Ms. Gray

Ms. Gray

Okay. so:

- this scene comes three days after the last one.

- danger is unlikely, but could happen. i don't know what your characters plan on doing they could be really, really dumb, what do i know?

- questions, ask me.

- any effects you want to have done ahead of time, any other preparation you think they might do, now is the time.

- based on rolls we have already done: pen has a dream roll in effect gives +1 to politics / lore - technocracy. pen has a corr / prime no follow rote going on. sera has a corr / prime / time - no follow / no scry now or later rote going on.

- any other effects you wanna initiate (dampening resonance, et cetera?) mind shield? magickal equivalent of arcane? anything else: feel free to roll now!

Kalen Holliday

[Watch the Weaving d=3 (4 -1 personalised instrument) // 4 suxx target because duration]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 4) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

[And extend - now d=4 - WP because Mages think that should be gone through like whoa]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Ms. Gray

Mind Shield - Sera. Dif 4-1 (personalized instrument)

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (2, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Mind Shield - extension. +1 / -1 taking time.

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ms. Gray

Sera: Mind Shield on Pen. Mind 2. Dif 5 -1 -1 (personalized / time)

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Extension.

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Three days later and they meet at the chantry and the hour is early early early early ridiculously early (so says Sera who is cranky before it is still before noon and she had to get up and get dressed and shower and drive all the way out to Morrisson (DAN DROVE, SERA NAPPED) and her crankiness is a cover for something else, the ratcheted anxiety that has asserted itself more sharply, more presently, with each passing day.

Forty-five minutes later and they are back in Denver. Rather a long way from the likely Technocratic complex that Kiara and Nicholas scouted spiritually this night past, and really (the way things go) rather close to the neighborhood that Sera and Dan call home.

Zook's Coffee and Ice Cream, which shares a building with the Denver Puppet Theater. Twenty-seven minutes after one p.m. on a modestly warm March Saturday. That's where we begin.

Penelope Mars

Today is the ambush -- of diplomacy. Fuck yeah! The goal: to woo an ally who is already an ally, if the rite was successful, untampered with, Good, but doesn't yet know it.

The night prior she considered the Technocratic Union and its Conventions and she considered what she had heard of a faction within the Union which does not want to stir the sleeping embers of their feud into something too too hot and she considered, also, the rumors of someones working within, which the rite has confirmed, and thought on what signs and by what Names such a society might be known - and then she had slept. Dreamt. Just before she met Serafíne and Kalen the Flambeau for their diplomatic mission (ambush), she cast a warding and when she shows up to meet them there is this. Her resonance: sheathed, tucked away, ace up a sleeve - diamonds (she is not a cheater), the glint of a possible weapon all that power: given over to secrecy.

Scrubbed of her resonance, Penelope is still something of a Presence.

Study of a Flambeau, sans resonance.

Here she is: red hair braided into a crown, some waving tendrils loose around the face, bangs pushed off to the side; the same silver-gray coat the inside an interlocking pattern of green leaves with frock-coat cuffs rolled back. Beneath the coat, a tunic with a collar that skims her collar-bones and falls to mid thigh. The coat is belted by a belt with a belt buckle that wouldn't be out of place on a runway, or in a painting: you know the type. Modern-day, updated legend: myth: circles. The tunic itself is simple and also rather modern (but the Echoes), and the leggings are High Fashion leggings, another Morrisian design on those. Her boots are high. There's a knife in one, probably. She has a purse which is more of a satchel, hangs at her hip, is easy to reach within: and within a few odds and ends, just in case she needs some instrument other than her wand (up her sleeve in truth: sheathed, just like her resonance). She is wearing a ring on the finger of Mercury and the finger of Saturn (and her wedding band, which never comes off, on the finger of Apollo - sing love with a golden lyre), and a ring again on the other finger of Mercury.

Composure is belied by a troubled shadow in her eyes, which will remain regardless: she is too earnest, too open, for there to be no shadow.

Pen's suggested (it's always a suggestion, never a demand) plan, as she expressed to Sera and Kalen on the way over, is not very Ocean's Eleven. Identify the potential ally, strike up a conversation with this person, quickly establish credentials We-Know-You, This-Is-What-We-Are-Interested-In, and try to make a deal.

Anything more Machiavellian or Byzantine at this point in time will have to come from the other two.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen arrives at the House having already cast what little magick he plans to cast today. There might be more magick, counter-magick and striking magic and whatever else. The truth though, is this: the Technocracy has Alexander. Kalen assumes that anything he could give away is compromised. Alexander knows all of the places he could go, knows his Resonance. They can take what they want from Alexander's mind if they press hard enough. What good will warding do him now?

Instead he comes ready to watch for magick. If their potential contact or anyone else is attempting to do anything with whatever knowledge they have gained, that may tell him something. That he will respond to.

There is, of course, the matter of what thoughts he might have on their negotiation. Those might be relevant. But then, he does not intend to lie. His last few dealings with a crisis have taught him that honesty is good and that violence is not necessary and his priest tells him these same things. Take away misdirection and violence from him and you get what?

The young man in jeans and a mottled grey and purple sweater that is practically begging to be touched and that brings out the green in his eyes. No weapons beyond those that cannot be separated from him. This afternoon is for diplomacy and ice cream. Tomorrow, or later today, perhaps Kalen will be all monochromatic and razor-edged. But not now.

He's in agreement with Pen's plan; neither more complexity or duplicity suits him. At least not for the moment.

Ms. Gray

Sera does not have any Machiavellian plans. She has no Byzantine schemes. She may have a dress from the Dolce and Gabbana Byzantine collection, but that not mean she knows what a Byzantine scheme would be, except perhaps: intricate and gilded. This is new and strange and foreign and she has within her mind and heart a piece of the seeking shaped by the work, pushed to the point where such a conversation would be most propitious.

Dan asks questions. Like: "Are you all three going?" and "Where do you want to park?" and other questions about logistics and appearances and The Way This Will Work. He flicks a thoughtful eye over Pen's get-up and then glances at Sera. She is wearing a sweat-shirt turned inside out and denim cut-offs and fishnets when they show up to the chantry, but when they leave he has convinced her to change into skinny black jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt and gloves, yes gloves, to cover her tattoos. Her hair is its native brown, long and curly, and the remainder of her tattooes have been covered with make-up or bandaids or something.

--

They all prepare in their own way. Two cars, both rentals. One is left in the parking lot if needed for easy escape, and that is left before their quarry even arrives at Zook's Coffee and Ice Cream. The other lets them off a half-block or so (or more?) away from the location. Sera is seeing/remembering; waiting, listening to some ineffeable point in time before saying: okay. Now.

Inside, an attractive young woman with (natively) blond hair and cool gray eyes sits tucked in one of the far corners of Zook's. She has been here working for an hour and a half.

The staff do not complain. She always leaves an excellent tip.

Sometimes she reads, quietly, steadily, meditatively. More often, she works on / frowns over a Microsoft Surface, folded out to reveal its neat little keyboard, or up to just the touchscreen. At a certain time on a certain day, that device dings. She has a new email. Something in it makes her mouth tighten. She looks up from the device, and away, at her reflection in the glass.

She counts to ten.

Ms. Gray

Then she counts to ten in Swahili.

Ms. Gray

Then she looks back.

Penelope Mars

Serafíne is seeing/remembering. Okay. Now. Pen has given herself over to events and to a certain trust so: they go, Pen's stride goes long and she gets first to the door to the coffee shop and ice cream parlor, will hold it open for Kalen and for Serafíne. Meanwhile: give both the street and the restaurant an alert and absorbent glance. How gray her eyes are; how dark. There could be anything out there: there could be anything in here.

"Milkshakes will be on me today," she says; and if she sees nothing suspicious, only a woman who may or may not match what description Sera was able to give Kalen and Pen three nights ago, she asks Sera: "Do you see our friend?"

Because - well, one hopes there is a friend, hm?

[And we'll have a Perception + Alertness roll. -2 diff for Acute Sight.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 5, 10) ( success x 2 )

Ms. Gray

Per + Awareness - Ms. Gray

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5) ( fail )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is content, here and now, to let Pen lead. Pen is like some wary mythic knight; he trusts her to walk first into danger. All of the training he has been agitated others in Denver neglect to recognise, she has. And she has a willingness to strike too. He might wait, and he might wish that she had waited; but he trusts that if she senses danger Pen will respond.

And so, the potential ambushes are left to Pen. He does not search out potential threats and exits and entrances and where all the cameras are. He steps through the door Pen holds open with a faint smile about the milkshakes and then his eyes scan the crowd for one target, alight, and linger.

[Perception + Empathy - WP b/c first impressions are the most important]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Ms. Gray

The blond woman with the tablet appears calm and well put-together. There is, however, a small frisson of frustration evident in her at the moment. Something about the way her brows are pulled together. Something about the cut of her mouth. The way she holds the device she has in front of her.

Ms. Gray

Pen declares that milkshakes are on her and Sera gives a tiny little smirk. Too early in the day for her to want to eat anything but they have smoothies and smoothies appear to be the name and title they have given to their milkshakes. Whatever. Instead of charging at their target, the trip wait in line and order something. The lunch rush is past; there is a low murmur in the air and some sort of singer-songwriter album on the PA system and a perky young man behind the counter who takes their orders and takes Pen's payment and proceeds to make whatever they have ordered while the trio stand at the counter and Sera confirms the target to both Pen and Kalen with a flick of her eyes. Even dressed down - looking rather younger and perhaps a bit more plain than is her wont, even with her tattoos hidden and her resonance dampened, Sera is a presence in the room. She flirts a bit with the kid behind the counter. Winks when he offers her a perfectly civilized cup of tea with her own little teapot, both of which she picks up and carries as she heads over to Ms. Gray.

Flashes a quick, incisive smile. "Mind if we sit?"

Ms. Gray's pale brows rise. The gesture: precise. She takes in Sera and she does it head to toe. Then Kalen. Then Penelope.
Something there: some knot of a breath, let go. Bemused.

She looks back at Sera. "I haven't much time, but you're welcome to join me."

Surreptitiously, she glances back at Pen again. That get-up. She probably has crystals in her shoes, tumbling around her toes.

Penelope Mars

Pen does - indeed - have a willingness to strike. But she is also sipping on a milkshake by the time they've approached Ms. Gray (and there. Even the Union cannot escape the mythic threads which run bright through the world: cool gray eyes, intellect, everybody knows the sign of the goddess), which does not exactly seem like prime leap into action position. Maybe that's part of the idea: seem disarmed, be disarmed, and later one will be disarmed.

The surreptious look: Pen catches it; it dredges up the beginning of a smile, some gleam in her own gray eyes (still troubled [shadows]), and she sits beside Ms. Gray and leaves the other side of the corner table/booth for Sera and Kalen. The silver-gray coat drapes over her thigh with casual glamour and she does not yet set the milkshake down: it will leave a ring on the counter.

"Thank you. You have the air of a regular; is the food here good? I'm Kat, by the way." She is, too, Katabasis being one of her names, and the she deems most appropriate to the moment. She offers her hand; the one she hadn't been holding the cold milkshake with.

Then: "We are Traditionalists; we were hoping you would consent to a conversation."

Kalen Holliday

Pen sits beside Ms. Grey and starts talking. Kalen settles across from Ms. Grey with a blueberry milkshake and no magickal defenses and he smiles at her a little. It puts him in position to watch her eyes. Puts him in position to strike straight at her while Pen strikes from her side, too. He does not anticipate striking. He met once, he is almost certain, another Technocrat in another coffee shop and they were, for about forty-five seconds, allies of a kind. No one was shot in a coffee shop then and he expects no one will be shot (or otherwise physically attacked) in a coffee shop today.

This will be more complicated and will need to hold for longer than forty-five seconds, but he has faith. Hope. A ridiculous willingness to find humanity in monsters. Given that they've kidnapped Alexander, he might certainly be willing to cast the Technocracy as monsters at the moment. He might be a little less inclined to forgive.

Still. He and Serafine once saved a man from a spirit of justice by convincing the ghost of the child child he murdered it didn't need vengeance. He brought a flower to a sea witch. Forgave this entity that...long story there. And then, layered with those, other stories. He can believe in Ms. Grey.

Assuming that Ms. Grey does consent, Kalen offers one of his hands across the table to her. "Elliot."

Ms. Gray

"Mmm." Ms. Gray murmurs. In response to the name and perhaps the question: about the air of a regular, about the quality of the food. This may be a note of agreement: why yes, the food is reasonable. Or yes, I come here with some regularity. I have found that I am able to work without disturbance, here.

Until now.

Pen does not set down her milkshake. Sera, however: sets down her tea. Feels awkward holding it with gloved hands and Ms. Gray gives the gloves a mild glance. Assumes that is another eccentricity of these throwbacks. Vestigal, superstitious.

A moment's consderation from Ms. Gray. Then a nod: of agreement. "A brief one," she reminds Penelope. Wonders if these strangers understand that they are no longer necessary. That the sun will continue to rise and fall and fall and rise, with or without their prayers. " - but yes."

This mild flick of her gaze up from those gloves; across the table. She reaches up - delicate gesture, this - and takes Kalen's hand. "Dr. Deidre Gray." This mildly expectant pause. She works in circles where she expects her name to be: often, recognized.

Penelope Mars

[Oh, oh. Wits (One Jump Ahead specialty totally qualifies, yeah?) + Politics (Tech! - thanks Dream). Now is the time to Know Things That Can Be Useful, right?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Ms. Gray

Idealism is a remarkably strong thread in the Technocracy. The belief in humanity, in a path-forward, a rising tide lifts all boats, et cetera. Certainly a Technocract disposed to not-murder Traditionalists, to aid one, to be On Their Side would subscribe to such an idealistic philosophy. But would also be burdened with / struggling again, an often-oppressive and many-layered bureaucracy that constrained her ability to act and to actually live up to her own ideals.

Penelope Mars

Pen considers Deidre. The cadence of her voice. The neatness of her measure. Pen's gaze stays on Deidre's face, and there is this true thing: House Flambeau has a strong feud against the Technocratic Union. Another true thing, of course, is that flesh and blood is weak, and the heart wants what it wants. She glances once at Kalen, consideration there too: splits a tiny tendril for Sera, and then all for and back to the Conventionalist. She says:

"I will be as brief and direct as it is possible to be and still be successful in convincing you to aid us in our endeavor. You have one of ours locked up in your facility; he works for the Denver Police Department and is slender of power but a good-hearted defender of - " Brief pause: this spark of a smile, and she is ardent. The resonance is sheathed but it is an Echo of the wizard's heart and the wizard's will. The smile is not good humored; it is grave.

" - people unable to defend themselves. We want him back; we want there to be no overt war in Denver because an apprentice was snatched - " Emphasis. Pen is invested in Alex because he is a person and she cares about people (too much), but she is more invested in the rest of it: rumblings of an Ascension War, rumblings of War period. " - or because somebody wants to be promoted in a spiritless bureaucracy and the easiest path to promotion is fomenting trouble, dismay, and bloodied lunacy. We want to know that somebody on your side is against the mindlessness, the muddying of the human spirit, which comes with such conflict."

"What do you think of starting up pointless war-in-the-streets between yours and ours; making Denver a battlefield? Would you not rather focus on saving lives; on ingenuity? What do you think of the cop - can you help us retrieve him?"

[Charisma! Expression! Beguiling Specialty! Willpower!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is gentle with Deidre's hand. Gentler than usual, not so much because he is hesitant as because Deidre's delicate movements remind him of hummingbirds. Though, he thinks of word in Spanish. Kolibri. He has Named two people for hummingbirds, in two languages, and he adored -adores- them both. He has seen neither for some time. He is not certain one still lives. He knows, that in at least some manners that make anything between them impossible, one hasn't been alive since well before they met.

That delicate movement conjures up bits of poems and live music and flashes of brightly colored feathers. Pen is speaking and Kalen is not so persuasive or so charismatic or so....

For decades he wove his will into lies and violence; and yet, here, he has stripped himself of those things. The only things he really has to give Deidre in this conversation are honesty and faith and hope. He knows that. He came here with his mind open because if those things were all he had, there was no reason to hide them.

Those things were meant to be seen. Luminous like stars. Whole swarms of suns.

"We are not always in agreement," he says quietly. "But we must all want a better world. One we don't have to keep tearing apart." He meets Deidre's eyes then, if she lets him. "Help us?" Pen might be asking because Alexander is a person. Kalen is asking for a much less abstract kind of love; Alexander is, after all, one of the only people he considers family that he has left. Even so arguably as he still has Alexander at the moment.

Ms. Gray

Ms. Gray listens to Penelope and watches Penelope and there is a mild degree of neutrality in her pale gaze. A curious lilt to her chin, the faint rise of her brows. Something clear and - searching about the way her eye tick over Penelope while Penelope favors her with such a clarion call.

There is - beneath that part of her that is meant to rise to such calls - an abiding skepticism. It serves her well, you see: questioning assumptions, refusing received knowledge. An insistence on empircal evidence. She thinks, when she cares to, that their kind are absurd holdovers from some ancient evolutionary course. The coccyx, the appendix: some shadow of once-necessary organ that has been reduced to superflueity and will eventually simply correct itself.

"His arresting officer was transferred three days ago. There may be a small window of opportunity in the next three days. We may be able to clean up the records enough to allow him to return to his former occupation.

"For that, though. You will owe me a favor."

She still has the tablet out. Slides her finger across it and executes a program, then snaps it shut.

"Come back tomorrow. I'll leave a packet with Lola at the ice cream counter, after three p.m.

"And do not attempt to follow me. The first lick of reality deviance and the deal is off."

With that, she fishes out a tip, stands up, picks up her perfectly sensible tote bag, and takes her leave.