Riverside 16: Turn and face the strain

[Solidarity]

Now, throwing Flitter into Okami is an excellent idea, a thought only broken by the fact that Flitter can teleport even in the most dire of situations...
The wolf does so, but this leaves Seyren's arm free, Trace's muzzle closed tight, and Okami with claws extended, possibly about to take a chunk out of the Sith Acolyte's armpit...a nasty wound, to be sure...

With all of Seyren's actions taken into account, Flitter will wait to jump back into the fight, Trace is momentarily stunned via headbutt, and Okami is likely going to drop to a roll and pivot to face his opponent, regardless of the success of his attack.
)(bolding the important parts)(

The Pack - Leaving Southside

((People and their damned armpit strikes...))

Seyren is utterly shocked at the teleporter's sudden disappearance. The speed at which all the events unfold make it pretty impossible to get out of the way in time, even while already lunging backward. Okami's rending claws connect well, and would inflict a nice 1/4'' deep puncture wound as each blade-like talon is caught on a thick line of cortosis directly under the pit of the sith's arm. Thankfully, the acolyte's armor and fighting style made him more of a siege weapon among the apprentices, as his talents were found primarily in endurance.

Seeing the pinch he'd likely be in if such things continue, Seyren responds by tossing the staff up into the air. It sits high up and suddenly stops, a kinetic barrier holding it in place several yards in the air with the Force. The apprentice then grips his saber with both hands and changes posture. The wicked grin drops. His eyes grow still and slowly glaze over. His aura shrinks to wrap around him like a sheath, and any within a foot of him might be able to feel their skin vibrate. The warrior takes a stance facing the sage, roots his legs in place, and aligns his saber to his form vertically, waiting.

[Devixer]

Bus to Inside

Mira blinks.

"Oh! You meant blew up as in expanded. Okay. Yeah, I can see that happening. So, what's the thing from your world? They seem to have things, you know? Mine has superheroes, another has vampires, that kind of thing."

"The thing? Well, there are a lot of things in my world." Cassidy considers whether or not her world can be reduced to just one gimmick. "Magic, I guess? Dragons, elves, crap like that." That could sound pretty odd coming from someone covered in gang tattoos and wearing very modern clothes.

[Lost_Deep]

Bus to Inside

Mira raises her eyebrows. "That... might count, yeah. It's certainly unusual. It's kind of hard to imagine elves in some kind of sprawling metropolis."

[Gullara]

[Northside Hospital]

Obriane have no idea who this horrible creature is, nor does she have any idea why she was threatening her. Her mind just comprehends this as a crazy persons talk and there wasn't much to disprove that. What makes her body run cold however is how the monster suddenly threatened her family for imaginary slights. She felt an endless wellspring of terror and helplessness burst through her as she realized how serious all this was. But it's not until the creature and she realizes she hasn't even so much as lift her arm or spoken a word to stop it tears start running down her cheeks. What was she going to do? Just moving caused her back to ache. She couldn't even move.
For the moment she seems completely lost in her own grief and doesn't even react to Kitty as the medics looks around in an attempt to discern what just happened.

[Northside Hospital]

"Obriane? Come on, look at me. We're gonna stop that thing, okay? It's not gonna hurt anyone." Kitty wishes she could get up to comfort Obriane too. This is so terrible in every way.

[Devixer]

Bus to Inside

Cassidy shrugs. "Pretty easy for me. My fixer was an ork, I've taken jobs for some trolls, worked with a ghoul once. That sure was a drek run." She's starting to slip into slang from her homeworld again, despite trying to break that habit. Oh well, hopefully Mira won't get too lost.

[Deathkeeper]

Northside- The Third Circle

Tep stands in front of his new shop, wings folded around himself against the cold.
He'd felt a bit bad for the old goblin who'd owned the place. The efforts to clean up the whole district had pressured him to make some heavy renovations to the worn old place, which there just wasn't enough money for. The demon had been more than happy to make his first dip into his treasury to buy the place and fix it up. It'd needed a lot of work, but work really wasn't something he was too worried about. So he'd given it some nice red paint, a new sign and name, and reworked or replaced the shelves and furnishings, all nearly free in just a few weeks. So far he hasn't heard any complaints about the rather obvious demons moving into the neighborhood.
So there it was. One shiny new book exchange. Only thing left to do was finalize the paperwork and figure out how to actually get customers.

[Lost_Deep]

Bus to Inside

Mira laughs. "Oh, this is always fun. Let me think. I'm guessing 'fixer' is some kind of tech specialist, and drek sure doesn't sound like a compliment."

[Fenric]

[Northside - The Third Circle]

The new book exchange has attracted the attention of someone with very old books to trade, who steps out from a nearby shadow. He stands just over six feet tall and is of very slender build. He has a delicate, pointed muzzle, small black eyes, and ears that look a little too large for his head. He is covered in short, pure white fur and has a pair of dragon-like wings that look too small and frail to actually bear his weight. He has a fine webbing between his fingers and toes, and is wearing a plain brown tunic of very fine wool. A black and a purple ioun stone orbit his head, and an aura of peace and kindness surrounds him, and he is carrying a leather satchel from which several ends of scrolls are protruding, and bulges promise more standard books inside as well.

His fairly high-pitched voice is cheerful and earnest.

Hello!

[Devixer]

Bus to Inside

Cassidy chuckles. "Nope. Fixer sets me up with jobs when they're not stabbing me in the back. You're right on with drek, though."

[Lost_Deep]

Bus to Inside

"Okay. See, that's a lot different. Where I come from there isn't ma-uh, actually, I guess there is? But it's not common, and is something of new news for a lot of the world." She shrugs. "It was something of a shock to the world."

[Deathkeeper]

The Third Circle

Tep doesn't flinch, but he does look surprised, not at the arrival of a person but his obvious purpose.
Tep is a large canid demon at about eight feet tall, clad in deep red robes over his gray-red natural coat. A pair of dark gray horns adorn his head, with smaller ones on the "thumbs" of his wings. His upper canines protrude just barely from his lip. His legs are reptilian in shape but furred like the rest of him, ending in short talons, as do his hands. A thick tail extends from his rear, tipped with a long spade. A pair of round spectacles sit unsupported on his snout, and one arm carries a heavy leather-bound tome.
"Oh, my. Were you watching our progress? We've been only open for barely an hour." he says calmly.

[Fenric]

[The Third Circle]

Killick's ears fold down and he shuffles a bit

Did I mess the time up again? I'm sorry... I'm still getting used to the way things work now. Just yesterday I showed up to help my friend plant a garden they don't plan to start until next week. I can come back later.

[Devixer]

Bus to Inside

"Yeah, I hear it was a big shock when magic appeared back home, too," Cassidy says. "But that was like sixty years ago, way before I was born."

[Deathkeeper]

The Third Circle

Tep tilts his head and twitches one of his ears.
"Well, I did say we'd just opened, so of course we're still actually open. What, did you just transcend time recently?" he asks, half sarcastic but half acknowledging that that could totally have happened.

[Lost_Deep]

Bus to Inside

Mira blinks. Didn't this girl say she was from 2070 something? "That... huh. That would put your re-emergence of magic about on par with the battle of new york. That's kind of creepy."

[Fenric]

[The Third Circle]

Killick grins

Not exactly: I was using my divination to look for a good bookstore to sell some rare books. I've got "place" down really well now, but I'm still a little rough when it comes to time.

[Deathkeeper]

The Third Circle

Tep grins a wide, wide smile.
"Well, you got the time and place right today. Come inside, come inside." he says with a wave of his hand, moving to open the door for his first customer.

[Devixer]

Bus to Inside

"Battle of New York? Never heard of it," Cassidy says. She shrugs right after. "Then, you probably don't know about Universal Brotherhood or what happened to Chicago."

[Fenric]

[The Third Circle]

Killick smiles and walks in, looking around eagerly.

My tribe recently acquired an old library and we're going through the books. Most of them we want to keep, but there are some duplicates and a few we really don't want to have around. I was hoping to find some good deals on those to get some more modern volumes. Atorre has been really helpful with technical manuals and science books, but we don't really feel right taking their books.

Doubt it's any difficulty for Atorre, but the desert people are still shy and uncertain of what they can reasonably ask for.

[Lost_Deep]

Bus to Inside

The look on Mira's face clearly communicates that no she has not. "Want to trade stories?"

[Deathkeeper]

The Third Circle

Inside is about what you'd expect from a book exchange. Tep had new wallpaper installed and paint redone, but it still looks like an old place, just a lively one. The smells of paper and wood are strong inside, plus the fire in the fireplace, which glows oddly gray.
"Oh, what kind of books? Whose library was it? Exar, customer!" says Tep, barking an order. A tiny 18-inch-tall imp jumps to attention on the desk. He's all a muted gray color, with delicate little hooves and a tail more like a dog's, and a head somewhere between a hound's and a goat's. His wings flap in surprise.
"But we just opened ten minutes ago, Sir?" it squeaks. "Yes, so that means we're going to find out if you're going to perform as well as you promised you would, aren't you?" counters the demon with a smirk. The imp eeps and looks at Killick with a look that promises to sprint if he says the word.

[Devixer]

Bus to Inside

Cassidy chuckles and nods. "Heck yeah I do. You wanna go first?" She's never heard of anything resembling a battle in New York.

[Fenric]

[The Third Circle]

Killick smiles and cheerfully explains about the ancient city, the crystal mines, the water poisoning, the desert elves, and how it was all brought about by the Dragon King who was trying to come to the Nexus. He talks about the new city and the kindness of Atorre and all the excitement. He jabbers just a little bit about his wife whom he obviously loves very, very much.

And as he explains, he pulls books out of his bag which is clearly a bag of holding because he should have stopped a while ago. He does finally run out of things to retrieve, and after peer into the bag to make sure, he sets it aside.

So... where to start?

He shoves the largest stack forward

How about the easy ones, first. This set is poetry and history books from their homeworld - some place called Athas. There's like six copies of each one, and we don't need so many.

[Deathkeeper]

The Third Circle

Tep frowns.
Poetry is easy to sell, but history less so, especially if it's obscure. I can only offer you a little for those, though I'd be happy to take them." he says.

[Shadowcaller]

Eastside Park

No offer is made as the headbutt rather decisively knocks the demon mage into the wonderful world of unconsciousness. Do demons dream of diabolic sheep?

Eastside Park==>Somewhere

Tarim wouldn't know, he never sleeps.
In any case, the mage-turned-demon while be rudely awaken by someone grabbing onto her neck and shaking her. She can feel that both her arms and feet are chained and that she can't move. "Wake up." She can hear Tarim order.
If she opens her eyes she can see the pit lords smoldering eyes and mouth right in front of her, made all the more obvious by the darkness which seems to surround them. Certain isn't robbed of her special senses but there doesn't seem to be more else in this room. It's probably some sort of cell. "I will ask you questions and you will answer them to the best of your ability, or you will burn. Do you understand?" He asks, his wrathful gaze staring right into her eyes.

[Lost_Deep]

Bus to Inside

Mira thinks for a minute. "Well, there's a good bit of history to it, going back to WWII, but that would take forever to go over, so... short version: A millionaire in power armor, an angry green giant, a norse god (apparently), a national hero from WWII, and two other people fought off an alien invasion in New York. It was a huge mess, and on a larger scale it was a huge wake-up call that the world was REALLY weird. There had been some on-and-off alerts of that over the years, sure, but none of them drew as much attention as a fight that wrecked a good chunk of new york did."

[Fenric]

[The Third Circle]

Killick nods

I wasn't hoping much from them.

Then he pulls over the scrolls

And then there's these. I'm guessing the elves took any more useful scrolls with them and these were just too much to bother with. There are fifteen scrolls of a spell called "Horrid Wilting", and we don't want our plants wilted: it's dry enough as it is.

Oh, dear... talk about not knowing what you have.

[Ionbound]

Somewhere

Certain wakes with a start as Tarim strangles her awake, and a small measure of magic escapes her before she realizes the circumstances she's in and that it would be better to play along.

When she realizes what's going on, though, she sighs and looks back at Tarim, relatively unfazed, and says, "So, so cliche. But sure, I'll go along with your interrogation. What is it that you want to know?"

[Deathkeeper]

The Third Circle

Tep examines the scrolls to make sure they're all legitimate.
"I'm familiar with this spell. It's rather powerful. I can pay you [reasonably large sum] for the whole lot of 'em. Magic isn't what people come in here for, but they'll be useful sometime." he offers.

[ThirdEmperor]

Spoiler

Show

[The Toy Tinker - Wizards!]

It would be approaching sundown in any place that still saw the sun, when Sir Hex arrives. There is, in fact, a little bell, and it jangles upon his arrival. He'll be able to note the right front-window of the Tinker has just been replaced, leaving it with only 'The Toy' scrawled in red and trimmed with gold on the other window. Horrible name for a shop.

A mess has just recently been cleaned up. In fact, if Hex was watching, he'll note the shop was closed for much of the day to make way for that clean-up. Two of the simple little shop's three long shelves are empty, swept of toys, and slightly off-kilter. As though they'd been moved. Orange stains mar the floor. A person-sized dent has been punched into the plaster of the left wall, just missing one of the smaller side windows.

Otherwise, Hex will be able to note the usual - exceptionally lifelike contraptions in every direction. Bins of almost-authentic rabbits, their little eyes glowing a dull orange. Stranger things, like brass spiders. A rather spectacular Bird of Paradise dangling on razor-thin cables from the ceiling.

And behind the counter, a tall, blue skinned elfin creature, in a sleeveless brown tunic and pants. Work clothes. His ruddy red hair is combed back over his head, and he's currently leant forward over the counter. From the elbows down his arms are spindly steel things, ending in five sharp points, and currently those points work surgically on the innards of what looks like a complex clockwork doll.

White, lightbulb eyes flit up to meet the stranger, and are repulsed by the wave of Black Magic that washes over them. Old magic of a dark but different vein turns over in the wizard's gut. "Not especially,"He quavers, with an accent bordering on Latin.

"I'm afraid we're closed for repairs the rest of the day," says Sticks, mechanically, eyes never leaving the well-dressed gentleman. He forces a smile. "You're very welcome to come back tomorrow."

[The Toy Tinker]

"That suits my purposes just fine, then. Why, it may even be for the best." Hex's smile tightens into a small, thin-lipped expression, making his intent to stay very clear as he turns his back to the counter. Leaning down, he plucks a little tin robin from among a pile of it's brothers, cupping it in his hand. With a whispered breath he tries to feed a spark of probing magic into the trinket, to make it fly or at least explore the mechanisms by which such a clever thing was made.

It really is quite clever too. Why, it's almost admirable.

And if his meddling works, the toy robin should take wing as he lifts his hands to launch it skyward. It might even do so with more grace and life than Sticks' enchantments should have granted on their own. Why, it might even refuse to go back to sleep among the other toys again. It's that kind of magic that Hex brings with him. Not dark, not necessarily, but wild magic, possessed of a will of it's own and with few rules to bind it.

"I do like the merchandise, and I might come back some time for a little present or two, but that's not today. Today, I'm here about your apprentice. Care to make a guess why?" If his eyes didn't smile along with his face before, it's the other way around here. There's a mischief to his look that's thoroughly unsettling to receive.

Spoiler

Show

[Northside Museum]

Welp! Now she needed to save him!
Diving into the earth again, closing the hole she just made, she quickly "swims" through the ground underneath them towards the burglar, hopefully able to pull him underneath the earth before that woman can reach him.

Northside Museum

Cassidy is able to reach the burglar at about the same time that the other woman reaches him. Cassidy tries to grab the burglar around his neck to stick the syringe in him.

I don't think she's qualified to be administering shots.

[Trouble at the Museum]

Cybil gets her arms around the fallen Burglar easily enough, but as Cassidy vaults over the broken window to reach him, he starts to struggle. As she goes for his neck, he swipes at her with one hand - a kind of clumsy swing only meant to knock the syringe away. Much as the fall's left him in no right state of mind, that needle just screams bad on every level.

Of course, the thief is a little more than human. So the movement is a little more than a half-hearted protest. It's considerably quicker and stronger than a normal person could manage, especially under the circumstances.