Exile on Main Street

[Dracos]

Dracos concentrates, looking over Bjorn carefully.

Dracos

[Brian]

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Perception check....
<WebDiceBot> Dracos chucks them bones for {10}

Dracos: The sword is still glowy, as it was the last time you looked.  Bjorn himself looks pretty normal, except when you look closely.  He seems to have an aura that's a deep brown, nearly black in color.  Other thanthat, the funky black iron bracelet on his left wrist, and the tacky clothes he scavenged from the former owner of this house, he seems pretty normal, though.

[Dracos]

"You have a very, very, dark brown-black aura around you.  What 'powers' have you noticed?"

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"Hm.  I do?  Interesting.  I'll answer you in a moment.  Bear with me, please."

With that, Bjorn summons the image of Ashnod's fire licking futilely at his skin (This is beginning to be second nature.).  He also turns his mindboard in, and, as he did with Lazarus, visualizes pushing it outwards, until it encompasses not only him, but Shinmyouken as well.  This time, though, he imagines Ashnod's fire dying at the mindboard, its massive granite walls forming a barrier away from his body, and protecting his sword, as well.

"What about now?  Can you still see the sword?"

[Brian]

The sword is now somewhat difficult to make out through the dark, yet glowing barrier that now surrounds Bjorn.  It's darker than his aura, like it's projecting from somewhere else and shielding it, though.

This barrier is visible to everyone (including Bjorn).

[Dracos]

"Yes, though barely."  Dracos narrows his eyes, keeping focused.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"This is... weird," Bjorn says slowly, studying the barrier.

"To answer your question... apparently, I have a... shield against telepathy.  I can project it a little, use it to protect others, even 'trap' a telepath so they can't use their power.

"I can block some other types of powers, too.  First time I met Ashnod, he tried to set me on fire, and it didn't work.  I thought that maybe it would work to block whatever 'magic sight' you seem to have, too, so I tried projecting it outwards."  Waving a hand at the glowing dark-light bubble about himself, he adds, "Apparently the projecting part worked, at least."  

He grimaces, and kills the projection, letting both wall and mindboard collapse to himself alone.  "But I still don't know exactly what I'm protected against, and I can't think of any way to find out, let alone a way that won't, you know, kill me."

[Dracos]

"I have more than a few ideas that don't involve being fatal.  Would you mind re..well, putting it up for a few experiments?  Hmm, you can block telepathy?   Interesting.  Would you mind assisting me in training later perhaps with that?"

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Bjorn shrugs.  "I don't see how I can train you in telepathy, since I don't know anything about it, but I'll do my best.  As for the other -- yeah, I'm willing to try any experiments that I don't think will get me killed.

"In the meantime, though, I only ate enough to get my metabolism started, before working out, and now I'm really bloody hungry.  So why don't we go inside, so I can eat more, and you can explain to me, in detail, what the hell you, Rez, and Ginrai are doing, driving around the country armed with swords, pipes and bow, breaking me out of illegal secure labs?"

[Dracos]

"Sure."  Dracos lead the way in, heading into the kitchen and getting either a grill (if they have it) or a stovetop up.  From there here prepares burgers, generally shooting for medium along the road.

Once everyone is sitting down with food, he begins, "Now first, has anyone told you about Ayame yet or not?"

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"Last I heard from any of you was that... lessee... you guys had picked up an AI from somewhere, and that Rez was running away from someone in Australia.  Oh, and Shade told Ginrai never to open any doors or a wolf would eat him, and Ginrai believed him, and flipped out, and then Shade flipped out even further, and that's about it."

[Huitzil]

Paul wanders into the kitchen, looking somewhat more alert than before. "Ginrai would be the swarthy fellow, right? I didn't get a chance to really catch up with you guys -- how did you manage to torch San Francisco?"

[Bjorn]

"We didn't, really.  Acquaintance of mine did.  Anyways, that's at the end of the story, and more my story than Drac's.  Let him go first, then I'll go."

[Dracos]

Dracos takes a drink of his root beer.

"Anyhow, Yeah, the AI is Ayame.  Anyhow, I found myself with Rez having run from Australia over to my place and Ginrai being a bit of a paranoid psycho and fleeing over to my place.  Apparently, my house was in everyone's list as "Safehouse Number 1".  I didn't see anything wrong with a few friends bumming for a bit, letting some heat get off as we figured out what was going on.  Meanwhile, me and rez are poking around with Ayame, trying to figure out what the heck is going on.  I ended up figuring out that 'Ayame' was actually a digital spirit of the Oracle of Delphi from ancient Greece, if you'd believe that shit."  Dracos took a moment, pausing to eat a burger.

"Now, around this time we heard from Ayame that Bjorn had been captured and brought to SF I think.  Might've been afterwards.  All sort of ran together.  Ayame also had delivered those cell phones and hub you might've seen Rez hauling around.  Well, we were sitting around, pondering what the heck to do.  I mean, SF is a good ways away and I didn't exactly have strings to pull around there to try and figure out how to get you out.  We were already doing some research on the folks related to Ayame and hadn't really expected them to go kidnap one of us, you know?  About this time Gin went nuts.  Saying we should get running around.  So I took a swig of my root beer and considered how damn late it was and said we'd head out in the morning then.  Told him to get the stuff down in the car to get ready to go anyway, but you'd be surprised how damn stubborn they could be about putting stuff into the car and being ready to go given how damn itchy he'd been.  Anyhow, we stayed around, continuing to try and research.  A little later that night, we got attacked.  Smashed through my window and doors and flung flash grenades at us."

Dracos paused a moment, taking a drink, "I really hate folks who enter unannounced.  Especially when they start breaking my things.  I have quite a temper, ya know?  Keep it under wraps most the time as going around eliminating folks in well...civilized life doesn't go down well.  Anyhow, Gin tried to fight them off with with a steel bar I'd given him earlier, the same one he's been hauling around ever since.  I blinked the damn flash out of my eyes and saw a bunch of guys in swat armor attacking my friends and home.  Grabbed right to my left where I always keep my bucket o' swords at home and grabbed the first blade hilt I could with both hands and rushed them.  Lucky, they weren't wielding any pistols, I was and they weren't.  Finished all five of them off and left them in their own bloody heaps.  We grabbed some stuff, got in the car, and hightailed it out of there.  Heading south to try and throw any pursuit by losing them in the mountains."

Dracos paused for a moment, "Anything confusing before I go on?"  He grabs another burger.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"I assume you're going to tell us why a SWAT team broke into our house," Bjorn says dryly, "and why you were sure they weren't legally authrorized officers of the law."