ARRIVAL The pain is unreal. Rune loses track of what is happening. Shouts, orders, the sound of chairs being flung out of the way. He sees Addam appear and go for Anna, his hands already simmering with Healing spells. He hears Brand's panicked voice, "Hold on, he's coming for you next, oh fuck Rune, oh fuck." He tries to turn to look at his shoulder but his body screams in protest, the flesh feeling like it's being fried from the bone. No, it is, he can smell it.
"It's rainfire!" Corinne's voice now, as she grabs him, kicking the back of his knees and throwing him to the ground. "It sinks with gravity-- turn him around, turn him around, before it burrows to his heart!"
He feels himself being manhandled facedown, Brand's strong and capable hands fastened tight on his uninjured shoulder. Catches the sight of orange droplets, falling to the stone below.
His eyes close --
-- and open, to find himself face-to-face with an unfamiliar mask.
Panic spills to the forefront of Rune’s thoughts, before he realizes he does not recognize this face. This mask. (Why are there always masks?) Searing pain through the arm strapped to his chest brings him back into the here and now, and a doctor hovers into view, who fusses over what appears to be a burn on his arm before offering him a further dose of painkillers and, after a moment’s hesitation, the bottle. Rune doesn’t bother arguing — he has no idea what spells he has stored in his sigils, or whether… No, a quick pat-down tells him no one’s taken anything, which is at least something of a relief.
After a few more rounds, the doctor is satisfied enough with Rune’s status to release him — and Rune is too tired and drugged to argue otherwise. He just needs to get out of here and figure out where Brand and Addam have gone, what the hell happened with that girl, and. Gods, Anna, is Anna alright?
Stumbling out the door, he has every intention of doing just that. But then he comes face to face with a man — a man apparently named Yom Crook. A man who explains that he has been found here in this place. In the diffusion zone. Something about ‘fluxdrifts’, although by this point Rune’s brain has started to check out as his mind races to make sense of what he’s hearing. That is, right up until the moment when the man tells him that the car parked beside him is for him, offering to wave his medical bill if he’ll take it on a loan.
Rune blinks at the man. At the car. He turns to glance back at the medical bay he’s just come out of, then back at Yom.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me—“
THE ROAD Rune sets off on the road almost as soon as the keys are in his hand. He’s not about to give that Yom guy a reason to doubt his choice of giving him this car, sight unseen. Even if the SUV is a bit outdated, the sad thing is that it’s nicer than his beat-up old Saturn back home, and a little voice in the back of his head that sounds a lot like Brand tells him it’ll handle way better off-road, should things come to that.
What he doesn’t consider until about half an hour into the drive is that he’s down an arm and he’s got some serious painkillers on board and no Healing spells stored to fix this problem quickly. About the third time he blinks and finds himself a few more feet down the road than he anticipated being instead, Rune pulls the car off to the shoulder of the road and slows to a stop. Leaning forward, he rests his forehead on the steering wheel with a groan, as much because the movement pulls at his injured arm in a way that does not feel good as because he has no idea what the hell he is doing, or what he is doing here, or what he’s going to do, and he is well and truly fucked.
He’s still leaning against the steering wheel, wondering whether he should just try sleeping it off before starting the drive again, when a knock on the window nearly gives him a heart attack. Slipping off the edge of the wheel, he hits the horn, swearing as he wrenches his bad shoulder, clutching his arm in its sling as he spins to face the window, heart racing…
PANORAMA Rune has finally made his way to the city, and finally found himself a place to stay. He’s managed to rustle himself up something for dinner that appears edible, and the hotel bed doesn’t seem like it’s about to give him any immediate diseases. With the TV on some random show and down to a low hum, it’s almost cozy? As he gingerly settles down with his takeaway carton in his lap — the motion still awkward given the fact that he is down one arm — he takes stock of the situation. Maybe, with a little food in his system and a little more sleep, he can spend some time recharging his sigils. He really needs to stock up on at least a few Healing spells, all things considered. It’s going to be hard here without a Sanctum, but maybe if he can just maintain his meditation for long enough…
He raises his fork to his mouth, trying to convince himself that this isn’t so bad. He’s been through worse, right? Technically, he’s been through a lot worse. He certainly didn’t have a sanctum of his own back then. He definitely didn’t have sigils of his own until he foraged them from the wreckage of the life he had known. This isn’t so bad, this is—
The room around him is plunged in darkness, the television going dead, as if Fate has heard his thoughts and chosen to laugh in his face.
“Motherfucker,” Rune murmurs under his breath, before whispering a cantrip, a soft golden ball of light appearing above his head. Counting to ten, Rune’s hopes and dreams that the electricity might return sooner rather than later are dashed, and he lets out a soft sigh of resignation. He’s just about to continue about his business when he hears what decidedly sounds like a scream, not far beyond the closed door of his room.
Because of course. Setting his takeout to the side for now, Rune heads to the door and pokes his head out into the hallway, sending his light cantrip to hover just beyond the open door.
Rune Saint John | The Tarot Sequence (will match style!)
The pain is unreal. Rune loses track of what is happening. Shouts, orders, the sound of chairs being flung out of the way. He sees Addam appear and go for Anna, his hands already simmering with Healing spells. He hears Brand's panicked voice, "Hold on, he's coming for you next, oh fuck Rune, oh fuck." He tries to turn to look at his shoulder but his body screams in protest, the flesh feeling like it's being fried from the bone. No, it is, he can smell it.
"It's rainfire!" Corinne's voice now, as she grabs him, kicking the back of his knees and throwing him to the ground. "It sinks with gravity-- turn him around, turn him around, before it burrows to his heart!"
He feels himself being manhandled facedown, Brand's strong and capable hands fastened tight on his uninjured shoulder. Catches the sight of orange droplets, falling to the stone below.
His eyes close --
-- and open, to find himself face-to-face with an unfamiliar mask.
Panic spills to the forefront of Rune’s thoughts, before he realizes he does not recognize this face. This mask. (Why are there always masks?) Searing pain through the arm strapped to his chest brings him back into the here and now, and a doctor hovers into view, who fusses over what appears to be a burn on his arm before offering him a further dose of painkillers and, after a moment’s hesitation, the bottle. Rune doesn’t bother arguing — he has no idea what spells he has stored in his sigils, or whether… No, a quick pat-down tells him no one’s taken anything, which is at least something of a relief.
After a few more rounds, the doctor is satisfied enough with Rune’s status to release him — and Rune is too tired and drugged to argue otherwise. He just needs to get out of here and figure out where Brand and Addam have gone, what the hell happened with that girl, and. Gods, Anna, is Anna alright?
Stumbling out the door, he has every intention of doing just that. But then he comes face to face with a man — a man apparently named Yom Crook. A man who explains that he has been found here in this place. In the diffusion zone. Something about ‘fluxdrifts’, although by this point Rune’s brain has started to check out as his mind races to make sense of what he’s hearing. That is, right up until the moment when the man tells him that the car parked beside him is for him, offering to wave his medical bill if he’ll take it on a loan.
Rune blinks at the man. At the car. He turns to glance back at the medical bay he’s just come out of, then back at Yom.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me—“
THE ROAD
Rune sets off on the road almost as soon as the keys are in his hand. He’s not about to give that Yom guy a reason to doubt his choice of giving him this car, sight unseen. Even if the SUV is a bit outdated, the sad thing is that it’s nicer than his beat-up old Saturn back home, and a little voice in the back of his head that sounds a lot like Brand tells him it’ll handle way better off-road, should things come to that.
What he doesn’t consider until about half an hour into the drive is that he’s down an arm and he’s got some serious painkillers on board and no Healing spells stored to fix this problem quickly. About the third time he blinks and finds himself a few more feet down the road than he anticipated being instead, Rune pulls the car off to the shoulder of the road and slows to a stop. Leaning forward, he rests his forehead on the steering wheel with a groan, as much because the movement pulls at his injured arm in a way that does not feel good as because he has no idea what the hell he is doing, or what he is doing here, or what he’s going to do, and he is well and truly fucked.
He’s still leaning against the steering wheel, wondering whether he should just try sleeping it off before starting the drive again, when a knock on the window nearly gives him a heart attack. Slipping off the edge of the wheel, he hits the horn, swearing as he wrenches his bad shoulder, clutching his arm in its sling as he spins to face the window, heart racing…
PANORAMA
Rune has finally made his way to the city, and finally found himself a place to stay. He’s managed to rustle himself up something for dinner that appears edible, and the hotel bed doesn’t seem like it’s about to give him any immediate diseases. With the TV on some random show and down to a low hum, it’s almost cozy? As he gingerly settles down with his takeaway carton in his lap — the motion still awkward given the fact that he is down one arm — he takes stock of the situation. Maybe, with a little food in his system and a little more sleep, he can spend some time recharging his sigils. He really needs to stock up on at least a few Healing spells, all things considered. It’s going to be hard here without a Sanctum, but maybe if he can just maintain his meditation for long enough…
He raises his fork to his mouth, trying to convince himself that this isn’t so bad. He’s been through worse, right? Technically, he’s been through a lot worse. He certainly didn’t have a sanctum of his own back then. He definitely didn’t have sigils of his own until he foraged them from the wreckage of the life he had known. This isn’t so bad, this is—
The room around him is plunged in darkness, the television going dead, as if Fate has heard his thoughts and chosen to laugh in his face.
“Motherfucker,” Rune murmurs under his breath, before whispering a cantrip, a soft golden ball of light appearing above his head. Counting to ten, Rune’s hopes and dreams that the electricity might return sooner rather than later are dashed, and he lets out a soft sigh of resignation. He’s just about to continue about his business when he hears what decidedly sounds like a scream, not far beyond the closed door of his room.
Because of course. Setting his takeout to the side for now, Rune heads to the door and pokes his head out into the hallway, sending his light cantrip to hover just beyond the open door.
“Hello? Is everyone alright?”