Roleplaying
2004 Archive
2005 Archive
Seminars
| When: | 26 March 2005 |
| Who: | Butch, Galen, Kacela, Uzal |
| What: | Galen gets some sword practice, Kacela shows off her new toy, and the tale of Kurgen's demise. |
I-35 Demolishers Hangout
A surprisingly run down-looking warehouse in this mostly well-kept neighborhood. There is evidence of graffiti, the largest depicting a I-35 highway sign with a black motorcycle silhouette superimposed on it. A half-dozen Harley-Davidsons are parked in front of the warehouse, leaning on their kick-stands. Weeds grow through the cracks in the asphalt parking lot, and the windows of the building, where they aren't boarded over, are grimy.
Galen is eager to begin his weapon training session. He's had the bikers erect a half dozen plywood and 2x4 training dummies. He stands in the parking lot, eyeballing a small assortment of large weapons. A baseball bat, a katana, a fireman's axe, and a mace. He eyes each in turn, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each. Finally he selects the Katana, having just seen 'Kill Bill' for the 43rd time. He experimentally swings it a few times, his strength alone causing it to hum through the air dangerously.
Butch comes stiding in through the door. The bikers out front letting him in after associating him with Galen from the night before. He has an un-lit cigarette in his mouth and in one hand he carries a large leather bag, but it doesn't look very full. He has ditched his typical jeans and firehouse t-shirt for a more discreet leather jacket and some black slacks with snakeskin leather boots. He tosses a wave to Galen as he strides in the door, seeing the big guy allready 'experimenting' with his katana.
Butch strides across the room to the side of the dummies and sets down his bag. He unzips it to reveal his own Fire-mans axe. A slightly larger than regulation one. Typical wodden handle and broad axe head. He shoulders the weapon with one arm and walks back into the 'training area', making sure to give Galen some room to swing freely.
The faint, rhythmic clack-clack-clack of glass bottles rattling against each other in time with a ground-eating stride fills the cavernous maw of the warehouse. Kacela gives a wilting glower towards the gazes cast her way by the assorted bikers. She plunks one of the six-packs on the table, seeking to distract them, although the idea of a woman delivering their beverages probably isn't helping Kacela out in the least. The glitter of blue covers her legs and chest, leaving her unaltered belly bared for view. She's carrying a black partly tucked under one arm, and carries the other six-pack of Twisted Smirnoff Watermelon with her towards the parking lot proper, tilting her head to the side as she watches the sparring males. "Hmm, gives me some background noise while I work on this pig-sticker," she says to herself, before pulling up a metal folding chair and seating herself about ten yards away.
Uzal follows a little distance behind Kacela, a faint smirk on his face. He's evidently been watching her... back. Yeah, that's it. He has no clanking bottles with him, and his paces are soft, making it easy for him to sneak around. He looks around the warehouse with mild curiosity, observing the sparring men and soon-to-drink bikers.
Galen watches Butch enter, and salutes him with the Katana, hearly taking off his right ear. As a bit of his pony tail floats down from where it was just snicked from his scalp, Galen spies Kacela entering, and pauses to admire this vision of Nubian beauty. The third person he doesn't recognize, but Galen assumes its a friend of Butch's or Kacela's and gives him a curt nod, rather than any further displays of dangerous military ineptitude with the razor sharp katana. "Hey guys." He says cheerfully. Galen is about to learn how to hurt things more better, this is a cause for happiness in this young demon's eyes.
Kacela's shoulders rise and fall in a sigh as she hears Galen's greeting, eyeing the blade dubiously. "Where are the kenpo sticks?" However, she tenses shoulders slightly as she catches sight of Uzal out of the corner of her eye, and turns to more fully face him. "Ah, how goes the business of sowing strife?" She sets the chair down, and then tries to arrange herself to maximize comfort, the flavored drinks on the ground. She unpacks a series of newspapers, spreading them before her, pulls out a pack of green heavy-duty scouring pads, and a can of WD-40. Last to emerge is a Celtic short sword, one that had been carefully placed within, its spade shaped blade gleaming dully.
Butch twirls his axe in his hands as he eyes a dummy, then lashes out without warning. Slaming his axe through the replica's head. Spliting it right down the middle. He recoils, and slices downward slaming the axe deep into it's stomach, and then he pushes the blade down through the dummy the rest of the way. Thuroghly breaking the dummy and generating a slight disturbance. "Mmmmmm good warm up!" He turns back around to see Kacela siting down and she looks pretty damn good tonight. He turns to Galen, "Hey, better look good for the woman folk. Heheh, well it's good to work off some steam before the big show down tomorrow! DAMN am I excited!" He exhales deeply, curiosly watching Kacela and still eyeing her attire, her follows her gaze over to Uzal and he chuckles to himself, but his chuckles quickly turn to an awed coo'ing sound as Kacela unveils the small if not interesting looking sword.
Uzal smiles. "The business of Strife is always lively," he answers Kacela. "And how go your affairs?" He smiles appreciatively at the weapon. "Restoring an antique?" he inquires, then flicking his gaze at Butch, chuckling slightly at the Calabite's enthusiasm. "Ah, a big show there is going to be, is there? How smashing."
Galen holds the Katana out then cocks it back for a swing, he lops the arm off of a dummy before lodging the sword into a telephone pole behind it. In frustration he punches the dummy in the face, slamming his left fist through the dummy, then places his foot on the chest of the crude humanoid form. He yanks with all his might and the katana, not suprisingly, comes loose. Galen falls on his butt, but jumps back up, dropping the katana and grabbing the dummy by the shoulders and headbutts it so furiously that the dummy's head seems to explode in a small shower of wood splinters. Galen then reaches again for the katana. "See. I need more practice with the sword." He says to Butch. Grinning and sweating.
Kacela flicks her gaze up towards the two hacking and slashing at the items, and lets them go to it. Towards Uzal's inquiry, she says, "Marking that which is now mine," she states evenly. "The fool bartended tried to stop an SUV with this thing. Got the body man in the front passenger seat, but Nicholas was able to have his revenge in the end." She seems pleased, "We even went car riding afterwards, and he let me drive in that hot little silver sportster of his. Wasn't that sweet?" She flashes a gloating smile over towards Uzal, "This was in fact his. It's old, the iron cast in it isn't the same steel used in modern manufacturing. The concave brass pommels and hilt, along with the sphere here... it's anthropomorphic. The handle makes the little man's torso, so you /KNOW/ what the blade's supposed to be." At that point, she breaks into a raucous laugh, before leaning over and twisting off one of the lids of the drink, upending it, before she sets the blade down on the newspaper, and begins to spray it down with a generous layer of the all purpose cleaner.
Butch shoulders his blade a moment as he gives Galen some pointers about finding a good mix of stregnth and balance when using such over sized weapons. He demonstrates with a bellowing howl as he charges a dummy, cleaving his axe straight up through the crotch of the wodden man in a fine arc and out through the side of its hip cleaving its leg right off, and he slides to a stop by its side as the dummy tumbles to the earth.
Uzal's face creases just a little as Kacela informs him of her chumminess with Nicodemus. He then smirks at the phallic reference. "A blade fit to be wielded by a fine lady," he chuckles. "So, there has been trouble with a bartender, eh?" he strokes his chin. "I assume it wasn't merely over whether he had the right bottle in stock?" He watches Butch do the crotch-chop on the dummy. "My goodness."
Galen takes a moment to admire Kacela's new toy. Chuckling at the reference to 'little man.' He slams back two beers in rapid succession, then watches Butch's technique. He steps foreward to one of the last few remaining training dummies. He whips the katana up in a humming, deadly arc, cleaving it in the crotch as shown, but doesn't bring it off-center. The blade cuts through the torso of the figure, and finally exits just under the arm. Galen drops to his knee and swings the sword downward taking the hand off the arm he almost took off on the upswing, the katana spangs into the concrete, though, foreshadowing several hours of sharpening and buffing to get the nicks out of the finely crafted blade.
"Oh, that was hardly the reason. He works closely with a rather powerful local malakite in the city, and quite happily informed him of our presence -- " She stops dead as she peers at Galen's glance, before continuing to regale Uzal with her handiwork. "Tyrr assualted the two of us, and managed to, how should we say, disarm Nicholas. Had help from a ministering angel, and then I helped convince a local nurse to help with some more basic needs in terms of healing." SHe then pops open the pack of scrubbers, and begins to scour the blade's surface. "I'm relaxing now, and enjoying my nearly-healed state."
Butch shoulders the blade again, and this time steps just out of the training area letting Galen finish off the last few dummies. He certainly could use the practice, but he IS improving thats for sure. "You know Galen i've been thinking....and I was wondering if I could run a little adjustment to our plot by you? Don't worry its nothing major, and it would keep you out of the big bang...for the most part." He smiles to himself.
Uzal smiles at Kacela. "I am glad to hear you are better, Kacela. It is good that there are so many kind, helpful people in the city, aren't there? All you have to do is ask them." His teeth gleam brightly. He mms a little. "This is the Tyrr who owns the Fado's bar you are talking about, right?"
Galen steps back and looks at his handiwork. "What you got in mind?" he asks over his shoulder then downs yet another beer. He goes over to one of the last two dummies. He focus' upon the dummy, imagining Bronwyn standing there. He really concentrates hard, almost totally convincing himself of Bronwyn's presence. He finally looses his attack He brings the butt of the katana down on the forehead of the figure, at the same moment kicking and smashing one knee. He slides past it with what must be utterly accidental grace, and the katana seems to bring itsel around of its own volition, slicing through one leg from the at the knee. The blade swings up in a silver ribbon, nicking Galen's own leg, then comes down on the dummy's shoulder, slicing off that arm. The katana freezes right after severing the arm, the point of the blade quivering in the air. Galen is grinning like a lunatic before he finally blinks a couple of times, and then smiles and stands up normally. He walks back over to the knot of people by the loading dock and pops the top off another beer with his thumb.
Kacela gives a positively disturbed glance at the number of beers Galen is downing, and turns out the liquid of her second drink onto the pavement, before setting the bottle down and refocusing on her scrubbing and cleaning, although the item didn't need it -- it was more ritualistic at this point. Kacela says, "That is correct. And he has quite the large axe. And apparently the waitstaff had... toys of their own." she hefts the WD-40 soaked blade in hand, before she pulls out an oil cloth and wipes it over the practically shining surface.
Butch walks and talks with Galen. "Well...I mean we've got the plan for the gasoline setup...but I was thinking...That alley has a nice grouping of windows, and there several stories up. Why not just drop a road flare into the gas when pan walks into the alley to get the girl, and let em both fry in the explosion?" Especially if more than just her shows up."
Uzal frowns a bit. "A place to avoid, then. A pity. I had been striking up some acquaintanceships there." He smiles slightly, noting Kacela's fastidious cleaning with approval, then quirks a curious eyebrow at Butch's words. "Frying a Pan, are you, Butch? Do tell."
Galen thinks that that sounds like a wise plan. He nods to Butch. "We can do that." he grimmaces a little at the idea of wasting a kid, especially a non-combatant, but it can't be avoided. Galen sets to disassembling the last remaining dummy, making lots of small fast cuts rather than the huge swings he was using on the first few. He manages to chop the body into virtual sawdust in about ten minutes, performing a fairly credible imitation of a Calabite.
"Positively diabolical," Kacela purrs out as a few details and snatches ring out to her. "Although I'd have to question targeting non-combatants like that... the human child, not the blasted angel vessel," she corrects at the last minute. She then takes the reverse side of the oilcloth and wraps the blade, before carefully placing it back in the black satchel, and begins to pack in the items around it.
Uzal's eyes narrow at the mention of a human child. "Wasteful," he shakes his head distastefully, his Bal-Mercurian sensibilities offended.
Butch smiles widely "It's adding insult to injury! Who cares about the blasted meatbag! PAN DOES! Its a child just like her, I swear I bet she works for children I tell ya! And if she doesn't show I will personally rend the flesh off of a lot more where that one came from! Anyway, the only catch is that if were hanging out on the roof or second floor or whatever were not guarented that our original target will just walk into the alley ya know? It's gonna possitively reak of gasoline and garbage ya know. Well, i guess we can hide, and hope she walks in to get the girl and chuck the flare, or break cover to get her closer if shes reluctant."
Kacela gathers up her items, and chuckles some. "Well, it sounds like you two gentlemen have it well in hand. Far be it from me to interfere. There's more webs to be woven, and the nests of others to be ruined." She abandons the four unopened watermelon flavored drinks, and begins to sidle for the exit.
Galen thanks everyone for coming out today. He gives Butch the official 'Baalite' handshake. He has his biker buddies start removing the wood chunks and splinters from the parking lot. Galen looks at Butch during his fit of hostility to the humans, but can see his point of view, even if he doesn't share it. He peers at his katana, and wonders if he can get it made 'special' at some point. He grabs up a whetstone and starts trying to get the nicks he made out of the steel of the blade. Waving as everyone departs for the night. "See you tomorrow Butch." he says. Galen slams back another beer, then waves his 'boys' back into the warehouse.
Uzal snorts softly and disdainfully, crossing his arms. His hooded eyes watch the Calabim, then he shakes his head lightly. He turns to bow to Kacela as she departs. "Good night, lovely lady." He lifts a hand in a feigned yawn, and turns to amble his way out as well, without bothering to say goodbye to the others.
Butch slides his axe back into his bag and zips it up. He nods to Kacela and Uzal as they take their leave. Then he gives Galen a strong pat on the back as he tells him goodnight. Tomorrow is a big day.
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