[ismilealot]

@ Yelena  Jimmy answers, "Ah cara mia, such a dangerous thing. I feel to much that the man who wins your heart will have a tigress in his heart and in his bed. I am so sorry that I am to old to woo you myself. Such a danger would be well worth the reward if I could but win you. But, I will have to settle for fulfilling your ever desire as a humble servant. I have a small selection of monowhips and this one is contained in this pen. See, you pull here," he pulls the nib off, "Et viola, you become the most dangerous woman in the room."

[Mercy Merchant]

Yelena's smiles at Jimmy.  "Age not mean dead, Jimmy.  Yelena know how make Jimmy young.  All need is desire and expert woman.  Yelena much expert."  Her eyes widen as he shows her the whip in the pen.  "Yelena want.  How much?  Come in Ares brand?"

[Duck N. Cover]

Tuskaloosa felt every inch the kid in a candy store as she meandered around the crates; a jacket slung over her shoulder and her arms filled with boxes.  "A few things followed me home boss," she said as she finished threading the gauntlet and set her load at Arc's feet. "Can we keep 'em?"
 The diminutive mechanic picked up a knife from the top of the pile  and pulled it partially from its sheeth.  "Huh...this ain't steel, omae.  Wouldn't this drek snap off in a bad shot?"
"Nope," she grinned triumphantly. "That's ceramic.  Every bit as tough and sharp, but won't rust.  A diver's best friend."
"...I really don't see that many dives in our future. And the little knife I get, but the big one?"
"That's...for me," she mumbled.  Then she brightened.  "They also work well on land too--no metal means no metal detector flack."
"Really..."
The assistant slid up.  "Their lack of metal also makes them quite useful in demolitions work,"  he added.
Arc looked up at him, then at her.  "That true?"
She shrugged.  "Never touched the stuff myself, so I wouldn't know."
"Aright."  Arc turned back to their 'helpful'  salesman and grinned.  "Throw inna third one, an I think we can talk."
As he left their side Arc continued.  "These I get," patting a couple of crates of grenades and a shoebox that contained plasteel toed boots of the troll's size.  "But them?"

[SgtBoomCloud]

Arc had to admit: she learned something from the assistant.  A nonmetal knife good for working with boom boom drek?  At that price, it couldn't be beat or passed up.  Grinning, she placed the third knife in the box as she examined the crates and boxes.

At the question of the boots, she could see the troll's grin go wider, remarkably toothy.  "Foot knucks, boss.  Great for the hurt without pulling a piece.". With this, the mechanic got a bit skeptical, but was okay with the pricing.  The canisters made sense to after she explained what they were for, and the grenades were practical, yeah.  It was when she got to the last two items that she had to pause.  "Hoi...this is the weirdest fragging gun I've ever seen...and this thing too..."  She nudged the last box, the printed name "Surviva-Bubble" garishly visible on the side.

The troll looked a little taken aback, but gave a nod as she picked up the piece.  "'Tis a gyrojet pistol.  Rocket propelled rounds.  Odd mechanics, but a solid piece in air and insane in water.  Used one before, thought it'd be good to pick up.  And that thing..." she pointed to the box.  "Is cheap, and could give some options for that mage if plan A works.  Stick it upriver, we got a hiding place noone will look for.."

Arc had to admit...Tuskaloosa brought up some good points all around.  Arc couldn't argue, even with the prices as they were.  Pinching her brow, she gave a nod and waved the boxes over.  "Aight...but I think that taps us out until we get some more cred, aight?"  she looked around for one of the proprietors, indicating she was ready to pay.

"Aight, we can take all o this.  Jimmy, ring us up, lets see the damage...". Boxing up all the gear, the human did some numbering with her head organ, blinking in surprised as she wasok informed of the deal that their Marco had made.  "Well thank you Marco..." .Letting out a low whistle, the girl pulled out a feedstock and slotted the money, turningn to the others.  'C'mon omaes, we burning daylight.  Let's get this in the car and on our way.  We hittin' the Sound, right?"

Once inside, Arc noticed that a few of them had kept an item or two with them...playing with their toys more like.  She laughed a bit...but they were happy, or at the very least grateful, and it was the very least she could do to help them all be equipped.  Really.... Again, the drive was very unhindered as she navigated to the waterfront...

[Shaman_Yuri]

Things quieted down around me after Marco started haggling.  I looked at myself in the jacket one more time and nodded in satisfaction.  It'd certainly do.  Much as Marco had done moments earlier, I settled myself near the entrance where we'd come in and started processing data.  When the others make to leave, I follow them quietly, my mind mostly on the sea of words I'm wading through.  I settle in the car wherever Arc indicates and run every diagnostic I can imagine on my little Erika.  A lot will be riding on her tonight...

[Mercy Merchant]

Yelena dumps the new jacket into the trunk and squishes into the front of Arc's car this time, leaving more room for Tuskaloosa.  She was curious about what was in the box the Troll had placed in the trunk, but not curious enough to peek.  Yelena is in the middle, with Firefly on the outside.  Marco, of course being Marco, had again taken a cab.  Yelena notices the young decker engrossed in thought and thinks to ask her about what she had seen at the shop with Marco, but thinks better of it.  At her age she had been raped many times and was well used to sex, but she feels that the Muslim girl is confused about sexuality and how to use it or how to avoid it.  Yelena has put the offer to talk out and will see if it is taken.

She nods in agreement when her Srui says they are going to the waterfront.  She cannot help but be a bit excited at what she is about to experience.  The short time she was changed in Marco's apartment had been exhilarating....................at least until she realized she could not breathe.  This time she would be in the proper element and would be able to experience so much more.  She is so lost in her thoughts on the matter that she does not realize they have arrived until the car stops and the others start piling out.  She walks to the shoreline and turns to Marco.  "OK.  Yelena remove clothes.  Then walk water.  Then Marco change.  Have mind link for talk?"

[gilga]

I smile and agree: “La famiglia è di sopra di tutti, ma i tuoi figli sono già adulti”. I am knowledgeable and pay attention to detail, and with that devious smile we start reaching an equilibrium.  Jimmy and I we use emotions as a tool, defuse tension and highlight the strength and weaknesses of our position. When I am done, I accept the nod of appreciation from Arc, it is nice to have your efforts noticed. I could probably score an even bigger discount for myself had I been selfish. Sort of a mediator fee, but this is not my way and the best deal is when everybody wins. 

When we leave I still get that appearance of transparency as nobody offers to ride with me. Perhaps it is this new shampoo? I thought that it smelled great but people usually enjoy my company. Not even Yelena? Oh well, perhaps she found a new lover. It is probably for the best considering my day job and the amount of people I sleep with. She’d probably get very jealous the way she keep referring to ‘other’ women every time she comes to my house.

 I get to the ocean and again Arc already beaten the autopilot. “Anyone else care to swim?” I ask and due to the weather nobody seems to even want to get out of the car.

"OK.  Yelena remove clothes.  Then walk water.  Then Marco change.  Have mind link for talk?"

I simile at Yelena and say "This time I am coming with you, tonight a daemon will come with you... it is a bit tricky and I do not want to overwhelm you with the details of exactly what I can and cannot do, but it took some improvisation to ensure that you can talk to the rest of us."

I take some distance between me and the girls, take my clothes and enter the water, keeping what I can from my decency. Tonight it will be a daemon but I would not dream of summoning one just for a dry run. These are sapient creatures and need to be treated with respect.  It only take a few seconds before me and Yelena dive and do not surface we are changed. The vision is different the tentacles. “Kind of strange to have so many limbs... “ I think at her.  It took a lot of discipline to get into the water at such a cold weather but once changed it is no longer cold. Off course maintaining 3 spells means that do not enjoy it as I could, but I am already used to being changed with a client and it is fun to explore. Diving is incredible although I never really did so in my own skin, kind of like flying with Tammie I suspect that it is unlike anything that I ever tried.

[Mercy Merchant]

It is fragging cold outside and Yelena's nipples react well before she strips.  She calls the shadow to her and wraps it about herself like a warm blanket as she steps into the water.  The icy water begins to penetrate even the shadow when she feels the sensation of changing.  The creature she becomes thrashes about in the air, helpless; body starving for oxygen.  Yelena forces her mind to give up and become the octopus, to think and react like the octopus.  She uses its tentacles to pull along the rocky beach, finding purchase as it..........as she....... instinctively seeks deeper water to survive.  The water closes over her head but she keeps going, using her magnificent arms to pull her farther, farther.  She is aware of a pounding in her head, a voice trying to communicate with her, but she ignores it for the time being.  Her only thought right now is to get farther into the water, deeper into safety.  The suckers on her arms grab at the rocks on the shore bed, pulling some up and managing to use others to assist her movement.  Soon, she is able to gain some mastery over her new limbs, to use them more effectively, eschewing gripping the rocks for gliding across them by moving the arms. 

Yelena has never felt so free as now.  She is a creature of the water, armed with superior agility and strength.  With a bit of practice, she is able to assume a certain grace of movement and maneuvers to a place of rest on the sea floor.  Only then does she acknowledge Marco's attempts at contacting her.  **Marco.  Is Yelena.  Is good.  Yelena octopus.**

[gilga]

I sense some of the physical characteristics of an octopus as they blend with my mind. I am now a predator. I am myself and yet not myself and I try to grab a fish but I am a bit clumsy for a real octopus. We descend deep to the bottom of the ocean and my senses are especially keen to movement, to... is this intuition smell? I am not even sure exactly what senses I have but I instinctively know how to use them.  Why shadowrun when I can just explore the world like that? Who would believe that my empathy toward living critters will somehow extend to octopi. That my body can be stretched and manipulated to such a big size. I usually preferred to be a dolphin because they are mammals and their emotions are somewhat similar. Octopus is completely alien to me, predatory instincts cold blood and muscle flexibility. I am fascinated and although Yelena is not responding she seems alive and in her nature. In a way she is a predator also in keeb form, perhaps it is more natural for her than for me.
 
It takes a certain amount of composure to retain enough of your meta human nature the temptation to just be is big, especially in the first time. “I am right behind you” I respond, trying to do my best while maintaining these shapes. “Lets swim to the bridge” I say and try to navigate our way toward the bridge. I cheat a little bit as I summon a minor water daemon to show me the way. To my surprise he appears as a small fish that keeps swimming out of my reach. “Somewhere along here the car is going to drop...” I say and cast a trid phantasm to simulate a van dropping in the water with a man in it.” My magical powers are stretched to the maximum and it is not my most brilliant illusion. Clearly the van turns up sketchy and the men inside are a bit doll like,  but I hope that it prepares Yelena a bit toward just what she is going to see when Firefly and Arc do their thing and drop the van into the ocean. 

The funny thing about illusions is that I do not have to think about any tiny detail, not with my rational mind. My best illusions are completely intuitive to me.  I let my subconscious intent shape them and sometimes they can be used to bring things to my awareness. Perhaps this is why hermetics may find my technique odd. I’ll hold that thought... thinking is difficult right now but I let Yelena do her thing and try to dash toward one of the men that I marked differently to indicate that he is a mage.

[Shaman_Yuri]

Once again, I try to make sense of Marco's spellcraft but lose track at pretty much the same place as last time. 

Damn these shamanic techniques!  Magic is a science, not an art!  Mathematics is the language of Allah, and magic uses that language to bend reality through Allah's blessing.  There is a method.  Formulas.  Equations.  The mathematicians of Baghdad, those who developed Algebra, would have been magicians today.  And who knows, perhaps they were back then.  Weak ones to be sure living deep within the 5th World, but there was still magic in those equations.

Marco just makes it up as he goes.  "Willing" the world to change, as my Shinto instructors used to say. 

How can a mere human will such a thing!  Only Allah can will something and it be done!  To say otherwise is heresy!

But Marco and those like him care nothing for such concerns.  I watch as both Yelena and Marco creep under the lapping ripples of this finger of water jutting from Puget Sound.  In the cloud-covered darkness, broken only by the glow of distant city lights, I find myself a concrete block to sit upon, pondering the universe, magic, mathematics, and God.

...and where I fit into it all...

[Mercy Merchant]

As Yelena allows her octopus body to rest, she realizes that this creature is so very like her.  This is a true predator of the sea, using skills and natural abilities to lie in wait, subdue, and kill its opponents.  Instinctively she knows she is armed with a paralytic toxin and a very sharp beak.  Yelena flexes her arms and realizes that two are actually more like legs, whose primary purpose is to propel her across the sea bottom while the arms assist by moving through the water in a much more efficient manner than her human body uses its arms and legs. 

Yelena would cry in joy if this body could cry.  In tis form she is a true assassin of the deep, and in some fashion, feels that she fits into some greater scheme.  What is even more profound is that she is not alone here.  Somehow the shadow extends to her even under the water.  She feels its protective cocoon and realizes that she is being shown a window into something she never considered.  The shadow came to her when she was a child and promised everything if she gave everything and she willingly went.  But she had always looked at the shadow as more of a surface world presence.  But she feels it here as well. 

She follows the Marco-octopus to the area near the bridge, partially listening to him, but also getting the feel of her new body.  So much of what she can do is instinctive to this form, not trained, which does bother her.  After all, that would almost mean the she was at or near the pinnacle of this body's development.  With that realization comes another; that she would rather be Yelena-Keeb than Yelena-octopus.  This is an exercise in learning and this body will be useful for the task ahead of her, but she is still Yelena-Keeb inside. 

She is surprised when the truck falls into the ocean and begins to move toward it.  Something does not seem right and she realizes that everything is pretty much outlines and stick figures for people.  Marco must be doing an illusion of sorts, but it is very weak.  Concerned, she sends him a thought.  **Marco.  Is truck illusion?  Is weak.  Marco OK?**

[gilga]

I send Yelena my happy thoughts and thinks "Yes,  3 spells are difficult to maintain and casting a fourth one and maintaining it as well is taking my magical skills to their limit, but I think it is a good exercise never the less." I am actually quite proud of myself even for this sketchy illusion.

[Mercy Merchant]

**When should leave?  Others worry?***

[gilga]

I think at Yelena, "Don't you want to feel what it feels like to catch a human underwater, they are about the right size although I did skimp on facial features. Do not worry too much, this it is worth practicing. Do you think that you can get the mage out of a closed van? how so? let's try to figure it out. How do you get in? how do you get out? That mage is soon going to die out of hypothermia if you do not act fast. "

[Mercy Merchant]

Yelena goes to the van and swims around it then places her six arms at the window, allowing the suckers to attach to the illusory glass.  She gathers her strength and tries to pull the window from the frame.  If that does not yield an immediate result, she channels water through her siphon as if she were going to speed away, using the force of her departure to reinforce the grip on the window.  **Maybe can pull glass from window.  Then slide in.  Grab man.  Leave.  Maybe use arms open back or side door.  Perhaps other men already open door to escape.  Make easy.  Can grab then use jet speed escape with man.**