Successor (BTVS)
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[X] Xander looks like he has this one under control, Buffy goes to meet the Rat King.
Now, if it was Alpha-Delta House, you might sucker me into going. Which. Please, please, please do the Fear Demon episode. It's one of my favourites of the entire series
Now, if it was Alpha-Delta House, you might sucker me into going. Which. Please, please, please do the Fear Demon episode. It's one of my favourites of the entire series
S4.0E3: Regime Change IV
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
[X] Xander looks like he has this one under control, Buffy goes to meet the Rat King.
"Buffy! Long time no see." Amy Madison was certainly sounding chipper as Buffy scrambled into the conference room. She wasn't quite late, but it was a near thing. Without the Hayabusa to race up and down the highway with, she'd never be able to cut things so close.
The rest of the attendees acknowledged her too, but their moods were more measured, or in one case, completely opaque. Despite her recent positive interactions with the rat noble Nezumi, his King was just… more, in a way that was hard to quantify or even understand. There was chittering, and she hoped it was good.
"Long time no rest." Buffy laid her hammer down over the big table, as was her habit these days. "I hear you've been in and out of town lately?"
"I never thought I'd find somewhere I feel more at home than Sunnydale, but the Rat dimension is just to die for. The landscapes! The cuisine! The culture! I feel like a girl in a Lifetime movie." Amy pulled a rat out of the Rat King's swarm and started petting it. "He's really swept me off my feet."
"And they say romance is dead," Skip interjected, completely at ease with the situation.
"Quite," Watcher Phillip stated uncertainly. "But perhaps we should get on to business." Buffy had decided the best way to feel out the loyalty of Travers' sketchy minions was to bring them along on this one, so it was only fair to include them in the planning stages. Obviously neither had been fully briefed on Amy and the Rat King; Nigel was a little green at the gills, and even the previously stoic Phillip was decidedly off-balance. The Rat King alone was a lot to take in at first glance, and adding the thing going on with him and Amy, it was a very splashy introduction to Hellmouth politics weirdness.
"We still have a lot of stuff to hash out. This whole timetable has felt a little accelerated." Jonathan Levinson was the last person to round out the meeting, since his illusions were their ticket in. If tickets were invisible. He'd already spent a lot of time with the Rat King and his nobles due to being responsible for the illusions that at least kept them somewhat presentable around town. Considering the mixed response 'Tajikistani visitors' had gotten, she didn't want to even think about how her citizens would've reacted to sentient rats from another dimension.
"I agree that we should make sure to give everything proper consideration," Nigel said. "Fools rush in, and all that." From what she knew about Jonathan, he wasn't exactly afraid, he just liked to be careful. This Nigel Watcher? She'd find out soon enough.
"I know it's stressful, but we've gotta keep moving" Buffy said. "In Mog'tog'og time it's been what? Like a month already? The longer we wait the more likely they figure out what happened and invade us instead." She'd thought things would ease up when the election happened, but it'd been the opposite. There was never enough time.
This brought on some more pronounced noises from the Rat King, and Amy translated it back into English, "So, we don't want to be rude or anything, but what exactly did happen? There are a lot of stories flying around and suddenly we're in an interdimensional war."
Buffy remembered that the whole reason the Rat King had warmed up to them so much was to scare potential rivals away, so this probably had to be handled carefully. She had kind of stumbled into a new bunch of enemies. "You know I'm dating Harmony now, right?"
Amy nodded while chittering, then spoke in English, "I was super surprised when I heard. Not about the vampire thing, I mean, duh, but a girl? Not that there's anything wrong with that! You just always seemed kind of boy-crazy to me. From talking to Willow, at least."
Buffy diplomatically ignored the boy-crazy dig. "Kathy couldn't tolerate the relationship. The whole vampire-human thing, she thought it was dirty and tried to kill Harm over it. I had to stop her."
"Oh, the nerve!" Amy looked back and forth across the room, then scooted her chair and kind of leaned into the swarm that was the Rat King. Buffy didn't really understand why she wasn't falling through it, and looking at it closer made her eyes confused. "We've gotten some dirty looks too, both here and even in his kingdom, but nothing so blatant. People just hate things they don't understand, I guess."
There was a storm of chittering back and forth between them, and two of the rats crawled up onto her head. "Of course, an insult like that should be answered. Though the Mok'tagar, well, they are pretty scary, overall. Acting against them is a big commitment."
"We don't need you to fight or anything," Buffy said. "Just to help with the whole poison dimension thing."
"We'll help," Amy agreed. Buffy was really noticing the heavy emphasis on the 'we'. "But considering the risks of retaliation or escalation, we do want a share of the loot. Nothing huge, but there's some specific stuff we think they might have."
"Looting?" Buffy asked. She hadn't really considered the looting aspects. "Isn't this Bantha's home? Won't that get him all irascible and surly?"
"It's how these things are done," Skip said. "We aren't really going in a big enough group for full-on pillaging, I doubt he'll object too loudly."
And yet, he wasn't here to confirm or deny. It was kind of worrying. "Where is he anyway? I'd think he'd want to be in on the planning of all this, with like, maps or something?"
Skip grimaced a little, and on his face it was really grimacey. "You know, it's a funny story. He's still sobering up at my safehouse. Wasn't really up for meetings last I checked. Or technically awake at all."
Buffy was floored. "What? We're doing this tomorrow! He isn't in fast time somehow is he?"
"No, no, just the normal sort of time," Skip said. "It's not as bad as it sounds. Mok'tagar regeneration is pretty strong."
"What does it even take to get one drunk?" Jonathan asked.
"I had a little bit of it actually, but I don't recommend you try it," Skip said. "It's a lot like battery acid, but there's this tangy aftertaste to it. I didn't overindulge like he did though."
"Why were you getting him so drunk in the first place?" Amy asked.
"How do you think I got him onboard?" Skip said. "Our interests definitely align, but Mok'tagar are still insular by nature. I had to loosen him up."
"But isn't he supposed to be our way in? With the portal? And knowing the area too?" Jonathan worried. "We won't be able to use Willow and her AI as overwatch on this one, it'll be like flying blind."
"I'll agree, it's not the best," Skip's tone slowly became more serious. "But Buffy's right about the dangers of waiting. If we wait too long and end up walking into an ambush, it'll be worse than some tipsy hijinx from our guide. It's like I said earlier; this isn't an easy thing you guys are proposing. This isn't the last risk you'll have to take to see it done."
This cast a little bit of quiet over the room, which Phillip eventually filled. "From what I've heard from you, and the reports I've been able to read, you've all had a fair amount of good fortune so far." He paused. "Let's hope that it keeps up, yes?"
There were a couple nods. Buffy really hoped this wasn't going to explode into a disaster. It was only happening in the first place because of her. They were right though, nothing for it but to move forward. "So, back to the looting, I guess. What were you and the Rat King looking for?"
Amy dug a list out of her pocket and passed it over. Buffy noticed an Allslyra skeleton was still on it, right at the top, but most of the other stuff was goobledy-gook to her, even if it was in English.
She passed it to Jonathan, and from his expression he was going to have to do some research to be able to identify any of it. Nigel looked over his shoulder though, and suddenly he was in his element.
"Hmm, hmm, yes. Well this appears to all be in order at least. But Violet Adventurines, plural? You do know what those are worth on the market these days?"
"Yeah, yeah," Amy grumbled. "But even one…"
"We should be so lucky," he replied.
"So you'll be able to notice any of this stuff?" Buffy asked.
"Well I imagine in the heat of battle it might be a little harder, but simple reagent identification is the stuff of third level. I know it forwards and backwards," Nigel replied haughtily.
Buffy was just relieved it wouldn't be another distraction for Jonathan. "Good, that's one of your jobs then." She turned back to Amy and the Rat King. (She still had two of the rats on her head, like a weird hat.) "So how are we handling the poison?"
"He thought it over, and he's got two options for you," Amy said. "First, there are these necklaces." She got out a weirdly shaped metal charm on a string of what looked like rat hair. "If you wear one of these, it'll let you breathe normally in spite of the dimensional toxicity by filtering the air intake directly."
"It looks fragile," Buffy said.
"It kind of is," Amy agreed. "And you can't wear it under anything, or around anything but your neck, or it won't work. Has to be exposed to the air, has to attune to your neck chakra. No way around it with this kind of implementation."
It'd be a big vulnerability in a fight. Losing it wouldn't be instant death, but it'd probably be crippling for any long period, or for a big battle. Then again… "Can we just carry extras?"
"Yes, that'd be smart, but even a couple bad lungfuls of the magic in the air are going to take a while to wear off," Amy said. "And you can't wear two at once, the interference would be worse than not having one at all."
"Awkward. But I guess it could work. What's the other way," Buffy asked.
"Popping pills," Amy said, and then put one on the table. It was a little gnarly, but not nearly as weird looking as the necklace. "One of those will protect you from the negative effects for about two hours."
"Seems safer in a fight than the necklace," Buffy said. Even if she was a little leery of taking them, without trusting the Rat King here none of this could work at all.
"There are drawbacks," Amy said. "You can only take one of them every day or so, so once your time's up, thats it. Even worse, you can't combine them with the necklaces at all, they alter the same magical patterns and mess each other up. If you take a pill the necklaces won't work right for a day; if you put on a necklace the pills won't work right for a day. So it's pretty much one or the other."
"We should be in and out in two hours, easy," Buffy said.
"We should," Skip agreed. "Should isn't always how this stuff goes. But it's not my problem, I don't need either."
"Well, I personally favor the necklaces," Nigel said. "Operating under a timer like that, it seems ghastly."
"They aren't that flashy, at least," Phillip said. "But they are uniform. If a savvy opponent recognizes that, it could get us all in a lot of trouble." He looked toward Jonathan, troubled, "I don't suppose you could do something to make them a little less obvious."
"No way, I can't cover those up too, at least not specifically. I'm already going to have my -"
At that point, the radios in the room flared to life, someone saying, "We have contact!" Then there was the sound of fighting and splashing and orders and screams and the sounds of Andrew's weird flute. Before Buffy could ask what was going on, it artificially quieted, and CyberWillow could be heard calmly speaking over it. "Xander Harris' team has encountered the enemy during their investigation of Psi-Theta House."
If Buffy really floored the gas she could be back there in mere minutes. She had her hammer back in her hands and was already getting up as CyberWillow continued. "They have not yet requested reinforcements, and my meta analysis of the audio suggests the situation is under control. From the distinct holy water sizzle, they are fighting all or mostly vampires, and I cannot identify any of the cries or screams indicating injury as SDCW officers. It is less than 1.4% likely you could reach them in time to participate, even if you meet your historical top speed of 215 miles per hour on the road." At the same time, Amy was feverishly translating for the Rat King, in that alien susurrus of squeaks and clicks.
"We trained for this all summer," Jonathan said, his face pinched like he wasn't sure if he should speak up. "And you might think of Xander as someone to keep off the front line, but to us? He knows what he's doing. That soldier stuff is the real deal."
It wasn't like the SDCW hadn't gone after vamp nests before either. They'd even taken on Teeth's gang at the hospital all by themselves, what seemed like a million years ago, with way less experience and equipment. But it was so hard for her to just listen to it. People she knew could get hurt. Xander could get hurt. She still forced herself to sit back down.
What she heard of Xander's orders coming through didn't seem panicked, and the fight was slowly winding down. Suddenly the noise picked back up though, with a couple zapping sounds, renewed scuffling, and a ton of shouting.
"Armed HSTs!"
"Some kind of liquid-based attack!"
"You idiots! She's going to get away!"
"- tased Officer Stone!"
"-DCW, maybe compromised.
Then Xander could be heard again, clearly. "Somehow I'm not surprised to see you in the least. Do you want to call off your dogs or am I going to need to start giving them belly rubs?"
"Don't talk to her! I'm in command!" Buffy didn't think it sounded like Finn.
"So you're telling me you're the one responsible for letting the fangy dropout queen escape? Do you guys have badge numbers, because I'm really thinking someone needs to be screamed at about this."
"She was dancing around like a master vamp," Faith said. "You and the stooge patrol would've never caught her in a million years."
"I guess we'll never know, will we, because you tased the guys pinning her in. Did you give the boys a personal lesson in friendly fire? I know you have trouble with this concept, but it's something to avoid." Xander was seriously bitter, but from the sounds of what happened Buffy was pissed too. She had half a mind to speak up herself, but it'd probably undermine him. She'd trusted him to handle a fight, she could trust him to handle this.
"Maybe I'm not feeling that friendly at the moment," Faith replied.
"I guess you always did run hot and cold."
That got a growl out of Faith. "Screw these civvies, let's bail."
The theoretically-commanding Initiative soldier followed her lead, saying. "We're done. Move out."
"And you'd better be ready for those medical bills! We know your home address and we're not afraid to use it!" She could tell it was just Xander giving a parting shot, but she hoped whoever got tased wasn't actually seriously hurt.
After giving it about a minute, she spoke into the radio. "That sounded like fun."
"I'd claim the total commonality between Faith and fun is 'things that begin in F'" Xander said.
She was almost afraid to ask. She didn't know what she'd have to do if the answer was bad. "Is everyone OK?"
"Did she have to kill my scorpion? I have such a headache now," Andrew complained.
"I remember them saying the amperage has a limiter, you know, when we met them before," On better terms went unsaid. "Brent's unconscious, and Officer Stone too. Their vitals check out fine though. We'll get them down to the hospital just in case."
"And they let one of the vamps get away?"
"From us, yes. From the '80s? Never. She got into a sewer access, we won't be able to catch her from here."
"But you got the rest right?"
"All four. She was the leader though, had the whole evil smack talk thing going on."
Another problem, all hers thanks to Faith and the Initiative. "You did the best you could."
"That's not always good enough," he sighed. "Talk to ya later." The line clicked off.
Amy had been chittering explanations back and forth with the Rat King the whole time, but the watchers had been quiet until now. "So. There she is." Phillip's words sounded weighty.
"You can tell her charming personality wasn't affected by all that time horizontal," Buffy said. She managed to stop herself from finishing the dig. Faith had lots of experience with being horizontal.
"The situation is totally unacceptable," Nigel agreed. "Hopefully Quentin's efforts will bear fruit soon."
"You guys could probably spend all day talking about how much you hate Faith, but we do have some more topics to cover," Amy reminded them.
"Yeah, you're right," Buffy said. "So, the big game's tomorrow, and we need to finalize this roster. That depends on you Jonathan. What have you got for me?"
"So, first I wanted to use a Veil," he said.
"With a group this big? For that length of time? In unfamiliar terrain" Nigel was shocked. "That's impossible."
"I can do it," Jonathan said. "It's just difficult, not impossible."
"How does a Veil work exactly?" Buffy asked.
"It's sort of like being invisible, except it's more about being really difficult to notice. The problem is that Veils are expensive and finicky."
"Dollar expensive? Not so big a big now." Buffy asked. They'd had to spend ten grand on Skip's retainer already, and that was the friendly rate. She'd gotten used to the idea that what before would seem like huge amounts of money to her were necessary to do things right sometimes.
"That too, but more importantly, energy expensive," Jonathan said. "I don't know exactly how long I could make it last. The dimensional compactifications would all be different than I'm used to here. And also, I couldn't stretch it to more than seven people. They'd all have to stay close, and any active magic or violence would pop it. No summoning or slaying or anything like that underneath it."
"You could unpop it though, right?"
"Surely not, if he can even raise it in the first place," Nigel said.
"Maybe," Jonathan disagreed. "Probably at least once."
"So just seven," Buffy said. Her, Jonathan, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Phillip. That was already six. It'd be tight.
Then again, a lot of her other options were problematic. Harmony wouldn't have to worry about the atmosphere, but she wasn't quite fully recovered yet from what happened with Kathy. Bringing her might be a bad idea anyway. Andrew had powerful magic, but if he couldn't use it under the Veil, he could get in the way a little bit. Giles and Xander were more reliable than these sketchy new watchers, but this was going to be really dangerous. They didn't have powers of their own. A selfish part of her wanted to keep them out of the fray.
"Just seven," Jonathan said. "And I can already see the mission is getting pretty big, so there's something else I could do that's a little easier. I could project a glamer to fool the special Mok'tagar spirit sense. They'd all see us as more of them."
"I really do have to speak up, glamering a sense one does not even have would not remotely qualify as easy or reliable," Nigel said.
"Look, I know what I'm doing OK?" Jonathan said. "I've been studying Wilkins' old books on this stuff all summer."
"He's been studying all summer, what could go wrong?" Nigel said. "You can barely even identify basic ingredients!"
"But that has nothing to do with any of this!" Jonathan argued. He was starting to lose his cool.
"Nigel? Can it," Buffy ordered. Her hand gripped her hammer's shaft, but she knew that even the gesture was probably excessive. She let it go again. "If you want to be constructive? Great. But if Jonathan says he can do it, he can. I've trusted him before, he's been doing field magic all summer. Now let him finish explaining."
Nigel looked rebellious, but he didn't say anything more. Phillip was quietly concerned, and as they had been all meeting, Amy and the Rat King were quietly Rat-talking at each other incomprehensibly.
"So the glamer wouldn't be nearly perfect for other senses, but Mok'tagar really over-rely on that one. Like humans with vision or dogs with smell. It'd be good enough. If anything that wasn't a Mok'tagar really got an up close look though, maybe it wouldn't be so good."
"So the idea is we'd bluff our way in?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah, we would have three people who speak the language, right?" Jonathan asked.
"Call it two and three-quarters," Skip said.
"Well, the rest of us could just stay quiet," Jonathan said. "And this would be more durable. I could expand it to any number of people and it'd only lose strength proportionally, I don't think it'd run out of juice, and I wouldn't lose the spell unless I got knocked out or something."
"But you said earlier, it wouldn't cover up the necklaces, if we went with those?" Buffy clarified.
"Amy, those aren't specifically glamer-friendly, are they?" She shook her head. Jonathan shrugged. "I don't think the magic would agree that well, we'd just look like Mok'tagar wearing weird necklaces."
"They kind of go with the aesthetic?" Amy said. She wasn't totally wrong.
"So basically, either we sneak in for real, but that's hard, or we kind of bluff our way in, but that involves bluffing," Buffy summarized.
"I should hope our native guide would be competent enough for that," Phillip said. It went unsaid that they'd all just found out he was coming off a massive bender.
"I wish I could do more, but I'm really at my limit with this," Jonathan said.
"Don't get down," Buffy said. "This is great stuff, really. We've got illusions, we've got people, we've even got the good-old poison cures. We just have to stick 'em all together. Like baking a cake. A cake of assassinations and looting." They had a lot of pieces to work with here, surely they could work it out.
Plan Vote: Voting by plan here for how you want to do the mission. Plans should include the full roster, the concealment method, the poison control method, and any additional plan-adjacent stuff. Nigel and Phillip expect to be along for this one but you could theoretically chuck them back out, whereas the other four (Buffy, Jonathan, Skip, Bantha) are all more strictly necessary.
Example:
[] Drusilla's Plan
-[] Party: Angel, Darla, Drusilla, Spike, Harmony
-[] Concealment method: None, just murder everyone
-[] Poison control: None, they're all vampires
-[] Additional notes: Burn the whole city to the ground
Note: Plan votes can be complicated. Since we have some new readers, I'll restate that everyone is invited to join the Discord for Successor.
"Buffy! Long time no see." Amy Madison was certainly sounding chipper as Buffy scrambled into the conference room. She wasn't quite late, but it was a near thing. Without the Hayabusa to race up and down the highway with, she'd never be able to cut things so close.
The rest of the attendees acknowledged her too, but their moods were more measured, or in one case, completely opaque. Despite her recent positive interactions with the rat noble Nezumi, his King was just… more, in a way that was hard to quantify or even understand. There was chittering, and she hoped it was good.
"Long time no rest." Buffy laid her hammer down over the big table, as was her habit these days. "I hear you've been in and out of town lately?"
"I never thought I'd find somewhere I feel more at home than Sunnydale, but the Rat dimension is just to die for. The landscapes! The cuisine! The culture! I feel like a girl in a Lifetime movie." Amy pulled a rat out of the Rat King's swarm and started petting it. "He's really swept me off my feet."
"And they say romance is dead," Skip interjected, completely at ease with the situation.
"Quite," Watcher Phillip stated uncertainly. "But perhaps we should get on to business." Buffy had decided the best way to feel out the loyalty of Travers' sketchy minions was to bring them along on this one, so it was only fair to include them in the planning stages. Obviously neither had been fully briefed on Amy and the Rat King; Nigel was a little green at the gills, and even the previously stoic Phillip was decidedly off-balance. The Rat King alone was a lot to take in at first glance, and adding the thing going on with him and Amy, it was a very splashy introduction to Hellmouth politics weirdness.
"We still have a lot of stuff to hash out. This whole timetable has felt a little accelerated." Jonathan Levinson was the last person to round out the meeting, since his illusions were their ticket in. If tickets were invisible. He'd already spent a lot of time with the Rat King and his nobles due to being responsible for the illusions that at least kept them somewhat presentable around town. Considering the mixed response 'Tajikistani visitors' had gotten, she didn't want to even think about how her citizens would've reacted to sentient rats from another dimension.
"I agree that we should make sure to give everything proper consideration," Nigel said. "Fools rush in, and all that." From what she knew about Jonathan, he wasn't exactly afraid, he just liked to be careful. This Nigel Watcher? She'd find out soon enough.
"I know it's stressful, but we've gotta keep moving" Buffy said. "In Mog'tog'og time it's been what? Like a month already? The longer we wait the more likely they figure out what happened and invade us instead." She'd thought things would ease up when the election happened, but it'd been the opposite. There was never enough time.
This brought on some more pronounced noises from the Rat King, and Amy translated it back into English, "So, we don't want to be rude or anything, but what exactly did happen? There are a lot of stories flying around and suddenly we're in an interdimensional war."
Buffy remembered that the whole reason the Rat King had warmed up to them so much was to scare potential rivals away, so this probably had to be handled carefully. She had kind of stumbled into a new bunch of enemies. "You know I'm dating Harmony now, right?"
Amy nodded while chittering, then spoke in English, "I was super surprised when I heard. Not about the vampire thing, I mean, duh, but a girl? Not that there's anything wrong with that! You just always seemed kind of boy-crazy to me. From talking to Willow, at least."
Buffy diplomatically ignored the boy-crazy dig. "Kathy couldn't tolerate the relationship. The whole vampire-human thing, she thought it was dirty and tried to kill Harm over it. I had to stop her."
"Oh, the nerve!" Amy looked back and forth across the room, then scooted her chair and kind of leaned into the swarm that was the Rat King. Buffy didn't really understand why she wasn't falling through it, and looking at it closer made her eyes confused. "We've gotten some dirty looks too, both here and even in his kingdom, but nothing so blatant. People just hate things they don't understand, I guess."
There was a storm of chittering back and forth between them, and two of the rats crawled up onto her head. "Of course, an insult like that should be answered. Though the Mok'tagar, well, they are pretty scary, overall. Acting against them is a big commitment."
"We don't need you to fight or anything," Buffy said. "Just to help with the whole poison dimension thing."
"We'll help," Amy agreed. Buffy was really noticing the heavy emphasis on the 'we'. "But considering the risks of retaliation or escalation, we do want a share of the loot. Nothing huge, but there's some specific stuff we think they might have."
"Looting?" Buffy asked. She hadn't really considered the looting aspects. "Isn't this Bantha's home? Won't that get him all irascible and surly?"
"It's how these things are done," Skip said. "We aren't really going in a big enough group for full-on pillaging, I doubt he'll object too loudly."
And yet, he wasn't here to confirm or deny. It was kind of worrying. "Where is he anyway? I'd think he'd want to be in on the planning of all this, with like, maps or something?"
Skip grimaced a little, and on his face it was really grimacey. "You know, it's a funny story. He's still sobering up at my safehouse. Wasn't really up for meetings last I checked. Or technically awake at all."
Buffy was floored. "What? We're doing this tomorrow! He isn't in fast time somehow is he?"
"No, no, just the normal sort of time," Skip said. "It's not as bad as it sounds. Mok'tagar regeneration is pretty strong."
"What does it even take to get one drunk?" Jonathan asked.
"I had a little bit of it actually, but I don't recommend you try it," Skip said. "It's a lot like battery acid, but there's this tangy aftertaste to it. I didn't overindulge like he did though."
"Why were you getting him so drunk in the first place?" Amy asked.
"How do you think I got him onboard?" Skip said. "Our interests definitely align, but Mok'tagar are still insular by nature. I had to loosen him up."
"But isn't he supposed to be our way in? With the portal? And knowing the area too?" Jonathan worried. "We won't be able to use Willow and her AI as overwatch on this one, it'll be like flying blind."
"I'll agree, it's not the best," Skip's tone slowly became more serious. "But Buffy's right about the dangers of waiting. If we wait too long and end up walking into an ambush, it'll be worse than some tipsy hijinx from our guide. It's like I said earlier; this isn't an easy thing you guys are proposing. This isn't the last risk you'll have to take to see it done."
This cast a little bit of quiet over the room, which Phillip eventually filled. "From what I've heard from you, and the reports I've been able to read, you've all had a fair amount of good fortune so far." He paused. "Let's hope that it keeps up, yes?"
There were a couple nods. Buffy really hoped this wasn't going to explode into a disaster. It was only happening in the first place because of her. They were right though, nothing for it but to move forward. "So, back to the looting, I guess. What were you and the Rat King looking for?"
Amy dug a list out of her pocket and passed it over. Buffy noticed an Allslyra skeleton was still on it, right at the top, but most of the other stuff was goobledy-gook to her, even if it was in English.
She passed it to Jonathan, and from his expression he was going to have to do some research to be able to identify any of it. Nigel looked over his shoulder though, and suddenly he was in his element.
"Hmm, hmm, yes. Well this appears to all be in order at least. But Violet Adventurines, plural? You do know what those are worth on the market these days?"
"Yeah, yeah," Amy grumbled. "But even one…"
"We should be so lucky," he replied.
"So you'll be able to notice any of this stuff?" Buffy asked.
"Well I imagine in the heat of battle it might be a little harder, but simple reagent identification is the stuff of third level. I know it forwards and backwards," Nigel replied haughtily.
Buffy was just relieved it wouldn't be another distraction for Jonathan. "Good, that's one of your jobs then." She turned back to Amy and the Rat King. (She still had two of the rats on her head, like a weird hat.) "So how are we handling the poison?"
"He thought it over, and he's got two options for you," Amy said. "First, there are these necklaces." She got out a weirdly shaped metal charm on a string of what looked like rat hair. "If you wear one of these, it'll let you breathe normally in spite of the dimensional toxicity by filtering the air intake directly."
"It looks fragile," Buffy said.
"It kind of is," Amy agreed. "And you can't wear it under anything, or around anything but your neck, or it won't work. Has to be exposed to the air, has to attune to your neck chakra. No way around it with this kind of implementation."
It'd be a big vulnerability in a fight. Losing it wouldn't be instant death, but it'd probably be crippling for any long period, or for a big battle. Then again… "Can we just carry extras?"
"Yes, that'd be smart, but even a couple bad lungfuls of the magic in the air are going to take a while to wear off," Amy said. "And you can't wear two at once, the interference would be worse than not having one at all."
"Awkward. But I guess it could work. What's the other way," Buffy asked.
"Popping pills," Amy said, and then put one on the table. It was a little gnarly, but not nearly as weird looking as the necklace. "One of those will protect you from the negative effects for about two hours."
"Seems safer in a fight than the necklace," Buffy said. Even if she was a little leery of taking them, without trusting the Rat King here none of this could work at all.
"There are drawbacks," Amy said. "You can only take one of them every day or so, so once your time's up, thats it. Even worse, you can't combine them with the necklaces at all, they alter the same magical patterns and mess each other up. If you take a pill the necklaces won't work right for a day; if you put on a necklace the pills won't work right for a day. So it's pretty much one or the other."
"We should be in and out in two hours, easy," Buffy said.
"We should," Skip agreed. "Should isn't always how this stuff goes. But it's not my problem, I don't need either."
"Well, I personally favor the necklaces," Nigel said. "Operating under a timer like that, it seems ghastly."
"They aren't that flashy, at least," Phillip said. "But they are uniform. If a savvy opponent recognizes that, it could get us all in a lot of trouble." He looked toward Jonathan, troubled, "I don't suppose you could do something to make them a little less obvious."
"No way, I can't cover those up too, at least not specifically. I'm already going to have my -"
At that point, the radios in the room flared to life, someone saying, "We have contact!" Then there was the sound of fighting and splashing and orders and screams and the sounds of Andrew's weird flute. Before Buffy could ask what was going on, it artificially quieted, and CyberWillow could be heard calmly speaking over it. "Xander Harris' team has encountered the enemy during their investigation of Psi-Theta House."
If Buffy really floored the gas she could be back there in mere minutes. She had her hammer back in her hands and was already getting up as CyberWillow continued. "They have not yet requested reinforcements, and my meta analysis of the audio suggests the situation is under control. From the distinct holy water sizzle, they are fighting all or mostly vampires, and I cannot identify any of the cries or screams indicating injury as SDCW officers. It is less than 1.4% likely you could reach them in time to participate, even if you meet your historical top speed of 215 miles per hour on the road." At the same time, Amy was feverishly translating for the Rat King, in that alien susurrus of squeaks and clicks.
"We trained for this all summer," Jonathan said, his face pinched like he wasn't sure if he should speak up. "And you might think of Xander as someone to keep off the front line, but to us? He knows what he's doing. That soldier stuff is the real deal."
It wasn't like the SDCW hadn't gone after vamp nests before either. They'd even taken on Teeth's gang at the hospital all by themselves, what seemed like a million years ago, with way less experience and equipment. But it was so hard for her to just listen to it. People she knew could get hurt. Xander could get hurt. She still forced herself to sit back down.
What she heard of Xander's orders coming through didn't seem panicked, and the fight was slowly winding down. Suddenly the noise picked back up though, with a couple zapping sounds, renewed scuffling, and a ton of shouting.
"Armed HSTs!"
"Some kind of liquid-based attack!"
"You idiots! She's going to get away!"
"- tased Officer Stone!"
"-DCW, maybe compromised.
Then Xander could be heard again, clearly. "Somehow I'm not surprised to see you in the least. Do you want to call off your dogs or am I going to need to start giving them belly rubs?"
"Don't talk to her! I'm in command!" Buffy didn't think it sounded like Finn.
"So you're telling me you're the one responsible for letting the fangy dropout queen escape? Do you guys have badge numbers, because I'm really thinking someone needs to be screamed at about this."
"She was dancing around like a master vamp," Faith said. "You and the stooge patrol would've never caught her in a million years."
"I guess we'll never know, will we, because you tased the guys pinning her in. Did you give the boys a personal lesson in friendly fire? I know you have trouble with this concept, but it's something to avoid." Xander was seriously bitter, but from the sounds of what happened Buffy was pissed too. She had half a mind to speak up herself, but it'd probably undermine him. She'd trusted him to handle a fight, she could trust him to handle this.
"Maybe I'm not feeling that friendly at the moment," Faith replied.
"I guess you always did run hot and cold."
That got a growl out of Faith. "Screw these civvies, let's bail."
The theoretically-commanding Initiative soldier followed her lead, saying. "We're done. Move out."
"And you'd better be ready for those medical bills! We know your home address and we're not afraid to use it!" She could tell it was just Xander giving a parting shot, but she hoped whoever got tased wasn't actually seriously hurt.
After giving it about a minute, she spoke into the radio. "That sounded like fun."
"I'd claim the total commonality between Faith and fun is 'things that begin in F'" Xander said.
She was almost afraid to ask. She didn't know what she'd have to do if the answer was bad. "Is everyone OK?"
"Did she have to kill my scorpion? I have such a headache now," Andrew complained.
"I remember them saying the amperage has a limiter, you know, when we met them before," On better terms went unsaid. "Brent's unconscious, and Officer Stone too. Their vitals check out fine though. We'll get them down to the hospital just in case."
"And they let one of the vamps get away?"
"From us, yes. From the '80s? Never. She got into a sewer access, we won't be able to catch her from here."
"But you got the rest right?"
"All four. She was the leader though, had the whole evil smack talk thing going on."
Another problem, all hers thanks to Faith and the Initiative. "You did the best you could."
"That's not always good enough," he sighed. "Talk to ya later." The line clicked off.
Amy had been chittering explanations back and forth with the Rat King the whole time, but the watchers had been quiet until now. "So. There she is." Phillip's words sounded weighty.
"You can tell her charming personality wasn't affected by all that time horizontal," Buffy said. She managed to stop herself from finishing the dig. Faith had lots of experience with being horizontal.
"The situation is totally unacceptable," Nigel agreed. "Hopefully Quentin's efforts will bear fruit soon."
"You guys could probably spend all day talking about how much you hate Faith, but we do have some more topics to cover," Amy reminded them.
"Yeah, you're right," Buffy said. "So, the big game's tomorrow, and we need to finalize this roster. That depends on you Jonathan. What have you got for me?"
"So, first I wanted to use a Veil," he said.
"With a group this big? For that length of time? In unfamiliar terrain" Nigel was shocked. "That's impossible."
"I can do it," Jonathan said. "It's just difficult, not impossible."
"How does a Veil work exactly?" Buffy asked.
"It's sort of like being invisible, except it's more about being really difficult to notice. The problem is that Veils are expensive and finicky."
"Dollar expensive? Not so big a big now." Buffy asked. They'd had to spend ten grand on Skip's retainer already, and that was the friendly rate. She'd gotten used to the idea that what before would seem like huge amounts of money to her were necessary to do things right sometimes.
"That too, but more importantly, energy expensive," Jonathan said. "I don't know exactly how long I could make it last. The dimensional compactifications would all be different than I'm used to here. And also, I couldn't stretch it to more than seven people. They'd all have to stay close, and any active magic or violence would pop it. No summoning or slaying or anything like that underneath it."
"You could unpop it though, right?"
"Surely not, if he can even raise it in the first place," Nigel said.
"Maybe," Jonathan disagreed. "Probably at least once."
"So just seven," Buffy said. Her, Jonathan, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Phillip. That was already six. It'd be tight.
Then again, a lot of her other options were problematic. Harmony wouldn't have to worry about the atmosphere, but she wasn't quite fully recovered yet from what happened with Kathy. Bringing her might be a bad idea anyway. Andrew had powerful magic, but if he couldn't use it under the Veil, he could get in the way a little bit. Giles and Xander were more reliable than these sketchy new watchers, but this was going to be really dangerous. They didn't have powers of their own. A selfish part of her wanted to keep them out of the fray.
"Just seven," Jonathan said. "And I can already see the mission is getting pretty big, so there's something else I could do that's a little easier. I could project a glamer to fool the special Mok'tagar spirit sense. They'd all see us as more of them."
"I really do have to speak up, glamering a sense one does not even have would not remotely qualify as easy or reliable," Nigel said.
"Look, I know what I'm doing OK?" Jonathan said. "I've been studying Wilkins' old books on this stuff all summer."
"He's been studying all summer, what could go wrong?" Nigel said. "You can barely even identify basic ingredients!"
"But that has nothing to do with any of this!" Jonathan argued. He was starting to lose his cool.
"Nigel? Can it," Buffy ordered. Her hand gripped her hammer's shaft, but she knew that even the gesture was probably excessive. She let it go again. "If you want to be constructive? Great. But if Jonathan says he can do it, he can. I've trusted him before, he's been doing field magic all summer. Now let him finish explaining."
Nigel looked rebellious, but he didn't say anything more. Phillip was quietly concerned, and as they had been all meeting, Amy and the Rat King were quietly Rat-talking at each other incomprehensibly.
"So the glamer wouldn't be nearly perfect for other senses, but Mok'tagar really over-rely on that one. Like humans with vision or dogs with smell. It'd be good enough. If anything that wasn't a Mok'tagar really got an up close look though, maybe it wouldn't be so good."
"So the idea is we'd bluff our way in?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah, we would have three people who speak the language, right?" Jonathan asked.
"Call it two and three-quarters," Skip said.
"Well, the rest of us could just stay quiet," Jonathan said. "And this would be more durable. I could expand it to any number of people and it'd only lose strength proportionally, I don't think it'd run out of juice, and I wouldn't lose the spell unless I got knocked out or something."
"But you said earlier, it wouldn't cover up the necklaces, if we went with those?" Buffy clarified.
"Amy, those aren't specifically glamer-friendly, are they?" She shook her head. Jonathan shrugged. "I don't think the magic would agree that well, we'd just look like Mok'tagar wearing weird necklaces."
"They kind of go with the aesthetic?" Amy said. She wasn't totally wrong.
"So basically, either we sneak in for real, but that's hard, or we kind of bluff our way in, but that involves bluffing," Buffy summarized.
"I should hope our native guide would be competent enough for that," Phillip said. It went unsaid that they'd all just found out he was coming off a massive bender.
"I wish I could do more, but I'm really at my limit with this," Jonathan said.
"Don't get down," Buffy said. "This is great stuff, really. We've got illusions, we've got people, we've even got the good-old poison cures. We just have to stick 'em all together. Like baking a cake. A cake of assassinations and looting." They had a lot of pieces to work with here, surely they could work it out.
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Plan Vote: Voting by plan here for how you want to do the mission. Plans should include the full roster, the concealment method, the poison control method, and any additional plan-adjacent stuff. Nigel and Phillip expect to be along for this one but you could theoretically chuck them back out, whereas the other four (Buffy, Jonathan, Skip, Bantha) are all more strictly necessary.
Example:
[] Drusilla's Plan
-[] Party: Angel, Darla, Drusilla, Spike, Harmony
-[] Concealment method: None, just murder everyone
-[] Poison control: None, they're all vampires
-[] Additional notes: Burn the whole city to the ground
Note: Plan votes can be complicated. Since we have some new readers, I'll restate that everyone is invited to join the Discord for Successor.
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DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
Opening portals to and from Mog'tog'og is a sketchy endeavor and it is Bantha who will be doing it. Skip doesn't think he can do it easily in combat time. Also there is the problem that you can't open portals just anywhere; none in or out of the dimension are possible inside the castle you're infiltrating, at least unless you're the Great One.
So I want to highlight that Nate's family has a history of magical combat, and their magical style dates back to the medieval period for use in combat. Also, Nate and his father showing up was considered at least the equivalent of a bunch of cops with guns or Gunn's entire gang, and Nate is useless on his own. That means his father, and probably some other members of their clan are pretty baller in a fight. So my proposition is to go to the Transmuter's Material and recruit the best combat caster they are willing to cough up to help invade and loot Mok'tag'ar.
Mok'tag'ar is sort of medieval sounding in combat strategy and equipment too, so they are well designed to take advantage of the place. Also, if they can seal parts of the castle or battlefield away to prevent reinforcements then Buffy can kill the Mok'tar piecemeal.
I also think it is worthwhile to buy some fake jewelry and maybe get some badges with little images of lungs sewn into them for the entire party. It might distract people from the necklaces if there are more visibly gaudy options that could be providing magic over a simple necklace.
[] Plan more magic
-[] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Transmuters Material recruit
-[] Concealment method: Veil
-[] Poison control: Necklace
-[] Additional notes: Recruit a member of the Transmuters Material to assist in the assault. Buy seven matching sets of party jewelry that is gaudy and visible to distract from the necklaces.
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- Location
- Vancouver
I'm not sure we should call in the Transmuters. It'd likely be costly and if we need more magical backup, Andrew and his summoned minions are pretty good for that. Another option, however awkward a conversation it would lead, would be to try and get help from Angel. He's a very experienced fighter, and while things were rocky with them before, perhaps fighting together could leave him and Buffy more aimicable. Or it could all blow up in our faces, that's a possibility too.
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
They're a little awkward, but less for the people with superstrength, but those mostly aren't the people who need them. They aren't magic, so a glamer could cover them up well. I'm not sure how rated they are for lots of melee violence though? Oxygen tank explosions are a thing. Then again they might not be a thing in Mog'tog'og. Buffy thinks it'd be very slightly annoying for her to fight with one just because of the changed mass distribution. Having the breather in would make it impossible for anyone to talk, and you could juggle it for that but a glamer would need to struggle.
Obviously they aren't really useful if you use necklaces, since you can just have backup necklaces instead. They might be useful as backups if you do pills. I think at 1 atm a tank is supposed to last a couple hours? Depends on size.
EDIT: To reiterate, Bantha obviously doesn't need help, Skip is fine, and vampires are fine.
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- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
[] Base Plan with oxygen tanks
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Andrew, Angel, Willow
-[X] Concealment method: Glamour
-[X] Poison control: Pill with Oxygen tanks
-[X] Additional notes: Use Oxygen tanks on the way there, then use the pills after getting to the castle/before violence is going to begin, then after the violence, use the Oxygen tanks again. Have Willow use the maze spell she did earlier to quickly find the head guy, so we can do a decapitation strike, and end this quickly. If possible, also cast a translation spell so that Buffy and others can speak the language and blend in. Also if possible, have someone cast a sobering up spell on the Uncle.
If anyone else has ideas, I'm willing to add them. I'm going with magical skill instead of fighting skill because I don't have much faith in fighting abilities generally versus these guys.
@DeAnno: Is this a viable plan?
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Andrew, Angel, Willow
-[X] Concealment method: Glamour
-[X] Poison control: Pill with Oxygen tanks
-[X] Additional notes: Use Oxygen tanks on the way there, then use the pills after getting to the castle/before violence is going to begin, then after the violence, use the Oxygen tanks again. Have Willow use the maze spell she did earlier to quickly find the head guy, so we can do a decapitation strike, and end this quickly. If possible, also cast a translation spell so that Buffy and others can speak the language and blend in. Also if possible, have someone cast a sobering up spell on the Uncle.
If anyone else has ideas, I'm willing to add them. I'm going with magical skill instead of fighting skill because I don't have much faith in fighting abilities generally versus these guys.
@DeAnno: Is this a viable plan?
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
This won't work because Willow's version requires (super)computer access. Her laptop wouldn't even work in Mog'tog'og, and even if you could force it to, the whole point of it is remote access to various supercomputers, which would require a stuck-open portal which you don't have. Think of Successor Willow without computer access as very similar to end S3 Willow in abilities.
The magic department as a whole could try to rush-research translation spells and/or sobering spells but they're nobody's specialty right now, so results might be mixed. Oxygen tanks for infiltration would work but as I said, anyone using one is going to have trouble speaking normally, glamer or no.
- Location
- Vancouver
I'd say in addition to taking out Willow for the aforementioned reasons, we can drop Angel as well with the oxygen tank plan. That way we can keep up a veil and Andrew can just summon things that can work with the environment, while most of them aren't likely to need a tank if they're fighting directly.
- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
[] Base Plan with oxygen tanks
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Angel
-[X] Concealment method: Veil
-[X] Poison control: Pill with Oxygen tanks
-[X] Additional notes: Use Oxygen tanks on the way there, then use the pills after getting to the castle/before violence is going to begin, then after the violence, use the Oxygen tanks again.If possible, have someone cast a sobering up spell on the Uncle.
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Angel
-[X] Concealment method: Veil
-[X] Poison control: Pill with Oxygen tanks
-[X] Additional notes: Use Oxygen tanks on the way there, then use the pills after getting to the castle/before violence is going to begin, then after the violence, use the Oxygen tanks again.If possible, have someone cast a sobering up spell on the Uncle.
The problem with the Veil and Andrew is that magic doesn't interact well with it. I'm worried about bringing Angel because of Harmony not liking it though. IDK how well that will go, but it should be interesting.
- Location
- Vancouver
True, though I figure that by the time Andrew would be summoning monsters we'd be throwing stealth out the window by that point. Angel probably is the most experienced and dangerous fighters we can rely on, likely one of the few besides ourselves and give good odds of being better than one of Mok'tagar in a straight fight. Of course, there are the complications, both with bringing him over (he might be busy) and then with convincing him, as you say.
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
Sorry I missed this earlier.
A Kathy glamer would be pretty bold. Jonathan's not *sure* he could make it close enough, but maybe. He could do it in addition to the rest of the glamering if everyone stayed in one general area. You'd have to pick someone who you thought could "play Kathy" though.
As for distractions and getting in close, if Buffy is causing obvious chaos and attacking that's where Tapparich would go, he wouldn't make time to meet his wayward daughter.
WyldCard4
Unregistered
Just caught up. Interesting.
Hiring Transmuters might or might not be a good call. If you want to go that far, you'd probably want specialists in inter-dimensional mercenary work, rather than specialists at something entirely different. If anyone could help it's Wolfram and Hart, which is very obviously problematic on several levels and I think we voted against contacting them before.
Inviting Angel strikes me as a good idea. This is Angel's kind of weird adventure, and honestly Angel(us) wanting to visit might be a great part of the bluff anyway, either searching for something evil and Angelusy or on a fake mission from the Powers That Be. This honestly wouldn't be in the top ten weirdest Angel series plots.
I do wonder if Angel Investigations has any recruits making up for a lack of Cordelia in this timeline. It seems narratively correct that Wesley would be involved at the worst possible moment for him, and that's probably when Watchers are in Sunnydale. I'd guess Wesley is still hunting the rogue demon (well, the supernatural body part thief) at this point in the timeline unless I botched a lore roll.
It is unfortunate that the Rat Nobles don't seem to have any PCs who might be relevant to this. Amy seems very on board with helping, but I don't rely on her in a fight, and I expect the Rat King would have mentioned if he had any idea of someone in his court who was up for this.
I don't trust oxygen tanks at all in this, seems like the exact wrong time to do something clever with mundane technology.
I don't think Harmony's not liking us calling in Angel is a sufficient reason to vote against it. Harmony's vampire psychology values violence and victory and is pretty blase to disrespect and betrayal. If we were dating say, Xander or Willow or Riley this would be very cruel, but I think Harmony would forget about it as soon as Angel was out of town.
[] Plan Bluff
-[] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Angel
-[] Concealment method: Glamer
-[] Poison control: Necklace
-[] Additional notes: No need for concealment on Angel or Bantha, possibly no need for it on Skip, only Buffy and Jonathan are questionable as people the locals would recognize. We say that Angel is on a mission inspired by a vision from the Powers That Be.
Plausibly, we change glamer on Buffy and Jonathan to "Buffy and Jonathan are veiled, but everyone else is Angel's entourage."
Hiring Transmuters might or might not be a good call. If you want to go that far, you'd probably want specialists in inter-dimensional mercenary work, rather than specialists at something entirely different. If anyone could help it's Wolfram and Hart, which is very obviously problematic on several levels and I think we voted against contacting them before.
Inviting Angel strikes me as a good idea. This is Angel's kind of weird adventure, and honestly Angel(us) wanting to visit might be a great part of the bluff anyway, either searching for something evil and Angelusy or on a fake mission from the Powers That Be. This honestly wouldn't be in the top ten weirdest Angel series plots.
I do wonder if Angel Investigations has any recruits making up for a lack of Cordelia in this timeline. It seems narratively correct that Wesley would be involved at the worst possible moment for him, and that's probably when Watchers are in Sunnydale. I'd guess Wesley is still hunting the rogue demon (well, the supernatural body part thief) at this point in the timeline unless I botched a lore roll.
It is unfortunate that the Rat Nobles don't seem to have any PCs who might be relevant to this. Amy seems very on board with helping, but I don't rely on her in a fight, and I expect the Rat King would have mentioned if he had any idea of someone in his court who was up for this.
I don't trust oxygen tanks at all in this, seems like the exact wrong time to do something clever with mundane technology.
I don't think Harmony's not liking us calling in Angel is a sufficient reason to vote against it. Harmony's vampire psychology values violence and victory and is pretty blase to disrespect and betrayal. If we were dating say, Xander or Willow or Riley this would be very cruel, but I think Harmony would forget about it as soon as Angel was out of town.
[] Plan Bluff
-[] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Angel
-[] Concealment method: Glamer
-[] Poison control: Necklace
-[] Additional notes: No need for concealment on Angel or Bantha, possibly no need for it on Skip, only Buffy and Jonathan are questionable as people the locals would recognize. We say that Angel is on a mission inspired by a vision from the Powers That Be.
Plausibly, we change glamer on Buffy and Jonathan to "Buffy and Jonathan are veiled, but everyone else is Angel's entourage."
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The thing that keeps making me recoil back from bringing in Angel is explaining why this is happening to him. First telling him about Harmony, and then telling him we are into her enough to cause a war and kill someone we hired for her. I'm not ashamed of Harmony at all, but that seems likely to confirm his worst fears and make it unlikely we can call him up to help later.
I don't like the idea of calling in Angel at this stage, personally. If we wanted to do that we probably should have asked him earlier. Going to him for help now, at the last minute, would imply that Buffy is not feeling confident in their chances and doesn't believe that her own people will be able to get the job done. That's not the kind of image we need to be giving off right now, when we can already see that the two Watchers at least, are having doubts.
Yep, this too. I'm a great lover of drama, but this is definitely not the right time for that.
For poison control, I prefer the necklaces over the pills, as the time limit running out would mean pretty much certain death for half the party. That's not something I'm willing to risk, especially as the need to rush could lead to sloppiness and mistakes that give away the game too early. The necklaces feel safer, as the spares mean that our people are unlikely to die even if their first necklace breaks. I do expect that at least one member of the team will end up inhaling a couple lungfuls of poison that'll leave them sick for a while, but I'm hoping there'll be no permanent damage. Going this route removes time pressure, so we can be more careful and avoid dumb mistakes.
I do like the idea of bringing in some fake jewelry as a bluff too.
I definitely don't think we should be bringing in oxygen tanks. Feels like a needless complication that is bound to go wrong, since technology has been repeatedly shown to be unreliable around demons/magic in this story.
For concealment, I prefer Veil to glamer. I suspect that both options would allow us to get into the castle before being inevitably discovered, due to the Veil popping or someone noticing something weird through the glamer. However, the biggest difference between the two options is that once the glamer has failed, we'll be forced to fight our way out, while with the Veil, there is the possibility of Jonathon re-applying it once we've assassinated the big guy and then sneaking out through all the chaos. The downside of only taking seven people isn't really much of a downside to me, since I'd rather keep our party small anyway. The more people we take, the bigger the chance someone screws up and reveals us early. As a final point in favor of the Veil, I really want to let Jonathon have his chance to shine here. Those watchers don't think he can do it; let him prove them wrong.
I suggest taking Harmony as our final crew member, for the simple fact that she's at no risk from the poison atmosphere. The less people we bring who are vulnerable there, the better. Doesn't hurt that even injured, she's the best frontline fighter we have ready access to.
[X] Plan Invisible Raid
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Harmony
-[X] Concealment method: Veil
-[X] Poison control: Necklace
-[X] Additional notes: Buy seven matching sets of party jewelry that is gaudy and visible to distract from the necklaces.
Yep, this too. I'm a great lover of drama, but this is definitely not the right time for that.
For poison control, I prefer the necklaces over the pills, as the time limit running out would mean pretty much certain death for half the party. That's not something I'm willing to risk, especially as the need to rush could lead to sloppiness and mistakes that give away the game too early. The necklaces feel safer, as the spares mean that our people are unlikely to die even if their first necklace breaks. I do expect that at least one member of the team will end up inhaling a couple lungfuls of poison that'll leave them sick for a while, but I'm hoping there'll be no permanent damage. Going this route removes time pressure, so we can be more careful and avoid dumb mistakes.
I do like the idea of bringing in some fake jewelry as a bluff too.
I definitely don't think we should be bringing in oxygen tanks. Feels like a needless complication that is bound to go wrong, since technology has been repeatedly shown to be unreliable around demons/magic in this story.
For concealment, I prefer Veil to glamer. I suspect that both options would allow us to get into the castle before being inevitably discovered, due to the Veil popping or someone noticing something weird through the glamer. However, the biggest difference between the two options is that once the glamer has failed, we'll be forced to fight our way out, while with the Veil, there is the possibility of Jonathon re-applying it once we've assassinated the big guy and then sneaking out through all the chaos. The downside of only taking seven people isn't really much of a downside to me, since I'd rather keep our party small anyway. The more people we take, the bigger the chance someone screws up and reveals us early. As a final point in favor of the Veil, I really want to let Jonathon have his chance to shine here. Those watchers don't think he can do it; let him prove them wrong.
I suggest taking Harmony as our final crew member, for the simple fact that she's at no risk from the poison atmosphere. The less people we bring who are vulnerable there, the better. Doesn't hurt that even injured, she's the best frontline fighter we have ready access to.
[X] Plan Invisible Raid
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Harmony
-[X] Concealment method: Veil
-[X] Poison control: Necklace
-[X] Additional notes: Buy seven matching sets of party jewelry that is gaudy and visible to distract from the necklaces.
- Location
- Vancouver
[X] Plan Sneak & Kill
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Angel
-[X] Concealment method: Veil
-[X] Poison control: Pills (& Oxygen tanks)
-[X] Additional Notes: Sneak in fast and have Buffy take down the Great One quickly. A couple oxygen tanks used to take the people who need them close, before popping the pills just before the battle starts. The 'squishier' allies should hang off to the side mostly when the fighting starts, giving light aid but not calling too much attention to themselves. Angel, Skip, and possibly Bantha can hold off reinforcements while Buffy brings her full might to bear against the Great One.
Hitting them fast and hard is a tried and true method for Buffy, I think this works well here. This plan gives us few vulnerabilities, the best method to infiltrate, and a fair number of heavy hitters for backup. Calling in Angel will cause a bit of drama, but I think it's worth it. Harmony's still injured, and while she's getting stronger, she just not on his level yet. Also, for all the drama this will cause now, it's gonna save a bit to rip off the 'band-aid' relationship reveal at this point than it would to let it go, get distracted with other things and then have Angel learn from Spike about what things are like.
The oxygen tanks are just a backup, in case time starts running short, though I think we're unlikely to need them here. Also, technology doesn't work too well there, but isn't the tank just a mechanism for the most part? I don't think it should need electricity or anything
-[X] Party: Buffy, Jonathon, Skip, Bantha, Nigel, Philip, Angel
-[X] Concealment method: Veil
-[X] Poison control: Pills (& Oxygen tanks)
-[X] Additional Notes: Sneak in fast and have Buffy take down the Great One quickly. A couple oxygen tanks used to take the people who need them close, before popping the pills just before the battle starts. The 'squishier' allies should hang off to the side mostly when the fighting starts, giving light aid but not calling too much attention to themselves. Angel, Skip, and possibly Bantha can hold off reinforcements while Buffy brings her full might to bear against the Great One.
Hitting them fast and hard is a tried and true method for Buffy, I think this works well here. This plan gives us few vulnerabilities, the best method to infiltrate, and a fair number of heavy hitters for backup. Calling in Angel will cause a bit of drama, but I think it's worth it. Harmony's still injured, and while she's getting stronger, she just not on his level yet. Also, for all the drama this will cause now, it's gonna save a bit to rip off the 'band-aid' relationship reveal at this point than it would to let it go, get distracted with other things and then have Angel learn from Spike about what things are like.
The oxygen tanks are just a backup, in case time starts running short, though I think we're unlikely to need them here. Also, technology doesn't work too well there, but isn't the tank just a mechanism for the most part? I don't think it should need electricity or anything
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You've forgotten to specify the concealment method.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Plan Invisible Raid