i'm leaving you my last curse

[bravebartender]

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[madskilled]

Stefan.

( Carefully, steps over to where the rubble shakes. )

Give me a hand?

[somanyadjectives]

[Stefan nods, moving closer to other side of the rubble, and shifting to lift it out of the way, giving Faith room to reach in and grab whoever it is.

The girl is not one of the slayers. She's thin and her jewelry gives away some of her Wiccan tendencies. But Stefan doesn't know the witches as well, and there are witches that come and go in the castle so it doesn't raise any red flags right away.

"Thank you." She holds out her hands for a hand up. "What happened?"

[madskilled]

( Jewelry and choice of fashion in the Scottish highlands. But, Faith's never hated a chunky necklace.

Faith grabs her hand to steady her.

And, for good measure makes an Insight check (13) to suss out what she's doing here. )

Castle went boom. Nice necklace. Little overdressed for Turkey Day.

[somanyadjectives]

[It might be easy to dismiss this as being part of the situation at hands, but this girl seems nervous. Only there's something of an edge to it, as her eyes glance between Faith and Stefan as she seems to be debating her next move.

"Just coming to pick something up. Didn't realize it was a thing."

The lie is wobbly (2). Even Stefan picks up on it (11).]

Not usually. You want to try that again?

[madskilled]

( Faith's twin roll to beat her deception (11) has her hackles raised, too. )

Coming to pick something up? You should be happy we ain't cops and you didn't just happen to be here.

( But she didn't just happen to be here, did she? If she tries to move, a hand shoots out and blocks her path on the left. )

Going somewhere?

[somanyadjectives]

[Her eyes glance back and forth as she tries to see what her outs are.

"I want to get out of the pile of rubble. You have a problem with that?"]

[madskilled]

Soon as you tell us what you were doing under the pile of rubble, Betty. Maybe what you were picking up? Don't tell me. Taskrabbit. It's a gig economy.

( INT of (13) just because she's quippy and she's dressed like Faith. But she tries to intimidate. )

[somanyadjectives]

[Well, she's definitely intimidated (1). Unfortunately, she's a bit reactionary, so she grits her teeth before raising her hands.

"Should have just let me go."

And with that she flings her hands out, intending to send both of them flying (14). Stefan does looks his footing, getting sent back into a wall (9), and he scrambles to get back on his feet and back into the fray.]

[madskilled]

( Faith's slayer agility has her kick up rubble that goes flying instead (18).

She attempts a fan kick straight down at her face. (22) )

[somanyadjectives]

[The witch takes the kick hard (12), stumbling some from the blow, before gritting her teeth and trying to throw Faith backwards again (20).

Stefan recovers, climbing to his feet and zooming closer to try and pin the witch to a nearby wall (16 vs. 6) and the remaining structure cracks some as she collides with the side.]

What did you do?

[She bares her teeth with a smile. "The fact that you're here, in this place full of people that are supposed to kill vampires should be all the answer you need."

Stefan raises an eyebrow.]

You want to kill vampires, so you work with vampires?

["No. I wanted to kill hypocrites."]

[madskilled]

( This time Faith goes flying over a pile of blown up castle (13).

She gets to her feet climbing up the rubble and jumping back down in front. ) )

By dropping a literal castle on them? Ever heard of overkill, Betty? How many of you are there?

[somanyadjectives]

["Enough."

She raises a hand to try and aneurism (3 vs. 6), but Stefan pushes her head back into the wall, forcing her to lose concentration on the spell before it can do damage.

He tightens his hand on her throat.]

How many?

["There are five other witches on the grounds. I don't know how many vampires."]

[madskilled]

Unholy alliance, lady.

( Faith steps up behind Stefan. )

This part of the plan, too, or did you fuck up your genius timing?

[somanyadjectives]

["Thought you were the vamps coming to clean up. Guess I misjudged."]

Yes. You did.

[He glances back at Faith and raises an eyebrow. Does she want this one or should he take it?]

[madskilled]

Wrong place, red.

( Wrong time. Wrong people. She takes a step back, brings her hands up. He can take it. Just smash her head, knock her out. They've got people to find. )

[somanyadjectives]

[Knocking her out probably would be the kind thing to do, but Stefan isn't interested in her waking up and causing more problems. He and Faith have pulled enough bodies out of the rubble that he's not feeling charitable to their intruders.

Her eyes widen the moment she realizes, and she tries to protest: "No, wait-"

But it cuts off as he snaps her neck and drops her to the side.]

Let's keep going.

[Perception checks as they walk away!]

[madskilled]

( Faith doesn't flinch, doesn't mourn, just watches her drop in a heap. Moving further into the castle, she tries to do her best to spot anything through the rubble, ash, and smoke (12) )

[somanyadjectives]

[Stefan is too busy watching the area around them for unstable infrastructure (8), that he's not catching much in the rubble.

But Faith picks up the sound of a voice, coming from one of the nearby piles of rubble. Another faint: "Is anyone out there?"

Unlike, the first voice, this one is very familiar.]

[madskilled]

Stef.

( She holds her hand out for him to stop. )

Dawn? Is that you?

( Faith whirls around to listen closer. (21) this time. )

[ooglyboogleys]

Faith, thank god.

[Stefan zips closer, studying the pile of rubble to see if he can figure out the best way to get to her, but Dawn just keeps talking.]

I'm mostly okay, but my leg is pretty messed up. A piece of the rubble came down on it hard.

[madskilled]

( Faith keeps her talking, then. )

Hang in there, Stefan's assessing the situation. You get a look at anybody who did this? We already dispatched a witch. Witches and vamps. Apparently in cahoots. We're the hypocrites, you know that?

[ooglyboogleys]

Yeah, that's the witch told me before everything went boom. I saw one of them messing with something weird when I was on the phone with Jer.

[Stefan reaches for one of the pieces of rubble, and lifts it away, depositing it to the side. It's not enough to get Dawn out, but there is a shaft of light that she blinks into as they see her face.]

I think the witch in question got squashed somewhere to my right.

[madskilled]

Pretty reckless Sabrinas. Wasn't aware witches went suicide vest.

( It makes no sense, why blow up the castle with themselves inside? For the cause? )

I don't get it. We got witch royalty -- ( Wait. ) Right. Hypocrites. I'll hypocrite their faces.

[ooglyboogleys]

I don't think that was the real reason. I think it was more what was used to radicalize them.

[This was related to something else, though Dawn isn't really sure what yet. More of the rubble is slowly removed to reveal Dawn's pocket under the rubble, where her right leg is definitely sitting at an unfortunate angle.]

Oh, yeah. That's definitely broken.

[madskilled]

( (17) to keep calm in the face of a leg that needs a lot of attention. )

You'll be good as new in no time.