Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » An unexpected future (1x1)

"I think I'll learn other ways of combat as well." Kayleigh said without hesitation. She was certain she'd get herself gravely injured pretty quick if she messed around with the wrong sources.

Kate smirked, "I know how intimidating magic is, hell the whole thing still terrifies me some times, but it is a very necessary thing to have in our line of work. Not t mention yu need some training in order to control your latent abilities anyway. Of course magic is but one facet of our training regimen. There's the history of the Order, learning about all the various creatures we fight, long-range and close-quarter fighting... usually you learn to use a variety of weapons; guns, knives, swords, bows, clubs, even unarmed combat... you never know what weapon or fighting style you'll need during a fight."

Arrow looked thoughtful, "Once we get your magic under control we'll move on to the combat training. I think we're better off starting with unarmed combat, then knives and guns and then we'll go from there." She nodded to herself, "I'm sure Jerian will oversee that part of your training for you, and I guess Dawn will be better suited to the theory side of things..."

Kayleigh nodded. "Allright then." The mention of bows did immediately draw her attention, though. "So what's next, then?" she inquired. She was sort of scared of magic now, but still eager to learn more.

Kate though for a moment, casting her mind back to her training days back at The Academy, "Hm... well, you've learned how to summon and utilise your magic consciously, drawing upon your qi as an energy source, so now I'm going to teach you a little discipline in magic use. The first thing that any mage learns once they can summon their magic is how to not summon it without conscious will and effort. In essence, I'm going to teach you how to put up a mental barrier around your magic, so that you can't use it unless you consciously will yourself to do so."

Kate paused again, sitting back down in the lotus position that she seemed able to adopt so easily, despite how difficult and contorted the leg position actually was, "First, I want you to re-enter the meditative state in the way I showed you earlier, once you are deeply in such a relaxed state you must open yourself to your magic, once you are suffused by it, once you have embraced it, I want you to create a prison for that feeling in you mind, a corner of your consciousness where the magic will be held until you need it, picture the magic, constrained and totally under your control, and will it to be so. You must bring your subconscious awareness of your magic into consciousness, and then place boundaries on it, boundaries so profound than even your unconscious mind will obey them." Kate smiled, "Don't get frustrated if it doesn't work the first time; this is very difficult, but once you have done this then it will be very difficult for you to instinctively harness your magic, as you did in the alley and so kill the man that attacked you. Whilst in some ways instinctive magic-use can be beneficial, after all yur use of magic certainly saved you from being mugged, or worse, but it can also be very dangerous, as you now know."

Kayleigh shuddered when a mental image of the man trying to touch her all over flashed through her mind, and she thought of his consequential death. "What happened to him?"

Kate shrugged, "Clean-up crew." She said matter-of-factly, "WE retrieved the body and sent it to a nearby morgue, and ensured that the coroner reported a verdict of accidental death; the man had drunk so much tha the fell badly and broke his neck, and all evidence at the scene will confirm that. We also got a necromancer to read the dead body's aura so we could tack down any eyewitnesses. The human mind has an amazing capacity to rationalise away anything that it has difficulty comprehending, but just in case we administered a few mental blocks and false memories to the other four men in the alley, so they all remember their friend stumbling and hitting that wall, an they've totally forgotten about you."

The woman paused to let this sink-in, "Covering up the death of a single low-life is child's play, and The Society has had a great deal of practice at this kind of thing." She snorted, "I mean, the things people will believe these days... we've been muddying the waters for so long you can probably throw out half of your school's history books as utter fabricated garbage."

Kayleigh smiled. "Good thing I never had the chance to go to school properly then. I hate wasting time." she replied. Even though she only just joined this society, she already felt a measure of pride for them.

Kate smiled wryly and nodded, "I've always hated wasting time too, and as for your lack of a conventional education... well... you're in good company. Jerian didn't have what you'd call a conventional childhood himself, and I've got the feeling Tech was home-schooled... or he went to some posh school for genius children or something." She giggled, "I'd bet my left kidney that he got kicked out of a normal school for blowing up the science labs... probably without using anything that's even remotely possible to blow up as well."

Kayleigh grinned. "I'd love to see that!" she replied happily. She was intrigued by all of the members on this so called cell. They were all so different.

She snorted, "I wouldn't. The Nine know what Dawn's father would do when if he got her report on that." She then looked thoughtful, "Then again, he did forgive us over the Blender Incident." She actually managed to pronounce the capital letters in the phrase, "Besides, if Tech blew himself up mucking about with... what ever it is he mucks about with... where would I get all my cool arrows?" She smirked, "Anyway, I'll let you out of the circle for now; you already know the meditative exercises, so all you need to do is practice." She leant over and smudged a few sigils and glyphs and nodded, "There. You can get out now."

Kayleigh stood up and walked out, still feeling a slight disturbance of magic as she stepped out of the barrier. she shivered. "It sure is an effective barrier." she commented.

Kate grinned, "It should be. I told you that I specialise in defensive magic... a protective circle is just another form of warding, and I'm quite good at it." She looked rather proud of herself, "That circle, if properly maintained and given a sufficient source of energy, could probably hold back anything up to a Zeta-level magical entity, maybe an Eta, at a stretch." She smirked, "Anyway, I doubt you want to listen to me bragging. I should probably take you to meet Tech and Seth, or you can just go explore the house if you like. There's some pretty cool stuff tucked away around here."

After doing a bit of thinking, Kayleigh decided to accompany Kate. "I'd rather be with you. I want to find Seth, instead of Seth finding me." she explained. She smiled.

(sorry for the late reply. I had some personal troubles lately and missed the notification)

Kate laughed, "A good idea! But don't worry, Seth's mostly harmless." She shook her head, "He can be really sweet if he wants to be... which isn't often, I'll admit." She shrugged, "But I'm sure you'll get used to him, and if you're going to be joining us you'll have to get used to seeing some pretty weird stuff, and I think it'll be good to start you off gently with something mostly harmless and human... or maybe former human... we're still not entirely sure how to classify the undead."

"My fellow undead prefer the term 'alternatively alive'." A soft voice suddenly said from directly behind Kate.

To her credit, she didn't jump or even look startled, "Since when did you get all PC, Seth?" She asked, turning around.

Behind her a... person faded into view, he was short, pale and he was wearing what looked to be faded jeans and an off-white t-shirt. He looked to be in his late teens, "I've always been touched by th plight of my alternatively alive brethren, just because we're not alive in a traditional sense means we get shunned and treated as monsters." He had an injured tone.

"Uh huh..." Kate didn't seem convinced, "Most of your 'brothers' are blood-sucking, brain-eating monstrosities that prey on the homeless, the unwary and dig up graves for food."

"No one's perfect." Seth reasoned, hands spread.

Kate sighed and shook her head, "Seth, this is our newest recruit, Kayleigh." She stepped aside and gestured towards her, "We picked her up just today."

The ghost floated up to her and executed a bow, the effect was slightly ruined by the fact that he rose several inches off the floor, "Enchanted, I didn't realise the Grand Master had taken to recruiting lovely flowers such as yourself, mademoiselle."

"Knock it off." Kate said irritably, "Dead guys don't flirt."

Seth flashed her a smile, "Watch me."

(It's quite all right, I understand.)

Kayleigh backed away slightly, being enormously spooked by Seth. "P... pleased to meet you." she was quick to reply. Not knowing how to reply to him, she just blurted out something along the lines of "I don't fancy dead men."

The ghost laughed and smirked at her, "Honey, you've just not met the right dead man yet."

Kate rolled her eyes, "God give me strength..." She sighed and glared her sternest glare at Seth, "Leave her alone, and go take a cold shower."

"The water would go right through me." Seth pointed out.

"I don't care. Go do it, or I get nasty." When the ghost didn't budge she said, "I'll tell Dawn you were spying on her in the showers."

If a ghost could have gone pale, Seth would have, "Hey! No need to fight dirty! I'm going, I'm going!" The ghost fled the room as fast as his ectoplasmic legs could carry him.

Kate giggled and shook her head, "Well, you've met our ghoul, now you can meet our genius. Come on, I'll show you where Tech's lab is. just don't touch anything in there. We don't want a repeat of... The Blender Incident."

Kayleigh was glad he was gone, and sighed in relief. "Alright." She replied. She was kinda curious about this Tech-guy.

Kate smiled and nodded, "Great, follow me then."

The blonde archer left the room and down the hall until she reach a small statue of a female angel, she felt around the smooth marble until she touched her navel, she pressed it and there was a faint clicking sound. The wall next to the statue slid open to reveal an elevator door, Kate pressed her hand to a small panel on it, which glowed and then chimed, the doors slid open and she stepped inside, "Most of our...um... work-spaces are underground, and all the entrances to the lower levels are hidden, in case The Hub is ever breached."

The elevator descended for a few minutes and then let them out in a bare white corridor, Kate led Kayleigh through a few twists and turns until she came to a door marked with the three interlocked circles that were the symbol of The Society, underneath the crest were the words, 'Lab 00-1' and next to it was a sticky-paper note with the words 'Don't touch the head. He bites' scrawled on it.

Kate opened the door and thy stepped into... chaos. The walls, tables, floors and every other surface was covered with detritus; circuit boards, textbooks, foot-thick leather-bound tomes written in Arabic, Latin and Chinese, weird machines whirred, popped, smoked and clicked and here and there were test-tubes filled with liquids of a thousand colours that fizzed, frothed and gurgled.

At the heart of the monstrous mess was a short man in his mid-twenties, with large safety-goggles on his eyes and unkempt black hair, he was fiddling with some incomprehensible machine that lay partly disassembled on the workstation in front of him.

He was also arguing with a human head, it had pale skin and badly-cut white hair and fierce eyes, "Damn it all boy!" He, or it, whatever, snapped, "Look at me when I'm talking to you! Can you take your eyes off that confounded contraption for just ten minutes? You've put the Aetheric Coils the wrong way round anyway!"

The young man sighed, "I haven't... they're definitely the right way round... and what do you know anyway, you're just a head."

"I may be just a head, but I'm the head of Mimir!" The head proclaimed proudly.

"Uh-huh... sure... The Norse God of Wisdom... and I'm the Queen of the Faeries." Responded sarcastically.

"Uh... Tech?" When he ignored her, Kate said, "Yoohoo! Jonathan! Earth to Jonathan! Stop arguing with... that creepy thing and come greet our newest recruit!"

"What? Hm?" Tech turned around and smiled, "Oh! Kate! Hello! What day is it?"

"The Fifth." She said.

"Which month?" He asked.

She sighed and buried her head in her hands, "just come here..."

Kayleigh giggled. She couldn't help it, the fact that this guy looked like he had probably been working for days straight, hair in all directions and didn't have a clue about which day it was did nothing to change her stereotype view of a messy scientist. Because of it, she smiled happily and waved at the slightly older man in front of her.

Tech picked his way through his lab towards them, manoeuvring around stacks of books and parts and weird gadgets, he smiled brightly, "I think I know what went wrong with that coffee machine."

"Coffee mach- oh... OH!" Kate frowned, "I thought it was a blender."

"It was supposed to be a coffee machine." He grinned, "I'm sure I know what went wrong though, now if Dawn will let me have another crack at it..."

"NO!" Kate shouted with panicked expression, "No! You're banned from the kitchen. In fact you're banned from even thinking about household appliances of any kind."

He looked crestfallen, "But... It would work."

She shook her head firmly, "No. Look, we've got a new recruit, and I want you to meet her. Her name's Kayleigh, she's just come into her magic."

Tech sighed and nodded, "Hello, I'm Jonathan Smith, but everyone calls me by my call-sign, Tech." He shook his head, "Probably because I'm the resident Knight Technician of this Cell, and I'm in charge of the maintenance for all of our equipment. I also do a bit of tinkering on the side."

"Is that what you all it?" The head shouted from the desk, "I call it mucking about with wires and praying something interesting will happen."

Tech ignored the head, "Don't mind him. He was my one foray into the Necromantic arts. I'm afraid the poor head's quite addled. He seems to think he's some Norse god of wisdom."

"I am!" The head shouted indignantly.

"Yes, well, you've met me and my...um... assistant." Tech said, "Uh... there's not much to see in the lab I'm afraid, just a few gadgets and gizmos." He smirked slightly at Kate, "I've been tinkering with a new bow design, and a new miniature UV-burst device, can you test them out for me when you get the chance?"

"A new bow!?" Kate asked excitedly, "Awesome! I could kiss you! I'll-" She then glanced at Kayleigh and blushed, she coughed and nodded, "I mean, uh... sure, Tech."

The scientist chuckled, "I'll do some last minute tunin, come back for them later tonight."