It has been a cold, long afternoon for Colonel Tanya, Night Watch (non-existent) of Amber's Royal Guard. She has been laying wards around the pump room, and has stopped for a cigar and a scowl. Nothing is powered up, and she is checking it all one more time rather than adding magic to yet another layer of protections. Each window is subtly decorated. The doorway has a welcome mat with embroidered magical sigils beneath it. The great pump itself has not been touched.

Cigar smoke rises up into the air, as Tanya sits on the steps outside, glaring at little or nothing.

Danielle comes walking along. Though she doesn't know the ins and outs of the colonel's magic, she knows a ward now when she sees one "is that to protect the pumphouse or protect us from the pumphouse

Tanya looks up with a grin. "Multi-purpose?" she suggests. "But mostly, to protect the pumphouse. I was always a pro-active protector. I can't power them up yet, although if you want to, feel free. I'm just... not doing magic today."

Danielle ponders "Do i need to twists some handles or just ask it to turn on?" she says bemused

Tanya stares briefly, and then sighs. "I... could teach you but then you'd be doing my magic, not yours. They're all flows. All designed conduits, so if the conduit is crossed, they trigger. Can you not just create a pulse of whatever magic is around, and push it through a thing?"

Danielle hms "Where i come from it depends on the energy of the think, knowledge of the element and how to manipulate like the ice mage at the castle, only ice would be a form of water so if i understood water magic i could manipulate water in all its forms. different magic tork intanimate objects like the pump but then you could use the pattern to manipulate just about anything but different training for different abilities..so maybe but i was thining of how filinia just talked to it and wondered if i could say "power up please and have it go

"I think that's not magic," says Tanya, "Or at least, it wasn't Filinia doing it. I'd call it a miracle, because that's a definition I can just about understand. But I can pick out fire, water, grass, air. Fire's tricky because it wants to go out. Natural things usually have natural wands in them. But if you want to experiment, blow yourself away. I can re-make them."

Danielle shrugs and concentrates trying to sense water and push it up through the pips using the water itself to set the pump mechanisms in motion

Filinia flips a coin. The result is: Tails

Danielle rolls with advantage -1 at difficulty 15, using no talents or gifts.
The result is a failure.

There is plenty of water all around, flowing sluggishly or fast, trying to rise up slowly. The pump rises and falls, almost as if Danielle had made it happen. The pipes fill more, the pump moves a little faster, and Tanya sighs. "Of course, every magical law I know says you can't do it and stay sane if you don't use tools, but who cares? I'm intending to get drunk about this anyhow." Then, a moment later, she says, "Incoming," and dives in through the doorway, pushing the welcome mat into the doorway proper.

From where Danielle is, there is a slice of the outside visible through the doorway and the slits of windows that are not blocked up. Nothing seems wrong.

Danielle blinks, being focused entirely on the water and getting it to flow as directed "Incoming what?

"Things walking down the street. Looking like people but they walk wrong." Tanya reaches for her staff, which is inside the door, and risks a peek out. "They are probably in stolen bodied, or don't know what bodies are." Casually guessing, it sounds like... this is something she has seen before?

Danielle blinks "Necromancy" the only possibly frame of reference she has has for stolen bodies. Something outside of her realm of knowledge other than she know it exists and definition using a mages version of websters

Tanya says, "Not what I'd call it - Necromancy is REALLY bad. Destroying magic to power things. But the dead-body version of it, maybe. That's just unhygenic, though, not a blasphemy. Listen, we're going to get stuck in here in about a minute, and I don't want to give it up. Leaving's wrong. Can you put down damage? Keep people out? People-things...?" So yes, she did pause in saying that for a mini-lecture.

Danielle sighs "I don't know. if there's something to throw or bar the door i can try magically pushing or throwing It's ting that''s work so far magical propullsion of a sort" She looks around

Tanya says, "We can close the door, and it's got a bar, but it's..." She closes it to check, and right there, on the back, iron plates have been bolted. "Oh, bless you, Filinia, you rank little coward." And the bar slips down into place easily, rotating on a hinge. "I would hire that coward. That just leaves the windows." Four sets of them, but only two with big gaps. Tanya dashes to one. "You take the other. Stab as occasion serves, as I've often been told." She draws her ancient-looking sword, and puts the staff down a little way behind her.

Danielle looks around for projectiles of some kind as she rushes for the othr window

There is little to throw save Filinia's tools, although those include, among other things, an anvil and a large variety of hammers.

Filinia flips a coin. The result is: Heads

Danielle rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 18, using occult, sorcery.
The result is a success.

Soon the door jerks, and does not open. Danielle can see people out there, moving mechanically, not keeping their arms and legs in synch, not turning their heads properly but instead rotating their bodies around to be able to look for new targets. They see the windows, and three go towards Tanya's position, while four move jerkily towards Danielle's window.

Danielle attempts to hurl several hammers out the window using magic to propel them outword

The hammers - 1/2lb, 1lb, 8lb mini sledge, 8lb ball peen - fly not just true but hard. The extra oomph given to them by Danielle ensure that all hit, and three of the beings are hit hard enough that they bend or break, showing they are not at all human. Outside, a few 'real' people shout or panic, but nobody rushes to help. Only one of the figures still stands, lurching towards Danielle with a small hammer embedded in its chest.

Over by her own window, Tanya attacks as if by drill. She stabs, twists, withdraws, cutting a throat and dropping her opponent bloodlessly. Two more try to climb in, and she repeats the cutting stroke. This time the cut throat bleeds black mist, which dissipates. That leaves the women with one opponent each.

Danielle is not strong without magical assistance so when the remaining oponnent advances. Her first task is avoidanxe to give herself distance as it awkward reaches for her backing up up . just as it looks as if she's about to be cornered, she attempts to magically push the anvil forward and basically bowl the thing over like a ninepin

Meanwhile, Tanya uses her position by the window, refusing to give it up as Danielle is chased. She punches with the palm of her left hand, driving her opponent back, and then as it refuses to be stunned, stabs it straight through the eyes and the back of the head. The cut smokes. Tanya swears. Danielle hits a human-shaped thing with a suddenly propelled anvil... and it's all over. The things stop moving, dissipate, become mist. Tanya mutters, "'s sake. I left my cigar out there."

Danielle blinks "Is that a usual occurence around here. We're those spirits or...?

"No clue," Tanya says. "But Filinia would have mentioned if things tried to kill her. I think they were just shapes made of mist." Black mist. Like fog. She does not say that word.

Danielle hms "It's not fond of us being here is it. Perhaps it's more important than we realized. I wonder if it's the same force that keeps things just so around here

The Colonel sighs. "I'm seeing it as an outside force to be defended against, although I'll update if required. I've never seen - never even met - anything like that outside-stuff before, and I have seen a lot of things. But bodies made of mist? They were coming for us or this place. They had to be."

Danielle hms "Before now it was trying to keep things in perfect order as if trying to get us to go away perhaps

With a thoughtful look at the room, Tanya says, "Maybe I shouldn't activate the wards yet. But are you telling me you think this place has made things of fog? I was thinking that the fog had a separate intelligence. Malevolence. It certainly seemed that way."

Danielle shrugs "It could still be separate forces entirely I have no idea. It's always felt as if we're being both attacked and manipulated

Tanya sighs. "Still, outside is a hostile force, and my cigar is there. Doctrine says I don't go out. It also says I don't smoke inside wooden-floored buildings. I would like it noted that I really need a drink."