Look out--here comes the spider (wo)man!

[Sierra]

<El-Cideon> The group returns to their hotel, again dejected at the continued failure to find Yomi's sword. Erin disappears into her room to do whatever mysterious things witches need to do to replenish their magic. The other hotel room presently contains two notable things: Rena, naked, sitting in a chair by the window, body painted red by the dying sun's rays, and Sayuri, sitting in a chair pointedly turned away from Rena, reading Erin's newspaper. (more)
<El-Cideon>  sitting in a chair pointedly turned away from Rena, reading Erin's newspaper. (more)
<El-Cideon> Sayrui stands up as soon as you enter. "Finally. If you have any influence over this woman, tell her to put her clothes back on immediately."
* Nadia_Chekova looks between Rena and Sayuri and raises her eyebrow, valiantly resisting the urge to laugh. "Well... it looks like *somebody* had fun on this trip at least."
<Yomi> "Too much fun, perhaps," Yomi adds, rolling her eyes.
<El-Cideon> Still not turning around, Sayuri continues: "Yes. I initially attempted to pass the time by speaking with her and gave up in exasperation after five minutes. Are you aware that this creature has bedded twenty-six different men?" Rena seems to have been asleep, now waking up. She can only shrug at Sayuri's irritation. (more)
<Yomi> "Only twenty six?" Yomi asks in surprise. "It must have been a very small village."
<El-Cideon> "I'm sorry. I meant to dress before you returned because I know this bothers Erin, but I fell asleep. It was warm and no one was around, so I didn't see the point in wearing anything. And I decided Sayuri's opinions did not matter."
* Nadia_Chekova has to remind herself that Rena is younger than she is, since her appearance is generally more mature than Nadia's. "More than double my record," she concedes the victory to Rena. "And don't tell me an assassin like you hasn't ever slept with a target to get close enough to stick in the knife?"
<El-Cideon> "I have not," Sayuri insists, indignant. "Is that how you accmoplish your grand acts of thievery, Nadia?"
<El-Cideon> Rena stands up and slides her dress back on. "Well, Yomi, some of them I bedded many times."
<Nadia_Chekova> "I haven't had to do it for some time, but we all have to start somewhere and I'd do it again if I had to," Nadia replies, unashamed.
<Yomi> "That makes more sense," Yomi tells Rena, shrugging at Sayuri. "There's something about the West that is harmful to morals, I think."
<El-Cideon> "No doubt. I can only imagine what manner of debauchery that witch friend of yours perpetrates. You, I hope, have not succumbed to their decadence, yet, at least?"
* Yomi shrugs once more. "Who would even be interested in me with those two around?"
<El-Cideon> "Someone with class," is Sayuri's automatic response.
<Nadia_Chekova> "Erin is actually quite innocent," Nadia retorts on the Irishwoman's behalf. "And Yomi is just being modest. Why, I had to pull her away from over a dozen men when I first met her," she smirks.
<El-Cideon> "Is that so?" Sayuri eyes Yomi with suspicion!
* Yomi laughs. "I was very angry at that time. Can you believe I had such a tunnel vision I did not see anyone by my target? And when I threatened him to return what he had stolen, suddenly I became aware that he was surrounded by his dozen goons with automatic weapons."
<El-Cideon> A nod. That clearly makes more sense. "And this time? Did you find what you were looking for?"
<Nadia_Chekova> "Of course, now I wonder if you couldn't have taken them all anyway..." Nadia concedes. "But at the time I was quite alarmed!"
<Yomi> "I was too angry to keep my focus, so it was probably for the best that we parted without a single shot fired or sword drawn," Yomi admits. "As for what I'm looking for? I don't know. I was going to invite you out on a stroll, since I usually think things through better while I'm facing demons."
<El-Cideon> "Yes? Is this where you finally enact your fiendish plan to ambush me and be rid of me?"
<Yomi> "It could be arranged. Interested?
<Yomi> "
<El-Cideon> "That depends. What, exactly, will we be doing?" She shrugs. "The only demons I've ever known were men."
<Yomi> "They certainly come in both genders. And without genders-- but that's not what you asked." Yomi pauses. "Since we lack a diviner, how about checking the newspaper? The odd happenings always make it into the papers, and we could investigate based on that. I could determine whether there's anything in any unexplained and strange phenomenon we read about."
<El-Cideon> "I have been reading the newspaper all afternoon to take my mind off of the obvious irritation. Bear in mind that it says nothing the imperial authorities would not approve of. I certainly don't remember any stories about demons..."
<Yomi> "Any serial killings? Unexplained disappearances? Strange phenomenon on the rise?"
<Nadia_Chekova> "You have to read between the lines," Nadia helpfully chimes in, "I'm sure Yomi could spot any obvious clues that you missed."
<El-Cideon> "Ah. Well, there was a very minor story about a missing man--here." She lays the paper out on the table and points to it. The article's only a couple paragraphs. "Chao Ma, reported missing by coworkers two days ago."
<Yomi> "As good a lead as any. Does it say where?" Yomi asks, even as she leans slightly over the table to read the article better.
<El-Cideon> It goes on a little more--two of Ma's drinking buddies alerted the police after he failed to show up for work one day or return to his own residence. There is a brief description of the missing man, the names of the friends who made the call, and a general location--the neighborhood is blandly described as "working class." There is passing mention of similar disappearances in recent months, but this seems like a formality, as though the editor didn't much care.
<El-Cideon>  but this seems like a formality, as though the editor didn't much care.
<Yomi> "Let's go see the neighborhood, and try to talk to the family," Yomi suggests. "Perhaps we could learn more about the past disappearances while we are there as well."
<Nadia_Chekova> "Isn't Manchuria recently conquered?" Nadia asks. "He was either killed by nationalists who thought him too friendly with the Japanese, or Japanese who thought him not friendly enough, and dumped in a river somewhere."
<El-Cideon> "This is possible," Sayuri agrees. "Although, if he was killed by the Japanese authorities, I think it likely they wouldn't have permitted any mention of him in the newspapers."
<Yomi> "Entirely possible, but the only way to be certain is to check for ourselves. I would not trouble you if it is not to your liking, though if you wanted to come, it would be welcome."
<El-Cideon> "I am obligated to monitor your movements," Sayuri says. "I'll go."
<Nadia_Chekova> "I'll come along as well, since I'm already dressed," 'Natsu' offers.
<El-Cideon> "I am also dressed," Rena reminds everyone. "I am not tired. Shall I come with you, or does Erin need company?"
<Yomi> "What would you like to do?"
<El-Cideon> "See the town. I have spent all afternoon sitting."
<El-Cideon> Rena is either unaware or uncaring of the obvious grimace Sayuri makes here.
<Yomi> "If it's that, maybe you could invite Erin along? She'll know just where to go, I bet."
<Nadia_Chekova> "I think Erin's meditating," Nadia observes. "Tell you what, I'll take Rena out on the town while you two go hunt demons?" she smiles and moves closer to Rena, wondering if Rena would like her to steal a masamune to play with.
<Yomi> Nodding, Yomi picks up up the relevant section of the newspaper to bring along with her and then heads out, this time along with her wrapped sword.
<El-Cideon> Rena frowns. "Erin does not approve of most of the things I like. I will go with Nadia." So decided, the group splits up into two groups and heads out. (OOC: moving Yomi and Sayuri along here, then, will pick up the other two later).
* Nadia_Chekova is now known as Ayane
<El-Cideon> "Working class neighborhood" turns out to be a casual euphemism for "slum." It's not a nice part of town that Yomi and Sayuri find themselves in, a dirty street full of leaning tenements in a quarter of the city left behind by the occupation's industrialization. (more)
<El-Cideon> There's not much traffic here, and those out on the streets as night falls avoid looking at you as they go about their mysterious nocturnal business. You can find Chao Ma's street easily enough based on the article. There is a restaraunt along the way which looks to still be open, light creeping through the slats of shutters.
<El-Cideon> "Does your work always take you to such charming places?" Sayuri wonders.
* Yomi keeps her senses alert as she heads down the road towards the restaurant. "Sometimes it requires going to an exclusive gala at a governor's mansion. Other times, you get to confront them in wilderness. Going through slums is just part of the deal," she tells Sayuri.
<El-Cideon> "Hm. My targets are usually decider higher status. Such places are new to me." The restaraunt's front door is unlocked. You can walk right in if you want. "I only know Japanese. You will have to do the talking. Be advised that I will be watching closely for any attempt to say unflattering things about me in Chinese."
* Yomi snorts, pushing aside the door and stepping inside.
<El-Cideon> A few heads swivel your way as you enter, a couple men's gazes lingering with obvious interest but most going back to drowning their sorrows. The clientele here looks uniformly beaten down. Ratty, common laborer's clothes one and all. There's maybe a dozen men at a scattering of rickety tables and one quite old one behind a bar.
* Yomi moves over to the counter, waving the old bartender over. "We are with the Imperial Voice," she introduces herself and Sayuri, "doing research on a follow-up story about Chao Ma. If you could point us in the right direction, it could be worth your while."
<El-Cideon> He gives you a weary look. "You don't look much like reporters to me," he says, his breath a stench of rotting teeth. Sayuri taps you on the shoulder. "Those two men in the corner--" she points to a couple of middle-aged, balding fellows, "--looked up when you said the name. Shall we go lean on them for information?"
<Yomi> "Don't hesitate to call us if you change your mind," Yomi tells him, nodding at Sayuri and making her way to the table occupied by the pair, sitting herself down opposite them and asking, "Are you his friends?"
<El-Cideon> Sayuri sits down next to you, watching them cautiously but obviously not having much to say. The two men look at you, then each other, before one in cracked spectacles speaks. "Yes. Yes, I am Zhao, this is Lim. We reported his absence to the police when Chao did not appear at work. He was always very punctual, so it was a surprise."
<Yomi> "That was two days ago," Yomi confirms. "Has anything changed since then?"
<El-Cideon> He shakes his head. "No. The police, they are not interested. I suppose I should be glad they listened at all. They looked around the store when Lim and I insisted, but they spent little time and found nothing."
<Yomi> "How about you show us the store -- it was where you saw him last, wasn't it?"
<El-Cideon> "Well, no. He laid tracks for the railroad, with us. But he told us--" The other one, Lim, with a long face and a thin mustache interrupts him. "It was Mio! He said he was meeting her there, and the next day, he was just gone. She did something with him, surely!"
* Hatbot (~Hatbot@cpe-70-123-153-22.austin.res.rr.com) has joined #HometownHeroes
<Yomi> That means the investigation would likely be very short, whether this Mio is human or not, Yomi muses. "Let's go see it," she suggests. "You could tell us about this Mio along the way."
<El-Cideon> This seems agreeable. Out in the street, Zhao picks up the story again. "It's down this way, four blocks on our left. You can't miss it--it caught fire in a police raid two years ago and was never fully rebuilt. Anyway, Mio is a, a prostitute. She works at the Red Lotus." He looks down at the street as he says this.
* Yomi coughs, barely stopping herself from laughing at this. Sayuri is going to love it when she realizes where they're headed. "So she and Chao Ma had a working relationship?"
<El-Cideon> "Well, he--he saw her regularly. After work. It is a difficult job, a man has to relax, you know? One evening, he meets us at the restaraunt, as always. Says Mio wanted to meet him again late at night, after work. Not for pay, for fun. He won't stop talking about it, all the things he's going to do with her." He seems intent on not looking at either of the women present as he relates all this.
<Yomi> "We can safely skip that. Who decided on the burnt down store as the meeting place?"
<El-Cideon> "It was her. I don't know why she would want to meet there of all places. Old building, should be torn down."
<Yomi> "Why was it raided by a police?" she asks curiously. It may well be related, after all.
<Yomi> *by the
<El-Cideon> It's only a couple minutes' walk before you're there. It's a fairly pedestrian storefront, or was before the fire got to it. The front windows are broken and boarded up, the remnants of a broad sign scorched into illegibility. "Rebel supporters, they thought," he says, either not knowing more or not wanting to elaborate.
<Yomi> "And what happened to the owners?" Yomi asks, looking for a way in. There would likely be one, if the place is used in a nightly rendezvous.
<El-Cideon> "Gone now," is all he says. "No one comes here now. No one wants to move into it, you can surely see why." The front door is intact. Sort of. The wood frame is warped, but it looks usable still, if a bit sticky to push and pull.
* Yomi nudges it with her foot, not quite kicking it in.
<El-Cideon> It opens after the application of some force, and swings inward. The interior is somewhat better off than the storefront. The floor looks safe enough, at least. You can't see terribly far in, though, mostly catching sight of fragments of wood strewn about.
<Yomi> "Do your talents involve investigating such places for clues?" Yomi asks Sayuri quietly, retreating to be closer to the ninja. "The missing man's friends here told me he was meeting a woman here after work, at her insistence."
<El-Cideon> "I am not a detective, Yomi. But if you wish me to go inside and spring whatever sneaky ambush you have prepared, I am surely obliged to go in and confound it."
<Yomi> "Excellent. Let's go in, then."
<El-Cideon> Sayuri enters ahead of you, looking cautiously from side to side, and up. The interior of the building is one main room--a lot of the internal walls appear to have crumbled, the bulk of the building now one wide open area. There's not much obviously here--rubble lies in heaps about the corners, bits of broken furniture and burnt plaster. A hole in the ceiling far above lets in a trickle of light.
* Yomi is not a detective herself, either, but tries to make do with what she has and determine whether someone had been within for the past week or not.
<El-Cideon> The two men trail in behind you. "The police came here, poked about for perhaps a minute, and then left. We told them about Mio, but, well, if they spoke to her, she surely gave them each a roll in her bed and sent them on their way. And...she is Japanese, like you. They would listen to even a Japanese whore before one of us."
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll search? Listen is also relevant if you're poking around.
<Yomi> "Oh, I think the working girl part was far more important than the Japanese part," Yomi assures them as she looks around.
<Yomi> roll 1d20+1 search
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+1 search and gets 5."12 [1d20=4]
<Yomi> roll 1d20 listen
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20 listen and gets 2."12 [1d20=2]
<El-Cideon> "I would ask you not to repeat these things in your paper," Zhao continues. "It would be bad for me to be known to say such things about the Japanese. But I do not think you are writers for the newspaper. I do not know what you are, just that you seem to want to help."
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20 Search maybe Sayuri can save this
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20 Search maybe Sayuri can save this and gets 12."12 [1d20=12]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+2 listen
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+2 listen and gets 3."12 [1d20=1]
<El-Cideon> roll 2d6 oh what the hell, let's action point that search roll
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d6 oh what the hell, let's action point that search roll and gets 7."12 [2d6=2, 5]
<Yomi> "Sometimes, just wanting isn't enough," Yomi muses. "I don't suppose the building had a basement? There's always something to find below ground."
<El-Cideon> "I think it did," Sayuri says, tapping at a board half-buried under fragments of wood. It echoes.
* Yomi moves over to Sayuri, pushing the rubble out of the way to clear it.
<El-Cideon> Sayuri helps; it's not hard to get it clear. Once pried up and leaning against the wall, the board revels beneath it a hole, and a rickety staircase descending into darkness.
<Yomi> "Anyone's got a light, by chance?"
<El-Cideon> "I have matches," Lim offers, handing you a half-full book of them.
<Yomi> "Good enough," Yomi says, lighing up one and descending carefully.
<El-Cideon> IT's a short descent--this does look like the basement storeroom of a shop, once upon a time. The stairs creak loudly, but support your weight. The room beneath is somewhat larger than can be light by just a match, but looking around the staircase area it seems about twenty feet wide.
<El-Cideon> Make that twenty feet square, you find after circling the walls. There's a bed against the far wall, with white sheets. Not a big one. Maybe just enough for two people to have some fun in. There are candles around it. There is only one visible door, some feet away from the bed. It is closed.
<El-Cideon> "What's down there?" one of the men calls from upstairs. Sayuri, meanwhile, is not far behind you.
* Yomi offers the lit match to Sayuri and strikes another, signaling for her to follow at a short distance while she tries to get the door opened.
<El-Cideon> Sayuri opts to apply the match to a candle. Much easier to carry. The door, like the front, is warped and takes some effort, but opens. A sweet stench rolls out from the other side.
* Yomi throws Sayuri a brief warning glance, recognizing the smell. But this has been her job for as long as she can remember, and she proceeds past the entrance.
<El-Cideon> This room is about fifteen feet square, and was probably once another storeroom. It still stores something, but surely nothing the original owners could have imagined. The first sight that greets you is a man's face--decaying, partly liquefied. The body is secured to the wall by a coccoon of white, glistening strands. Similar bodies line the walls, in increasing states of decay.
<El-Cideon> "What in heaven--!" Sayuri gags behind you, staring in disgust.
<Yomi> "Guard the ladder," Yomi tells Sayuri, trying to think of a demon that fits with this pattern.
<El-Cideon> OOC: K:Arcana can be rolled. Usual bonus for Japaneseness
<El-Cideon> Sayuri seems more than glad to back off, and does so.
<Yomi> roll 1d20+8 can I be competent?
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+8 can I be competent? and gets 10."12 [1d20=2]
* Yomi retreats out of the room, meeting up with the ninja. "Even ignoring the web and the unbelievably creepy hoarding of corpses, the fact that Chao Ma's face is half-melted alone would be evidence of demonic involvement. Time to see his paramour, I think. If I introduce you under your real name to her, take it as a sign of her being a demon in disguise."
<El-Cideon> "I...see," Sayuri says slowly. "Where are we going? What is going on here?"
<Yomi> "This Mio apparently works at the Red Lotus, so that's where I'll be taking you. Just don't take it the wrong way?" She blows on her match, putting it out and discarding it. "As for what is going on, isn't it obvious? We're going after the demon, of course."
<El-Cideon> "What is the Red Lotus? How--what do we..." She sounds very lost as she follows you out, and distracted as though trying desperately to ignore something.
<Yomi> "A place I did not expect our investigation to take us to, really," Yomi responds, the first to climb up.
<El-Cideon> Sayuri glances behind her reflexively as she follows you out. "It wasn't part of my assignment to help you fight demons!" she insists.
<Yomi> "You can just stand by and look pretty while I fight the demons," Yomi proposes.
<El-Cideon> "I didn't think we'd find any at ALL. I was just humoring you! Now...what happened to those men?!" Zhao and Lim scurry back as you rejoin them, sensing something is afoot.
<Yomi> "Nadia was like that as well. Her innocence there was almost adorable," Yomi reminisces, before she switches languages. "Can you take us to the Red Lotus, now?"
<El-Cideon> "You...you want to go there?" Zhao says. "Why? Well...I do know the way..." Again this seems like something he doesn't want to admit to a woman. "Follow me."
<Yomi> "To be more specific, I would like to discuss something with Mio in private. Since I cannot possibly head in as a customer, it would help if you could lure her outside."
<El-Cideon> He starts walking, further down the same street. "How should I do this? She would normally be at work for another couple hours. So I'm told."
<Yomi> "So you're told," Yomi repeats in amusement. "Doesn't she stay there overnight? If she actually lives away from work, and you could describe her to me, I could just wait until she leaves."
<El-Cideon> "I don't know that much--where she lives, I mean. Normally the girls live there...but everyone treats her different, she may live elsewhere. I can describe her, if you like."
<Yomi> "That would have to do for now."
<El-Cideon> "She is, ah, pretty. Pretty but cold-looking. Sharp features, like you could cut yourself on them. She ties her hair back when she is not, you know, busy."
<Yomi> "Alright. Once you get us close enough, we'll take it from there. It wouldn't do for you to get further involved."
<El-Cideon> "Yes. She should be hard to miss. Sometimes when she looks at you...it's as though a scientist looking down a microscope, yes? Uncomfortable." After a couple minutes of walking, you stop at a three-storey apartment building, seemingly like any other. Zhao wanders around to the back, where a staircase descends below street level. (more)
<El-Cideon> A red flower is painted above the door at the bottom of the stairs, although it doesn't look much like a lotus, truth be told.
<Yomi> "Thank you," Yomi tells the pair. "And I'm sorry about your friend."
<El-Cideon> They nod. "She killed him?"
<Yomi> "If there is another mysterious disappearance tonight, this time of a Japanese girl, then yes."
<El-Cideon> Another nod. They amble away, with uncertain glances back. "Now what?" Sayuri asks you.
<Yomi> "This part is one you're quite familiar with. We'll need to find some spot to observe the entrance, so that we'll see this Mio once she leaves and confront her. Since it should be a couple hours more, that would give you time to adjust to the existence of demons, so it's a win-win situation all around."
<El-Cideon> Sayuri looks around the grubby alleyway, apparently glad for something to do. "There," she points, "that pile of rubbish. It is not a glamorous hiding spot, but not one most would search. Old boxes, discarded furniture. We can block our bodies from their sight, and cut an eyehole for ours."
<Yomi> "I will defer to an expert," Yomi agrees, following her advice. And she herself is grateful for the time to think, the hunt for a demon serving as comfortable grounds to make decisions about her future.
<El-Cideon> Sayuri arranges the array of trash to create an empty space amidst it wide enough to admit both of you, leaving just a slash for you to watch from. Someone would have to be know what they were looking for to spot either of you, surely. This done, she settles in to wait with you. OOC: hide check? Call it +10 for all the cover she set up. Probably a formality, but go ahead.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+16+10 this is Sayuri's thing, yes
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+16+10 this is Sayuri's thing, yes and gets 42."12 [1d20=16]
<Yomi> OOC: I'm bad at this, let's take 10 for 21
<El-Cideon> OOC: okay.
<El-Cideon> It's a cramped and odorous couple hours. You watch a series of men come and go. No women, then finally...ah, there's one, in a sleek red dress that leaves nothing of her figure to the imagination. She is, as Zhao said, coldly pretty, striking in the manner of something designed rather than grown. she doesn't seem to take any notice of you as she starts off down the street you originally came from.
<Yomi> "It is my job to cleanse the world of the taint of death and decay," Yomi murmurs her mantra, channeling her belief into her sheathed weapon as she tugs on the string binding its wrappings together. As it flutters away, she emerges from her cover to close the distance between herself and the demon in female form, hoping to be in a position to strike before she is noticed!
<El-Cideon> OOC: You're about thirty feet starting off. Roll move silently to get to her unnoticed? Take your attack as planned if it succeeds, otherwise we roll init.
<Yomi> OOC: I was thinking of charging as my surprise round. That works?
<El-Cideon> OOC: if she doesn't hear you running, yes.
<Yomi> roll 1d20+1 she surely will
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+1 she surely will and gets 17."12 [1d20=16]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20 she might not
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20 she might not and gets 5."12 [1d20=5]
<El-Cideon> OOC: go ahead and make your attack, then init
<Yomi> Demons who seduce away people and then melt their faces don't get a proper invitation to a duel! Once she is five feet away, Yomi hits the latch on the base of the hilt, releasing her sword from its confines and directly at the demon's unprotected back.
<Yomi> She wraps the chain once around her wrist, and tugs on it to send the sword flying back into her hand, just in time to ram it into Mio's side as she barrels into her!
<Yomi> roll 1d20+12 charge, 5pa
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+12 charge, 5pa and gets 22."12 [1d20=10]
<El-Cideon> OOC: hit
<Yomi> roll 1d20+10 surgings
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+10 surgings and gets 18."12 [1d20=8]
<El-Cideon> OOC: also hit
<Yomi> roll 2d6+10+10
<Yomi> roll 2d6+10+10
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 2d6+10+10 and gets 27."12 [2d6=6, 1]
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 2d6+10+10 and gets 31."12 [2d6=5, 6]
<El-Cideon> Yomi skewers the woman, her enchanted sword unleashing a torrent of thick, black blood. "Wha--who--" she gurgles, turning on Yomi with pure hatred in her eyes. "HOW DARE YOU," she hisses, pulling off the blade and rounding on her attacker.
<El-Cideon> OOC: init, she is badly wounded and fairly pissed.
<Yomi> roll 1d20+1
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+1 and gets 9."12 [1d20=8]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+5 Mio
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+5 Mio and gets 12."12 [1d20=7]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+3 Sayuri if she feels like it
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+3 Sayuri if she feels like it and gets 22."12 [1d20=19]
* Retrieving #HometownHeroes modes...
* El-Cideon changes topic to '6Yomi: 63/63, Nadia: 58/58, Erin: 54/54, Rena: 60/60  Sayuri > Mio > Yomi'
<Yomi> "How dare YOU!" Yomi exclaims, holding her sword horizontally, its tip extended towards Mio. "You shouldn't have preyed on people if you wanted to live!"
<El-Cideon> She totters back a few steps and then her form distorts, growing larger before your eyes. The flesh flays off her legs, and several more sprout from beneath her dress. Long articulated limbs, striped coal black and brilliant yellow. Horrible claws scythe out from her arms; her mouth distends and mandibles thrust their way out. "But they're so TASTY," she gurgles. "You should see them squirm as their insides melt. MMM!"
<El-Cideon>  "You should see them squirm as their insides melt. MMM!"
<El-Cideon> OOC: Yomi again, she just five-foot-stepped and transformed. Sayuri's BSODing.
<El-Cideon> OOC: of note is that she is now Large and has reach.
<Yomi> OOC: So 5ft stepping after her won't let me hit her?
<El-Cideon> OOC: it should, she only took five feet herself.
<El-Cideon> OOC: Sayuri would get AoO'd if she joined in now, though.
<Yomi> "And you are so squishy," Yomi responds, disgusted by the display. She steps in after the spider demon, and her forward lunge turns into a horizontal slash at one front leg, then another, before thrusting the blade straight up into the beast's neck!
<Yomi> roll 1d20+15
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+15 and gets 23."12 [1d20=8]
<Yomi> roll 1d20+10
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+10 and gets 22."12 [1d20=12]
<Yomi> roll 1d20+15 surgings x2
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+15 surgings x2 and gets 18."12 [1d20=3]
<Yomi> roll 2d6
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 2d6 and gets 7."12 [2d6=1, 6]
<El-Cideon> OOC: all hit. This will be ugly.
<Yomi> roll 2d6+10
<Yomi> roll 2d6+10
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 2d6+10 and gets 19."12 [2d6=5, 4]
<Yomi> roll 2d6+10
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 2d6+10 and gets 22."12 [2d6=6, 6]
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 2d6+10 and gets 16."12 [2d6=4, 2]
<El-Cideon> Legs snap under Yomi's assault, sending the monster tumbling forward into Yomi's final attack. A horrible chunk of meat is gouged from Mio's neck. Burbling unintelligibly, she crashes to the ground seeping noxious fluids.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+8 stabilization roll! Not that it will matter.
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+8 stabilization roll! Not that it will matter. and gets 26."12 [1d20=18]
<El-Cideon> OOC: free act, really. She stabilized, but won't be doing anything for a good long time.
<Yomi> Yomi's sword flashes to separate the demon's head from its shoulders, seeking to grant peace to the spirit of Chao Ma and Mio's other victims!
<Yomi> "And to think we were just talking about female demons earlier today," Yomi mutters, shaking her head.
<El-Cideon> SLASH! And Mio's grotesque visage tumbles across the ground to settle staring at a shocked Sayuri. Mio's body shudders and finally goes still, the horror surely a gruesome sight for the next would-be customer of the Red Lotus...