Jim makes a phone call to the first number he can remember by memory, making small talk before it leads to the next, opening door after door that had been shut since his incarceration. Old friends. Old dealers. The heads and lookouts for street crews. Even a few of his old clientele, especially those in the area of the warehouse. His questions are simple, the topics innocuous. Looking for an old friend who might've disappeared in the area. Maybe people coming and going nearby. Anything funky? Activity from the pigs? And even simpler information, like the lay of the land, friendly faces he might encounter in the surrounding few blocks, etc.
[ Manipulation + Streetwise + Influence: Criminal & Street. Specialty: Criminal Mind. ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 2
Jim ThompsonOnce he's through, he takes a few moments for the simple things in life. Or the simplest. The back of his eyelids drop, his legs pulled into a lotus of bone and sinew, hands resting just at the edge of his thighs and his back straight as an arrow. Muscles relax, breathing steadies, and blood begins to rush and flow in a slower and more efficient manner as he mulls over the visions - in fact, as he tries to recreate what Serafine had so painstakingly recreated in her illuminating retelling. Of the prophesy. Of the phoenix. Of the man and the girl, and of ashes and dust. It ties to that part of him that brushed Shelby's destiny, brushed her connection to Jake, resonating through him as he tries to gain insight and epiphany as to what it all might mean.
[ Intelligence + Meditation. Specialties: Outside the Box & Transcendental. Difficulty 8. ]
Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( fail ) Re-rolls: 1
Sid Rhodes[claustrophobia]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Jim Thompson[ Re-rolling at difficulty of 9 and crossing my fingers and toes. Dropping a WP. ]
Dice: 8 d10 TN9 (1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP]
SerfineWe have a van. Promised Sera, and so they do. A Ford conversion van, rather battered. No one has ever gone through with the promise/threat to get it repainted and then airbrushed in grand 1970s style with a giant panther eating a 'gator and vomiting up a phoenix, which is probably for the best. Leaves the thing slightly less conspicuous.
The we of the equation might be vaguely familiar to Sid and Mara when he shows up in the driver's seat. Which is likely a relief for Sid, even if he is a stranger. At least Serafíne, who has never been sober in her presence, does not intend to drive. Sera introduces the driver as Dan-he's-cool, and the two women will recognize him, perhaps, as the tall, skinny, beared blond guitarist from the other night. He's pretty quiet, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt showing the Zombie Food Pyramid, and a knit beanie never mind the temperature.
The van smells of cigarettes and vaguely of pot. There are seats, and bits of their gear. Stray cabling and the odd pick, empty bottles rolling around mysteriously beneath the seats. Travel brochures, the sort one picks up from the cheapest hotels, advertising the world's largest ball of string.
Sera's in the front seat and slips out when they arrive. Earbuds from her iPhone in her ear, she's blissing out to the music, feeling it physically enough that her fingers twitch with the urge toward the chords of whatever it is she's listening to.
[Mind Shield Dif 1 + 3 (coincidental)] 4-1 for taking time, lowest dif possible is 3.
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 6) ( fail )
Serfine(Extending: +1 difficulty.)
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
MaraMara had done her very brief reconnoitre, and described the building as best as she could to the others, it was old, it was run down, and the only security she'd seen were the bars on the windows and the bolt on the door, but then she hadn't cast magic or gone inside....best not to tip ones hand after all. So the following day they arrive at the appointed time, Mara bright eyed and ready for a tussle.
Dressed in a pair of snug fitting combat pants, a simple black T-shirt and her signature red jacket and her normal everyday hiking boots, Mara was as functional over fashion as she could manage, at least for the moment.
Her method of arrival might surprise some, instead of walking or getting a ride the Akashic arrived in an old but serviceable hyundai Accent. The old machine was clean and tidy, and oddly minimalistic for a woman who seemed flashy and bombastic..oh contrasts.
[Mind Trap]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (2, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Mara[Extended -1 for time taken]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (2, 3) ( fail )
Mara[Extended -1 for time -1 for quint]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Mara[One last time!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Jim ThompsonHis calls, his meditation, his care taking and near-coddling of Jake had all melted away by the time they made their way to the van. Right around the time he'd disappeared into the bathroom, under the guise of hitting the potty before they hit the road.
Despite the crowded nature of six living breathing twenty-somethings crammed into the back of the van until the time of their arrival, Jim still manages to find room, legs sprawled out and slouched into one of the windows, a seat belt pulled on if possible. Maybe he'd even managed to maneuver himself so that he's sitting near Sid, though his head is rested against the cold and smooth surface of the nearest window.
His attention is settled even further outward. He watches the city streets as they drift pass and the near their destination. He doesn't smell drunk. Doesn't smell high - at least not from the skunk-must of marijuana. But that doesn't mean his toxicity isn't up.
He seems... Strangely attuned. And oddly quiet, in a way that Sid might find inconsistent with their past two encounters. A satellite dish focusing the energies of the universe. Out of his own body. It's in a way that's different from what he experienced Or at least, trying to reach out to do so.
[ Coincidental. Mind 1, Correspondence 1, Prime 1. Taking his time. Specialty focus for dropping a tab... Difficulty is 3 for the first round. Blowing another WP. Down to 5. Need 4 successes overall. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 4, 4) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Jim Thompson[ Extending at +1 difficulty. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
EntropyThey did everything they could to prepare for the investigation, unknowing as they were as to what they might find. Between Serafine's dream, Jim's scrying, Jake's information, Mara's recon and Sid's online and telephone investigating, a rough picture was sketched, and the five of them drove to West 12th Ave along with Serafine's Consor bandmate. Along the way, Jake was silent and anxious, rubbing his thumb down the center of his palm as though he'd found a bit of dirt that he couldn't manage to scrape from his skin.
It wasn't long before they arrived on the right road and found a place to park their vehicles a safe distance from the warehouse. Looking down the street, they could see other nondescript warehouses and quasi-industrial buildings, as well as a few low-end retail shops (they'd passed an ammunition store on the way.) As the Harrison property came into view, the others would see that it was as Mara had described: an old brick building with a faded logo for Merial Moving Company on the front. The doors and windows were barred and locked, though these protections were old and marked with rust. Other than that, there did not at first glance appear to be any security in place. From all appearances, it was an old, unused, derelict building.
It was late enough that the nearby shops had closed up for the night. A few cars still lined the street, but none within a few lots of the old warehouse. The sky was dimmed as the sun lowered in the horizon. There were no street-lights. Only large power-lines lining either side of the road.
Sid RhodesSid arrives at the drop zone a little later than agreed upon. She'd debated coming on this expedition, had thought about asking one of the others, Jim probably since she sorta almost kinda feels like she could maybe start to trust him. Maybe. Just a little. But leaving the gathering of samples to someone untrained could lead to contaminations that could through off whatever things she hopes to discover, and she simply can't have that.
So, at the last minute, she crammed things (plastic test tubes, a handful of latex gloves, cotton swabs, and a few other miscellaneous items purchased with the absolute last of her last paycheck) into her bag, twisting her hair at the nape of her neck as she rushed out to her truck, holding the mess in place with a little elastic band. The rest of her appearance doesn't differ much from the norm. Faded old jeans, crummy old black sneakers, a dark blue tee that once had some sort of screened on image that has become completely unrecognizable over time.
By the time she arrives people are already loading into the van and Mara's car. Sid drops from the cab of her truck and hurries over only to stop dead in her tracks a moment. She stares at the van, at someone's back as they get in and claim a seat, and she frowns. Not the small, vaguely worried expression that is her habit, but something full of deeper concern. It has nothing to do with who is or is not behind the wheel. It doesn't matter that the Cultists might be more than a little out of it, or that one or two people are still little more than strangers to her. Well, it has a little to do with that last part. It's so small. And the presence of others makes it seem all the more crammed, like all the air inside is surely being sucked away by other lungs, leaving nothing behind for her to breathe. The other choice, Mara and her little Hyundai, isn't much better. In the end she braces herself, puts on her big girl panties, and she clambors as far back into the van as she can get, wedging herself between gear and equipment if she must. There she sits clutching her bag, eyes closed and her temple pressed against the nearest window or wall, waiting for the ride to be over.
When they get to the warehouse she's the last to climb out into the vaguely fresh air. She closes her eyes and sucks in a deep, steadying breath. When she opens them again she sees in person the warehouse which she only saw in a couple of Flickr images. It seems quiet, but she's alert, turning in a circle to view as much of the area as she can.
[percept+aware: paranoid!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
Sid Rhodes[and alert!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
MaraIt was time to be in the moment, here and now with these awakened that she barely knew. Now was not the time to dwell on what had been, or what may be, because what mattered was the now, what happened here could set the tone for the rest of their day's or at the very least, the forseeable future.
Once parked Mara pulled herself from her car, an old canvas backpack slung up over one shoulder, her other arm easily slipping into the other strap as she looked to what she was certain, would eventually be called the Mystery Machine. When the others piled out Mara offered them all a enthusiastic and certain smile, her eyes sparkling in the half light. She tilted her head towards the building in question and took a few steps in its direction coming to stop and lean against an old telephone pole as she waited for the others to get themselves ready.
Her lean was anything but casual however, the movement of muscles in her neck, through the fabric of her pant's could be seen as she worked to limber up her body. She looked back as the others gathered and looked back at the building.
"So...I think getting overly complicated would be a waste of our time, that and the bars on the windows pretty much exclude those as options...I say we just go straight down the middle and in through the door." She gestured as she spoke, bringing her hands together and driving them forward like a pointed ram before spreading them wide and letting them drop at her side.
"Simplest plan's the hardest to mess up after all, right?"
[Per+Alert]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Serafine(Perception + Awareness; Dif -1. Resonance!)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1
SerafineSera has shotgun unless Sid requires it. There is more space up there in the front seat. She still has her earbuds tucked neatly into her ears, the iPhone a weight in the breast pocket of the old plaid shirt she wears over her costume today: another pair of combat boots, though these are made for function and not fashion. She seems smaller when she slips out of the van, because that height that seems so natural on her - lean limbs and long bare legs - is always an illusion of proportion and her willingness to show so much skin, augmented by an ever-changing wardrobe of shoes with platforms and too-high heels. Tonight, the combat boots add an inch, if that, and well - Serafíne is maybe Mara's height. Certainly she's dwarfed by Dan as he parks the van and circles around to her side while the rest of the group piles out around them.
So: the boots, cut-off jeans, her usual fishnets. Hair pulled back from the shaved fringe into a French braid rather than left hanging loose, an oversized plaid flannel over a Sesame Street LIVE! t-shirt and - fewer necklaces and bracelets than might be usual. One leg jounces up and down quietly as Sera regards the warehouse, breathing in the cool night air.
Dan comes up beside her and she shoots him a glance up, fond and alive. Murmurs, perhaps too quietly for the rest to hear, "Give us a kiss."
He breathes out a silent laugh, nostrils flaring as he exhales, shaking his head quietly. Beneath the beard, a flare of heat. He gives the others a surreptitious glance weighing it a moment until Sera says his name, quietly and urgently. Then he nudges her forward and slips behind her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. His bearded cheek slips along the line of her jaw, tugging the earbuds on their little cords out of her right ear and plants a kiss soft and sure in the hollow beneath her ear, right against the line of her jaw. This... continues. She reaches back; that nodal level, feels her heartbeat align to his, opens up that sense of - breathing skin and human touch, like sparks cast off in the darkness. Her eyes half-closed, her senses open.
[Life 1: Life Scan. Dif: 4 -1 for specialty focus. WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Jim Thompson"A tomb in a graveyard on salted fields," is what Jim mutters to himself. He's careful to keep his voice low. He'd visibly winced as they'd passed the ammunition shop, and hallucinations of the static hum of machinery in the industrial wasteland almost deafening his senses as they create themselves in a chemical-fueled imagination.
Jim has traded in his swimsuit for a pair of dark navy Levi's, crisp and slim-fitting, desert boots in lieu of flip flops, and a black v-neck all that clings to his upper body. Despite his earlier macabre description of the place, as he steps out of the van he lets his own Avatar - filaments of his Pattern, feeling the vibrations and echoes of the Tapestry - catch the ether and seek out his surroundings.
[ Perception + Awareness. Plus whatever his effect gets him, I guess. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 5 )
Sid Rhodes[Prime scan: Prime 1, no mod because no focus]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 6) ( success x 2 )
Mara[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9) ( fail )
Sid RhodesSid takes that deep breathe, which is hardly fresh and clean. There is of course the usual stench of the city, of concrete and oil and life gone down questionable paths. There's something else, though, something that makes her breath catch and her chest tighten, but only briefly. She's still looking around, her awareness thrown wide open, inviting in all sorts of nasty, terrible things to caress her senses, when the others start speaking, start looking around for themselves.
Sid is very much aware of the others. Their presence, their myriad resonances, are just familiar enough now that she can sort them out, pushing aside the addled psychedelic swirl of Jim, the enthralling visceral presence of Sera, and the intractable nature of Mara. She digs through the colorful quagmire and plucks out something different, something new, something calculated.
She stops in her turn, her eyes wide and bright upon Jim when he mutters those words, words that send a chill down her spine, tightening her brows above her dark rimmed glasses. The look doesn't entirely fade when she turns away from him. What was she expecting on this trip to a place that more than likely houses the unmarked graves of dead Awakened? Swiping her hand over her head, smoothing back the wisps, she looks back at the gated entry.
"Do...do you guys feel that?" She looks around, looking at each one in turn, seemingly oblivious to the make-out session of Dan and Sera, looking for a nod or a word that, no, she's not the only one who notices it. "Someone Worked here," she says. "It's," she coughs suddenly, choking on the other things she picks up, smells that threaten to overwhelm her senses. Putting her the back of her hand beneath her nose as if that could possibly protect it, she finishes, "It's faint, but it's there."
MaraMara waited as the others gathered themselves, prepared themselves for the moments to come. She glanced over her shoulder to find Serafine in the middle of a make out session, the woman obviously having no issue with grasping the moment as it was, and that made the Akashic grin, a chuckle escaping her lips as her eyes in turn swivelled and took in Sid.
The timid woman had not changed, but here she was perceptive and collected, and it was obvious that she was feeling something that Mara herself was wholly unaware of. She listened attentively as she turned her gaze back to the location before them and nodded almost imperceptibly.
"That would make sense...if this place is what we think it is, or is at least the scene of all that...ash." She grimaces at that word and folds her arms before her, running her hands down the length of her bicep before abruptly she shook out her hands and stood up from her lean.
"Well....shall we?" She asked looking at the others one more time before starting slowly forward.
Serafine"Okay," quiet, to the guitarist sliding his mouth down her neck to find her pulse. Both sensual than ritual, this. He knows her well enough to know the sort of touch she requires in that moment and that intimacy is easy between them, nearly as platonic as it is physical. He drops his chin down to her shoulder, which has him hunching over, forward, his eyes glittering pounds in the darkness and is otherwise quiet.
"There's no one in there," Sera informs the others, her voice quiet, rough, her breath quickened. "No one living," and this is enough to banish whatever shadow of want lingered in her tone and manner. To banish it all at a go. " - anyway."
The reassertion of that sense of decay from the interior of the warehouse. She shivers all at once and curls her narrow shoulders forward, with enough force that she breaks free of the shallow circle of Dan's arms. He lets her go, of course. Sighs, slips his callused hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Pulls one out and rubs it nervously over his face, and looks away from them.
Sera glances at Sid then, her eyes catching what light lingers in the west and reflecting it back at the redhead, a dull, twilit glitter. "I feel it," she confirms, quiet. But does not give voice to some precise description of the sensation, because she remembers Jake then, and shoots him a glance in the darkness, circling and weaving through the group to find him. If the boy allows it, Sera will slip an arm through one of his, nudge him physically, every so slightly aslant. "You ready for this? Or are you gonna hang with Dan. Be lookout to his getaway driver?"
Then, a swinging glance up to Mara. The edge of her curving mouth, expressive but drawn. There's no humor in the expression tonight. "I'm ready - " a glance toward Jim, query embedded in the matrix of the look. " - and the front door seems as good as any."
Jim ThompsonJim's earlier words seem prophesy. He nods to himself. It is an affirmative gesture that is the polar opposite in its tone to the sigh that comes next. A drawn out sound, and then his chest barrels in a deep breath to again steel himself against the bombardment of his mind's eye. It takes all this before he can bare to speak. Even then, at times he falls silent. They are probably lucky this happens mid-sentence, the only hint he might continue. "There aren't any -"
Looking to the left, then the right, up the street and then up to the night sky. Searching out stars. The comfort of a universe that exists, instead of one that has been taken by ash. It tries to superimpose itself over his surroundings. Risen from the stench. From the decay. Like the specter of death not looming, but past.
"-doors to stop us. Those walls are a curtain. An illusion. This place..."
Eyes wide. Not in surprise or fear. In realization. "This place doesn't exist. It was made to hide the truth," speaking faster now, words bleeding out like a gushing artery slit. "Built by a curative mind, painstakingly crafted. A tombstone over the death something -"
He pauses only a moment now - "or someone," he's not sure which, his tone uncertain, "made."
His nostrils flare like he smells something rotten, head turning away from the building for a moment as he's bombarded by an underlying resonance. It rolls on his shoulder with a shiver. "I don't feel anyone else," nodding as he affirms Serafine's report, but shakes his head as soon as the words come out. "But this..." He looks up at the building, almost startled by his own revelation it doesn't exist. "This kind of thing takes power. Whoever made it might might not be seen unless he - she - they - want to be."
And with these revelations, he takes a deep breath again, holding it this time. Three seconds in. Three seconds held. Three seconds out. It wars with the want of his heart to race from the growing clutch of the dose he'd dropped earlier in the night.
And he doesn't look to Mara, but his answer is to mime her earlier gesture. Arms together. Fingers grasping their brothers in either hand. Driven forward toward the place. And his answer is also to begin toward the place.
EntropyJake stood with them, the look on his face ashen but firm with determination. It was clear he had no intention of returning to the vehicle. He might be a sitting duck to anything that decided to harm them, but at the moment it was likely that he didn't care. Whatever was there to find, it held an answer for him. An answer he desperately needed, even if it would be as heart-wrenching as he feared.
When Serafine offered her support, he shook his head faintly and pulled away, giving a clear indication that he didn't wish to be touched. Not here. Not now. Not when his thoughts and sense-memories were so full of her. Comfort at this stage might very well undo him.
And so the ragtag group headed forward, and as they stepped onto the property, they would find indeed that it was as Jim described. The illusion, as subtly as it had been crafted, was meant only to fool a wandering passerby. The moment they'd taken more than a few steps onto the barren lawn, the image suddenly fell away to reveal the true shape of the land before them.
And it was all... ash.
No building. No grass. No bodies. Nothing but windswept mounds of particles: grey and black and powdery. This is what remained of the building. Of the bricks and mortar. Of whoever and whatever may have been within.
But there were no clear and neat piles as their had been in Serafine's dream. All patterns become as one in death and decay.
Sid RhodesMost of them can feel it, can feel that mixture of resonance undercut with something else, something worse. Jim speaks, and Sid's frown deepens, watching him a moment, watching his face and the shift of his features when he pauses. When he stops to steady the racing of his heart, she looks up at someone's doom. Maybe it's hers this time, maybe it's not. Her gaze drops to the pavement, and she feels a familiar presence. She can't smell it as she sometimes does, like a faint and subtle perfume on the night air, the stench of decay is far too overpowering. But she can almost sense the movement behind her, can almost feel a breath on the back of her neck, warm and comforting. Sid knows that forward is the path toward something's end, and she needs to trace it back to its source. Only then can she understand the Truth.
Sera looks at her, looks and sees that Sid, while obviously full of concern and worry, is determined. She breathes in deep, rib cage expanding and belly expanding, then deflating as she lets it all out. Others lead the way while Sid slips into a pair of simple latex gloves. Once again she takes up the rearguard position, glancing back over the street. When she looks at Dan the corners of her mouth quirk upward in a smile that offers more farewell than comfort.
On the other side of the barrier, the world is grey and full of ash. Sid stops in her tracks and looks around, looking for piles or where piles might once have been. Cautiously, she steps forward, one slow footstep after the other, slipping her hand into her bag and retrieving one of the little test tubes. Crouching by the nearest pile, she dips her finger into it, making little swirls in it before scooping some of it into the first of her little vials.
MaraMara waited only a few moments as they moved forward, her ears listening for the responses of those behind her. Some of them responded vocally, others simply by adding their footfalls to the cadence of the street. Only when they had all joined did Mara move forward at a quicker pace, drawing them to the edge of the property as the building loomed before them.
It was there at the very edge of the property line, her toes mere millimeteres from the dirt of the yard that Mara paused, her gaze trailing over the buildings form, over the yard itself and even the air before her. She let her weight shift from one leg to the next, the motion continual and without pause. At last she drew a deep breath and smiled to herself, before uttering a single phrase in cantonese before she stepped forward onto the property.
She did not expect what came next, not in the manner that it appeared. She had still expected...something, something tangible, something solid. Instead it was as if some horrible substance had been set free, and allowed to pour free into this space, destroying everything but itself. She stopped only a few feet inside the illusions barrier and could not hide her surprise. "Wow." She said honestly before taking a few more tentative steps forward before squatting down in the ash.
"This is....this is definitely above me." She said as she tentatively touched the ash with a single finger. That finger drawn up to her eye's she took in the sight of it, the feel of it upon her skin, the smell of it. Before she rose, turned to look at the others for a long moment before starting towards the center of this ashen hell.
"I'm gonna see if I can find anything...well, anything solid."
Serafine"Fuck." That's the guitarist speaking, swearing softly beneath his breath. He has had a deep and abiding feeling of wrongness about the whole damn thing since a precise moment Sunday morning, which he can remember with a sort of living clarity. He's quiet enough that he doesn't disturb the rest, though. Just sidesteps until he can open the passenger's door of the van, climbs up on the running board and grabs a small leather backpack, which he hands off to the Sera shaking his head. He slides back out, remains standing with arms cross while the rest of the group walks away.
Sera does not look back at him as they go, but Sid does. Her face is distant, now, but he sees the glance. Even sees the quirk of her mouth in the dim light, and lifts both his chin and a hand in spare and mildly awkward acknowledgment of her farewell. Then he climbs back into the van, shutting the passenger's door behind him as he slips across to settle into the driver's seat, tapping out an unconcious rhythm against the faux-wood steering wheel.
--
Jake does not want to be touched; and so Sera arrests the movement at the last minute. But look, while they walk through down the sidewalk and through the illusion, she remains just behind and to the young man's left, the bag tucked against her shoulders, contents clinking quietly inside.
She has not dropped acid tonight, and as soon as they step through the painted illusion of bricks and mortar and her vision becomes not a motherfucking metaphor but a real actual place, Serafíne is grateful that she is not tripping at just that moment, perhaps for the first time in the whole of her life.
Or at least in the past few years.
Still and stiff, she breathes out a long, slow breath, without enough force to come through as a whistle, then breathes in again, the way she does when she's stoned and starts to feel the slow pulsing waves of the energy of the universe - from which they are all made, to which they all return.
She tucks the bag against her hip, fishes inside for the flask that was clinking around in there, along with a few other things. Slugs back a stiff drink of the contents, whatever they are. Then another, this one longer, the burn sharp enough to bring tears briefly to her eyes and constrict her throat.
Sera walks around while she's doing this, a slow circle of the ashen landscape, sliding it all neatly into the disturbing slots of a disturbing vision. She turns to find the radial center, where she remembers the girl, and marks and arching, 360 degree turn from just that point.
She offers the flask wordlessly to Jim when he comes within reach; when her hands are free, she taps the front pockets of her flannel and comes up with another pack of cloves. Several tightly-wrapped joints are tucked inside, white against the dark blue clove cigarettes. She pulls one out, plus a cigarette for later, the latter of which she tucks carefully behind her right ear.
"Before we scry," blue eyes on Jim, but a lift of her chin toward the others there. Mara and Sid and Jake. Even Jake - especially Jake, who would know the actors better than any of them could, " - can you share what we see with them?"
Jim Thompson"Out of here yesterday," Jim says, again speaking to himself. Those who are paying attention to his last few quiet outbursts may be able to identify the differences in his tone.
Jim is similar-but-different from Serafine in that he orbits the consor that does tag along, staying beside and a half-step ahead of Jake as they approach and cross the threshold of the phantasmal building. The lot is as he'd seen it in the now of the previous night. He looks to Serafine. Almost through her. His eyes are still wide, unfocused, blinking too infrequently and too erratically for most to notice that they do so at all, their attentions elsewhere.
"We need to see backward. We need to see what was here, what happened here, what was taken from existence to leave this behind."
Reaching out with his mind and senses of the third eye, yet again, he now focuses the extent of his perceptions on Serafine. Less of an academic debate, less or a listing of foci and theories, he seeks out her aura and resonance and the stains they leave on the Weaving as they pass. Getting to know her energy, how it is manufactured, and how it will dance with his own.
"Turn on," taking the flask and his own (arguably) healthy pull of it, before handing it back to her. "Tune in. Drop out." It is his reflection, his acknowledgement of her paradigm and his meshing for this.
"Namaste. Let us bring light to this."
He looks to Sid. To Mara. To Jake. Into each of their eyes, if they will allow it, when Serafine asks her question. "If you wish to see, you will. If not, you won't. I'll force the Truth of a Seer on no one. It will be waiting for you to claim - after we've unearthed it," a glance, out of the corner of his eye, at Serafine, even as he stomps his heel hard into the ground. As if he needs to feel the real of the fundament beneath him as a reminder.
One thing at a time.
EntropyMara would not find anything solid beneath the ash. Only the ground: dry and hard-packed earth.
As for Jake, the expression on his face when he saw the ash laid out before him was one of barely-restrained horror. He moved numb and shell-shocked over the dead ground while the others spoke. Only when Jim mentioned turning his sight back in time did Jake's eyes suddenly sharpen with focus and land on the Disciple.
"Let me see. I need to see what happened. Now."
Jim ThompsonAnother shiver. This time when that glare, a dagger directed his way in the demand, comes his way from Jake.
"Welcome to the party," is his answer to Jake's interjection, though he winces a few moments too late. A glance at Serafine's flask, jerking his head back toward the consor. "Might want to give him a joint too. Ease those nerves."
"You want in? We have a dress code," waiting for Jake to take whatever chemical armament he will from Serafine. This time, his Pattern takes a more direct hold of one of those around him, alight, a light house matched with a kaleidoscope to project into his own unawakened but enlightened mind.
And with that, he approaches the boy. Reaches his hand around the back of his head, gripping it gently, fingers digging to gently hold his hair as he presses his forehead into Jake's. "I know you can't let go of Shelby. So instead, hold on. Tight."
[ Mind 3. Coincidental. Difficulty 6 - 1 for appropriate resonance (psychedelic). ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3) ( botch x 1 )
SerafineThat's vodka in the flask tonight. Straight vodka, a cold clear burn down the back of the throat. Serafíne accepts the flask back from Jim and already the warmth of the alcohol is sliding loose down her throat, warming her veins with a quickness, opening her senses up past the immediacy of her terror and embracing the raw edge of it. That seize of the heart, the slug of fight-or-flight hormones into her veins. The stillness that veiled her as soon as they walked into this place-of-ashes erodes as she embraces the burn of her fear much the way she opens herself to the burn of alcohol.
A flash of teeth, sudden. The sharp edge of her half-smile. Sera's humor is sudden and bright and has an edge to it like razor wire as he offers the old slogan like a mantra. "Hah! - " is her only response in the moment, but it the sound is immediate, rich, and made-in-her-body. She's doing something with that flask when Jake demands to see what happens.
Sera glances at Jim, reads his intentions in his pattern and his body language, and wordless offers her assistance. Slipping one of those earbuds back into her ear.
[Mind 2 - assisting Jim. Dif 5 -1 for specialty focus focus]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Jim Thompson[ Extended at +1 difficulty. Blowing a WP. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Serafine[Extended also at +1 difficulty.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (4, 8) ( success x 1 )
SerafineTime 2 / Mind 2; Dif 5. -1 for taking time; -1 for specialty focus.
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (4, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Jim ThompsonJim's hands release, his focus now off of Jake. In fact, he barely sticks around to see his reaction to the new creation taking up space in his psyche, a projection of Jim and Serafine's own quest of divination that has yet to begin. He lets go.
Of everything, instead turning and walking to Serafine. Close. Close enough to smell the liquor they've shared on her breath. Close enough to see the rising of her chest, matching his own to hers. His eyes shut in the physical, while a new set open on the otherside in the then they seek.
[ Time 2 / Mind 2. Difficulty 5. -1 for taking time. -1 for specialty focus. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
SerafineThe flask away, Serafíne lights her joint and finally returns Jim's namaste with one of her own, offering a little toast with the joint. The word is not one she ever employs, but she does so now, to let his voice into her lungs and her language into her throat.
By the time Jim finds her in that gray, dead space, the scent of marijuana is another layer above the alcohol they shared. He's close enough, even, that he can smell the rich scent of the clove cigarettes she's been carrying around, a sweet and heavy note beneath the musk of burning pot from the joint.
His eyes are closed; for the first few minutes of their working, her eyes are open but unseeing, her head tipped back, her face toward the sky, like she's inviting all that infinity to come down and through them. Toward the end, her eyes sink closed, and her breathing matches his. Even the sluggish beat of her pulse in the cauldron of her eyes seems to move in time with the beat of his heart, and the tidal rhythm of the universe laid open all around them.
The joint is mostly forgotten now; just burning in her hand. Smoke rises from the tip like incense, curling, curling upward in the ash-gray world.
EntropyJim connected his mind with Jake’s, creating a pathway to share whatever vision his Divinations received. As he and Serafine worked their effect, the present moment faded away, cycling back through time as they searched for the origin of the destruction. For a while they saw nothing. Then, a brief hiccup (interesting) – as though a piece of the lot’s memory had been erased. But it wasn’t the piece they were after, and soon enough they’d come upon it, as the warehouse suddenly sprung back into focus.
The building was whole again, at least as whole as it ever had been in recent years. The barred windows were red with coppery rust and the brick walls appeared aged with cracks and mildew. The bare floors were covered with a fine layer of dust, disturbed here and there by a set of mouse tracks or a dead cockroach. The place was still and silent, but for the occasional distant sound of city traffic. It was late evening, and the sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon when one of the side doors creaked open and a man and woman (the latter they would recognize as Shelby) entered the place carrying the prone body of a teenage girl.
They handled the girl with care, Shelby and the unknown man, laying her out on an old but clean-looking mattress that someone had placed near one of the walls. It was dim inside the building, and growing difficult to see, so the man (he was younger than Shelby, and tall with dark hair) took a small battery-powered lamp out of the backpack he carried and turned it on, placing it on the floor.
“Shield the windows,” Shelby hissed quietly, and the man whispered something under his breath and made a series of elegant hand motions. Whatever effect he attempted, it must have worked, because the pair of them calmed after that, and the man moved to pull up a couple of folding chairs.
“So what now?” he asked, after they’d sat down. On the mattress, the girl continued to lie motionless. Her chest rose and fell with shallow, steady breaths. In the light, Serafine would be able to see that she bore the same face as the girl she’d dreamed of: dark hair, pale skin, soft freckles.
“Honestly?” Shelby responded. “I don’t know.” She seemed exhausted. They both did.
“Do you think we made the right choice?”
“Yes.” On this, at least, she sounded certain. “What the mirrorshades would have done to her… no one deserves that. At least this way, whatever happens, she’ll be treated like a human being.”
“Should we call the others?”
Shelby didn’t answer for a long time. “I don’t think they can help, Will. Not with this. We’ll only be putting them at risk.” Then she looked at the man (Will) and glanced toward the door. “You shouldn’t be here either.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with her.”
Shelby looked at her cabal-mate and nodded gently, and the two of them fell into a tired, companionable silence. Will leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, meditating. Shelby leaned forward on her elbows and watched the girl sleep.
Time passed. Outside the sky grew dark and the street silent. That was when a knock came at the door. Will opened his eyes, anxious and alert, but Shelby simply sighed and stood to her feet as though the knock hadn’t surprised her. When she unlocked the door, she stood there a moment staring at the man on the other side. “Hello, Jai.”
“Let us in,” the older man said in a soft Indian accent. After a long moment, Shelby stepped aside and four people entered. She locked the door again behind them.
“Oh my god…” a woman with long blond hair exclaimed at the sight of the unconscious girl. “I can’t believe you did this.” She turned around with a wild, angry look. “Are you insane? You’re going to get us all killed!”
“Or worse,” a man with curly red hair added, ominously.
“You weren’t supposed to follow me,” was Shelby’s response.
The oldest of the cabal, the Indian man she’d called Jai, stepped forward and gave her a cold glare. “Did you really think we wouldn’t? This was not your decision to make, Shelby. I told you…”
“I know what you told me,” Shelby snapped. “And you’re wrong.”
“You can’t fight this girl’s destiny, Shelby. She is what she is. Rebecca is right. All you are doing is putting the cabal, and the whole city, at risk. And now you’ve set the technocrats after us as well!” His voice rose in volume as a flash of controlled anger crossed his features. “You should have let them eliminate her.”
“Murder her, you mean! But not right away, Jai. I heard them talking. They were going to study her. Dissect her. Use her as bait to catch the others.” Shelby was furious now, backing toward the girl in a protective stance as Will joined her side.
The older man sighed. “Then we will have to kill her ourselves.”
“No we won’t,” Shelby said. “She’s not Nephandi. Her name is Leah Walker and she’s a sixteen year old girl with thoughts and fears and a Will of her own. She has no idea what she is or why any of us are after her, and she’s scared. If we talk to her – if we help her…”
“Enough, Shelby!” Jai shouted. “I know it’s hard. I know it’s heartbreaking. Do you think I want to do this? Do you think any of us want to do this? If she lives, she will destroy everything that you and I care about. You cannot stop it. She cannot stop it. If she’s as human as you say she is, then we’ll be doing her a mercy. She is Widderslainte. She is Tamas gone mad.”
“She is a child,” Shelby said, her voice calm and steady with certainty. “And fate can be changed.”
But the Cultist and the Euthanatos never got a chance to finish their argument, because that was when the Technocrats arrived. The Traditionalists detected the intrusion only seconds before the heavy door blasted off its hinges, sending shards of hot metal flying through the air. The mages managed to avoid the worst of it, but Rebecca took a piece to her upper arm and the girl on the mattress lurched awake with a sharp cry of confused pain when a shard lodged itself in her leg.
Everything was chaos after that. Shelby tried to get to the girl, but one of the technocrats (a lithe and dangerous-looking woman with cybernetic eyes) ensnared her with a net and pinned her to the floor. The others were equally distracted as the two groups closed on each other, attacking and defending with weapons and effects. Powerful wills clashed and intertwined. Gun-shots rang out. Blood spattered the dusty floor.
And through it all, the girl sat terrified, clutching a hand to her wound as she backed herself against the wall and tried to push herself to her feet. Tears of pain and fear traced their way down her cheeks as she sucked in panicked breaths. She gave a cry as she tried to stand, choking back the sound in an attempt to avoid notice.
But it was too late. One of the technocrats – the oldest and tallest of the amalgam, a man in his late 30’s with sandy-brown hair and a body that only really looked human upon passing inspection – ran toward her with his gun raised, his expression grim and determined.
“Kill her!” shouted the woman attacking Shelby, her voice strained with urgency.
“Run Leah!” Shelby called out, struggling beneath the technocrat woman’s weight as she writhed and began to sing, her voice ringing out amidst the chaos of violence in a healing melody. It was the last thing she ever did. Leah’s wounded leg spat out the shard of metal and began to stitch itself back together in the same moment that the technocrat woman’s knife sunk itself into Shelby’s heart.
And a half-second later, the man stopped and fired his gun.
But the bullet didn’t make it to its target. It froze midway through the air and crumbled into dust.
Everyone stilled and looked at the girl with dawning horror as they felt what was about to happen. She opened her mouth and screamed – a raw, visceral sound – and the technocrat’s gun rusted and fell apart in his hand.
Then his hand wrinkled and dried, and the decay that had infected him crept quickly up his arm. Now it was his turn to scream as he felt his skin decompose and slide off his body, revealing the hidden silver and wires beneath. The others turned to run, but within moments they all fell to the ground, Tradition-mage and Technocrat alike, their voices raised in a cacophony of agony. Only Shelby was silent, spared this torture by the blade that had ended her life seconds earlier.
It was a scene from the most gruesome of horror films, watching 12 people (11 living, one dead,) fall apart before one’s very eyes. It was not a thing one forgets – though no one would ever want to remember. And when the life had left those bodies, they rained down upon the floor as dust and ash. Around them, the building vibrated. Spiderweb cracks formed in the bricks. The warehouse began to crumble as powder and stone rained down on the ruined bodies below. And within moments everything had turned to dust.
Except for the girl, who was left standing in the middle of a field of ash, her face dirtied and streaked with tears. She looked out at the tableau of death laid out around her and released a low, guttural sob. Then she ran. Through the dust and the ash and out to the street. Away. Away.
And the vision stopped.
Jim Thompson[ Perception + Awareness + earlier Meditation successes. ]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Jim Thompson"She might've come back here," whispered to Serafine as they are lost in the vision. "Or maybe they did. The mirrorshades. But whoever wiped that slate, though... Whoever made that illusion... They wiped it clean. Whatever it was," in reference to the blip. "The feel of it. It's Technocrat. And it's strong."
"We need to get out of here. Now," turning away from Serafine as he ways it. His hands grip, then relax, then grip tight again so that his fingernails press against then into the flesh of his palms. He shakes them loose as he turns back toward the van, and then toward Sid.
"Did you get what you need? We need to get out of here. We need to get out of here yesterday." It's a strange look for Jim, but one that Sid might recognize. She often wore it. A paranoia. Though he is not worried for himself. He is looking to the others around him. The others that he brought here. A grimace of regret contorting his face down to his shoulders.
It is only after he has said this - aired his concerns to Serafine and his concern for Sid - that he realizes Jake saw this all. Saw the same thing he did. And he turns to the consor. "We need to get out of here," repeating it for the third time. And then rethinks, conjuring new words for the boy. "She died doing good. That is how a seer's days are to be accounted for. Doing what she thought was right."
SerafineMidway through the vision, the joint falls from Serafíne's hand onto the ashen floor. Her fingers are suddenly nerveless, her hand opens and closes in a spasm of movement, reaching to grasp what is not there, or perhaps push it away. That is what Mara and Sid might. It is like watching the audience for some great thriller, with no view of the screen and not even the echo of the soundtrack to contextualize the distant but shifting expressions on their faces.
"I don't - " objecting to the idea of the girl creating this falsehood. Then concurring, quietly with his assessment about the origins, even if her own is less specific than his theories. "This coverup wasn't her."
Will. Shelby. Jai. Rebecca. Leah Walker.
When the vision ends, Serafíne sags back physically, her upright posture sapped by the horror of the final image; by the horrific realization that the ash that they are standing is made of the finely sifted remains of twelve living, breathing human beings. She shakes her head, like a dog trying to clear itself of some persistent pest, and draws her mouth back against her teeth as she fights her suddenly rising gorge. Which pulls in stark spasms down the center of her chest and body.
Her breath comes in sharp, staccato little bursts of movement, and it takes her several long moments struggle before she imagines she has concurred the urge to throw up the contents of her stomach onto the ash beneath them.
Some movements are autonomic, though. Sera pulls the cigarette from behind her ear without thought, between two spasms of near puking, lights it with a flick of her lighter and inhales the sugary, spiced tobacco deeply, all the way into her lungs this time. Her eyes are stark, shining in whatever light there is in this place (those are tears) and with the first lung full of smoke she startles upward, reorients herself in a sweeping glance through the remnants of the destroyed warehouse searching for Jake.
Who shared their vision.
"We have enough," her voice is low and raw and tense, quietly underscoring Jim's admonishment that they need to go.
Now that she's recovered something of her self-possession, Sera is smoking, furiously, and crossing the distance to Jake. He has most of her attention now, except for those touchpoints on the others. Nevermind that she cannot suppress the fear on her face or in her body that radiates out through her spine.
"Come on," from his face to Jim's, and back. This time she doesn't hesitate to wrap her arms around the kid, physically steering him toward her vague memory of AWAY FROM HERE. " - let's go."
Serafine(also: conquered not concurred. GRUMP @ homonyms.)
Sid RhodesIt didn't take Sid long to get what she needed. It's all ash, all the same. Everything that was has been burned down to this one same substance. A sample from one pile will be just as good as another. Just in case, Sid collects three, holding each one up before her face to examine the dusty contents before plugging in their little orange stoppers.
She's waiting for them when they come out of it, waiting with that tensely furrowed brow, that firm line of what should be a sweet, soft mouth. When the others return to themselves, they whisper to each other, but Sid, standing near enough to them, hears it. She doesn't understand it, but that's par for the course for the time she's spent in the company of the Ecstatics.
When it seems as though they're as back as they're going to be, Sid moves forward. Toward Sera. When she's closer she drops into a crouch, deftly pushing her bag so that it rests against the small of her back, the better for her to snatch up that fallen joint. For half a beat she stands there, holding it between thumb and forefinger. On the second half of that hesitation she stuffs it into the pocket of her jeans. Their urgency is infectious, there's no time to stand around slackjawed, waiting for instructions. They need to go.
The Ecstatics go to the shaken consor and Sid, she pauses to cast a final look around the area, making sure that they've left no signs of their presence that a little wind won't cover up in their wake. Only when she's certain that they're clear does she follow the others out and back to the van and their waiting driver.
Jim ThompsonBy the time he's made it to the car Jim is dry heaving. He leans behind the rear bumper, off the curb, for a moment, but thinks better of it. He paces as the others finally get into the van. He paces back and forth one or two more times before jumping in, casting a final glance at the building, swallowing saliva as he does so. He gets in, finding a trash bag or something else that would work as a catchall for the contents of his stomach.
That organ is emptied in wet splats and angry coughs that are the sound of a throat going raw. Offers of water are waved away. His stomach groans with the effort, bile searching for something and finding only the void of purge and starvation. His head is halfway to his lap, arms draped over the seat in front of his.
"Drive. Drive. Third street to the right. And straight on. 'Til fucking morning. We need to tire out the hounds," shaking his head.
Sid Rhodes[WP: touching people is gross, do I wanna risk it?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
EntropyThe vision stopped, and Jake... collapsed to his knees.
He didn't make a sound. Not at first. And the ashes around him billowed up into the air in a fine plume, coating his clothes and hair in dust. Particles that had once been living, breathing human beings. That may very well have been his friends - his love. Then Jim turned and spoke to him. Jake didn't meet the man's gaze, but the word's seem to break him from his reverie, because he gave a rough, broken sob and balled his fists into his hair.
He didn't seem to understand their urgency, or maybe he simply didn't care. This is what grieving looked like. This is what it felt like - the absence of self-preservation. (She is gone, so why is he still here?)
It was a good thing, then, that Serafine moved to wrap him in her arms. He did not think to turn her away this time. (He did not think to respond at all.) And likely Mara would move to join her, and between the two of them, they managed to hoist the consor back to his feet. He stumbled with them toward the van, barely present enough to offer this small bit of assistance to their efforts, and when they arrived, he'd slump into the seat with little consideration for those near him, crying and lost within himself.
He didn't look pretty anymore.
And then, after they'd all fit themselves into their respective vehicles, they did precisely what Joe suggested: drive.
Away. Away. (And straight on 'til morning.)
And behind them, the field of grief and decay receded into the distance, but it had left its mark upon them in the ash that yet clung to them all, and the stark and terrifying vision that would remain with three of them for a very, very long time.
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