Ariel Rolls: 12
Game Move:
GM: Ariel, you’re going into the woods!
Ariel: Can one of my security guys come with me? Don’t I have cameras too? Can I check those?
GM: You check the cameras and see that the video feed cut out just before the time the rumbling started in the backyard.
Ariel: Well, damn.
GM: And for sure one of your guys goes with you.
Ariel: He strapped, or I gotta roll for that?
GM: It’s reasonable to assume he would be strapped. Your guards adore you. You’re a good employer, and you compensate well. Your safety is their priority.
So when you walk out the back door of your grandmother’s house that will always feel the way it did when you were a little girl, no matter how many improvements you pay for, your guard, March, meets you at the last step off the patio and into the thick grass. He’s the man on the house and he mostly looks intimidating on the front porch in all black with shades, and the dark brown muscles that are obvious from a distance. There is another guard on the street in a car, another inside the house.
“You slept through that mess last night, didn’t you?” March asks. Ariel is tall, but he dwarfs her.
“You know I did,” Ariel says. “But I want to go see if something out there.”
“I was thinking about going earlier, but I figured if something crashed back there, there would be some smoke or something. People saying it was an earthquake.”
“Yeah, but I still wanna walk around out there. It’s a hiking path through the woods.”
Ariel and March pass the pool where her cousins splash and laugh, and they eventually make it to the edge of the trees to follow the path inside. Almost immediately when they are walking on the path through the woods, Ariel notices a smell that seems out of place.
“Is that vanilla?” Ariel asks, keeping her eyes on the mass of leaves and vertical branches ahead of them as March follows closely behind. The vanilla scent seems to intensify as they go deeper into the woods on the hiking trail.
“Yeah,” March says eventually. “I ain’t smell it until you said something, but now it’s all I smell. It usually smell like this back here?”
“Nah, if it did, you’d smell it from the house, right? It seem like it’s blowing this way out of the woods.”
The hiking trail allows Ariel and March to walk unabated until they get to a clearing in the woods where a creek rushes along gently. Most of the trees here are thick and tall, some have exposed roots that seem to reach for the water of the creek. And in that scenic beauty of undisturbed nature is a vignette of destruction; a group of the old trees splintered and broken like something solid smashed against them and shattered them to a mess of splinters.
“Oh shit!” March exclaims when he sees it and he rushes to stand in front of Ariel in case whatever caused that destruction is still loose and smashing.
Ariel is startled by the scene, but somehow, seeing the crater of the trees makes her pensive. Combined with the strong smell of vanilla, and some sense she possesses that allows her to feel the presence of others, Ariel is deep in her own mind trying to put something together. Something about everything she is experiencing is familiar and reminding her of something, of someone.
“Seraphiel,” she whispers aloud to herself, and as she continues her voice rises to a normal level. “It feels like Seraphiel is here, like the way it feels when he comes into a room. But it’s not quite Seraphiel. It’s somebody like him, but more somehow.”
“Ariel, I don’t know what you talking about, but we should get back to the house. There ain’t no fire or nothing, but whatever did that can’t be good. I wanna make some calls, make sure everything is alright.”
Ariel is gazing out at the spot of destroyed trees and she hears March, nods her head when he finishes. She hears him turn to walk away and she tears her attention away from her thoughts to turn and leave with him. When she turns, she is startled at the sight of a woman standing between her and March. The woman wears only a flowing white skirt at her waist that hangs down to her calves, and her skin is light brown and unblemished. She has flowing, golden hair that drapes over her muscular shoulders and down to her breasts that are bare. There are large, white feathered wings at her back, and there is also a smaller pair of wings on her chest, between her breasts. Ariel’s notices wings on either side of the woman’s rib cage as well.
“What the fuck!” March yells and Ariel hears him fumbling with his gun. “Ariel run! I got whatever the fuck this is.”
The winged woman has large brown eyes and even though she seems very kind, she has a look of anger on her face.
“Tell your human to leave us,” the woman says. Her voice seems strained and Ariel notices bumps and bruises on the woman’s torso and her breathing raises her shoulders with every breath. “He is not worthy of our presence.”
“Ariel, move!” March shouts.
“Leave us alone,” Ariel says. “I think I know her. You go back to the house, I’ll be right there.”
“The bitch got wings! Boss lady,I can’t leave you here…”
“Go!” the woman turns and glares at March, who panics and fires two shots from his weapon. The wings on her back move swiftly in a sweeping motion and two bullets hit the ground behind her.
“Please, March,” Ariel says, “I’ll be fine.”
“You beg your humans?” the woman asks and crosses her arms over her chest. There are small wings at each of her elbows. “You are nothing like your first mother. Pultine never tolerated disrespect.”
The woman turns to look at March and he still fumbles with the gun in his hands. The woman flaps her wings and the wind they generate made March topple over. She continues to flap and the winds whirl like a tornado is spinning, and March is pushed back down the hiking trail.
“So, daughter of Pultine. Shall we settle this here and now? Or will you surrender the twins?”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Ariel says. “Why do you have wings? Do you know Seraphiel?” Ariel is confused even if the mysterious woman feels familiar to her.
“Playing ignorant is not wise, dark one. Pultine drew lines in the sand between you mmoatia and the aerphim. Our roles are immovable, locked by history. We have waited for a long time for you mmoatia to make your move and now that you have, the archangels will strike you down to teach you a very important lesson. For I am Jophiel and my sword is mighty.”
As she talks, she extends a hand at her side and a fiery, red sword materializes in her hand and where the tip touches the ground, there is a blaze of fire.
Game Move:
GM: Hey Ariel, any thoughts?
Ariel: Yeah, why the hell I didn’t get to roll to see if I wanted March to stay.
GM: Look what happened to him, Jophiel blew him away with her wings and used her wings to deflect bullets like nothing. There was no way he could have stayed longer than Jophiel wanted him to, and we saw how she felt about that.
Ariel: What is up, though, seriously? So something about her remind me of Seraphiel, and she got the -iel like we do, but she wanna fight me with a sword? What is a mmoatia? Who the fuck are these twins?
GM: Do you want to ask Jophiel these questions? You can ask and see if she answers, but that’ll be your turn. Or you can try to force answers out of her. You got good physical stats, but obviously Jophiel is not human. She refers to you as mmoatia, as a daughter of Pultine, maybe you can take her.
Ariel: My mama name Bonita, I don’t know who the hell Pultine is. So how about I run back to the house and get my other security guards to strap up and blow that bitch’s wings off. Coming at me with a bunch of nonsense, like I got time for this. Not today, honey.
GM: Your agility is really low, so it’s gonna be hard for you to escape Jophiel and get back to your house. You sure this is what you want to do?
Ariel: Yes! I can’t be in the woods with this winged bitch hurling accusations at me, names and shit I ain’t ever heard. And I’m hoping I can get back to the house so I can call Seraphiel. Something about all of this got me thinking so hard about him. Maybe he knows what’s going on.
GM: Cool, cool. Roll 2d10 for a combined score of 80 or more to evade Jophiel and make it back to your house for backup, and to get in touch with Seraphiel.
Tune in next week to see if Ariel escapes Jophiel, or if she gets stabbed with a flaming sword.
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