But For a Sword (A Matou Shinji Series AU)

[Dracueri]

[x]Ask about Hannah in more detail
[x]Mention what Sylvie said about Jack

[Daiki]

[x] Examine the rooms again
[x]Mention what Sylvie said about Jack

[Skull Leader]

[X] Ask about Hannah in more detail
[X] Mention what Sylvie said about Jack

[alfheimwanderer]

[X] Ask about Hannah in more detail
[X] Mention what Sylvie said about Jack

---

"Well..." Talluah mused, thinking back to what she'd heard from Sylvie. She'd promised the girl she wouldn't tell anyone what had happened with Jack, but in the current situation, she didn't think keeping it secret would help anyone. "About that. There's something you should know."

"Yessa?"

Talluah opened her mouth to speak about Jack, and how he hadn't disappeared when everyone thought he had, but found that she could not, as the words simply would not form, as if the moment she tried to say something, a sort of fog appeared in her mind.

'Wait...that promise...is it actually...?'

But that was impossible, wasn't it? The girl was a squib...

''Unless her non-human blood gave her access to something...?'

"Something wrong, Talluah?" Ras Al'Gue questioned.

"The...Jack," Talluah mentioned, unable to say more.

"Oh, you mean how Sylvie found him after he ran away?" Ras questioned, looking at his partner, as if wondering why she wasn't saying it herself. "How he had a wand and attacked he--"

His eyes snapped up as his nerves screamed of DANGER, throwing himself to the side just in time to avoid being disintegrated by a brilliant blue beam. The Reductor Curse he thought numbly, continuing to move until he was behind a bit of cover. Peeking out, he saw that Talluah was down on the ground, her chest soaked with blood, with a jet black knife sticking out of it.

'What the hell?'

Viola had attacked them. Talluah was down. What...what...?

'...a trap. Probably by Jack's Master.'

And they'd fallen for it...

'Shit...shitshitshitshit!'

What's the objective?

[ ] Escape, leaving Talluah behind
[ ] Hold back - fight to disable / capture Viola alive - she could still be useful
[ ] End the threat - if she's under Imperius, she's too dangerous for him to hold back
[ ] (write-in)

And how do you approach it? You are currently in the main room of the shop, crouched behind a rather large chest of drawers. You have several knives, telekinesis, and some knowledge of martial arts. Your opponent has a wand, is capable of silent casting, and access to her entire collection of goods - some of which may be magical.

[ ] (write in)

[Dracueri]

[x]Hold back - fight to disable / capture Viola alive - she could still be useful

[x]Use mopsus telekinesis to deflect spells or other projectiles, and relies on stuff found in the shop to fight back - potions to disturb / confuse / slow down / incapacitate and the likes. Main target is to break her wand with TK force, crush her hand if has to but break the wand.

[Daiki]

[x] Hold back & SL's write-in's version (stupid forum formatting)

[Skull Leader]

[x] Hold back - fight to disable / capture Viola alive - she could still be useful
[x] Use mopsus telekinesis to deflect spells or other projectiles, and relies on stuff found in the shop to fight back - potions to disturb / confuse / slow down / incapacitate and the likes. Main target is to break her wand with TK force, crush her hand if has to but break the wand.

I modified Daiki's write in. We have to take out her wand. End stop. It can do too much stuff against Shinji. I am willing to hold back, as long as we strike hard against her wand and eliminate it in the opening moves. Think of this as Ras hatred for wands.

[EmperorBR]

[x] Hold back - fight to disable / capture Viola alive - she could still be useful
[x] Use mopsus telekinesis to deflect spells or other projectiles, and relies on stuff found in the shop to fight back - potions to disturb / confuse / slow down / incapacitate and the likes. Main target is to break her wand with TK force, crush her hand if has to but break the wand.


​Dealing with it quickly can give us time to maybe save Talluah.

[alfheimwanderer]

[x] Hold back - fight to disable / capture Viola alive - she could still be useful
[x] Use mopsus telekinesis to deflect spells or other projectiles, and relies on stuff found in the shop to fight back - potions to disturb / confuse / slow down / incapacitate and the likes. Main target is to break her wand with TK force, crush her hand if has to but break the wand.

---

As might be expected of a conflict where one side could sense the other and affect the other from behind cover, while the other could not, the fight is short, brutal, and efficient, with Ras Al'Gue crushing Viola's wand hand - and wand - with explosive force, causing the woman to scream. With her primary means of offense out of commission, the ensorceled shopkeeper grabbed an item with he other hand, seeking perhaps to charge, perhaps to toss it, but whatever she intended was moot, as a blast of telekinetic force slammed her back against into the wall of her shop, forcing her to let go of what she'd held in her hand.

She had only just begun to recover from the daze when she found herself unable to advance and unable to breathe, as if an invisible hand had seized her throat and squeezing with nearly enough force to crush it. She thrashed, clawing at her throat, trying to remove whatever was stangling her, keeping her from breathing, with her body jerking, twisting, spasming, until at last she went still.

"Finally," Ras growled, as he dropped her unconscious form unceremoniously to the ground, before making his way to the all too pale form of Talluah, whose clothing was rather soaked with blood, with the jet-black knife jammed into her chest. "Hey," he said, touching her and noticing how cold she was. "Hey," he repeated, using his telekinetic abilities to rip away some of her clothing so he could examine the wound.

'What the...black veins?'

They were alive, it seemed, pulsing and angry, almost as if the knife was drinking...

'No...'

He tried to lift the knife with his mind, but found that the weapon seemed to absorb the force he directed at it.

'I'll have to pull it out then...by hand.'

Perhaps not touching it with exposed skin though, he thought, wrapping some cloth around his hand and pulling the blade free, before dropping it on the ground like it was a poisonous snake.

At once, blood began to gush out, though here, the force of his mind was useful as he could provide pressure to staunch the bleeding as best he could.

And at least...she was breathing, and the veins had stopped pulsing, even if she was still too pale, too cold.

What to do next?

[ ] Get her medical help, however he can
[ ] Take her back to a safehouse or other room
[ ] Take her upstairs to one of the children's rooms
[ ] Maybe...Fontaine would be able to help?
[ ] (write-in)

[Dracueri]

[x]​Maybe...Fontaine would be able to help?

[Skull Leader]

[X] Maybe...Fontaine would be able to help?

[EmperorBR]

[x] Maybe...Fontaine would be able to help?

[Daiki]

[X] Maybe...Fontaine would be able to help?

[alfheimwanderer]

[X] Maybe...Fontaine would be able to help?

---

Well then, what do you want to say to Mister Fontaine?

[ ] That Viola went crazy and attacked
[ ] Ask if he has experience dealing with ah...crime scenes
[ ] Ask if he would kindly come over and bring his niece - something terrible has happened
[ ] Lay out the details of the situation
[ ] Ask for...his advice regarding medical help for Talluah - maybe he knows someone
[ ] (write-in)

[Dracueri]

[x]​Ask for...his advice regarding medical help for Talluah - maybe he knows someone

[Skull Leader]

[X] Ask for...his advice regarding medical help for Talluah - maybe he knows someone

I would give a longer explanation but hey Talluah is hurt and possible in critical condition.

[Daiki]

[x] Ask for...his advice regarding medical help for Talluah - maybe he knows someone

[alfheimwanderer]

[x] Ask for...his advice regarding medical help for Talluah - maybe he knows someone

---

Ras Al'Gue knew from a glance that the situation here was rather beyond him, given that the only thing he could really do as far as healing, other than first aid, was brewing potions - and Talluah didn't have that long. True, he'd stopped the bleeding with this telekinetic abilities, and had removed the immediate source of the life drain, but the flesh around the wound was still blackened, with the veins around it dark and angry, if no longer visibly pulsing.
She had obviously been hit by some kind of poison or curse, but while he did carry around bezoars, he didn't really have anything on hand that could deal with curses. The shop...might have, but in its current state of wreckage...

'Fontaine,' he thought, recalling that the man had left him his card. 'Maybe Fontaine would know where I could find help.'

The man was a Squib who descended from one of the first 12 Aurors in the MACUSA, after all, and presumably still had connections. Plus, dealing with death as he did, well, the man was bound to have seen odd things and have some idea what to do about them, come to think of it.

So, Ras fished the man's card out of his pocket and went to the telephone, one of the fancy new French designs that hinted that the shop made more money than it appeared on the face of it, and dialed the number.



"Fontaine speaking," the man said, as he picked up.

"Mister Fontaine, it's Ras. One of the investigators who came by earlier. My partner was attacked - I think the assailant used a cursed weapon. I need to get her help."

"...before we go further, I suspect you need help that isn't of the sort you want the Congress to be finding out about?"

"...you could say that," Ras admitted.

"I see. I'll have someone come over shortly."

Indeed, only minutes later, a dark-haired woman with rather striking features apparated into the shop, carrying something like a medical bag.

"Healer Tenenbaum at your service," she introduced herself, noting that there were two unconscious individuals. "What happened here?"

Ras filled her in, with Tenenbaum immediately setting to work on Talluah, injecting her with some kind of green concoction that made her shudder, though the darkness seemed to lessen.

"Seems like a curse, but we can fix that. We should get rid of the immediately affected tissue, however," Tenenbaum noted, poking the wound with the tip of her wand as steam hissed from it, and with a jerk, extracted a wriggling mass of a viscous, very unhealthy looking black substance. "Ah, I have seen the like before. One of the more interesting curses to come from the Caribbean." She sealed the substance away into an empty jaw she carried with her.

"Curses?"

"It is usually imbued on some sort of weapon, a ritual knife or dagger," she noted, looking around until her eyes caught sight of the jet black weapon, which now that Ras looked at it, was oddly clean, with no blood on it whatsoever. "Was that it?"

"Yes..." Ras said uneasily. "What is this curse?"

"It turns the victim's cells into this corrosive substance, using the life force to create more of itself after the initial...infection. Even if you had treated the wound, without extracting the corruption, your companion would have died from that, and if she had..."

"If she had then..."

"Then the voudou practitioner who created the dagger in the first place would have a new undead thrall."

"...what on earth?"

"Welcome to America," Healer Tenenbaum noted. "With regards to your companion, I believe I have something that will help her heal more quickly, though its not strictly speaking an approved substance."

"It is magical, I take it?" Ras inquired.

"Something like that. The process is rather expensive, but Extracted from certain deep sea eels. I've found that it enhances a person's regenerative abilities marvelously, among other benefits."

"...any side effects?" he asked, before something clicked in his mind - perhaps an odd connection, but one he felt he had to follow. "Actually, theoretically, if someone like oh, a Squib, were to imbibe some of this substance, would it be possible for them to gain the ability to use magic?"

"Are you asking for yourself or for someone else?" Healer Tenenbaum asked archly.

"It might be relevant to an...investigation we were conducting regarding a number of vanished Squibs," Ras stated, thinking of himself - but also of Jack, the Squib who had found a teacher who had "given him magic."

"For side effects, no, not unless one imbibed large amounts, either at once or over a long period of time," the Healer responded. "As to the question of this substance giving someone magic, it is...theoretically possible, depending on the cause of the person becoming a Squib," she admitted.

"The cause?"

"Yes. Whether it was a simple thinning of the blood, or a curse, or a potion that a mother drank during pregnancy or something else. It could even be that they are not a Squib at all, but had been made to suppress their magic due to childhood trauma."

"Trauma such as seeing your father become a werewolf and kill your mother?"

"...that would likely do it, yes," she agreed. "Though there are other ways to awaken someone's magic besides this substance." Her eyes darted to the other person in the room - the unconscious shopkeeper. "Now what did you want done with her?"

[ ] Keep her sedated
[ ] Wake her up, but paralyze her body
[ ] Take her to Fontaine. Maybe he has a better idea

"Very well, then, and about my fee?"

[ ] Take the dagger and anything she'd like
[ ] He will owe her a favor
[ ] Fontaine will cover it (owe Fontaine a favor)
[ ] Get his uncle to pay the tab
[ ] (write-in)

With that choice made, the simulation ends for the day, as this is a good breakpoint. What does Shinji say to Natsumi after?

[ ] (write-in)



Oh, and its time for Shinji to attempt the Azkaban scenario!

Where should he and his comrades aim to land?

[ ] Somewhere we can secure another form of transport
[ ] Somewhere where we only can be attacked from one side
[ ] Somewhere where we have cover

[Daiki]

[x] Take her to Fontaine. Maybe he has a better idea

The man knows people. Maybe he could even have her given to authorities on our behalf.

[x] Take the dagger and anything she'd like

Well considering the person supposed to pay us for the job, nearly killed one of us, I think it fair she would be the one paying for Talluah. So yeah let the healer take what she wants.

[x] They should have expected sleeper agents. Next time they will be more careful. Also, apologize for not reacting in time to protect her.

Nothing more than common sense.

[x] Somewhere we can secure another form of transport

Rethinking the landing strategy. We probably should have awareness of another way out in case something happens to brooms. Plus, with the landing team Selina went through, I'd rather not have the team find themselves deep into infested inferi territory. (We should carefully plan how the team proceed through it - which can be better made if you come from the outside).

[Dracueri]

[x]Take her to Fontaine. Maybe he has a better idea

[x]Take the dagger and anything she'd like

[x]They should have expected sleeper agents. Next time they will be more careful. Also, apologize for not reacting in time to protect her.

[x]Somewhere we can secure another form of transport

Stuck between this and somewhere where we only can be attacked from one side.