your leg and arm when you hit the door. The impact is strangely muffled and you feel the steel bolt inside the door shear and audibly snap. Stepping back for a moment you look down at your feet, a hole in the carpet where your foot was and left a slight indent into the now sagging wooden floorboards.
You blink and stand silently for a long moment. That was supposed to jar the lock slightly, where the frame was wooden but the door itself was metal, instead it feels like you snapped the lock itself clean in two. Feeling strangely energised you reach forwards and gently push against the door, it swings open without a single noise and you can see the inside side of the lock. The bolt is completely shattered, the end of the bolt hanging there, separate from the rest of the metal door.
Your mouth works silently for a minute before you just close your eyes and walk through the door. Weird, sudden magical boosts of strength were nice, so long as you managed to control them.
Looking around the room, you come across something that makes you smile. In one corner, on top of a table lines with tools of all sorts, you see a monitor that clearly shows the outside of the house and just below it you see an expensive looking box with a VHS slot on the front. Bingo, camera blackbox. You move over to the box with a smile on your face, if you can destroy this then it will completely erase any worried you'd had about staying here. The box itself is pretty heavily armoured, seeing as it's supposed to survive house fires, but you bet you can think of a way to destroy it.
You poke and prod at it for a while, but even the VHS slot is locked shut, and the cables go through the back and can't be pulled out. You give the entire unit a shove and find that it's been bolted to the table too. Mmm, magic it is I guess.
You move back over to the door to push it closed, and seeing as you cant lock it now, you put a box of various tools to stop it from swinging open. Then, you move over to the centre of the empty garage and sit down, remembering that you are supposed to sit with your legs crossed when you did the whole meditating them from a movie you watched once, but your aching legs put that idea to rest, so you kinda just rest on your butt and hip with your legs laid out to the side.
Right, magic time. Let a little bit out first.
(Cerys: 6 + 10 Being Careful - 10 Magic Control = 6)
You loosen the bindings a little and the fire immediately rushes out of you in a great blaze, setting everything within five feet of you on fire.
(Cerys: 50 + 10 Being Careful - 10 Ohshit - 10 Magic Control = 40)
You immediately pull back as much as you can and cage the flames again, though the floor is still smouldering, there is a cloth burning to your left and a box of tools to your right is slightly melted, the metal glowing a dull orange. You take several deep breaths, nearly hyperventilating at the shocking explosion of fire that had spilled forth from you so quickly. You turn your eyes to the still burning cloth and the concrete below you that you could see the heat rising off of. You take the brief moment to wonder why you aren't being burned before you realise that since your magic is about fire, if you don't want to feel the heat you don't obviously.
With that revelation in hand, you decide to make one more attempt at this whole 'control' thing before you burn the house down by accident.
(Cerys: 34 + 20 Being Very Careful - 10 Magic Control = 44)
This time, when you loose the bonds on the flames, while they try to rush out you manage to grasp it at the last minute, having been prepared for such an occurrence. You aren't quite sure how to describe what it's like to be holding back the flames from leaving your body with nothing more than an imaginary grasp. You can't feel them with your limbs, but somehow you can still feel the flames that are seeping out of the tiny gap you left, writhing in your hold.
You can feel the heat in these flames, the knowledge that if you were to let them go they would reach out and set ablaze anything within your range. The knowledge of the sheer danger they hold awes you slightly. It's like holding a wildfire in your hand, raging and roaring within your grip, trying to spread through the countless little gaps to consume everything but you.
You spend a long time holding the tiny little part of your flame, poking and prodding it with imaginary fingers and nearly losing your grip more than once when it rushes through the nearest opening you leave it. Somehow, despite its uncontrollable rush to the surface, it doesn't seem to be disobeying you in the slightest. It feels strangely alive, but it's just fire in it's most basic form, reaching out to burn and burn and burn without end. After nearly losing control of it once more, you decide to cage it fully again, but you feel as if you've learned a great deal here, and it feels just a little easier to shore up the bonds that hold your fire tight.
You decide to test one last thing before you go. The surge of energy before you hit the door is fresh in your mind, it didn't feel like your flame, but at the same time it did. Your fire was still caged when it happened, but it still felt like the energy came from there. You try to carefully channel? recreate? that feeling you had before as you stare at your hand.
(Cerys: 52 + 20 Being Very Careful -10 Magic Control = 62)
You feel something from your flame before a rush of energy fills your hand, it travels out from your flame and up your arm near instantly, leaving a tingling trail as it goes. The feeling almost surprises you enough that you lose control of it, but you manage to keep yourself calm and steady. Staring at your tingling arm, you suddenly notice the complete lack of pain in that arm. You slide back a sleeve and a little bit of bandage, but your injuries still remain, if maybe healing slightly faster?
An idea comes to mind and you try to pull another stream of energy to your other hand, it obeys just as easily as the first and rushes up your arm instantly, leaving your other arm feeling just as good as the first. You have a brief thought about trying to do your whole body like this, but decide not to push your chances, the though of this energy going wrong when it is inside you makes you think better of it. Instead you make the energy cease and it instantly retreats back to your flame. Now that is interesting. The energy didn't dissipate inside you or linger or leak out, it returned back to your flame just as quickly as it appeared.
You smile a bit at the knowledge you've gained about your powers today and decide to play with them a little. You run the energy, your magic you suppose, through your legs as you stand. When you manage to push yourself up without any pain you smile broadly, moving over to the burning cloth and giving it a few stomps before leaving the room. Una is still waiting by the back door with patience, even though it must have been at least twenty minutes.
When she sees your approaching she smiles and moves away from the door, locking it as she does so. She hands the key over to you as she look at you with an expectant face.
"I think I managed to figure out a little about my power. I guess I'll just call it what it is though, magic." Smells like magic, looks like magic, acts like magic. It's Magic. Not that uh, you know what magic smells, looks or acts like. Well, you guess you do now.
Your little sister spends the next two hours peppering you with questions as you laze around in bed, resting. She gives you a lot of ideas on how your magic might work and all of the different things you could maybe do with it. It amuses you to see her mouth moving so quickly it looks like a blur, only your long experience in dealing with her exited speech letting you parse any of it at all.
You've spent about half the day so far, seeing as the alarm clock next to you claims it's just a little past half twelve. You suppose you could go outside to look around but you're not completely sold on either using your magic trick to be able to walk properly or going out in the daytime at all. You do send Una over to the spare bedroom and have her bring back the pillows from that bed. They'll work as makeshift bags once you empty them out if you need to later.
Now, what are you going to do next...
[] Rest Until Nightfall
-[] Write In...
[] Go Out During The Day
-[] Write In...
[] Write In...
+ 5 XP Learned how to not set everything on fire
+ 5 XP Learned how to direct magic within the body(?)
+ 1 XP Remain hidden
First things first, you need to heal, you can't do anything if you can't even walk across the room. Your magic seems to just set things on fire, and your control is flimsy enough that you don't feel confident enough playing around with it so near your sister. You distantly remember something about the body needing energy to heal and while it does give you some ideas you don't really feel like risking it. Though... considering your circumstances you feel that if you are really careful and leave the caged flames alone, maybe you could make a stop-gap measure for now?
No, it's not worth the risk right now, once your sister wakes up and moves away you might try something, but for now you let the idea go. You do get the impression that you are healing faster than normally anyway, seeing as the pain is dulling a lot faster than you expected based on past experiences. For now though, the best chance you have is to rest for the night, get some proper sleep and see how mobile you are in the morning.
(Overnight Rolls
Sisters Hiding: 15 + 15 Cerys = 30 (Hunters need to roll higher than this to notice something amiss.)
Military Searching: 5
Looters Searching: 19
Cerys Health: 33 + 15 = 48)
When you wake in the morning, Una still sleeping lightly, you instinctively stretch your legs. A sharp jolt reminds you that just the day before you were on the verge of death, cringing back into where you were lying. Thankfully you don't wake Una up and get to watch her adorable sleeping face for another hour. You do eat one of the apples she left for you, and it's delicious, one of the best you've ever tasted despite being refrigerated. Maybe letting cooling then eating them just when they warm up adds to the taste? You'll have to try it with some of the others in the fridge, if there are any.
Shaking your head away from thoughts on food, you look down at your legs, wiggling your toes a little. The slight movement sends jolts of pain all the way up your legs and into your spine, taking a sudden deep breath, you slowly breath out. At least it isn't nerve damage, it hurts like fuck. You think you might be able to shamble around in a couple of hours, if Una is there to help, so you certainly aren't going to be going anywhere for now. Sighing, you close your eyes and try for a light nap, awake enough to pay attention to things around you, but asleep enough for time to pass very quickly.
Several hours later, Una wakes with the rising sun, sleepy smile on her face as she nuzzles into your chest. She's aware instantly, but once she notices that you're holding her, allows herself to fall back into a sleepy nap. With a soft smile you clutch her closer to your chest and revel in her warmth for a little longer.
After you feel that she's had long enough to doze, you start gently running your hands through her hair. They glide through her naturally silky locks and starting gently bringing her out of her doze. A good ten minutes later and you are fairly sure she is just faking it for the attention now, but... Considering everything that has happened recently, you let her cuddle into you for that little bit longer.
Eventually you lift your hands with a sigh, a cute grumble protesting your movement as you gently poke her in the forehead and whisper. "Time to get up now."
She frowns cutely, but still wiggles her way out of your hug until she's sitting on the other side of the bed. Before she can say anything you pass her the other apple with a smile. She starts to protest for a moment, but you just give that look, that one when you know she's done something silly and is about to get a talking to. You let her start sheepishly eating the apple before you say anything, these conversations are always easier when she has something to occupy herself with.
"So, considering the racket you made with your little adventure last night, did you find anything worth mentioning?"
You can see her try to hide a wince behind the apple at the knowledge that you heard her looting spree. She actually thought she managed to sneak past me? Even if she had the quiet whumph she made when she tripped on the way out would have woken you up, being a light sleeper was a necessity for you. You let her think about her question for a little while, genuinely curious despite already having a good idea of her answer. Instead of words, she sheepishly wanders over to the box, apparently trying to hide that she's avoiding putting weight on her right food as she does so. Ah, that would explain that godawful noise last night. Curiosity satisfied, you see her wander back over holding several books and random little pieces of office supplies.
"There were some books that looked useful, manuals or something, some ductape and other little things. There is loads of food in the fridge, I didn't check the upper cupboards but in the lowers ones there was some cleaning supplies." You see her eyes dart to each as she mentions them, then over at the still open box. "I found that in a shoebox by the door, I didn't think about it and put some random numbers inanditopened." The last part of the sentence comes out in a nervous rush as you stare heavily at her.
Keeping up your gaze for a minute, you let out a soft sigh and reach out to ruffle her hair, to much futile protest as she tries to pretend she's not leaning into your hand. "I'm not angry at you for looking around like you did. Though it looks like I'm going to have to go over how to search a house quietly with you, again." You see the realisation dawn in her eyes that you had been awake the whole time and she starts toeing the floor with her foot.
You look back over to the box. "I am disappointed that you let your curiosity get the better of you and toyed with something you know to leave alone. I've been over this with you Una. Finding things like this can get us in deep trouble if people realise that we were the ones to find it." She starts looking more downcast with every word, nuzzling further into your hand like a wounded kitten.
"That said... I am glad that you found this now." Her head snaps back up at your words, expecting a scalding about her carelessness. "I had been thinking of just leaving the house like this, but since it's clearly involved in some sort of crime we are going to have to cover our tracks more thoroughly." Considering your newfound talents of setting things on fire, you don't imagine you'll have too much difficulty with that, though it will definitely draw the attention of the military to see a fire burst into existence when everything is calm.
Una just shuffles closer to you on the bed and tries her best to crawl into you. Seeing as that's impossible, she just snuggles close enough that you bite you lip to hide the pain her cuddling brings. "I'm actually really proud of you, you know." You whisper into her ear softly. "You kept calm when I was injured, made sure the house was secure and checked out the house while I was down." Ignoring her little drinking habit, I'll bring that up later, you really are. She was calm, sensible and follow the commands you gave her in spirit, if not letter. Stay safe, stay calm, stay secure.
As much as you want to snuggle with her all day, you need to start planning on what to do next.
"Can you pass me the paper, a book and one of the pens?"
She scurries over to the pile of things and roots around in it for a moment before coming back to you with what you asked. Taking them from her, you put the book down and then the paper atop it, starting a list.
1 - Secure new hideout. (Need to heal. Fireproof?)
2 - Remove evidence at current hideout. (Check cameras for local recordings? Burn it down?)
3 - Test powers. (Fireproof Room, Garage?)
You scribble down your list in your own messy scrawl, you and Una can read it, so it's good enough. You already know the layout of the house from when you arrived and it's about as secure as you can make it without starting to board up the windows. The garage islocked, but you know ways around that and the camera equipment is probably kept there. The house itself was made of fancy wood and has lots of furnishings, you have no doubt that with a bit of effort it will go up like a pyre. For your powers, you guess the garage would do for testing. The walls and ceiling were concrete and there isn't a smoke detector there because of car fumes, it's a little small but it should do the trick.
Tapping the blunt end of the pencil against your lip you try to remember any safe areas nearby, the forest at the edge of town isn't far, so that's an easy way to escape. The railway is probably being guarded by the military, but if you could get some nice-clothes and a backpack, you could pretend to be on a trip to an aunt with your sister, it had worked before. The warehouses over by the industrial sector are promising, but probably crawling with military, criminals and the like right now. You suppose you could try another nearby house, you'd checked the entire street and there was an empty bungalow near the end of the cul-de-sac. Though you imagine it won't be empty for long...
Gah, too many places and most of them are bad choices. You figure your best bet is to skip town entirely, if you can find a car it wouldn't be that hard, if there isn't any military presence near the entrances or exits. The train has merit and you figure that the buses aren't running. Train might not be either, but I doubt it, probably being used for relief efforts
With a sigh, you put your list to the side and look at where your sister is latched onto your side like a limpet, giving her arm a poke, you get her attention.
"I don't think I can walk properly right now, do you mind helping me over to the bathroom, I smell awful and so do you."
She sticks her tongue out at you childishly and slides herself under your arm as you stand up, helping you hobble your way over to the bathroom.
An hour later, thoroughly relaxed and much cleaner, the two of you make your way back to the bed, walking under your own power this time. The blissfully hot water feels like it's rejuvenated you and you feel much better than you did before. You doubt you'll be running anywhere, but for now the ability to walk is a godsend. With Una dressed, you realise your predicament, your clothes were incinerated by your transformation earlier, meaning you had nothing to wear.
With a quiet grumble -I liked that hoodie- you poke your head into the closet of the master bedroom. None of the underwear fit, they are all too big, but you do manage to find a pair of black jogging bottoms and a dark blue t-shirt that's about the right size. You have Una help you change your bandages before putting on your new clothes. They feel a little strange and smell odd, like another person obviously, they do the job.
With clothing acquired, you move over to look at the Box, something you'd been avoiding to this point. The huge stack of money was both a good sign and a bad sign. It was good because now you have a huge stack of money, it was bad because you very much doubt the owner wants you to have said stack of money. Flipping the lid on the smaller box confirms your fears, an expensive looking gun and lots of ammunition. You look at the gun for a long time before you letting out a long sigh.
You gesture Una over from where she was lounging on the bed, reading through the encyclopedia she found and wait for her to her skitter over.
"Since we have this at hand, I might as well give you a more practical demonstration that the verbal one I gave you before."
Something lights up in her eyes as you reach towards the gun and lift it out of the box. It's a little lighter than you were expecting to be honest, though you suppose that seeing how customised it is, part of it is probably made of a lighter metal than normal. You place the gun on the floor in front of you and reach for one of the empty magazines, then several bullets with the other hand.
"First, to load a magazine, you do this."
You walk her through loading the magazine, then loading the gun itself, pulling back the slide. You look at her and ask her to recite what you had just done and why, once she does so to your satisfaction you show her the safety and explain how it works. Afterwards you unload the gun and give it to her. She tenderly takes it in an awkward grip that you gently correct. You spend the next several minutes explaining how to use a gun to the best of your knowledge, and you are incredibly proud of how seriously she is taking you.
She keeps the gun pointed at the floor when you aren't showing her how to aim and listens to every word you speak attentively. Once you deem her informed enough, you put the gun back in it's slot and let her try to load a magazine. She fumbles with a bullet several times, but she fills the entire thing fine. You take the opportunity to lift the smaller box out of the larger part and tell her to load the other magazines. While she is doing so, you notice a small black belt of some kind underneath where the smaller box was.
When you pull it out, you see what looks like a leg strap of some sort. Ah, a gun holster. It makes sense that you would need one of those if you were actually going to be wearing a gun while going somewhere. You put it with the other pile of things for now and go back to observing Una's progress. She's loading the last magazine now, apparently having gotten the hang of holding a bullet without slipping and is sliding them in one after another quickly. Once she's done you take all of the loaded magazines and put them back in their slots next to the unloaded gun.
You aren't really comfortable with the thought of using a gun, but if you need to protect Una you will be much more capable with one in hand. Though... if you spent longer teaching her you suppose you could give it to her. It's still a little heavy and large for her hands, but it would be a lot better than her having to hide and being helpless against anything that gets past you.
Ruminating on your thoughts, you close the smaller box and stand up while looking at the alarm clock on the bedside cabinet. Seeing that it's nearing ten, you decide it's time for breakfast, a little late but better than never. The two of you make your way downstairs, you much more carefully than your sisters bouncing steps, and wander over to the kitchen. Seeing the vast supplies that is that fridge makes you smile, you like cooking, but you rarely get the chance to cook an actual meal rather than something you've managed to cobble together.
Today, you decide, will be boiled eggs and soldiers. It was an old English recipe that you'd learned years ago from a chatty sailor that gave you a lift upriver for free. Reaching over, you turn flick the gas on and fill a pot with water. Setting one of the rings alight, you gently place several eggs into the pot, and put said pot onto the ring, dropping four slices of bread into the toaster. Once that is done, you butter the bread and cut it into strips about an inch wide.
Once the eggs have been boiling for about five minutes, you take them out and lay two eggs each, with eight strips of bread each. While you've were doing this, Una laid the table and made the both of you some milkshakes from a pot of powdered milkshake she found on the side. You flick the oven off at the wall and wash out the pot, then sit down at the table with a relived sigh, taking the weight off of your legs. The two of you devour your food much faster than you expected, but then, it is good.
You hadn't taken the sailor at his word at the time, but when you dunk the bread into the still slightly runny egg and take a bite, it's amazing. It only takes you two minutes to finish both of your eggs and all of your bread, but Una was done even faster and takes your empty plate with a smile of gratitude. Once they are in the sink, you both migrate over to the sofa and lay back with a long, content sigh. After the bath your wounds have stopped hurting so much, you are safe for now and your belly is full. Today is a good day.
You suppose you should take advantage of this moment of peace to talk to Una about what happened yesterday. She's not asked, but you can tell she's really curious. You tell her roughly what happened yesterday, leaving out how many people died and emphasising that it was gone for good now and they were safe. The conversation ends with both of you smiling as you lead her thoughts away with silly jokes and terrible puns.
You spend the next hour or so just chatting idly with her about random things, briefly getting her opinion on the things on your list. She hasn't had time to have a look around herself, so she doesn't know any other places to stay and she really doesn't care where you go. She really wants to see you use magic again, you promised to show her, after you manage to control it without bursting into flames. And thinking about that, your eyes move over to the garage.
You'd kept your sister out of there because she would probably find a way to cut herself with a rusty piece of metal or something, but it probably houses the camera's hardware and that should burn nicely. With a sigh, you decide you should get this under control as soon as you can, you doubt you'll manage to set the building on fire through concrete. Just in case, you have Una sitting by the back door, in case she needs to escape it's unlocked, though the blinds are still down.
Making your way to the locked door, you poke and prod at the rusty old door for a little while before bracing your foot against the floor and your shoulder against the lock. You rear back and push off of the ground as hard as you can, an unexpected slither of energy flowing into your leg and arm when you hit the door. The impact is strangely muffled and you feel the steel bolt inside the door shear and audibly snap. Stepping back for a moment you look down at your feet, a hole in the carpet where your foot was and left a slight indent into the now sagging wooden floorboards.
You blink and stand silently for a long moment. That was supposed to jar the lock slightly, where the frame was wooden but the door itself was metal, instead it feels like you snapped the lock itself clean in two. Feeling strangely energised you reach forwards and gently push against the door, it swings open without a single noise and you can see the inside side of the lock. The bolt is completely shattered, the end of the bolt hanging there, separate from the rest of the metal door.
Your mouth works silently for a minute before you just close your eyes and walk through the door. Weird, sudden magical boosts of strength were nice, so long as you managed to control them.
Looking around the room, you come across something that makes you smile. In one corner, on top of a table lines with tools of all sorts, you see a monitor that clearly shows the outside of the house and just below it you see an expensive looking box with a VHS slot on the front. Bingo, camera blackbox. You move over to the box with a smile on your face, if you can destroy this then it will completely erase any worried you'd had about staying here. The box itself is pretty heavily armoured, seeing as it's supposed to survive house fires, but you bet you can think of a way to destroy it.
You poke and prod at it for a while, but even the VHS slot is locked shut, and the cables go through the back and can't be pulled out. You give the entire unit a shove and find that it's been bolted to the table too. Mmm, magic it is I guess.
You move back over to the door to push it closed, and seeing as you cant lock it now, you put a box of various tools to stop it from swinging open. Then, you move over to the centre of the empty garage and sit down, remembering that you are supposed to sit with your legs crossed when you did the whole meditating them from a movie you watched once, but your aching legs put that idea to rest, so you kinda just rest on your butt and hip with your legs laid out to the side.
Right, magic time. Let a little bit out first.
(Cerys: 6 + 10 Being Careful - 10 Magic Control = 6)
You loosen the bindings a little and the fire immediately rushes out of you in a great blaze, setting everything within five feet of you on fire.
(Cerys: 50 + 10 Being Careful - 10 Ohshit - 10 Magic Control = 40)
You immediately pull back as much as you can and cage the flames again, though the floor is still smouldering, there is a cloth burning to your left and a box of tools to your right is slightly melted, the metal glowing a dull orange. You take several deep breaths, nearly hyperventilating at the shocking explosion of fire that had spilled forth from you so quickly. You turn your eyes to the still burning cloth and the concrete below you that you could see the heat rising off of. You take the brief moment to wonder why you aren't being burned before you realise that since your magic is about fire, if you don't want to feel the heat you don't obviously.
With that revelation in hand, you decide to make one more attempt at this whole 'control' thing before you burn the house down by accident.
(Cerys: 34 + 20 Being Very Careful - 10 Magic Control = 44)
This time, when you loose the bonds on the flames, while they try to rush out you manage to grasp it at the last minute, having been prepared for such an occurrence. You aren't quite sure how to describe what it's like to be holding back the flames from leaving your body with nothing more than an imaginary grasp. You can't feel them with your limbs, but somehow you can still feel the flames that are seeping out of the tiny gap you left, writhing in your hold.
You can feel the heat in these flames, the knowledge that if you were to let them go they would reach out and set ablaze anything within your range. The knowledge of the sheer danger they hold awes you slightly. It's like holding a wildfire in your hand, raging and roaring within your grip, trying to spread through the countless little gaps to consume everything but you.
You spend a long time holding the tiny little part of your flame, poking and prodding it with imaginary fingers and nearly losing your grip more than once when it rushes through the nearest opening you leave it. Somehow, despite its uncontrollable rush to the surface, it doesn't seem to be disobeying you in the slightest. It feels strangely alive, but it's just fire in it's most basic form, reaching out to burn and burn and burn without end. After nearly losing control of it once more, you decide to cage it fully again, but you feel as if you've learned a great deal here, and it feels just a little easier to shore up the bonds that hold your fire tight.
You decide to test one last thing before you go. The surge of energy before you hit the door is fresh in your mind, it didn't feel like your flame, but at the same time it did. Your fire was still caged when it happened, but it still felt like the energy came from there. You try to carefully channel? recreate? that feeling you had before as you stare at your hand.
(Cerys: 52 + 20 Being Very Careful -10 Magic Control = 62)
You feel something from your flame before a rush of energy fills your hand, it travels out from your flame and up your arm near instantly, leaving a tingling trail as it goes. The feeling almost surprises you enough that you lose control of it, but you manage to keep yourself calm and steady. Staring at your tingling arm, you suddenly notice the complete lack of pain in that arm. You slide back a sleeve and a little bit of bandage, but your injuries still remain, if maybe healing slightly faster?
An idea comes to mind and you try to pull another stream of energy to your other hand, it obeys just as easily as the first and rushes up your arm instantly, leaving your other arm feeling just as good as the first. You have a brief thought about trying to do your whole body like this, but decide not to push your chances, the though of this energy going wrong when it is inside you makes you think better of it. Instead you make the energy cease and it instantly retreats back to your flame. Now that is interesting. The energy didn't dissipate inside you or linger or leak out, it returned back to your flame just as quickly as it appeared.
You smile a bit at the knowledge you've gained about your powers today and decide to play with them a little. You run the energy, your magic you suppose, through your legs as you stand. When you manage to push yourself up without any pain you smile broadly, moving over to the burning cloth and giving it a few stomps before leaving the room. Una is still waiting by the back door with patience, even though it must have been at least twenty minutes.
When she sees your approaching she smiles and moves away from the door, locking it as she does so. She hands the key over to you as she look at you with an expectant face.
"I think I managed to figure out a little about my power. I guess I'll just call it what it is though, magic." Smells like magic, looks like magic, acts like magic. It's Magic. Not that uh, you know what magic smells, looks or acts like. Well, you guess you do now.
Your little sister spends the next two hours peppering you with questions as you laze around in bed, resting. She gives you a lot of ideas on how your magic might work and all of the different things you could maybe do with it. It amuses you to see her mouth moving so quickly it looks like a blur, only your long experience in dealing with her exited speech letting you parse any of it at all.
You've spent about half the day so far, seeing as the alarm clock next to you claims it's just a little past half twelve. You suppose you could go outside to look around but you're not completely sold on either using your magic trick to be able to walk properly or going out in the daytime at all. You do send Una over to the spare bedroom and have her bring back the pillows from that bed. They'll work as makeshift bags once you empty them out if you need to later.
Now, what are you going to do next...
[] Rest Until Nightfall
-[] Write In...
[] Go Out During The Day
-[] Write In...
[] Write In...
+ 5 XP Learned how to not set everything on fire
+ 5 XP Learned how to direct magic within the body(?)
+ 1 XP Remain hidden
Skill Added
Magic Control
Unskilled
-You have terrible control over your magic. -10 to all magic control rolls.
You have a very basic control over your magic
Magic Control
Unskilled
-You have terrible control over your magic. -10 to all magic control rolls.
You have a very basic control over your magic
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