KingFisher at the river with WuJen

KingFisher stood by the river looking into the water flowing past.
"Turly hear my call and come to me. We have much to discuss."

KingFisher pours her will into the water summoning the water spirit she met in the park.

When the spirit appears her face takes on a harsh cruel expression.
Gesturing with her fingers she softly calls out.
" As water flows and air blows I bind you, as fire burns and earth endures, I bind you. As day follows night and sun follows moon I bind you. You *obey* my will until I have exhausted all my boons."


Speaking over her shoulder to WuJen.
"This spirit and I have unfinished business, don't interfere I can explain it all later."

Walking towards the creature she thrusts out her hands and grabs the spirit by the ears, pulling the creature towards her.

"Now then Turly we have a lot to talk about.
Now where to begin? Oh yes.
When I met you in the park I was polite and friendly. I gave you a very clear instruction and you *seem* to have carried that out.

Just when we were heading away from the park I rather foolishly gave you a request and you *completely* fragged it up.
"

Gripping the spirits ears firmly in her hands, she twists them savagely causing the creature to howl in pain.

"How did you respond to my perfectly simple request to meet me at the noodle bar to deliver your report. Let's be very clear. MEET ME AT THE NOODLE BAR. Now what's so confusing about that? Hmm? Did I speak it in Orkish? Make the request through modern dance? Hmm? No! I said it plainly and clearly. What did you do?
Wait till the coast was clear then flit along to the noodle bar to deliver your report and earn serious favour with me?
No! You fragging didn't. "

She drives her knee up hard into the creatures groin, driving all the breath out of it and making it fall to its knees. Ears still gripped firmly in her hands.

" YOU had a better idea. You decided to materialise in plain sight near two armed POLICE OFFICERS making enough noise the fish in the sea could hear you.
YOU then decided it would be an amazingly good idea to scream as loud as you can that you'd been to the ACTIVE crime scene and there was a mage nearby.
Did the officers put it down to a harmless joke and let us be??
No! They drew weapons on us.
Now listen closely.
I was within 2 minutes of being shot with a taser. Then they'd check my ID, find it was fake and I'd be seriously Fragged. An unlicensed mage, with a spirit, at an active crime scene with a magical serial killer on the loose.
If I was very very lucky they'd shoot me in the back of the head and throw my body into the sea. Case closed.
Or. They'd best me to the ground, break my ribs and leave me to drown in my own blood. "

Pulling the creature onto its feet by the ears.
"So for laughs you decided to nearly get me killed. Just for giggles. So let's be clear. YOU OWE ME!!!!"

Driving her knee into the creatures groin again she continues.


"So this time I won't be nice and polite. I'm going to be very very clear. If you *EVER* endanger either my safety or that of my associates, Fail to complete an instruction I have given you to your very best ability, or if you refuse a summon there will be consequences.
Right now I have a potential little money maker keeping the sewers flowing clear.
If I have even the *Slightest* reason I'm going to bind you under the heaviest sewer junction and compel you to clean all of it. Especially if they means you have to eat the fetid sewage yourself. "

Pilling the creatures ears so it has to look up at her face from its knees.
" I demand, expect and require your *Absolute* obedience, devotion and Loyalty.
Fail either by a hairs breath and you're cleaning sewage with your tongue. "

Glaring angrily into the terrified eyes of the spirit.

"Your report had better be incredibly detailed, flawlessly compiled and astoundingly good."

Releasing the creature and stepping back towards WuJen.

"Deliver your report Turly and make it good."

Wujen looks on, somewhat bemused. To no one in particular he comments "Huh. Here I thought we Mages were considered to be less in tune with the spirits. If one fragged up on me that way I'd probably just disrupt it and let it go. I suppose it should feel lucky she doesn't just tie it to a spell and let it's existence get consumed maintaining it for bit. It would never occur to me to abuse it's dangly bits that way as a punishment. Then again, who am I to talk, it may even enjoy this."

((FYI, binding takes force x 1 hours and requires the expenditure of force x 25 drams of reagents to do. So this would take 3 hours and 75 drams of reagents. For reference, 1 dram is roughly 20 nuyen at a magic shop, though it is possible to harvest reagents for free in the right area if you have the alchemy skill. If you have the resources and want to spend 3 hours unconscious in a noodle shop, you can do it, but for now I am going to do my post on the assumption that you don't actually bind him. I will adjust if you decide otherwise.))

Turly was waiting patiently on the astral plane along with the other spirit of man, apparently waiting to give his report when suddenly Kingfisher shows up, perplexity annoyed. He doesn't even get the chance to ask what is wrong before he starts getting yelled at and told to wait elsewhere. When she meets him later at the river, he seems absolutely shocked by his treatment at the hands of his summoner.  In between ear yanking, ball knocking and other beratement he squeaks out, "What. Are. You. TALKING ABOUT LADY?! I was there in the noodle shop! You just got so upset when I showed up while people were around in the physical world, I was waiting for you to see me in this one. You didn't tell me when or where to come back the first time so I just came back as soon as I could because I thought that would make you happy, but then you get angry at me and tell me to go to the noodle shop. So I figure 'hey, she doesn't want me appearing in the noodle shop and embarrassing her again like I accidentally did in the park, so I'll just wait in the noodle shop until she is ready to see me!' Here I am thinking I did a great job after pissing you off the first time and I get yelled at and kicked. I was so excited to give you some good information, but if you are going to be a crazy bitch to me no matter how I show up to give it to you, I am not sure I want to any more."

He crouches defensively and mutters to himself, "Last time I answer a pretty lady. I just wanted to make her happy and maybe see her panties, but that's not worth this treatment. I have pride! Probably won't even show me her panties after all this anyway. 'Trying to get her killed for laughs and giggles' pfft. "

Floating a few steps back to avoid another beating, he says, "I don't owe you nothing after this. You owe me a sincere apology, otherwise I'll give you the report I owe you but it will be really half-assed. And after that, I expect you to give me the panties you are currently wearing or I start telling all of my friends what you did to me for loyally doing what I was told."

"I'm not looking to get involved between you and your spirit, but he does not look like he's having much of a good time and we do need all the information we can get. Plus things are wrapping up at the Noodle Shop and unless you enjoy long strolls through inhospitable wilderness we need to get back and come up with a better plan than walking to the Peach Grove"

Looking over at the water spirit Wujen shoots it a mischievous grin "That's rough buddy, but I'll make you a deal. You give her the report to the very best of your ability and I'll settle into a simsense of the female pornstar of your choosing and recreate a scene with a phantasm so you can interact with it. We may have to wait a few days for us to have the time to attend to it properly, but I give you my word that unless I die you will get as close as a spirit can to experiencing that sort of simsense. Interested?"

The spirit seems to seriously consider it for a moment then shakes his head and says, "No, it is the principal of the thing. You are very kind to offer, but I am afraid no one would take me seriously if I allowed myself to be summoned simply to be abused mercilessly at the hands of a pretty face. She made the offence, so she should be the one to make it right. My request is reasonable. One apology and the pair of panties she is currently wearing. I am not asking her to flash me or anything. Just slip them off privately and hand them to me and we can put this whole incident behind us."

He gives a resolute nod which causes the water stored in the indentation atop his head to slosh around a bit.

KingFisher looks at the spirit and slowly cracks her knuckles.
"OK Spirit let's put things plainly.

1) you have about as much influence among your kind as a paperclip has on the fortunes of a mega corporation. You were summoned from a fountain in a park, not the ocean. Your peers openly call you a perv. Now that means it's highly likely any female spirits consider you as much of a friend as a hopped up orc with a chainsaw at a child's birthday party.
So no luck there.

2) Tradition, custom and practise says you OBEY me. No magical tradition ever allows a spirit any say in that. You are summoned to this world by magic and you OBEY.

3)I am NOT asking, pleading, bargaining, trading or suggesting anything. I am making it very clear, I Command and you OBEY.

4)In this conversation you are a nice juicy sheep and I am a Bengal tiger. There's no possibility you win. No hope in any realm whatsoever that you do anything but suffer a humiliating, degrading, overwhelming defeat. Every. Single. Time.

I'm not some silly teenage girl you can leer at and frighten. I'm a priest. I spend my days dealing with spirits. I call them forth, bind them to my will, banish them to the ether or fight them on the Astral plane using my sheer force of personality.

Now then we have two simple options open to you.
1)You instantly forget about being anything other then a very adoring pet who lives and dies for the smallest flicker of recognition from me. Every time we interact you must make me feel as special as a little girl who got a pony for her birthday.
Every. Single. Interaction.

Or
2) I Iet you go. I get through this case and then you suffer. I will summon you in my work room, offer many reagents to the Kami so you owe me many boons. Bind you to my will so you MUST obey.
Then go find a truly awful place to bind you in place for a week.
Would you like to spend a week under a sewage outflow endlessly eating raw sewage, so the water behind you is perfectly clean?
A week under a hospital eating diseased organs, toxic chemicals, cancerous pus, sewage, medical waste?
Maybe the industrial zone. Eating heavy metals, plastics, metallic shards, glass, industrial waste.

Or maybe being bound inside Mister Chan's laundry steamer making pure water for his steamers to take the creases out of clothes. If you fail on that one you get slowly cooked alive by the steam.

See. You have no chance what so ever. In every possible case you lose. You lose so badly that mother water spirits tell their baby water spirits not to be bad or they'll end up like Turly.

So I'm going to count to ten. By the end either you're going to suffer torments that future generations will shiver in fear in their river beds when they hear of them, or you're going to make me feel like the most precious girl in the world.
Choose. "

KingFisher looks at the sprit with pure disgust, like she's trodden on something vile in her newly bought pair of hi fashion shoes.
This spirit is clearly beneath her contempt for having the audacity to even talk back to her.
In the Astral energy flickers around her hands, sometimes like brass knuckles, sometimes a roll of coins inside her fists.
Even the most feeble spirit can tell this summoner isn't in the mood for anything less then complete and total surrender.
Her Astral form ripples like water and for a few moments she looks like one of those troll bare knuckle boxers. All business, cold, focused, ready to twist your head off like the bottle cap on a soda.

Her emotions are rage, disgust and a willingness to do truly terrible things to the spirit that is before her.
There's a fragment of a thought dancing in her mind

Pouring cheap vodka over the spirit and slowly burning its fingers and toes off. One by one.
Then the image is gone and all that's left is the cold brutal mind of a hunter looking at its prey.

The spirit says, "I have obeyed your orders to the letter, but every time you get madder because apparently I don't seem to hear the secret words that you don't say. I came back as soon as possible to report what I found and you yelled at me. Then I go where you tell me to report what I found, and you yell at and beat me. I am not sure you actually even want my report because you keep stopping me from delivering it every time I try. I think you just enjoy torturing me.

"To think, when I met you I was planning on helping you more to make you happy, but with my luck that'll just get you madder," he breaks down and begins sobbing, an act which creates a torrent of water from his eyeballs similar to what you might expect from a low-powered garden hose, rather than tears. His aura shows that he isn't trying to be defiant, there are just emotions of confusion and despair.

"Why are you so mean to me, lady?" he sniffles, "Other summoners are all 'oooh I respect you for your service oh great spirit!' But not you. I do what you want and you threaten me with torture. I bet the second I try to open my mouth about my report you are going to order me some other place for more screaming."

At this point his words dissolve into a stream of incoherent blubbering.

KingFisher glares at the snivelling wretch and spits on him.
"Fine. Worm. Deliver your report and make it good. An incomplete report is coming out of your hide."

Magical energy swirls around her fists, her temper is getting strained and she's visibly twitching to seriously hurt the spirit.

"WuJen if this report is as third rate as I'm expecting this is going to get messy. Can you pick up a few bottles of cheap vodka, a few packs of matches,perhaps a cheap knife or two?
We can get it on the way back from the crime scene.
By the way since you've been a real chummer about all this, I owe you dinner and a beer. "

The bemused expression falls from WuJen's face and is replaced with disgust and outrage as he looks from the water spirit and back up to Kingfisher.

"Honestly, I'm taking a lot on faith here that you have a good explanation. I don't deal with Kami much, but from where I stand you are about one request for help from having me unload on you, and if you mistreat that thing one more time I will consider holding you down while it takes your panties and anything else it wants."

"You want Vodka and Knives to have a nice candlelight dinner, fine. Don't expect me to play along while you take out whatever murder fetish you have on that thing. I don't care if it's got the status of rancid sewer water amongst it's own kind, it's done nothing I can see to deserve this treatment"

"Now, get his report, assuming it's willing to talk at all after you spit on him like that, and if you don't let him go after that I'll banish him myself. We need that information, and we have more pressing matters to attend to than whatever this is. Later, when we have more time I'll be expecting that explanation, and it had better be a fragging good one."

KingFisher turned to look at WuJen and gestured they should step away to talk.
"I can fully understand why you might think I've completely lost my mind but I have a very good reason. The spirit of man I summoned went to the noodle bar and did exactly what I asked.
This lump of spit can't follow a simple request.
I'm trying to make very clear to it that I expect it to do what it's told.
I fully expect its report to be.. Ahem.. Woo I saw a chick with enormous tits and I looked up her skirt. I nearly saw her front bottom.

The vodka is to let off some steam after tomorrow. Getting what we need is going to be tricky. The knives are to get or shape the wood. The fire, in case we get cold. They also scare the frag out of the spirit. I'm not really a complete psycho. Can't let the little guy know that though or he will get the idea he doesn't have to follow orders. Just imagine the impact that would have. If spirits got the idea they could ignore a summons, a binding, a service, a banishment a huge part of the fabric of magic would completely unravel.
It would be the equivalent of a pan of water deciding not to boil, when placed over a fire because it didn't feel like it.
I have to completely prevent this from happening. A summoned spirit must perform the services or boons granted to the one who calls it.

Look I make a living dealing with spirits, I'm completely fair and reasonable to them. If I was always a frag head they'd be reluctant to appear.
I'm being very reasonable with this spirit. Just imagine what the spirit of the river we're looking at would do to the spirit that doesn't follow the traditions of its kind.
I'm going to teach it to behave, the river could decide to absorb the spirit as punishment for its actions.
Look so far it's endangered my safety by being stupid and pretending I should be happy about it.
Threatens me, tries to black mail me, and will do absolutely anything to get out of following it's orders.

Now if I let that go I may as well retire and count stones by a riverbank. No spirit will have any respect for me, will hear my summons or perform a single service. Why? Because a punk fountain spirit could laugh in my face and ignore the foundation of spirit based magic.
What if you summoned an air spirit to help you get to the farm faster. The spirit arrives and decides it doesn't like your socks and it can't be fragged to perform a service to you.
You'd be pretty fragged off about it chummer and rightly so.

Trust me. I am a professional, a sane, rational person who knows how to get a job done.
We cool chummer?"

KingFisher is completely calm, her voice is soft and even. There's not a flicker of anger coming from her.
She gives the impression that she's exactly what she says she is. A solid professional who specialises in dealing with spirits.

The spirit stops crying a little as Wujen defends him. His eyes are red and his face is a mess, but he manages to pull it together enough to talk. Whenever Kingfisher and Wujen finish speaking privately, he manages to say, "Searching humans didn't see because they can't see. But I saw. The killer left a trail. Little hopping drops of qi. I lost sight of where they went, but if you hurry you can try to follow them. The steps went too far beyond the water so I couldn't follow them well and your sight is probably better than mine."

WuJen looks at Kingfisher unimpressed, still outraged at her behavior. He is taken aback at the sudden change in her demeanor, wary of the vicious anger that seems to sweep over her like a sudden storm only to be replaced by calm a second later.

"You don't need to scare the spirit. Are you saying it's lying or intentionally trying to cause problems? I don't see it. I awakened as a child, and have been dealing with spirits all my life. I will grant you I prefer to deal in abstracts, I'd have called upon Water itself rather than that poor thing over there, the Spirit of a fountain, shaped as much by the humanity that played nearby as the element it sprang from."

"There are spirits in this world that need to be sealed away, beaten and put down to keep people safe. If you summon one of those to help you, I have to question the summoner, not the spirit."

"Now, I can't afford a bottle of Vodka until we get paid, the bus fare for our little wilderness excursion is going to wipe me out. I've got knives and maybe even a lighter in my gear. But I promise you nothing I own will be used to torture or terrify anything, much less a spirit called to aid us. As I said earlier, if it offends you cut it loose and don't call on it again. There's no need for this display, whatever it is."

Upon hearing the spirits report he looks over at Kingfisher, "That's some pretty solid intel. The longer we wait the colder that trail is going to be. Your little umbrella girl said she saw the attack, that the Jiangshi attacked the woman and then went south, but if it's leaving a trail we can follow that will make things a lot easier, we should check it out. It's not his fault he's bound to his element and can't follow very far."

Scowling at Kingfisher, still upset he says "Now, rather than wasting any more time with theatrics and beatings just ask him if he saw anything else, Thank him for his help, and release him from his remaining services, if he has any. We have things to check out and a wilderness to explore in the morning."

Looking expectantly at Kingfisher he waits.

KingFisher sighs.
"That'll do Turly. You can go.
"

Turning to WuJen
"Let's go look over the site from the Astral.
Then I gotta go talk to some fellow priests.
"

The water spirit happily gets the hell out of here, diving into the water and disappearing from sight.

The pair of you head back to the park. The police are still there, but it looks like they are pretty much done. The body is gone and cleaners are making sure that no evidence is left behind that might disturb park goers.

On the other side of a moderately large koi pond, you see the drips of qi that the water spirit had spoken of. They continue south in roughly the same direction that the footsteps had been going. The qi is unusual in that it is not part of a living thing and therefore has none of the emotional auras that qi typically has. However, since it is not part of a living thing, it is rapidly evaporating, so it is only a matter of time before it disappears entirely.

KingFisher soars over the park in the Astral, her astral form differs from her normal form.
She looks to be taller, more physically powerful, wearing contoured biker armour.
Anyone who has met Rosa Pine will pick out the distinct similarity to her.
Obviously KingFisher has a case of hero worship over Rosa.

KingFisher tries to follow the trail of Qi.



She moves carefully along the trail, magic softly glowing around her fingers.

Kingfisher easily follows the trail which leads to the edge of the park before ending at a sewer grate. Beyond that, the qi gets muddied by the toxicity of the underground sludge. It is pretty gross down there, but you could try flying around to see if you find anything. Unfortunately that would mean randomly flying around and hoping you are going in the correct direction from here.

Kingfisher looks at WuJen, waves her arms in the air and points at the sewer lid.
"Looks like it's hiding somewhere down there. I'm sure as Kami not going there to look for it without armed backup. We can come back and check it in the morning. We're going to need all the natural light we can get."

Unless WuJen has anything to add, she returns to her body in the noodle shop.

Later that evening with the letter of introduction in her pocket, KingFisher returned to her apartment in the Artemis club.
Emptying her pockets she decides to summon a weak water spirit to clean the suit while she takes a shower. The steam from the hot water makes it a little easier for the water spirit to clean the suit and give it the impression of having been ironed.

Wearing a light kimono she sat cross legged in her work room, the various summoning symbols danced across the floor and walls. She started to pray to her Mentor Spirit.
It expected her to be cunning, creative, determined and strong.
She sang to the spirit of her spirit summons, of how she outsmarted the police at the park, of the horrible tale of the Jiangshi, of her search of the park and of getting the letter or introduction.
She didn't always know if the spirit heard her but out of the corner of her eye, in a shadowy corner she could just about see a flash of multiple wagging tails.

She clamped her eyes closed and wept silently as she kept singing to her spirit.
The tension of nearly being arrested, the horror of locating a possible lair for the Jiangshi, her anger at Turly and the stress of the day to come all poured out of her.
She sang on for an hour, wrote a short report for Rosa, then crawled into her bed and slept deeply all night.
When the alarm went off there were fragments of memory of darkness, something heavy thudding towards her, of the stink of sewage, the musky sent of animals and other terrible things.
Waking with a start at the sudden noise, she almost blew the thing to bits with a spell like so many before had been but stopped herself in time.

Softly singing a prayer to her Mentor Spirit she got into the tight fitting Urban Explorer Jumpsuit and put on a loose fitting dress. Getting a small backpack she packed a proper kimono like she'd wear on the job and a few little supplies. She put the letter in a waterproof pocket of the Jumpsuit.

She put the satchel around one shoulder, put the backpack on over that and walked out of her room. Visiting the dining hall to grab a few portable nibbles for breakfast to eat on the way.
Left the message for Rosa at the front desk in her cubby hole and walked out of the building.
Her Comm link picked up a signal once outside and she checked for messages.

Looks like some others had the idea of going to the Temple too, lovely.
Since it had been a dry night, she decides to hire a motorbike let her ride as a passenger to the Temple to meet the others.

The rider arrived, let her hang on behind and roared off through traffic towards the temple.
She tried to make contact with the others to let them know she was coming but the noise of the bike was incredible, she wasn't sure they heard much.

((FYI, taking basic public transportation is covered by any lifestyle of low or higher. Those with street or squatter lifestyles have to actually pay out of pocket))

Kingfisher has no problem getting a letter of introduction from her temple as the priests of all of the temples in town have good relationships with each other. While it will get her through the door and some face time with a ranked priest, she is unsure how much further it will get her.

The next afternoon she gets a message telling her that Sam and Chougou have gone ahead to the temple and she meets them there. They appear to have a well dressed gentleman with them. ((continued in splits))