"Fuck." Sera's curse is low but voluble, all force. Pan has parked the truck and cut the engine. He's smoking his cigarette and she's leaning forward, frowning out the windshield at the bulk of Aurora Presbyterian in the foreground. There's a big blue H sign mounted on the glass-and-steel exterior, glowing brilliant against the darkness, and another, equally bright, directing patients and ambulances to the ER bay. How is it that through all the possible futures she didn't see this right in front of her? The place is a fucking hospital. There is a moment there where she freezes, and then Jim's agreement registers, and Pan says it all sounds better than the roof. Some of that whipcord tension eases out of her spine.
Sera closes her eyes for a moment and tells herself, silently and repeatedly, like a mantra or a prayer, We don't have to go in there. We don't have to go in there. You'll be fine. You'll be fucking fine. Mouth moving with the words faintly, the way one might mouth the words to a familiar song on the radio, but no voice given to them. She seems, even, to believe it too, because then she's straightening, breathing out a shaky breath that grows more and more steady as her lungs empty.
Telling herself, "Okay," and them, too, Sera casts them both a stark glance, " - let's go. We need to find the spot where they're going to land." - and waits while Jim and Pan climb out of the truck. She'll follow.
In the meantime, Sera finally finds the second of the prepaid cell phones she bought at that convenience store in the middle of the exurbs the week prior. Reads off the number, not once but several times, repeating it so that it is embedded in their heads.
Sera clambers after Jim out the passenger's door and onto the sidewalk. Pulls her hands up over her hair, tugging the bulk of it back and twisting it upon itself, then reaches back with an arch of her spine to shake out the hood of her a hoodie - one of her many layers tonight - from where it's been trapped beneath the bulk of her leather jacket, then pulls it up over her head. She is sparking, bright with nervous energy, gaze drawn back, repeatedly, to the bulk of the hospital in the foreground. Keeps looking, up and up and up, at the glow of the navigation array that guides helicopters to the rooftop landing, heart firmly in her throat for more than one reason.
JimFull disclosure.
At first glance it may seem like business or legal terminology, in the same league as terms like due diligence or mea culpa. Its true origin is in technology and software, though it is bandied about on the pages of rags from Cosmo to the Paper of Record.
But deeper than all that there's an ethical connotation to it.
At least in Jim's mind. Which is all that matters to Jim. Because it serves as impetus for the effort he begins as they leave the truck.
And as he gathers his Will, it is that weight of connotation that he lends to the working.
Serafine wanted to connect them with the girl. To implore with her while she jumped, fell, was caught by that darting mass of darkness.
Words could only do so much, though. And if it was a connection they were opening, why not let it run freely? Why not bare the truth? Not just some of it. All of it.
To share that they were of the same cut as the woman, Shelby, that had given her life for Leah. Visions of what they'd seen in the past, showing her what Leah said to the others of the Traditions, demanding they protect her. That they all didn't want to control or even save her, but to simply free her – from the foregone conclusion some named her Fate, from the cancerous stigma some placed on her budding tsunami of an Avatar, and from those who would try to blacken her very soul.
Jim's fingers sink into the Tapestry again, the sensations already alive from the lightening substance in his system. He is enlivened by it, the inhibitions melting away as his own memories rise to the surface. And like the tide to the moon, he tries to raise them up, draw them toward where he knows the girl is. His own mind brushes out toward Pan and Sarafine.
Waters joining. Watershed welling. Tributaries becoming confluences and returning from fresh rains and ancient glaciers to the oceans as he tries to join their thoughts into a cohesive whole. Will working to craft an ocean for her to swim in.
Jim[ Mind 3 / Correspondence 2. Coincidental. Base difficulty of 6 - 1 for psychedelic resonance (trippy, man) - 1 for specialty focus and - 1 for Sera being kind enough to spend a Quintessence. Dropping a WP. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
PanHe's the last one out the truck, not because of a flagging of faith or a lack of conviction but because you don't just go running off to do God's work without praying first. Isn't anything showy that he does. Just sits there with his eyes closed for a few seconds mumbling to himself and the engine and the lights stay off and all they can see of him before he's done is the smoke drifting off the end of his cigarette.
Then he crosses himself and gets out and his boots hit the asphalt like he's at the bottom of a set of stairs. Sera has to climb into and jump out of this thing.
They haven't discussed this but Sera learned the night she fooled around in his confessional booth that the Reverend Francisco Echeverría isn't fucking around. He straight up believes in what's in the Bible and if you don't that's fine but don't be bringing that shit into the place where the people who do believe in it come to light candles for the sick and the dead. Makes it real hard to Work with him but they don't have to dig too deep to figure out he doesn't know how to Work with them, either.
Once he's caught up to them he cranes his neck to look up at the roof. Now that his eyes are open to the reality around them [OOC note - Watch the Weaving, activated in forums] he has the cast of a man distracted.
SerafineSera's piece: Mind 2 / Dif 5: -1 for resonance
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Jim[ Extended at +1 difficulty. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Jim[ Extending once again. Sera is helping a brother out with another Quintessence. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Pan[awareness]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 2, 8, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Pan[alertness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )
SerafinePerception + Awareness
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 6 )
SerafinePerception + Alertness
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 5, 6, 10) ( fail ) Re-rolls: 1
JimPerception + Awareness
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )
JimPerception + Alertness
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
SerafinePer + Alert - reroll!
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Entropy[Mysterious roll of mystery]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
EntropyThe three willworkers left the cab of the priest's truck, stepping out to gaze up at the roof of the hospital, where they knew Leah to be standing. From this angle, they couldn't see her, but they knew she was there. Pan and Serafine could feel little flickers of her decaying energy, even down in the parking lot.
And so the two Cultists combined their Wills once again to work Jim's effect, and the Disciple reached out with his mind to join the three of them together telepathically. He'd feel Serafine's first and most easily. Then Pan's. And finally, he touched his thoughts with those of the girl on the roof. When the connection was made, the three of them would feel an instant surge of bleak terror, along with something else...
This was not like joining minds with another Traditionalist. There was something dark and alien inside of the girl's head. Something that was both herself and other. A conflict between her conscious and subconscious will. If she'd been older - if she'd had the kind of power and control that Jim had - they may have lost their minds entirely merely for touching it. As it was, its cold tendrils and cavernous hunger sent shivers of fear down their spines.
I know what I did. I know what I have to do. Please leave.
But Jim did not turn away. He put all that he had into sending her images and thoughts of support, of comfort. Into reminding her what Shelby had believed - that she was not doomed. That she had a Will, and could choose her own path. That they did not wish to harm her. That she was free to make her own choice.
And they were met with gloomy uncertainty. You don't understand. I can't make it stop.
But she was no longer trying to break away from the connection. And there was an almost imperceptible pang of desperate hope behind her denial.
That was when they felt it. Crawling into their awareness like a snake sliding up behind them.
Commanding. Inspired. Revolutionary. Enticing.
Whoever it was, they had the energy of a visionary. But there was something wholly dangerous about it. Like all this creature had to do was to desire, and the world would fall apart at their bidding. And the force of its Will was near-overwhelming.
(Run children. The devil is behind you.)
SerafineJim is already beginning to weave the threads of the tapestry when Sera joins him on sidewalk. She can feel the Work beginning to gather in the space around him, feel the way he reaches for her mind and she just - stops there on the sidewalk, drops her gaze from the flickering lights of the heliport, closes her eyes and reaches for him, pushing as much of herself as she can into the complex work he is creating.
Pours herself into both the Work and the connection he is creating, drawing their minds into concert and connecting them all to the girl - the girl on the roof, readying herself to jump over the edge, or perhaps even now throwing herself over the edge and hurtling toward the sidewalk far below. Serafíne's emotions are bright and wholly raw, but she takes that first moment of hurtling awareness to close out the rising tide of her irrational fear, to push that firmly down and let everything else rise up.
Full disclosure, indeed. Cri de coeur.
There is the whole of the history. Everything Jim pushes into the work: of who they are and what they are and why they're here. Shelby's vision for Leah and her sacrifice. Her conviction that the only fight worth having here was the one for Leah and her fucking soul. All that and more.
From Sera there is also this driving and impassioned identification with the girl at the center of this whirlwind. There is no other word for it, and mutely Serafíne pushes all of that emotional engagement toward the girl when that note of desperate hope breaks through the unutterable gloom of her grief and pain.
I can't make it stop. Leah tells them, and Sera is parrying a constant, nearly word thoughtstream: she can, if she wills it she can make it stop. If Leah is willing to fight for her soul, Sera will fight for it too. If -
- and here she feels it, that wash of resonance, terrible and terrifying, crawling up her vertebrae, lodging itself between the tiniest of its articulations, all the strange spaces where dark things can lurk and crawl. The sensation scissors through Sera's awareness like a serrated knife through living flesh.
All at once Sera turns back to the hospital, looks up into the darkness where the red lights blink constantly to make out the helipad.
Says, out loud and in their minds - "Leah?" - the name a single choked question. Are you out there?
She wants to say, I still believe in you.But she doesn't know if its true.
Serafinecharisma + expression, yo: be hopeful and stuff Leah! you can totes fight this darkness.
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP]
PanTheir minds are all directed at the rooftop and the pain and the push-back of the girl and she does not push them back but the oily slithering of that Other up there would have been enough to send the weak and the willless back into the truck.
The priest does not remove the rosary he carries from his pocket but his hand finds it and the beads click once before he starts to speak.
"Come Jesus... come, give strength to the light and to the good... come where dishonesty, ignorance of God, violence and injustice dominate... come, Lord Jesus, give strength to the good in the world and help us to be bearers of your light, workers of peace, witnesses of truth..."
[Hope's Birth Mind/Prime + Corr because range.Coincidental, base diff 5. -1 diff spec focus.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
JimJim stays close to Sera. The ties that bind their minds crave that same proximity in the physical - as above, so below, other Traditions might label it. For him, it is more a growing reaction to have spun the Tapestry to brighter colors with another Willworker.
And still his attention is elsewhere. On the snake in the grass, bearing down on them where they commune with Leah and the thing that is inside her.
"Destroy." A flash in his mind. Shiva. Regaled in serpent. Trident. Drums. Destroyer. Transformer. It is here that Jim's resonance comes through. The addled mind, spawn to the psychedelic of sheer hallucination, tempered with stoic contemplation. Balance.
"Destroy. If it is part of you, don't hide from it. But don't destroy like they do." The words lash out. At the mind that comes. The Devil that rises. The Serpent, another archetype, a flash across the mind's-eye-that-is-his-and-hers, of the Enticer. Seducer. Who has inspired. Commands, in its own sick way, sending death out. "They destroy for nothing. They live for nothing. They fight for nothing. To end."
"There's what you've done. And there's what you do. Don't let one chain you from the possibilities of the other," again, words-as-thought that echo across his mind.
And they show his own past. Pusher. Dealer. His own brush with a bullet that never made its way to him, in his own Awakening. And the Awakenings that followed. Putting his past behind him. Learning a new way.
The kind of way that, she might be able to feel, quells the urge for violence within Jim. To simply lash out at that Enticer that would tempt Leah, and instead reach out to her. A hand. His own vision. Of her, with another chance, that is backed with his own belief as a Willworker.
Entropy
[Can I join this party?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Jim[ Charisma + Empathy. Dropping a WP. Jim is at WP 4. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
EntropyLet it not be said that Pan, Serafine and Jim were not the right people to talk someone down from a ledge. Each of them contributed their own form of hope, of redemption in the face of darkness. It was a thing they knew well, these three - all of whom had been to the depths of their own soul and back again. Pan spoke the words of his faith, pulling on that small thread of hope and bathing it in the light of the One until it grew within the girl to something almost like strength. Jim and Serafine merely spoke to her - gifted their own hope over the shared link as an inspired and impassioned plea. And it worked, because they truly believed what they said.
And belief could be a powerful thing. In their hands, it was near-transcendent.
Leah went quiet. Perhaps they expected a mad clash of wills, but that's not what happened. Instead, the dark part of her simply receded into the background.
Can you help me? she asked softly.
And then, behind them. Out loud. "You're wrong, you know. We fight for far more than you will ever understand."
It was a man's voice. Softly resonant and rich as honey. If they turned to look, they would see him standing there, arms folded loosely across his chest. A calm expression on his face. The man from Serafine's dream. The man from their vision of the hotel. No (visible) weapons. No threats. Just the overwhelming presence of him - of his essence and energy, touching and probing and curling about their skin and their thoughts. Inescapable.
PanThe girl hasn't jumped yet and the man from Sera's vision did not jump down to catch her. An outcome deviated from the timeline of the portent does not mean they're out of danger. It comes to stand right behind them and Jim and Sera can feel no panic or fear in the priest but rather a stoking of that light inside of him. He does not jump and he does not bristle at the evil at his back.
He takes in and lets go a breath and takes his hand off of the rosary and turns to face him, arms at his sides and palms slightly out in a subconscious show of mutual and temporary mercy. Takes a step before he's settled so he's standing in front of the Cultists. His body eclipses Sera's so long as she does not move.
"Yeah?" he asks in a voice neither hard nor mocking. He doesn't want to understand but he doesn't want to be rude right away either. He likes being alive. "And what might that be?"
SerafineCan you help me?
--
That's all that Sera requires to rekindle her own belief in the girl. That one question; more, the impetus behind it - which means she has not given herself over to the darkness inside her. That she is still essential and intact.
We can. - entirely affirmative, the bright wedge of Sera's joy and hope, all the things that buoy her against the interstitial darkness inside her, the literal holes in her past. Her love for the world; the visceral pleasure she takes in everything in it. We can help you. If you fight for yourself, your soul, we can fight for you. Come with us. Call us. Here, Sera repeats the phone number she had muttered aloud again and again as she jumped down from the truck. Find us. They want you to be something else. We just want you to be Leah -
Then, startling, behind them. Sera breathes out all out at once, half turns as Pan steps in from of her, her view of the man from her dream eclipsed by his bulk. She is neither so brave nor so foolish as to refuse the shield Pan offers her. But she has a glimpse of the Fallen over the priest's shoulder as he moves. Enough that she knows him from her dream.
Don't listen to him, Leah. Not ever. Everything he says is a lie. The worst sort. The sort you want to believe.
Still, her shoulders set, her body held whiplash tight. Quiet, in the here-and-now.
JimJim skips a beat at the words, his mind wavering where it drifts, at once in the stretch of the Tellurian and in the shallows of physical reality where the Devil reveals himself.
"I'm thankful for that," is Jim's curt answer to the man, his neck craning even as Pan moves between them in a protective gesture he can't help but admire - the Man in Black staring down the Devil.
Whether or not Pan's inquiry gives the nihilistic general pause, Jim returns his attention to Leah, her life precariously in the balance. Sera says all that needs to be said. And even gives that number, which may have slipped his addled mind. Perhaps she was more anchored to the everything around them, the way she reveled in it, because in this attunement to others he may have gotten a little lost.
Jim being Jim.
But he has his own words. A supplement. Some are just an echo of her own, but he's no less earnest as they fight their way free from his psyche.
We can promise to do what we can, to help you help yourself, to give you the chance you need and be there for you.
EntropyWhat might that be? Pan asked.
The man looked amused. His bright eyes glinted in the hospital lights. Given all the trepidation he'd caused, one might imagine him to look - well, a bit more frightening. More like the bogeyman that myth and history had made him out to be. But the truth was never as simple as the stories made things seem. After all, it was those same stories which would have one believe that Leah was a monster from the moment of her birth. That there was, and had never been, a single human bone in her body.
People liked to imagine that evil was monstrous. It made it easier to think of it as something other. But the truth was, evil was as human as anything else. (Or maybe evil was just a word people had made up to explain the things that frightened them.)
This man didn't look evil. He looked like an average guy in his late 40's with a tall, lean build and a charismatic smile dressed in a pair of jeans, boots and a black buttoned shirt. He looked like any guy who could have been walking through this parking lot. Except that he wasn't. He wasn't at all.
"A new beginning," he said, with the kind of calm reverence that Pan himself might have used when speaking of his own faith.
The others, they kept their thoughts on the girl on the roof. And their efforts were rewarded with a hesitant affirmation. But then...
Someone's here.
And the man's voice, this time in their heads, whispering with that same honey-rich tone. Surprisingly gentle, for all the commanding force his Will contained. Don't be afraid. We aren't going to hurt you. And then he raised his hand toward someone they couldn't see. A gesture that indicated: stop. And nothing happened. And when he looked at the three Traditionalists and said, "If you promise not to harm her, then we'll leave."
Entropy[Edit: when he looked at the three traditionalsist HE said]
SerafineSerafíne says nothing. Nothing aloud and nothing across the mindlink they share, which this stranger, the man from her dream, the man who lead Leah away from the twelve ashen graves to an unmade world, has invaded. When Leah speaks up across the link, Sera's response is a mute and wordless push of something like I know. He's here. So are we.
There is no way she can hide the fear that accompanies that pulse of thought across the link. But there's courage, there, too. Reflected and refracted: Leah's courage back at her. The strength necessary to take up a strange hand, offered in hope.
That's all. Here she is still, sharpshouldered, breathing steadily and shakily, and silent.
Jim"We won't," as honest as the sentiments he'd offered to Leah moments earlier.
The stand off continues, and while Jim is surprised it's the Nephandus that blinks first. But he is not too proud to take the offer. And not too proud to let Leah make the choice for her future, as he's already expressed.
PanOn the subject of image: the priest does not look like the sort of man one would want to run into in a parking lot. Not much younger than the Fallen and near as tall, the short sleeves of his work shirt show the strength in his form, like he's as used to manual labor as he is to anything else. From a distance he could be a sponsor leading two relapsed friends of Bill back to drug rehabilitation.
So they stand facing each other and at some point Pan pulls himself away from the telepathic link and takes his thoughts with him. The Fallen bids them make a promise and he grits his teeth but lets the other two call the ball.
We won't.
A measure of quiet comes before he says, "Alright. Go."
Serafine"We wouldn't - " in a quiet rush after Jim's pledge. It has the same force, but perhaps a different emphasis. A sort of passionate avowal embedded in the structure and force of the otherwise quiet phrase. Perhaps quiet enough that only Pan and Jim will hear her. Though really - he is in their heads. Then finally, louder and steadier, echoing the Disciples.
"We won't."
EntropyA strange thing, that. Reassuring a man like this that they wouldn't harm one of his own (or at least someone he would like to claim as such.) There are those who would brand the Cultists mad for doing so. Likely the Chorister among them was having somewhat more ambivalent thoughts on the matter - at least as far as the negotiating was concerned.
And yet, the tactic worked. The man was (for the moment) as good as his word. His presence left their minds as coolly and easily as it had entered them, and he took a step back, regarding the group one by one. When he got to Serafine, he smiled. In another moment, in another world, he might have looked handsome.
"I'm John, by the way. John Brogan. If you ever want to talk... I'll be around." He glanced up at the hospital. "Look after her."
And then he was gone, walking away across the parking lot to a sleek black BMW that he entered on the driver's side.
A few minutes after he drove away, a girl appeared hesitant and exhausted at the hospital's entrance. She watched them from afar for a few moments longer, then stepped out into the warm night air.
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