This post has the following content warnings:
a Cameron falls on Hearth
Next Post »
+ Show First Post
Total: 433
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

"Nahh. Not hurtn. I feel," she pauses to think about it, "...Hard t'. Focus. I feel okay. You gonna make me feel real good?"

Permalink

"We shall see. Try to watch my finger..." and he proceeds through a series of mundane and magical field diagnostics.

Permalink

Does he want Cameron to set Tegan down somewhere?

Permalink

He has a cot ready.

"You can rest now. You're going to be all right." He helps prop her up using a folded blanket as a pillow. (She smiles up at him.)

To Cameron, "Do you need anything? You seem... up and about; but I don't know what you've been through."

Permalink

"I'll show you---actually, I should show everyone. Later. When a distraction from all this would be more helpful than not helpful. Right now, I'm going to go back into the eldritch reality-salad and make sure Tegan was actually the last one trapped."

Scanner Pulse. Scanner Pulse. Combing this mess for anything else that could have once been a human brain...

Permalink

Over there. There's not much left: most of the head, one shoulder, and maybe a third of the brain.

Permalink

Shit.

And she was this close to being able to flip off the universe and crow about being unstoppable.

Cameron digs her way down to them, restores and revives them, and carries them out, back to the Doc. She doesn't bother to ask any questions this time. Not only does she already know that the answers wouldn't be good, but she's also pretty sure this person does not currently know any languages.

"Last one," Cameron reports solemnly. "But, there wasn't much left."

Permalink

"I understand. Thank you."

The victim seems more lucid than Tegan. He says something gibberish in the tones of a question, frowns, says a few more nonwords, and looks at Doc, gesturing at his mouth and ears.

Doc looks at him sympathetically, and touches his own mouth and ear, nodding. After wrapping him in a blanket, he starts running through a slightly different battery of tests than he gave Tegan.

Permalink

Cameron makes a small shield to sit on and plops down on it. She's not tired. But she feels like she should be.

 

"What's the damage elsewise?" Cameron asks once the Doc finishes his tests. "I remember at least one building closer to where I took off from than, that."

Permalink

"There are many people who lost their homes, I'm afraid. Some of the buildings closer to the edge may be salvageable. But we will be some time rebuilding."

Permalink

"I'll help with that. I wish I could say it was worth it. But it wasn't worth it. I gained little."

She looks up, at the region of sky containing the invisible downpour of eldritch chaos. "The breach should close soon. I hope." It was healing. It was.

Permalink

The downpour does seem to be slowing.

 

High above, a faint point (mouth) of light marks the location of the breach.

Permalink

Wait what? That's new.

Um.

It's... getting... dimmer?

Cameron is going to watch until the sky shuts its mouth the breach finally closes.

Permalink

The flow is decreasing, but the light is increasing.

 

When the light stabilizes, it's still only a relatively faint dot in the daytime sky, appearing the size of a planet and the brightness of the moon.

At ground level, it's another twenty minutes before the flow ends.

Permalink

Huh.

Cameron waits, and once she's completely sure the breach has closed, she'll spend the rest of the afternoon with a ring of shields around the affected area to prevent escaping ejecta while she blasts the remaining eldritch chaos back to bedrock.

Unless anyone has alternative suggestions?

Permalink

None are forthcoming.

 

While the chaotic growths are straightforwardly blastable, the area of effect (glass) itself responds to neither blasts nor shields. It does seem to pool in the hole she's making in the ground, though. The final effect is a (reservoir) of eldritch, writhing with (optimism) at the bottom and (simmering) with relatively tame growth near the surface. The growth near the top shows no particular inclination to venture from its origin.

Permalink

Well that's kind of frustrating. At least it's contained?

Cameron is going to build a fence. She asks how far out of town she needs to go before no one's attached to any of the trees, goes that far, and uses Inviolate Stand and her bare hands to make fence posts.

Once she's done with that, she's going to go see about setting up a projection screen---a big white sheet or something, to hang on the side of a building? She can replay part of what happened, and it seems like everyone might be interested in getting an explanation for all this that's worth more than just her explaining verbally. (Some verbal explanation will still be necessary. Editing in subtitles would be tacky.)

She'll see if the Doc can use her for anything in the meanwhile.

Permalink

It's half an hour's walk for an unladen muggle; is she sure she doesn't want to just buy some lumber? She can totally afford it. (There's a scrip for lumber in Simon's box, even, if she looks.)

Regardless, she can totally build a fence. Someone trying to be helpful comes by with a mallet and twine, respectively to pound the posts into the ground and to tie them together.

The ...illusion-augmented explanation? is a nice thought, but maybe not today. There are some people who'd appreciate a summary, though.

Doc has a couple of patients who escaped the eldritch – apparently the term going around is "exocelestial magic" – before she came back. None of them are in critical condition, but none of them are unscathed, with the arguable exception of the woman who thinks the pedipalps growing out of her arm are totally wicked and is just here to make sure they're not gonna kill her or something.

Permalink

Any lumber they've already got should probably go to rebuilding houses? She can hoverskate and then carry the load back into town as twelve of herself. It's barely a trip. She will however be grateful for the helpful twine and mallet, even if she doesn't need a mallet it is easier to use one than try to drive the posts down herself without breaking them in the process.

The explanatory video doesn't have to be today, she just wanted to make sure people knew it was on offer, because they deserve an explanation for what happened. That said, Cameron doesn't think she can do it justice herself, and she doesn't want to tell a dozen slightly different iterations of this story to a dozen separate groups.

She will heal all of the Doc's patients that she missed in her first pass, and poke the woman to confirm that she doesn't have additional spider parts about to pierce an artery or whatever.

Permalink

That's very thoughtful of her.

If she feels she needs visual aids to explain, they're sure they'll be able to figure out a time and place that works for everyone.

Spider woman has some stray fragments of chitin lodged in her muscle tissue, but it doesn't look dangerous, and she claims not to mind the discomfort.

Permalink

Have fun with that, spider woman. Is that the last of the immediate crises?

Cameron should probably talk to whoever is in charge directly, shouldn't she, about helping to rebuild.

Permalink

Looks like everything's more or less under control.

There's nobody officially in charge, but in practice it looks like things are being directed by a pregnant woman in a short-sleeved white tunic dress and red rope belt. They're currently working on clearing and leveling the ground, and checking the old foundations, which are mostly intact enough to reuse but will need some work on the surface.

Permalink

Cameron waits until the woman has a spare moment.

"Hi. I'm the magical girl. How can I help? Do you already know about my abilities or should I explain?"

Permalink

"Hi! I don't think I've gotten the run-down on what-all you can do, aside from –" she gestures at the blasted area. "Thanks for helping with that, by the way, it woulda been a— well, I guess it technically was a disaster, but." Her voice softens. "It woulda been a tragedy. Lotta folk owe you their lives, today."

Total: 433
Posts Per Page: