In every alchemist, underneath the academic searching for the Great Work, the scholars chasing wisdom, there lurks a pyromaniac just waiting for a reason, an excuse, really, to build a big fucking bomb.
The Myrmidons knocking down your door is a pretty good excuse, hell, it might even be a reason.
You have a few bottles of picric acids left over for a commission dye job a couple months ago. A few compressed tubs of pure oxygen and methane gas. Some bottles of ether.
"So inelegant." You shake your head. Given a half hour, you could improvise a real bomb from the salts on your table, but as it is you're just mixing them all together and using the Alkahest to provoke an exothermic decomposition, which will light the ether fumes and methane on fire. The most you can do is direct it so it'll go through the window and scorch the definitely banned books and notes you piled in front of said window.
You leave the bomb in your room. You collect the only two books you dare, the Black Book of Ibn al-Ghul and the Transmutations within a book bag. The rest are consigned to the fire.
Every tenant at Rukhrest is leaving. You elbow your way through the crowds, soon, you are at the foot of Rukhrest. A fire escape tunnel runs along the central shaft, crowded with bodies.
The moment you step out into the wan sunlight, there is a thunderous boom and the street is painted with vivid hues of violet and green. Fire bursts out from the perches of Rukhrest, billowing out in a spray of glass and detritus.
It brings a smile to your face. It's beautiful. It's attention grabbing. The Myrmidons are shaken. The ants, for a moment, look away, and that is all you need to brush past their inner cordon. Too distracted by the flashy but harmless pyrotechnics show you put on for them.
(Roll 2d6+1 ->
12. 0/4 Escape!->3/4)
You're not out of the woods yet. The Myrmidons know their stuff, they have forces moving in the surrounding areas. This net is more porous, a single alchemist is not all that important in the grand scheme of things.
You will…
[]- Find a hiding spot and wait out the worst of it:
The Myrmidons don't look in dumpsters, as a matter of protecting the dignity of the office. +1 Escape Clock.
[]- Find a relevant formulae in the Black Book of Ibn al-Ghul:
Among the more practical formulae contained in the Black Book are methods for disguising oneself against ravenous ghouls. Myrmidons are not corpse eaters but the principle is similar. Make a basic move with Cunning. On a 10+, +2 to Escape Clock. On a 7-9, +1 to Escape and Closing In. On a 6-, +2 Closing In Clock.
- Gain Move - Hidden From Harm: By cutting your palm with a knife and muttering the necessary words, nothing that seeks you will recognize you as long as the wound is bleeding.
[]- Find help from the Hidden Temple of the Second Dawn:
Despite considering those of the Perfect Circle hubristically sorcerers, this sect of the True Fire still considers it their God given duty to help all those who spite the false gods. A Templar of the Dawn arrives to help. Probably.
(Roll 2d6+2->
9. 0/4 Closing In!->1/4)
You hide your head in your windbreaker hood. To the ants looking on, you're just another young scholar coming out of dubious accommodations, perhaps wondering where the hell are they going to live now, at least maybe the property value will go down? on their way to study for the civil service exams at a public library.
Their spears glisten in the sunlight, and at their waists are stubby break-action shotguns. Mandowners, they call them, because in cramped alleyways two rounds of heavy shot will just about put down anything a sorcerer could call up or an alchemist could juice up. You like your head attached to your neck and your guts inside your stomach, and not on a Myrmidon spear or scattered around the ground, thank you very much.
Select One:
[]- The Myrmidons have rallied the population against the crazy alchemist who thought to set off a bomb in a populated area. They take +1 Forward to actions finding information against you until the end of Turn 1.
[]- The Myrmidons are having an off day. They're violent. Brutal. More inclined to petty theft that is the right of every man jack working in public safety. It's a mess, but it's one you can exploit. +1 to both Closing In and Escape Clocks.
[]-The Myrmidons are doing
really well. Efficient. Clockwork. Everything worked out to a T. They've sealed off the main roads and they've got hounds hunting for you in the more dicey areas. However, you know their book. +2 to Closing In Clock, but you receive +1 Forward on rolls to evade the Myrmidons until Turn 0 ends.
