Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.1      Finding her Feet

1.1.3    An Eventful Journey

1.1.3.9  Roadrunner

Alderney: {Heads up, guys. We’ve got incoming bandits on our expected approach vector, 3 minutes away at current speed, preliminary numbers: 20 humans, mainly spears and light armour.}

Tomsk: {Wellington, alert Bulgaria. Kafana, start buffing quietly. Alderney, do a circuit to check for any other groups, then get in position to record. Bungo, drink your hero potion and get in character.}

Kafana blinked awake. Had she been dreaming of her vessel saying goodbye to people in Villa Landi’s sewing room? Bandits, Flash Bungo, she needed to start buffing people. She drew herself alert, stood up, and started to sing “Hush little baby”, in a soft low voice, trying to feel a mother’s protective emotions, and focusing on luck and second chances. She checked the resulting buff icon for effect and the timer, then used System to set a maintenance reminder and moved onto her next song.

[Skill “Luck Buff” acquired.]

She sang the tune of the Skye Boat Song, using just pure tones rather than words, going for haunting purity of sound rather than volume, focused intently on Bungo this time. She let herself feel the need for him to have speed and healing, and rather than using an orglife overlay to draw virtual runes on him, she dipped her finger into the remains of the hero potion and physically touched him to sketch directly on him. She was surprised to see lines of light follow her finger, the colour changing with each rune.

Tomsk: {I’ve got the drum ready, positions everybody, start acting naturally, Alderney give us a countdown.}

Alderney: {20 seconds out. They seem confident, leader is the one in chain mail, there are 3 archers, no obvious mages. 10 seconds. 5 seconds. Go!}

Wellington, carrying a pan of water across the clearing towards the cooking fire, turned as though hearing something, dropped the pan dramatically and yelled in a panicked voice “Bandits!”

Kafana, tending the fire, screamed piteously.

[Skill “Performance” acquired.]

Tomsk was bent over something near the stream, facing away from the bandits, hiding the drum (and disguising his own height). Bungo rose easily, a tall black silhouette against the firelight, wearing a dark cloak. Bulgaria struggled wildly to his feet and pleaded “Gordon, only you can save us!” as he, Wellington and Kafana all ran towards Bungo.

The bandits chuckled as they entered the clearing, sure they’d got this in the bag, as they outnumbered the party 4 to 1. Tomsk started his deep driving beat on the drum.

Bungo raise his head, and delivered his line perfectly, in a voice of pure arrogance and condescension. “Don’t fear, little ones. Just watch, as I defeat them all by myself. Scum like this are so pathetic they won’t be able to even touch a great hero like me.” He struck a pose for half a second, then pulled off the cloak in a single sharp movement, which was the cue for everyone to shout “Flash!”. They’d practised this six times earlier in the evening, and now they were dead on with their timing:

Flash! Ah-ah

Savior of the universe

Bungo stepped forwards, another pose, displaying his shield with the Flash Gordon logo on it.

Another pair of lines were sung. The shield was gleaming now, in the flickering firelight.

Bungo ran forwards surprisingly fast for such a large man, and jumped over the spearmen at the front before they could swing the long weapons around.

The next lines rung out, sharp and precise. Several of the bandits now had their eyes fixed upon Bungo, but others were still looking around. It wasn't enough.

Bungo ran to the side of their line then reversed direction, got to top speed and cannonballed into the spearman at the end, knocking him over into the spearmen behind him.

Kafana tried to channel her inner Freddie Mercury, giving the next section everything she’d got.

She visualised the bandit’s attention being glued onto Bungo, unable to think about anyone else, and made sure she targeted the effect only upon the bandits. “Please!” she thought, urging the mana out of her and into the spell on the final word. She realised she’d been dancing again and, what’s more, Wellington and Bulgaria were behind her to either side, backing her movements up. This was going to be so embarrassing on the recording, she’d totally forgotten Alderney. Tomsk, behind them, had managed to set his meteor hammers on fire by dipping them in a large pot of something from his inventory box, and was now whirling them over his head in increasingly fast circles. He moved in to attack. Alderney jumped down from her tree and sailed over the scene in a massive bound.

[Skill “Gain aggro buff” acquired.]

Kafana ignored the new skills notifications that kept popping up, and cast maintenance on the two buffs she’d set up, trying now not to draw any attention. She wanted the audience to watch Tomsk and Bungo, not her.

Spearmen surrounded Bungo now, thrusting at him. He whirled his shield like Captain America, to knock the spear points down towards the ground, then actually ran against them like a wall of death, feet moving so fast she could barely see them, and the whole group of spearmen flew backwards leaving him crouching in the epicenter, two feet and one hand touching the ground, the other hand raised high holding the shield with the Flash symbol on it.

What the hell? She checked her mana. 400 left out of 2700 max. She’d poured 2000 mana into the spell buffing Bungo? Oh my.

{Wellington, did my spell consume any of your mana?}

{Yes.}

Tomsk was carving into the spearmen from the edge now, taking out two at a time. The three archers ignored him, still trying to shoot Bungo, but missing every time. The leader roared a challenge, facing Bungo.

“ *beep* *beep* ” said Alderney, and dropped an anvil on his head. {Probably dented it, but soooo worth it.} she said on chat.

The remaining bandits surrendered. Bungo was very noble about it, and delivered an impromptu speech on the rights of man, tolerance and forgiveness. They’d won.