The weather in Denver that evening was about eight degrees warmer than it had been the night before - crisp without being chilly. It was the sort of absolutely perfect fall weather that made people think of bonfires and jack-o-lanterns and everything that was fun and festive about the month of October. Not surprisingly, a number of the bars and restaurants downtown were seeing a rise in business as the weather turned. Falling Rock Taphouse was no exception.
When Sid and Serafine arrived, they'd find the place busy, but not to the point of overcrowding (it was still a weekday, after all.) The main bar, with its line of wooden stools, was pleasantly lively with tipsy conversation, and the various booths and tables were populated with a wide array of patrons.
SidA lovely fall night melting into a crisp, cool evening. It's a good time to be out and about, wandering the streets with a friend. Out for shopping, out for a drink, out for the company. Should be a good, pleasant, ordinary time.
Except that Sid is on edge. She's made a habit of checking Ginger regularly and so she knows: two of her friends are sick with something unknown, something that they caught from robotic wasps. So when she enters that bar she does a quick sweep, stretching to her full height, lifting up slightly to the balls of her feet, craning her neck to look around. Looking for a girl with blue eyes, perhaps, or simply anyone out of the ordinary.
Of course, it's a bar that's pleasantly full of people on a weeknight, people who are tipsy and loud or quietly eating or whatever. Sid's dressed for the cooler weather in a soft grey hoody over a pale button down blouse, dark washed skinny jeans tucked into knee-high boots, a thin grey-blue scarf wrapped loosely over her shoulders. Her hair has been twisted up, not in a clip but wound round a pen and pinned into place, wisps falling to brush against her cheeks.
There is a part of her, the paranoid part that keeps that weather eye out at all times, that thinks they shouldn't be out. A larger part refuses to be kept indoors out of fear. So, she listens to the story that Sera tells while they look for a place to settle in.
Sid[percept (paranoid as hell) + awareness]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1
SerafíneSera's there a bit early or a bit late. This one time Sid doesn't have to pick her up. She does get around the city on her own, somehow, and her means involve tipping a veritable fleet of cab drivers very, very well. So: Sera's already there, standing just inside the front doors, chatting with the hostess like they are old, old friends. Her singular concession to the weather is a hooded leather jacket with cable-knit cuffs and a bristling array of spikes on the shoulders. She has the hood up so she's not immediately identifiable from behind because all her curling blond hair is covered up and there's no immediate awareness of the distinctive sidecut with her head covered, but there's no mistaking the way Sera feels.
Well and fuck. Beneath that hooded leather jacket she is wearing a tiny black circle skirt with hot pink polka dots and torn fishnets and heavy black boots and may not actually be wearing a top, or perhaps she's wearing a bra - no, wait. She's wearing a flannel she's left unbuttoned.
Even though she's not been seated yet, our Sera already has a beer in hand. She smells like the finest Moroccan hashish and Turkish tobacco and looks like sin.
"Hey - " and, already just a bit tipsy, if her drawling greeting is any indication. She woke up two or three hours ago, but launches into this story about Elvis and Graceland and is already planning to order the Elvis Presley Special. Will they really give her the fucking pills? Will they really serve up a defibrillator?
The pair pass up the dining room and head to the bar and Sera's grabbing menus from the bartender and bringing them back to the table-for-more-than-two they settle on, clearly vibing on the pleasant hum of the crowd all around them.
Serafíne(Perception + Awareness)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Outbreak[There seems to be no trace of magical resonance to be found in the bar tonight, aside of course from Sid and Sera's own. The two are able to pick up no trace of willworking, no lingering presence of Awakened souls. By all accounts, the place is utterly mundane.]
OutbreakSera drew Sid toward a table near the bar, grabbing menus on the way. As the pair of them took their seats, a couple of college-aged guys leaned out from the bar and grinned at them, all red-cheeked and glassy-eyed. One of them actually winked, but they stopped short of actually cat-calling, and a moment later one of their female friends swatted the winking one on the head and pulled their attention back to their drinks.
It didn't take long for a waitress to show up at the table, bearing tall glasses of ice water which she set down before them. She was young and blond and attractive in an androgynous sort of way, with boy-short hair and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. "Anything I can get you two to drink while you look at the menus?"
SidSid doesn't know about the Elvis Presley memorial special, and she hadn't heard that story before she says as she puts an arm around her shoulders, not caring a whit about those spikes. If Sera hasn't lived in Denver longer than Sid, she's definitely experienced more of it, or heard more about it from this or that friend or acquaintance or other. But what she's seen about Sid once, maybe twice, perhaps enough for it to stick as a 'thing' is that the woman has an interest in trying new things. Even when she's nervous, on edge, wary, she's gone into bars and new restaurants.
She doesn't know about the burger, though, but if Sera's going for Elvis, then Sid will go for Cash. The name stands out when she glances over the menu, spotting the young men - boys, really, to a woman of her age - and lowering her head. Pointedly ignoring them, but always, always aware of their presence in the room. Them and others like them. Sid tried to hide from that sort of attention, and then she finally gave up.
"Do you," starts Sid, quiet voice lost to the din. One shoulder bunching up uncomfortably and one hand reaches up to swipe wisping hair away from her cheek. Dark eyes sweep the beer list as she shakes her head, and she tries again, a little louder. "Just water, please."
SerafíneOne of the rules of the universe: someone winks at Sera and she winks back, though in this case Sera is winking at the female friend of that glassy-eyed boy, watching the girl as she swats him on the ass with a menu or some fucking thing. Her story is suspended in that moment, though she turns her head beneath that hood back to Sid, grinning this neat and slicing-broad little grin that opens up to include the waitress who approaches them with those tall glasses of water.
"Bud light," Sera starts, with a quick and razor edged grin at the waitress ready to pull her hipster credentials, "No, wait - gimme the Redstone Meadery Sunshine Necter and bring us a couple of shots of Patron too."
Sera sits easily, head lolling in the hood, looking lazy as a lounging cat while the waitress scratches down their drink orders, leaving behind the menus and the endless list of beers-on-tap. Waits until the woman leaves before leaning forward over that drink she already has, which she either managed to secure or brought with her in-from-outside, which is decidedly not water.
"C'mon Sid. It's a fucking tap house. You gotta have a beer. Fuck, they even have teeny sample sizes!"
OutbreakThe waitress ginned at Sera's joke, jotting down her order with a nod. Sid said she was happy with water, but Sera insisted upon something more substantial. Whatever their order ended up being (if Sid chose to tack something on for herself,) the girl left them with a smile and a brisk little turn that took her winding back through the tables toward the bar.
If either Sid or Sera happened to follow the waitress's retreating form with their gaze, they might spy a man sitting alone at the end of the bar, watching them with an alert and interested expression. Unlike the other two, he was a few years older (probably around 26 or 27,) and he looked as though he was probably on his first drink of the evening.
But neither of these details were the most immediate. What one noticed about him (what anyone would notice about him,) was that he was beautiful the way that Hollywood actors were beautiful. Almost plastic, in a way, with a strong jaw and huge blue eyes. After a pause of about thirty seconds, he finally picked up his beer (a local brew - some kind of pumpkin stout) and walked toward their table, smiling in a warm and assured manner (like this was something he was used to doing - approaching strangers.)
"Ok, those are some seriously killer boots. Do you mind if I ask where you got them?"
SerafíneThe both of them are wearing killer boots. Sid's are thigh-high and leather. Sera's have fucking platforms and five inch spiked heels and a bristling array buckles and zippers and metal plates every which way and Sera doesn't really notice that guy as the waitress zips away but she does notice him when he walks up to them, lovely and quite nearly plastic, with that self-confidence that so often turns sour late at night when the colors are starting to run.
Still, Sera favors him with a lazy grin and flicks him a look all up-and-down, stretches out her left leg to let him admire the boots, the shiny metal wrapped around the spikey heel, turning her foot this way and that.
"These? Someplace in fucking Brooklyn. I think they cater to drag queens and dominatrixes and fuck me if I can remember the name. Why?"
Her grin sharpens to a fine little edge. " - you shopping for you? Or someone else. Because if you're putting them on here and now," a glance down at his feet. "Well fuck, I might be willing to effect a trade tout-suite. Just to see you trying to walk in them.
"Takes a warrior - what the fuck is your name, anyway?"
SidThere was a time when Sid was -- scratch that. Sid has been making greater strides in her attempts to not only for once and for all sever her connection to her past, but scrape off and sand down any remaining jagged edges. The woman sitting next to Sera is who she is and who (she is pretty sure) she will always be. Sensitive, considerate, quiet.
Never the less, when Sera presses her about beers in tap houses, Sid frowns. She sticks to her decision, however, sticks with water, will maybe switch to a soda when it's time to order real food. She refuses to let her guard down, because, as she says as soon as the waitress has left, "Did you hear what happened to Grace and Lena?"
She says this as she watches the waitress wander off to put in their order, eyes traveling after her in a way that's not exactly passive or thoughtless. Then she sees that man, so nice on the eyes, watching them at their table and, as with the winker and his buddy, Sid frowns and looks away. But she remains aware of him, watching him from the corner of her eye as he lifts his glass and begins his approach.
And when he's there, asking Sera about her boots, she's still watching him.
[awarepathy because WHO YOU?? WHAT'CHU WANT?? JUST BOOTS OR ARE YOU CASING US TO KILL US LATER??]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Outbreak[Manip+Subterfuge - who, me?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Sid[*_* too pretty]
OutbreakHe'd directed the question to Sera, because it was Sera whose dramatic fashion sense always seemed to make that first noticeable impression upon strangers. Yet Sid hardly went unnoticed, as evidenced by the fact that the guy shifted his eyes (and his smile) toward her a moment later, and when he did so the smile widened a bit, flashing a set of perfect teeth to go with his perfect jaw and his perfect eyes and his just-slightly-imperfect dusting of barely-visible freckles across his nose.
Sera asked if he wanted the boots for himself, and he laughed and shook his head. "Nah, I'm more of a kitten heels kind of girl. But my sister would love them." (Alas, it would seem that he was not, in fact, a warrior.)
But Sera asked for his name, so he reached out with the hand not currently occupied with holding his beer and said, "Eric. I'm on vacation from LA. Nice to meet you."
When he was finished addressing Sera, he repeated the gesture with Sid, offering his hand in a warm and gregarious gesture. "Yours are pretty nice too. The boots, that is."
SidPeople usually notice Sera first and foremost. She is quite striking, but more than that she has a vibrancy, a magnetism that draws people toward her. Sid doesn't mind, not even a little, because while people are talking to and checking out Sera, she's a little more free to get a bead on them, check them out, get a sense of who they are and what their intentions are.
or well, usually that's the case. Tonight, Sid isn't given much of a chance to study this rather perfect specimen of the male of the species. That smile gets turned her way and her brows tighten and her head tilts away slightly. There is nothing outwardly wrong, nothing he says rings particularly false and he seems to be everything that he seems to be. Still.
Sid merely looks at the offered hand a moment before looking to Sera and finally looking back up at that too-pretty face. She has been hurt in just about all the ways there are to be hurt, and by or because of people she cares for deeply and who claim that she matters to them. She is not about to trust this stranger.
Her lower lip disappears between her teeth and she looks away. "Thanks."
Sera's Dice[Per+Awareness]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Serafíne"Your sister, eh?" Sera's grin just won't quit. It's a bit shadowed by the hood she's still wearing but fuck if she can quite stop looking at him, though perhaps not the way he's used to people looking at him. These pieces of her face highlighted: the wide brow, the sharp edge of her nose. The crawlingly self-confident smile, all lapped by shadow. "She must be a dirty girl."She did just say that and now she shakes off the hood and extends her hand which bristles with darkly inked tattoos and metal bridges and leather cuffs. Her leather jacket creaks quietly with the movement and falls open a bit more, revealing the lean line of her torso, which is defined not because she lifts weights or anything so particular, so much as because she burns everything she consumes and there's not much left, after."LA - " Sera's saying, shooting Sid a glance as Sid declines to take the guy's hand. "Jesus Christ I fucking hate LA. Let me guess you're an agent, of some fucking sort. Talent or real estate or fucking - FBI or literary with a side of porn. Oh, or maybe a weather person. Everybody loves the goddamned weather."Fucking LA. Only place more artificial is Vegas," Yeah, there's nothing retiring about her and that much is evident even now. Though there is a moment of hesitation. Sera's on the verge of inviting the guy to sit his ass down when she shoots another flicker of a look at Sid. That tightness. That aversion. That inversion. " - and at least Vegas feels like it would just keep going if everything else burned to the ground. Like that's what it was meant to do in the first fucking place."[INSERT PER + AWARENESS ROLL HERE. which is recorded above, thank you Howl!]
Serafíne"Your sister, eh?" Sera's grin just won't quit. It's a bit shadowed by the hood she's still wearing but fuck if she can quite stop looking at him, though perhaps not the way he's used to people looking at him. These pieces of her face highlighted: the wide brow, the sharp edge of her nose. The crawlingly self-confident smile, all lapped by shadow. "She must be a dirty girl."
She did just say that and now she shakes off the hood and extends her hand which bristles with darkly inked tattoos and metal bridges and leather cuffs. Her leather jacket creaks quietly with the movement and falls open a bit more, revealing the lean line of her torso, which is defined not because she lifts weights or anything so particular, so much as because she burns everything she consumes and there's not much left, after.
"LA - " Sera's saying, shooting Sid a glance as Sid declines to take the guy's hand. "Jesus Christ I fucking hate LA. Let me guess you're an agent, of some fucking sort. Talent or real estate or fucking - FBI or literary with a side of porn. Oh, or maybe a weather person. Everybody loves the goddamned weather.
"Fucking LA. Only place more artificial is Vegas," Yeah, there's nothing retiring about her and that much is evident even now. Though there is a moment of hesitation. Sera's on the verge of inviting the guy to sit his ass down when she shoots another flicker of a look at Sid. That tightness. That aversion. That inversion. " - and at least Vegas feels like it would just keep going if everything else burned to the ground. Like that's what it was meant to do in the first fucking place."
[INSERT PER + AWARENESS ROLL HERE. which is recorded above, thank you Howl!]
Outbreak[See above for said Awareness roll, which apparently the log decided to keep. This was an Empathy roll directed at both Eric and Sid, btw.]
OutbreakWhen Sera grasped Eric’s hand, she’d find his grip warm and assertive. His skin was soft and un-calloused (and let’s face it, he looked like the kind of guy who’d never really had to work a day in his life,) but his palm had a light residue of sweat the seemed to belie his relaxed demeanor. Both she and Sid attempted to get a read on him, but if he was a con artist then he was a very good one. To Sid’s eyes, he was exactly what he seemed: a pretty boy from LA who was probably used to being able to charm his way into conversations with strangers. He seemed interested and friendly, if perhaps a bit too sure of himself.
He ignored Sera’s attempts to bait him, responding to her assumptions with a light smirk. “I’m an actor, actually. Big surprise, I know.”
Sid didn’t take his hand, and it was this that seemed to finally register in Eric’s expression. He gave a slightly awkward pause, dropped his arm and nodded. “Right, well, I’ll leave you two in peace then. It was nice meeting you. Have a good evening.”
As he left, he skirted the edge of their table, heading – not back to his seat at the bar – but toward the exit. As he did so, he barely avoided colliding with a woman at the next table over who’d just gotten out of her chair. (Perhaps he was a bit more flustered than his laid-back demeanor would imply.) The beer in his glass sloshed alarmingly (but did not spill) as he ducked out of the way, setting a hand briefly on the back of Sid’s chair to steady himself. “Sorry,” he apologized to both the woman and Sid simultaneously.
He was gone shortly thereafter, stopping by the bar to deposit his half-empty glass before he disappeared out the door.
All this just in time for the waitress to return with Sera’s drinks, which she deposited on the table with practiced efficiency. “Have you two had time to look at the menus yet?”
OutbreakSera, on the other hand, was able to glimpse subtle clues of a more complete and nuanced picture. Much of what he told them didn’t seem to be a lie. As far as she could tell, he really was from LA, and his name really was Eric. As for his interest in Sera’s boots… well, in truth it was closer to curiosity. The suggestion that his sister might like a pair had carried a faint undertone of ironic humor, which one might attribute to some kind of teasing in-joke between brother and sister. More than likely he’d used the boots as an excuse to come over and talk to the two of them, but this in itself was hardly surprising or unusual. Neither was the brief flicker of anger that showed around his eyes when Sera called his sister a ‘dirty girl.’ Some brothers could be protective like that, which was likely why Sera had said it in the first place: to get a rise out of him. There was something cold and powerful about that anger though, for all that it only barely showed. Like the tip of an iceberg. (Yeah, she’d hit a pretty deep nerve with that one.) As for the needling comments about LA, they elicited, as expected, a prickle of irritation – but nothing more telling than that.
It was the manner of the man’s exit that rang the most suspicious. Outwardly the whole thing seemed entirely natural, with an edge of the sort of awkwardness one would expect of the situation. But something was missing from the exchange, and that was disappointment. He didn’t seem embarrassed by the near-collision either, though perhaps he really was just that fucking confident.
Sid[percept+alert damn it Sid you're supposed be paranoid so BE PARANOID AND NOTICE THINGS AT THE SAME TIME]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Outbreak[There's very little that Sid misses tonight. Her paranoia keeps her alert and aware of her environment, and she'll feel Eric's hand coming toward her before it actually gets there, giving her time to lean as far out of the way as possible to avoid contact. As she watches him leave, there isn't much to see. He doesn't pay for his drink, likely because he'd already paid earlier (so maybe he'd only ever intended to have the one - and that he didn't even finish.) And he leaves without even so much as a look in their direction. Nothing suspicious, really, aside from the somewhat abrupt manner of his leaving. Though this too could be attributed to embarrassment.]
SidSera glances her way, but Sera should know. Even now, even after all she's been through and how much she's come out of that armor she built up around herself, even with friends near and a phone call away. Sid is wary. She is especially wary of strange men in loud crowded places. If she hadn't read those updates on Ginger, if this was just the two of them going out for a drink like everything's as normal as it can be for people like them, she would have ordered that beer. She would be grinning and talking about who even knows what, or grinning and listening to Sera tell stories.
But this isn't a normal night. There is tension in Sid, and besides that, she is shy with strangers and people she doesn't know. She does not take the hands of strangers because she knows what those hands that seem friendly can do. She is aware of the damage that can be caused by trusting someone.
She does not take this Eric's hand and he seems to finally register that the woman who is engaging him in conversation is not the same as the one sitting next to her. She will not touch him. She will not give him her name. She will watch him warily and speak little. Not quite the timid mouse she seemed to be, but the watchdog she always has been.
He leaves then, and in a hurry, and as he hurries he stumbles into Sid's chair. And Sid sits suddenly upright, spine straight as a rod, her head twisted back to stare at him, at his hand behind her back. Tooclosetooclosetooclosetooclosetooclose! says that look, and she even goes so far as to lean a little further away from him, perching toward the edge like she, herself, is preparing to rise out of that chair.
He goes, and Sid frowns after him. Only when the door swings closed behind him does she turn back to Sera, before looking blankly up at the waitress.
Serafíne"I'm having the fucking Elvis thing," Sera says with the flash of a mildly distracted smile as the waitress re-appears at their table, drinks in hand. Or rather: Sera's drinks in hand, all three of them, and a dish of lime slices to boot, which will doubtless earn the woman a good tip. "Make sure to bring me a sampling of all the pills, and I probably won't need the fucking whats-it. Defibrillator, but you can bring it so I get a fucking good look at it, or whatever."
Distracted, because Sera's watching Eric as he disappears, checking out that woman at the next table with whom he nearly collided, drawing these vector lines between them and looking, well, a little bit zoned out. Soon as her drinks arrive she picks up the first and tosses back tequila without partaking of either lime or salt. Lets it run, burning, down her throat.
Her fingers are tapping lightly against the tabletop and she's looking a little bit unfocused, paying precisely zero attention to the waitress as Eric from LA whose sister is decidedly not a dirty girl (even in lingering response, the phrase makes Sera's mouth curve in savoring grin) and who is expecting some of this shit. Making a staged fucking exit. Strange how spaces start to dissolve, all the strangers' conversations between a bright and pulsating rhythm, the world turns around on itself. Sera jams a little bit more, see. An old Beatles song under her breath. Their later work. She's an Abbey Road girl, not a candy-colored British invasion mop-top aficionado.
SerafíneMind 2: on Eric the Dude. Difficulty: 5 -1 (specialty focus - music) + WP
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Outbreak[For Sera, the final clue in small string of maybes - the thing that made this guy really stand out - is what happened when she tried to enter his mind. Because he felt like a Sleeper, but the walls around his thoughts were like a fucking iron box. Instead of forging a connection, her extended perception merely bounced off of the block as though she'd smacked headlong into an actual, physical barrier.]
OutbreakWhen Sera ordered the Elvis Presley Memorial Combo, the waitress raised her eyebrows and grinned as though she'd just won a bet. (Maybe she had.) "It doesn't really come with a defibrillator, but we'll be ready to call the paramedics if you need it."
When she glanced at Sid - at her blank and nervous expression - she paused and said, "I can come back, if you need a few more moments."
Then she too was gone (for the moment,) leaving the two alone to discuss - or not discuss - their thoughts.
Serafínen"Fine," Sera to the waitress, surfacing from her semi-trance with
a rather troubled expression chasing across her face. "Just
make sure the fucking thing comes with the drugs, though. One of
fucking each. Gotta catch 'em all, right?"
Arch and shining and simmering, yeah, but beneath it her own
discomfort is easy to read to anyone watching. Still, Sera winks
at the waitress as the woman leaves and then glances behind and
beyond her, frowning in Eric's wake.
"That bastard. Can't get anything on him," rather more quietly
to Sid. "Looks and feels like someone whose eyes are all closed, right? But he's mind's locked up tighter than -
"Well, fucking tight. Which takes work and skill. And that collision wasn't accidental. So what's going on? What's this about Grace and Lena?"
Serafíne"Fine," Sera to the waitress, surfacing from her semi-trance with a rather troubled expression chasing across her face. "Just make sure the fucking thing comes with the drugs, though. One of fucking each. Gotta catch 'em all, right?"
Arch and shining and simmering, yeah, but beneath it her own discomfort is easy to read to anyone watching. Still, Sera winks at the waitress as the woman leaves and then glances behind and beyond her, frowning in Eric's wake.
"That bastard. Can't get anything on him," rather more quietly to Sid. "Looks and feels like someone whose eyes are all closed, right? But he's mind's locked up tighter than -
"Well, fucking tight. Which takes work and skill. And that collision wasn't accidental. So what's going on? What's this about Grace and Lena?"
SerafíneWITS PLUS ALERTNESS
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 2, 5, 6) ( fail )
Sid[WITS+ALERT]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )
SidThe waitress looks at her, and it's not until she's saying, "moments," that Sid startles as if to wakefulness and manages to blurt, "Johnny Cash." Hopefully she understands.
"That's weird, right?" she asks, scooting her chair closer to Sera, just two friends gabbing about the failed pick-up that just happened. Maybe. Except that both of them look entirely too uncomfortable after an exchange that looked on the surface to be so friendly and so normal.
"No," she says quietly to Sera's assertion that the collision wasn't accidental. And she looks over to the woman that had been collided into in her stead.
"They're sick, really, really sick. I've asked a friend to look in on Grace."
She, too, is a little distracted. Reaching up, she plucks the pen from out of her hair, allowing the thick, long locks to cascade around her shoulders. Her fear, that little nugget of feeling she carries with her at all times in the form of that rampant paranoia, is grasped, twisted, turned outward to view the threads of fate while. Pushing up the sleeve of her left arm enough to expose the edge of that tattoo's line, she hums a single note quietly, and connects a second carbon molecule to the permanent one.
[Life/Entropy/Prime scan]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 2) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
OutbreakThe woman (dark haired, early forties and casually dressed) who Eric had narrowly missed running into seemed fairly oblivious to their attention. She was there with a couple of friends, one of whom had just left to accompany her to the restroom. Perhaps her presence there had merely been a coincidence, or perhaps Eric had seen a moment and taken it. Or perhaps... the whole encounter had been orchestrated. It was rather difficult to tell.
Sid and Sera had more warning of what was to come than Grace and Lena had. But in the end, it did them little good. Sid was so alert that she would have noticed a fucking mosquito flying toward her, but she wasn't looking the one place she needed to. Sera missed the tiny creature entirely, and wouldn't have any warning of what was about to occur until she felt a sudden, sharp sting on the exposed part of her thigh - as though she'd just been struck by a wasp. But whatever it was that had caused the pain, it would be gone before she had a chance to react.
Sid was just a hair quicker, and in her hyper-aware state she'd feel the flutter of the thing's wings just before it landed on her own leg. The sting happened before she could stop it, the needle sticking through the material of her jeans to access the flesh beneath. But in the whip-crack of her reaction, she caught the bug beneath her hand. Its tiny, filigreed metal body crunched and crumbled under the assault, leaving a mangled remnant of what appeared to be - upon close inspection - a tiny gold robotic wasp with an injection needle for a stinger.
But what the hell had they just been injected with?
Outbreak[Sid attempted to discern the details of her surroundings, but all she was able to pick up was a brief flash of the pulse of human bodies around her. Nothing that gave any clues or indication of what she might be looking for.]
Sid[extending]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (1, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
SerafíneSera's thigh is... yeah, pretty easily accessible. She feels the pinprick, missing the delivery method entirely, turning her thigh and rubbing thoughtlessly at her skin through the ripped and torn diamonds of her fishnets, letting her focus drift and narrow. She is just high enough, just drunk enough, just -
Life scan: Difficulty 4
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 3) ( fail )
SidWhat indeed. Sid is aware of the people that surround her, she's aware of the movement of the man, she's aware of the very air around her. But her legs, they're long and they're mostly under the table. The wings of the metal creature, so much tougher and inflexible than a true insect's, beat against the fabric of her pantleg and she swats almost without thinking. It threatens to break her concentration, but she keeps herself focused.
She keeps her mind open to the patterns around her, to the effects that may or may not be twisting around them, to the shifts of fate.
Her brows constrict, and she comes back to herself, becomes more focused on the here and the now. At least enough to realize she's trapped something beneath her hand. Slowly, she wraps her fingers around the remains and lifts her hands to see--
Her heart sinks.
"We have to go." She unwraps some silverware from its neatly folded napkin and wraps the mechanical thing up in it, slips it into her bag. They have food coming, drinks (although Sid's is only water), but she can't even think about eating now. She knows what's coming. "I need to get something from my place, but. I think we should get Grace and Lena. We should be together."
OutbreakWhat Sid was able to pick up upon further concentration would not give much clue as to the nature of the attack. As she'd sensed before, there were no lingering remnants of quintessence or effect-weaving - not on the wasp, and not in the room itself. The threads of fate had not been tampered with, although there was a low, ominous note coming from the wasp - like a dawning sense of dread. A sign of bad omens and things yet to come.
And the more she focused, the louder and deeper the vibrations of that supernatural hum started to feel.
Not surprisingly, she suggested that they leave. Sera would more than likely pay for their uneaten food (though perhaps not.) Either way, they were on their way out.
And in the meantime, something foreign and hungry was swimming its way through their bloodstream.
Outbreak[Rolling for Sera's Mind scan on the woman]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Outbreak[Aaand rolling for her life scan on herself]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Sid[science on Sid's blood at home, using that sweet sweet compound whatever microscope, mm yeah: int+science]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Sid[and Sera's]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Sid[scanning self/blood: Life]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Outbreak[Oh, one more quick for Sera because I almost forgot. Per+Aware for oracular ability]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
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