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+---- Thread: *Irons Departure (/showthread.php?tid=52053)
*Irons Departure - jadda123876 - 07-07-2024
Jonathan Irons - Wide Receiver.
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It was time for him to be done.
Jonathan had searched and searched, rifling through the cabinets and drawers of the Portland Pythons locker room for the hundredth time, trying to find it, that shining crystal that he had sworn he would never use, but so desperate was he to get back to Faerun that he would give anything now.
It was time to make a deal with a devil.
With the portal talisman in hand, he walked out into the locker room proper.
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With the season drawing to a close, Jonathan stands next to Bamford on the field, smiling slightly as the team walks off the pitch, for what will be their final practice of the season. Bamford, the kid, nodded his head quietly before sighing.
“I think I’m out of this job soon, Irons.”
“What do you mean, Jordan?” Turning to face the co-GM, Jonathan looked on with a quizzical look. Even now the name jarred him to hear; almost no one referred to him as Jordan, only Bamford. But Irons had chosen the personal approach from the start, for…some reason…
“I think it’s about time I retire. I’m out of time to do this and really feel like I can’t balance everything else.”
With a worried sigh, Jonathan nods pensively, mushing his teeth and jaw around in his mouth as he thinks, beginning to pace. Jonathan chuckles helplessly as he looks up at the sky, wondering if Gale and the others were seeing the same things.
Gesturing to Bamford, he smirks.
“This was only ever meant to be incredibly temporary, you know. Find ourselves a good replacement, move on? Now you’re leaving and I should be leaving but I have no idea how to even get back now, and it just seems like I’m afraid of getting stuck. I certainly can’t leave now, of all things we can’t leave Portland without a GM, I just-”
It had been quite some time now of Jonathan droning on about this place, Faerun, and still Bamford could not make sense of any of it. But now was not the time to make sense of it, he supposed. Now was the time to be the “senior” co-GM for once.
“Jonathan, look; If you are ready to find your way back there, I guarantee you already know a way back there and something has kept you until now. You got here, you can get back. Now, if you feel antsy, and you feel like you want to get out now and jump ship while you can, why not? Let someone with the knowledge and capability to handle things in Portland take over. You know the robot wants to do it. You’ll find someone else, too.”
Jonathan considers Bamford’s words, smiling slightly as he chuckles, gesturing out to the field where the last of the players were making their way into the locker rooms. Looking on wistfully, he sighed.
“How am I meant to leave this group?”
The co-GM laughed loudly, startling the cleric for a moment before patting him on the shoulder and heading towards the building.
“The same way all the rest of the GMs did before you. Out the front door.”
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Jonathan would spend the rest of the season like that; ruminating over ways to get home, fighting to find some way to harness enough magic from different sources to get the barest teleport scroll to work, with no luck. This world had magic, he could feel it all around, untappable by the usual methods, buzzing in every living thing like a river. Perhaps it was merely electricity, but Jonathan believed these people had something more within them. Some sort of innate capability to power through strife, no matter the cost. He had seen it in every sack, every long pass, every massive field goal. Every fourth quarter comeback, every pick six, every desperate fumble recovery.
This was a place where athleticism, where American Football, was an art.
The ISFL.
And Jonathan was proud to be a part of it.
Names and faces raced through his mind as he remembered commentaries past provided. Pitter Patter, the feared and respected Anakin Skywalker, Tyler Higbee, Brad Woof, Thor Bǫllrsveifla, Nakiri Ayame, Dunkler Sowerwine, Dru Freduci.
Jonathan resolved himself to pay a particular someone a visit once the season was done. It was time to go home.
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The crunch of boots on gravel is heard quietly as Jonathan walks up the driveway to the classically styled Pacific Northwest home just outside of Portland. He walked up the steps to the door, sighing quietly as he knocked. Moments later, a finely-dressed gentleman in an eccentric suit appears at the door, cane in hand.
“Ahh, good, so you finally decided to drop by. Finished with our little purgatory, are we?”
Opening the door to allow Jonathan inside, satisfied as he was with making Jonathan squirm immediately, Raphael smirks with a devilish curl as the pair walk into the home, nicely decorated with a warm, almost time-preserved feel, as if he had suddenly been transported to the 1950s. Raphael took a seat in a plush armchair, one leg slung scandalously over one arm.
“I shall not tease you too frantically, let us get down to things. It takes a far more significant amount of magic than I thought to keep things going here. I take it your reaching out is not merely a social call, so out with it. You want to go home, I want something from you…what do you have?”
Jonathan scoffed, his eyebrow raised as he took a seat, setting a bag down next to him.
“The dreaded Raphael, and you don’t have a price to get me back? I can’t imagine giving away deals for free is very good for business now, is it?”
In response, Raphael’s look turns sour as he scowls at the cleric, slamming his fist down into the arm of the chair hard enough to cave in the wood slightly.
“Don’t mistake me here, I come expecting you likely don’t even have anything close to a proper price for me to say yes.”
In response, Jonathan raises a finger, reaching down to unzip the bag, pulling out a helmet and shoulder pads.
“A trade, then. You give me passage back to Faerun, and I’ll give you all of my experience and skill in this game, American Football, where you will be able to go and receive far more acclaim and renown than you could ever gain from the thousands of souls in the house of hope. One game, your players against mine, a devil with immense magical power, and one cleric with a lot of friends. You win, I go back to my team and I stay there, and you gain my soul. I win, and I go back to Faerun and you’ll stay here, to play in my place.”
With an intrigued look, the devil considers things, considers what he knows about the cleric and what he was able to do with a team before. With a sly smile, Raphael shrugs, standing.
“Why not. It should be good fun. And when I win, the Morninglord will lose his precious little sunshine boy.”
With a snap of his fingers, Raphael teleports the pair to a barren stone field with rough-laid markings like a football field, two goal-posts on either side, demon and imp and golem cheering from pre-made bleachers as a large group of confused ISFL players looks around frantically, searching for a familiar face.
Explaining the situation to them, Jonathan gives them the plan, rallying them to the goal before equipping each of them with armor. Not padding this time, not helmets of hard plastic. Armor. This was a devil, not someone to be trifled with.
In all of this, Bamford has done his absolute best to keep in his laughter, but as of now failed miserably, doubled over, tears pouring from his eyes as the group looks on at the boy with concern. Recovering finally, he clears himself up, chuckling a couple final times before looking on to Jonathan.
“Irons, I swear, I deadass thought you were just cosplaying this entire time. You’re an actual goddamn cleric, aren’t you?”
In response, a small note of the Morninglord’s light coursed through the cleric as his feet crackled with electricity. Coming to a crouch, the rest of the line prepares for the start, Raphael, and multiple shadows of energy as his team, prepared as well.
“I took our team to a championship title and you thought I was slightly mad? I’m hurt, kid. I am slightly mad, but I’m hurt that you thought I was. Now let’s kick their asses.”
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Transforming from human form into a demon, Raphael chuckles at Jonathan, nodding.
“I suppose I shall wish you luck. You’ll need it.
With each and every player all gathered, the game ensues, the first quarter a certifiably awful defeat for the ISFL team, giving up two touchdowns to Raphael’s fiercely determined offense. With a beat to consider and think, Jonathan throws Bamford a glance.
“Verts?”
With an exasperated chuckle, and a defeated sigh, Bamford throws up his hands.
“You know, nothing else so far has worked. Fuck it.”
Stepping back onto the field, a crackle of lightning can be heard, the Morninglord sending just one boost of power the cleric’s way to give him a chance, anything. With a flash, Irons was off down the field, eyes high as the ball soared his way, hands clasped around the ball as he kept running, the ghostly apparition of cornerback appearing to tackle him, but dodging as he came within a few feet of the goal line and fell to a tackle.
The running-back, having run the ball into the end zone, secures the touchdown, and a subsequent field goal, making things far less impending than before.
The rest of the game continues to go that way, Raphael gaining a touchdown, the Irons team responding with one of their own. A back and forth battle, with Raphael merely moments ahead at all times, in one case towards the end of the third quarter, the score lay scarily in the favor of the demons.
Dissatisfied, and determined to go home, Jonathan summons the last of his physical energy, sighing loudly.
He would not leave this field without that which he came for.
With a solid drive down the field, Jonathan and the rest of the team brought themselves all the way to the end zone, a short pass to Pitter Patter and the touchdown was secured, but with minutes to go in the game, they needed a miracle.
That miracle lay in the form of Roquefort Cotswald. Almost invisible to the opposing wide receiver, the brave mouse had reached up and snatched the ball right from the air, turning immediately around to run the opposite direction. The mouse ran, and ran, the shouting and hysterical cries of the rest of the team encouraging him on as, with seconds on the clock, he walked onto the end zone, placed the ball in the end zone, and laid down to use it as a pillow.
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With a smirk, and a proud look, Jonathan turns to Raphael, the one who had been acting quarterback for his team. With a snarl, he morphed back into his human form as before, cleaning himself off and approaching with a scowl that was as fiery and rageful as it was impressed.
“A deal’s a deal then, isn’t it? You’ll be going home then, finally, huh? Purgatory complete? Have you paid for your sins yet, I wonder? Or will you always be running from them?”
Irons smiled at Raphael, removed his helmet, and placed it into his hands.
“Whatever I do, I won’t be wearing that ever again…thank you, Raphael. I have found that this place has its own magic. Use it well. And do reach back into the forgotten realms, sometimes. I would like to hear how you get on.”
Through his visage of sheer enjoyment for his own cruelty and malice, Raphael’s face softened slightly, casting a look downward as he considered his plight.
“I suppose if you were able to bear it for a time, I shall certainly be able to do as well…goodbye, Irons. And fuck you.”
Jonathan chuckled, nodding as he stepped through the portal.
“Fuck you too, Raphael.”
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Striding into the locker room, Raphael sighed, chuckling with a sinister growl as he looked at the draft board.
“Let’s get to work, shall we?”
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Raphael - Cornerback.
RE: Irons Departure - wetwilleh - 07-07-2024
My WR1
RE: *Irons Departure - Assistant to the POR GM - 07-08-2024
o7
RE: *Irons Departure - jreed12 - 07-08-2024
Forbidden verts strat, activate!
RE: *Irons Departure - Gadget - 07-08-2024
WHAT????