[M&M 3e] Defying the Future IC

[Zelphas]

The Siren's bottomless eyes meet Floral's gaze, even as she rears back in disappointed fury at her claws just missing Helios. She holds Floral's look for a long moment, and her too-wide, ripped open mouth seems almost to smile.

Spoiler: Floral

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The scent response you get from the plants is... odd. In the heat of battle, in the midst of death and decay all around you, it may be filtered oddly, but the plants respond like... it's hard to pin down. The message they send you seems to suggest that the Siren was a sudden appearance, however. The Siren came, and things happened. And then the humans left the Camp, and it fell into disrepair.

There's something else underneath the scents you're getting, though. Interpreting it with your own understanding of the world doesn't quite fix the problem. Some key element connecting the plant's experience and your own experience is missing; they're trying to communicate something, but given your current understanding they lack the 'words' to convey it in a form you would understand... or maybe the situation's currently too chaotic for you to get the full scent down correctly.

Another long sigh, and the recently-arrived ghosts dissolve once again. "..ank y..." The Siren's near-smile turns into a snarl once more, and she slaps aside Helios' hastily-fired Sunbeam with what seems to be sheer rage--though trails of fire still settle upon her misty, trailing scraps of what might be clothing around her. With one more furious look at Nope, the Siren shrieks for more reinforcements and then sweeps her claws in an arc across the group, the ghostly, razor-sharp appendages slashing through Ariadne's carefully-constructed shields and towards everyone who is standing in her way.

Spoiler: OOC

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Map.

Siren

Move Action: Yell for more Ghastlings. One might eventually survive... er... life terms are tough for ghosts...

Standard Action: Use Spectral Claws to Multiattack everyone (it's actually Ranged), All-Out Attacking for 4. On a hit, Resistance DC 31/26 vs. Damage linked Weaken Resistance.

Floral: (1d20+12)[14] Miss
Helios: (1d20+12)[25] Hit
Ariadne: (1d20+12)[17] Miss
Nope: (1d20+12)[22] Hit

Ghastlings

8 more arrive to be Noped.

All PCs are on turn.

[Ridai]

Nope mostly dodge-stumbles out of the way of very angry claws, apart from them raking across his side. Clenching his teeth, breathing hard through his nose, and a grunt later, Nope is still covering his ears by virtue of not really committing any brain time to changing the fact, fingers starting to feel sore. One would think one gets used to getting hurt in this line of work, and currently, this is not the case for Nope, who finds hurting very detrimental in regards to erasing things from existence precisely. So hoping this Siren isn't just straight invincible, his brain cycles the same removal process again. At least the repetition makes it somewhat easier, but also brings the risk of stupid auto-piloting with it, and he really has to watch for his brain doing a different kind of stupid and letting in a stray thought it thinks it has some processing time left it should spend since it is just doing the same thing, and no brain, you should not!

Spoiler: Actions

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Hey, guess what...

Standard Attack all enemies with Remove Hit Points, Mass. Damage 10 (+5/+5; Shapeable Area 2 [Limited [6"x6"x240' bendable line]], Penetrating [Pierce Immunity], Improved Critical 4, Multiattack [Single-target], Ranged). Crit 16+, AoA -5/+5.
Siren (1d20+15)[31]
Routining against the ghastlings for 25

[Abracadangit]

Kal watches as the Siren's pale talons make quick work of her defensive latticework of threads, designed to deflect and displace her attacks.

"My magic may not be of much use here," she says, with grim resignation.

"Nonsense," Ariadne says, almost offended. "You pay very close attention, your great grandmother is going to show you a little trick, but you cannot do this all the time. You are not strong enough yet, do you understand?" Kal thinks back the idea of nodding. "I told you everything is Thread, hm? This includes the things with Forms -- apples, drinking cups, mountains, minotaurs -- but it also includes the things without Forms. Sounds, thoughts, memories. And light." An invisible force directed her attention to the few places where light enters the room.

"You want me to weave light and the thread together?" Kal asks. "I don't know that I understand."

"This underworld woman, she does not like the light. So yes, we will spin her some special thread with light woven inside. Hold up your needle for me, and I will guide your hand."

Kal does as she is told. "How do we begin."

"I taught you how to look with your inner eye, perceive the threads as they move through the world. Now you are going to perceive the world as it moves through the thread. Are you ready, engoní?"

With some mental effort, Kal reopens her threadwork sense, and sees everything as it was before. But instead of focusing on the Siren's threads, she brings her attention to the light in the room, and how it surrounds the thread. The longer she stays fixated on it, the more she almost loses the ability to distinguish between the light and the thread; their forms start to bristle and blur.

"Very good. Now I take it from here. Watch carefully."

An outside observer would notice that Kal's hands suddenly move with a sort of wild energy, as though they have woven this particular pattern a million times across a million lives. The threads that appear around the Siren are not Ariadne's usual red, but are made from a shimmering, glowing energy, and the lines start to converge on the Siren in a dazzling web of radiance.

"I don't think I can control it," Kal thinks, as the particle-thin strands of light begin to tangle and snarl.

"Don't control it, then," Ariadne counters. "Just weave."

Spoiler: OOC

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Free Action: Switching Threadwork Conjurations back to Threadwork Sense, because it makes sense for the fluff. Action: Gonna Extra Effort a Power Stunt to lightweave a Snaring Strands on the Siren, going to max All-Out for a +5.
Threads of Light [Magic] [Light]: Damage 10 (Ranged, Affects Insubstantial 2, Homing, Quirk [Short Range Only], Incurable, Perception) Linked Affliction 10 (Vulnerable/Defenseless; Affects Insubstantial 2, Limited Degree)
Siren: (1d20+15)[22]

[Quellian-dyrae]

There was definitely something that the plants around the camp could tell her...buuuut it was just barely possible that standing in the doorway of a cabin fighting a ghost wasn't the optimal time to try and discern it. Who'd have thought?

So, Plan B: Lay The Ghost To Rest was out. Fortunately, Plan A: Kick The Ghost's Incorporeal Butt still seemed to be proceeding apace.

And while Lily's nose may have been on the plants, this was not to say that Lily wasn't paying attention to the fight. Hey eyes may not have been quite as acute, but they worked just fine and were still pointed squarely at the ghost, so when Siren raked her claws across the group, she was ready, dodging back. Her personal phytokinesis lent enough speed to her movements to avoid the attack.

Nope and Helios weren't quite so lucky, and Helios seemed to have taken the worst of it. Lily gestured, and the wand in his hand waved and collapsed into nectar, releasing the last of its stored energy to soothe his pain and speed his healing. Of course, that was still solar energy, so he could still redirect a bit of it towards offense as well.

Spoiler

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Free: Reconfigure Flower Power. 10 points to Floral Acid, 20 points to Healing Nectar, 10 points to Medicinal Nectar, 10 points to Solar Nectar.

Move: Nah.

Standard: Aid Helios with Floral Acid Linked Healing Nectar at (1d20+15)[24]. Helios receives Persistent, Restorative Healing at (1d20+10)[20]. +5, 15 RP after Persistent

Current Status: Fatigued, 6/10 RP towards Recover.

[Dorni]

Helios' wards once more flared to life under the Siren's claws. This time they proved insufficient to fully turn aside the spectral strike - and Helios was left with a deep gash along his forearm. Worse than that was the clinging haze of Death energy that clung to the wound, exacerbating it.

Or it would have if Floral's nectar didn't immediately close the wound and the abundance of Life energy therein didn't immediately ground out the clinging death energy. Once again Helios was in Floral's debt. Or were they even now? No matter, now wasn't the time to settle accounts.

Helios' reply was to once more weave his magics and rip at the aetheric essence of the Siren.

Spoiler: OOC

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Move:
Standard: Cast Drain Vitality on Siren with Aid and AoA/PA 5. (1d20+15)[29]. On hit, DC 25 vs Cumulative Progressive Affliction [Fatigued & Impaired / Stunned & Disabled / Incap]

Using 10 RP from Floral's Heal to remove 3 points of Weaken Resistance.
End of Turn: Recover 1 Weaken Resistance.

Status: Bruised, -5 AoA

[Zelphas]

Nope once again removes the incoming ghosts, causing them to fade quickly into nothing as soon as they arrive. This time, however, his odd power catches the edge of something real within the ethereality of the Siren and eliminates it as well; the Siren's entire form puffs into mist for a moment before re-stabilizing, her cheeks hollow and haggard, her eyes burning black pits within a white face that somehow now looks sickly.

Ariadne produces threads of sudden light, the mystical strands wavering through reality and unreality to strike true in each place. The Siren reacts immediately to this new threat, whipping around the still-burning bits of her tattered form to intersect with the lights in a swift, impossibly-twisted motion. The threads catch Helios' flames and wink out, and the flames burn away within the light of the threads, the two forces clashing and cancelling one another before either can harm the Siren.

Perhaps it is because her attention is diverted by defending herself from the threads, a new and potent danger that she must immediately respond to or be speared by tiny beams of light. Perhaps Nope's strange powers simply eliminated just enough of her defenses, leaving the Siren open to another attack at just the right moment. Perhaps, seeing her prey stand against her without falling to her song, seeing her minions dissipated before they can be of any use, seeing her strikes be healed in mere moments, the Siren has shifted from attacking to escape, and so has let her attention waver from her foes at just the wrong moment. Perhaps all of these things at once. Whatever the reason, when Helios weaves his spell into place, he feels it take hold of the Siren as though it is made to latch onto her.

For an instant, the Siren... alters, as Death is rewritten with Life. Hair flares up from dull, misty silver to deep russet gold; skin flushes pink, then gold, then deep red; eyes flash, becoming brown, then amber, then filling with light. The mouth opens, and opens, and opens, light and sound flying from it in a bright yellow shriek--

With a soundless explosion, the Siren is gone, the Death magic that comprised her form falling to the floor of the cabin and eating a rotten hole through it in seconds before sinking into a stinking pile on the ground. The explosion passes through all of you without touching you and rolls outwards. There is the sound of wind blowing, but not a leaf or a blade of grass moves. Then all is silent. It doesn't take Ariadne's threadwork senses or Helios' Mystic senses to feel that Camp Bubble Brook is now, truly, empty.

Spoiler: OOC

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The Battle is over! Everyone take a Hero Point.

Now, I'm pretty sure you're going to be sticking around here for a bit, so this Scene is not yet over. Still, to plan ahead, everyone can take 5 Downtime Actions.

[Ridai]

With the spectacle of magic and magic explosions and the wave of death magic and whatnot, Nope takes his hands off his ears (his fingers and his head hurt), looking at the pile of... something, then quickly glancing about for more ghosts that don't seem to come.

"You did it...?" Nope says, mostly guessing. "Should... should I try to remove that pile?" A beat. "Can someone please check if the souls of the campers and counselors still exist?!"

Spoiler: OOC

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For the Lull scene, I'm trying to put something coherent together. Kind of thinking about the Lull coinciding with Nope having bad days, rattled by the things he faced so far, migraine from all the power usage, state of his family weighing on him. Has searched the museum several times now, but is finding nothing about Nora, so he feels like he is stuck, not sure how to go about finding her.

[Abracadangit]

"It feels... hollow here, now," Kal says, as she casts her threadwork sense over the area. "Nothing else lingers. I do not miss our enemy, but..." She stares at the pile left behind on the floor. "I wish there had been another way to mend her spirit." She turns to Helios. "We shall gaze together, and see if there is anything to see."

"You get used to the spirits, engoni. Like crushing a spider -- you hesitate the first time, because you know you will feel all the little pieces crunch beneath your hand. It stings your heart. After five, fifty, a hundred..." Ariadne pauses. "One day, you no longer think about it. Your hand just moves."

Kal is honestly repulsed; a twinge of nausea winds through her stomach. "I don't ever want to be like that," she thinks back, resolutely. "I will always look for a better way, a more peaceful way."

"Hnn, hnn, hnn," Araidne smirks, internally. "I used to say the same thing. And sometimes, that way will be there. And sometimes it will not. Better you get over what it feels like to crush a spider now."

"Can hardly call that 'crushing a spider.' For all of that 'threading the world' talk, it looked like it just bounced off of her."

"Lots of your friends' little tricks bounced off of her, too," Ariadne points out. "You forget that you are new, at this. It was a fine job, for the first time, and there will be more spiders to come. For now you are more prepared, and have some new ideas for what you can do, hm?"

"Thank you, for saying that. I should try to learn what you did, copy those patterns. But I don't know if my needle's quick enough."

"Keep practicing. One day, you no longer think about it. Your hand just moves."

Spoiler: OOC

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Gonna Threadwork Sense ping the area (even though as exposition pointed out, you don't need this sense to know it's empty, ha ha), and see if it can tell me anything about the weird pile that the Siren left behind.

[Zelphas]

As you begin to move about and adjust to the reality of Camp Bubble Brook without the Siren within it, you begin to hear the sound of something small moving through the air very quickly. This sound resolves itself a moment later, as a bundle of grey feathers plows through the front doors of the Administration Building, managing to arrest its headlong roll mere inches from the new hole in the floor.

"Wait! Before you go too far! It fits--sort of--but it's too early--well, no, just earlier than I thought--" Watcher's voice comes out of the clearly agitated pigeon, which works to right itself on the rotten floor. "Not important--the lack of video is a clue--well, not really, unless something is there--which it might be--but anyways, I think... that..."

The pigeon freezes, its pupils dilating visibly larger and smaller as it processes the room it is in, the hole in the floor, and the scratches on Helios from the recent battle. "Ah. Well. Never mind, then. I'll just..." As quickly as the pigeon arrived, it spreads its wings once more, moving to take off back into the sky and away from you all.

[Ridai]

Nope doesn't really feel better. He remembers something one of the ghosts said, but, well...

And then Watcher pigeon. "Wha-what? Whole sentences! No pronoun game!"

[Dorni]

Helios stared at the stinking pile.

It wasn't really the weight of having killed the siren. Well, not totally. He'd known that standing up to the League and their followers would mean fights, and superpowered fights meant a high degree of danger. He'd known on some level that he might have to kill, even if he tried hard to avoid it. But so far he'd fought undead, and the proxybots at the museum. He didn't think of himself as a killer. And the enemy this time had been an undead spirit. It was debatable whether it had been 'alive' to start with. Was the siren any different than the other undead the cult threw employed? And even if so, what happened to the spirit now? Did some essential part of the spirit pass on to the afterlife? Or, with its spiritual essence dissolved, did it simply cease to exist?

But the technicalities withered under the feeling of ripping out the siren's aether like air rushing from a deflating balloon.

He'd planned to weaken it enough to subdue. Then between him and Ariadne they could try interrogating it. Surely a spirit capable of animating the illusion outside had at least held some memories. But once the spell had taken hold...

He still felt ill, but he forced himself to kneel over the pile and examine it. They'd come to this place in hopes of finding why Manchineel avoided this place, to find a key to defeating her. To stop her and save those they still could.

Spoiler: OOC

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Helios will examine the siren's remains, looking for clues as to what exactly the siren was or how it came to be, and anything else that might stand out as relevant. Expertise (Magic) (1d20+20)[23]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lily was...actually not particularly concerned with Siren vanishing, at least in any sort of killing sense. She was undead, not alive. Destroying her was best analogized to dispelling a dangerous magical effect, not killing a living person. If there was any effect on some actual person's actual soul as various religious or mystical traditions posited them, she expected it would be positive rather than negative - some variant on freeing it, laying it to rest, or so on. Also something something ectoplasmic bodies; if actual souls actually existed Lily didn't actually expect they would be susceptible to most forms of direct attack, whether manifest as some sort of spiritual undead or not.

Lily was admittedly generalizing from fictional evidence there, but so far fictional evidence had proven at least somewhat correlated with the reality of living in a world that now included magic and superpowers.

Siren vanishing upon defeat did mean that they didn't have any opportunity to acquire information or advantage from her, so that was a practical concern. She was also unsure that Siren was really gone - various fictional representations of ghosts could return if defeated by merely physical or magical force.

Lily blinked twice at Watcher's...very on-the-ball and undoubtedly perfectly-timed warning. "I'm going to see what I can learn about the camp," she said, stepping out of the cabin and beginning to walk around the campgrounds, trying again to learn what she could from the plantlife there.

Spoiler

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Back to full Senses, Commune with Nature, and Scent Processing. Going to basically talk to the plants to see if they can give me some sense of what happened here, now that I'm not, you know, in a cabin fighting a crazy ghost.

Also now that I can Routine the checks.

[Zelphas]

The fluff of feathers stops just sort of the doorway, turning back to look at Nope. Maybe it's a testament to Watcher's design skills, but it's not every day that a pigeon manages to look embarrassed. "Well... there honestly isn't much, and I didn't--this would be a really early occurrence, if I'm right. In a couple of places in the future I came from, there were a few small bits of crumbling civilization. A small town, a run-down resort, things like that. They were--are--running now, all that I identified. Satellite images and pigeon scans showed nothing there--just broken and abandoned things, like a lot of--anyway. The thing is, if--the people who lived near those places, all had stories. They wouldn't go near those places, even for supplies, and everyone had a story of someone going there and never coming back. I could never verify them, myself, but--I started calling them Null Zones. I assumed--"

The pigeon's beak snaps shut for a second, as it hops from foot to foot. The feathers all fluff up and then flatten back down. "Flyovers of the forest in the future I'm from had pockets like that, every once in a long while. I had hoped there might be people, but there was no life. No life that I saw, at least. So, I was thinking, and I thought, maybe--it wasn't much to go on, and I still don't have enough to verify it, and people returned to Camp Bubble Brook before July 1st, so it doesn't quite fit..." Watcher's voice devolves into muttering for a long moment, beforethe pigeon's head snaps back up. "But you're fine, and Manchineel hasn't noticed you here yet... I think... so you should be good! That's about it; just a thought, to be careful, and--I'll just--" The pigeon flies away once more.

Spoiler: Helios

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It is difficult to concentrate dispassionately on what you are trying to do--thoughts of what might have just occurred keep intruding, and being summarily suppressed--but you are able to glean a little bit out of the aftermath in front of you. Usually, your Drain Vitality spell essentially uses Life Energy as a type of sponge, drawing the Life Energy of the target to itself to strip away at the Life Energy of the target. This means that a target is exhausted and then rendered unconscious, normally.

The two different way that the Siren responded to your Drain Vitality spell--first physically knocking it aside, and then having such a dramatic implosion--suggest that, quite possibly, there simply was no Life Energy for your spell to attract in the Siren, but only Death Energy. Faced with its opposite, your spell was first repulsed, and then it... canceled out the Death Energy of the Siren.

The undead you have faced when fighting Nergal (and a few other cult members) have all had at least traces of Life Energy for you to draw on, remnants of previous life; the idea that the Siren had none might mean that she was something different from a true undead, something altogether stranger. But still, this is merely a theory; there is still so much about magic that you simply do not know.

Spoiler: Floral

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Free from combat and able to focus completely upon what the plants are telling you, you are able to pick up on two main things.

First, the Siren's appearance was a sudden event. There are echoes of something Siren-like before her appearance, but they are so faint that when they began appearing is hard to pin down (even with your boosting, the plants understanding of time can still be slightly obtuse). If you had to guess, signs of the Siren's appearance didn't began at most a few months before her "arrival", and they were subtle enough that someone without the ability to talk to plants (or an ability to sense mystical energy) probably wouldn't have noticed them. The Siren appeared full-fledged the night that half the camp vanished, and she was responsible for their vanishing.

The second thing you are able to pick up takes longer to tease out. There doesn't seem to be a perfect analog between what the plants are trying to tell you and your own experiences, so something keeps getting lost in translation. Finally, as a moment of random thought, a memory surfaces: a tornado warning when you were in elementary school. The plants seize upon that mixture of fear and odd inevitability, and feed it back to you.

To the rest of nature around Camp Bubble Brook, the Siren had been like a tornado. Extreme, certainly. Dangerous, definitely. But not really unexpected, given the way that the wind was blowing at the time.

[Dorni]

"What in the... hmm... but that would mean... no, that can't... but what if... If I'm right..."

Helios rose to his feet and floated out the door, muttering to himself as he went. He started rubbernecking around, looking for something. His malaise wasn't entirely gone, but he was moving with purpose. "Were you able to learn anything?" he asked Lily when they crossed paths

Spoiler: OOC

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Helios will walk outside and look around the camp, walking around as needed to examine the Death that permeates the camp. On the hunch that its thinner at the edges, he'll start there and try to determine where the aura is thickest. Pending what he finds, he'll also use the Ranged Strength 10 on Crossing the Sky to start excavating to see if the Death extends deeply into the soil.

[Ridai]

"Wha-" Nope listens with an increasingly alarmed and confused expression until the Watcher pigeon flies away. "What?"

And then Helios begins to mutter in vague sentence fragments! "Oh no, it's spreading!"

Completely coincidentally, Nope begins to walk out of the building, just so happening to be headed out of the camp.

[Dorni]

Helios trip took him to the edge of the camp and back again. He didn't return to the administration building, instead kneel near an otherwise nondescript patch of barren soil a little ways off to side of it where he invoked another spell and began excavating the. He didn't find any buried treasure or ominious devices, but his frown deepened as as the soil piled up. "Well, I have good news and bad news," he at last spoke up, the dirt now flying off the pile and filling in the hole.

"Good news is I have a pretty solid idea what happened here. That Siren we fought wasn't a Spirit. She was... This whole camp is a natural wellspring of Death energy. The energy welling up here reached a critical point where it coalesced and took the form of the siren. That's why my spell had the effect it did. I- oh. I can explain the mechanics later, but the core is that she wasn't a Spirit in the sense of being a being of corporeal living aether. I think a more appropriate description is that it was a Death Elemental."

"The bad news is that the camp is still a danger. The Death is still welling up from the font. I'd have to study it longer to say for sure, but I'd guess we have maybe 3 months before it reaches a point where another siren - or something else like it - manifests again."

Helios grimaced. "And that's not all. You all know the Suneaters practice necromancy. If they found this place it would be a huge power source for them. They could call forth and bind Sirens of their own or just try to take the power for themselves."

"We might have a few options for dealing with it though. If I had the time to work I could probably seal it, whether by channeling enough Life into it to critically weaken it or by diffusing the Death energy here into the forest to keep it from reaching critical mass and letting it dissipate naturally. The problem is that I do mean it will take time. Weeks, maybe. I'm not sure we have that kind of time for starters, and there's a risk that the Suneaters might sense the working or one of them might investigate if they get wind that I'm spending a lot of time around the camp."

"There's also another option. A faster, but more far more risky one. This camp is a wellspring of Death. Rapheal was a massive wellspring of Life. Rapheal's energy could almost certainly overwhelm this place and offset the Death here. With a little care, I'm confident I could channel her Life to accelerate cancelling out the Deathwell without harming Rapheal herself. The obvious problem is that we'd have to get Rapheal into the forest here and Manchineel would almost certainly seek her out if she sensed Rapheal's return."

"There's a final, potentially even more risky issue. We know Manchineel and her brood avoid this place. I think we now know why. Manchineel's powers are based around Life. The abundant Death here might be a potent weapon against her. "

[Ridai]

"Do you think I could remove that wellspring?" Nope says, knowing precisely nothing about how magic actually works. There is not even any fiction stuff he could draw on, because most magic like in D&D operates on a whole lot of BS and the story needing something to happen.

"I don't think bringing Raphael back here is a good idea..." he adds, along with "Using this death magic as a weapon, uh, sounds dangerous? Maybe? Like asking for things to go wrong, salt the earth dangerous? I don't know?"

[Abracadangit]

"I will help this endeavor however I can," Kal says, trying to sound like she would even have any idea of where to start. "If I have time to consult my pattern books, there may be a design that could help."

"What happened to I'm Not Good Enough, hnn, hnn," Ariadne snarks.

"Still there. But while I might be new at coming up with new designs on the fly, it's different when I have time to sit and experiment. I read pattern books for fun. Like -- a LOT of pattern books."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lily nodded as she listened to Helios's explanation. The impressions she had gotten from the plantlife in the area had been fairly vague, not enough for her to come to any clear conclusions - which makes sense in retrospect, if it was a magical matter - but it all fit precisely with what Helios was saying. Although...

"The Death magic apparently had enough of an interaction with the physical world that its traces left detectable residue." That was how Lily translated it, anyway. Someone who regarded their powers with a more mystical slant might have said she talked to the plants in the area and they had been aware of the Death magic building, but that wasn't Lily. Yes, her internal experience of that method of using her powers to acquire information from plantlife was the experience of a sort of conversation, asking questions and receiving answers. But that meant little to her. Her internal experience of vision was an illusion created by her brain to translate a bunch of photons hitting particular cells in her eyes into something that made sense. For whatever reason, her brain was taking whatever inputs she was receiving from the plants in the area and creating an illusion of a conversation so as to translate it into a form she could understand. Or something like that, anyway.

"Which, practically speaking, means I might be able to gauge how close it's coming to creating a new Siren-equivalent, at least given the opportunity to take regular readings and such.
I do think clearing out a wellspring of Death magic is worth doing on its face, all else being equal. But all else isn't equal, so I do think it's worth considering what advantage we could gain from it."

"I would actually rate the fact that the Suneaters can use this place as a power source to be a benefit for us, or at least neutral. It means we know a place they might go to try and perform powerful magic. Watcher can keep a couple birdbots over the area and alert us if they try anything. Maybe it makes them more dangerous to fight here...or maybe not if we can ambush them while they're busy trying to harness Death magic for a big ritual thing or something. Or at least, that's usually a good strategy in games and fiction, not sure how it works in real life. Also opens up possibilities of like, they send people to examine the place, we tail them back to other strongholds or ambush them when they leave."

"Another thought that springs to mind. Would it be possible and efficient in terms of necessary time, effort, and whatever magical resources may or may not be required to stabilize the wellspring without sealing it entirely? Dissipate enough of the energy that it doesn't get worse or spawn more undead, while still leaving it usable as something we could use against Manchineel, or as a possible lure for Suneater necromancers?"

[Zelphas]

Before you can solidly come to a decision regarding the wellspring of Death Magic in Camp Bubble Brook, the wind stirs the tress around you. Floral can interpret what they are saying; Manchineel has heard about intruders in the Camp. She--and Michael, and Abel--are on their way. A look at the sky suggests that Gabriel may not be far behind them. With Manchineel and her Menagerie converging on the scene, you all beat a hasty retreat. Camp Bubble Brook, silent and withered, lets you go without comment.

-----

Hannah and Andrew come home looking more haggard than usual a few days later, and it doesn't take long for Lily to find out why. A round two dozen Bronze Links have been taken into custody; good news... except for the fact that they were thrown unceremoniously through the doors of the police station by two Silver Links, the coppery chains that Bronze Links wear to mark their position driven into their arms by cruel blows. The resulting investigation is frustrated rather quickly; the Bornze Links have no supernatural powers and are unable to talk about the other members of their gang--physically unable to do so. They also seem extremely weakened, as though life was taken out of them. Hannah managed to track the group to where they must have fought the Silver Links; the warehouse is gutted, a wreck, but there isn't much else there to find.

-----

Two days after the group went to Camp Bubble Brook, Dante appears before Flint and Sara, his robe tattered, one arm bloody, stuffing a wad of black cloth into his pocket. He shrugs off any attempts at help or healing with a grimace. "It was just a disagreement," he says shortly in response to any questions, shaking his head. "Some of the cult thought they could take advantage of Manchineel's distraction by Helios and his new friends to advance their own interests. We disabused them of that notion. It's nothing that you need to concern yourself with."

Dante pauses, looking at Flint speculatively. "...Though it may come to that for both of you, soon enough. Know for now that we do not need to agree on all points to serve; we will still be family, regardless."

August 20-22nd, 2018.

Finding Nothing

"It's quiet here."

The soft voice cuts in on Remy's black mood, and his headache. Nora has disappeared, a phantom; he can barely find evidence that she existed, let alone where she went. He had gotten a short text from his father; checking in, he said, wanting to make sure that his son was "in the right place". He hasn't responded. A recent search through Museum Street had brought him nearby some sort of Suneater Cult meeting; he thought he had heard his mother's voice, but he couldn't be sure, and he didn't try to find out. And on top of all of that, the constant stress of making sure he didn't remove a fundamental aspect of reality while still removing his presence, and his movements, and life force, and oh man the Siren wasn't a real living person but what about all those ghosts what were they and what happened to--he has a headache.

That is what finds Remy Rames--not Nope, not right now, just Remy--sitting in a small, intensely-manicured park on the shore of Lake Michigan, staring out at the almost-still water, being interrupted in his dark musings by the very quiet voice. Looking to his left, he would see the woman that had been sitting there before he arrived... though thinking back, he didn't really register that she was there until she spoke. Long black hair in a multitude of thin brads, dark brown skin nearly the same color as her eyes, deep green and brown clothing, almost a uniform, that seems too heavy for the warm weather; the woman has almost as little presence as Remy himself, and she seems to shrink in on herself even more as he looks over. One side of her mouth quirks up for a second in a nervous smile. "Oh, I-I'm sorry, it's just... with everything going on, it's hard to find somewhere... quiet. I'll just..." she lapses into an almost-expectant silence.

Patterns in Patterns

Inspiration strikes from within, not without, engoni.

Kal has gone for a walk. Her room at her grandmother's house is a mess of papers, sketches, and string, none of them quite coming out the way that she wants them to go, and Ariadne's cryptic "help" has been more of an annoyance than a boon in this instance. Unfortunately, one of the great advantages of a walk--the fact that it gets you away from the place and the people that have been bothering you for a time--is partially spoiled by the fact that the person she is looking for a break from is inside her own head, and feels the need to comment on nearly every dress, flag, or banner she walks by.

Maybe that's why her walk took her to the Industrial Block; less for Ariadne to pick apart, since most are in working clothes and there aren't many clothing stores or waving flags. Standing in front of the Garage of the Future, she can take a moment to admire the fanciful lines and curves of an abstract piece of metal art on display, even if the name of the place--and the graffiti only partially-cleaned off of it--intrude on her thoughts with darker matters. Ariadne sniffs. Iron. Bronze has more life, more warmth; those who say iron is tougher and more useful simply lack the will to make what they wish from the superior metal--not that either is superior to thread, of course.

Before Kal can decide whether to enter the Garage to seek inspiration there, continue on her walk, or do something completely different, she spots a surprisingly familiar face. The Silver Link Wrath, without her regalia of status, in casual clothes, and attempting unsuccessfully not to be noticed, walks up to the Garage's side door and slips quickly inside, glancing about quickly before she goes in. Her eyes slide past Kal without really noticing her.

Evidence Interrogation

"Sorry I couldn't get you your own lab, but you should have an hour," Andrew grimaces, settling the ill-fitting police uniform over his shoulders once again. It was the closest thing they had to a good fit for him, but it is tight in the shoulders and chest, and he claims there hasn't been time to re-tailor it.

The amount of general heroic work that Lily and her little group have managed to do, combined with Lily's own stubborn, reasoned conversations with her family, have paid out in a surprising dividend; it took longer than she would like, but Lily is being allowed to come in and look over the evidence recovered from Doctor Proxy's latest attempt at museum theft. Andrew, smiling and waving hellos to the many people he knows in the new Forester's Bay Police Headquarters building, is at Lily's side, escorting her in... while Hannah is conveniently busy interrogating the batch of former Bronze Links to see if anything can come from that arrest. They pass through the somewhat-normal mixture of uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, and captured perps that occupy the front of a police station. Ntombi Peters, doubtless called in for another "conversation" about her connection to Manchineel (which will doubtless lead nowhere), meets Andrews wave with a small smile, but says nothing.

Soon enough, you are out of the bustle and into the back areas, heading towards the small on-site laboratory containing what evidence the police gathered from the Doctor Proxy crime scene. Perhaps it is Andrew's proximity that hides the scent from you, but neither of you are prepared for when you turn the corner to see Hannah, rumpled and tired and clearly angry, standing in front of the door to the lab with her arms crossed. Andrew sighs, getting ready for a fight.

"I know she has permission," Hannah says before either of you can speak, her tone saying exactly what she thinks of that permission and her glare at Andrew telling what she thinks of his efforts in getting it. "I'm here to talk to her."

Books and Bindings

"The Yel--some of our number already searched this place," Dante states as you open the door to Between the Bindings, a tiny used-bookstore at the edge of Pub Alley, near to the Residential District. He stretches his bandaged arm, grimacing; the wounds hadn't entirely healed yet. "They have very... particular tastes, though, so they may have missed something or deemed it beneath their notice."

The interior of the store smells like dust and ink, with an odd, unpleasant undertone of burned feathers that seems to be a few days old. An old man with thick, bottle-cap glasses looks up at your entrance, his mouth turning down slightly as though irritated by the interruption of his reading. On the desk next to him is a small parrot stand, and perched on that stand...

If you hadn't run into something similar several times recently, you might believe that the proprietor had decided to decorate with a stuffed pigeon.

Dante is looking at the proprietor and the "pigeon" as well, his eyes narrowing. "He must've been warned..." He glances at you, hesitating slightly. "I need to speak with that man for a moment. Would you mind looking through the books while I do so?"

As Dante turns towards you, the "stuffed" pigeon's eye twitches towards you ever so slightly, confirming your guess.

[Ridai]

Remy is feeling so tired. Camp Bubble Brook is still haunting him, not because of the Siren (though that one was hella scary too), but because of the ghosts. Like how his brain likes to go back to every awkward or bad situation he was in when it has nothing better to do, it keeps cycling back to removing the ghosts, as well as speculating on what happened to the people who were at the camp in general, and where they might be now. It was one thing when someone died before all this superhuman business began. You could say stuff like "oh, they are probably in a better place now", but at the end of the day, you could go with "they are dead, that's it". Now with all this superhuman business and now even ghosts, suddenly an afterlife (or multiple) might actually be a thing, raising the question where people go after they die, and what happens if that is prevented, and chances are he won't get answers to that.

On a more mundane level, he has been in more life-or-death situations than he ever wanted to be, at times face-to-face with nightmare fuel death machines and the like. And his body still hurts from some leftover injuries. He has been healing pretty quick overall, leading to the suspicion that he is removing recovery time subconsciously, which opens up the questions of what else he might be unknowingly removing, or if that removal can screw up. And he really doesn't like to remove things for ultimately minor things, given the risk. He takes out the trash, he doesn't remove it, because that's what a psychopath would do.

Family still in shambles. No goddamn trace of Nora. Not one. It's been weeks!

So when someone talks near him as he is more or less slumped on the bench, another awkward memory is added to his vast archive, because he starts at the unexpected sound, visibly flinching. A woman sitting there, who doesn't seem like she wants to attack him. And hopefully isn't a secret cultist. At least she doesn't seem instantly afraid of him, like people have started to be about Nope (just why has that become a thing?!). "No no, 't's alright," Remy says in response almost automatically, in the tone he has been hoping for years is coming across as generally friendly. Great, now I made someone feel bad.

"Can be nice here. When there's no superbastards around." Well that is the word his brain chose at the moment, struggling through reviled small talk, situations when there isn't any real topic to discuss, but it would be awkward to say nothing. Never learned how that works (well, beyond people just immediately having their attention drift away). At least he had enough presence of mind to say "superbastards", not "turbo [c-word]", which sprang to mind first thinking about the cult. And the robots. And the chain gangers. And whatever you want to call Manchineel's stuff, and would have been immensely awkward, and also extremely silly, but would have been a more fitting descriptor in his mind.

Honestly he is still surprised someone would just randomly talk to him.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lily walked through the police station beside her brother, giving little smiles and waves to the officers she recognized, which was most of them. There was a part of her that was wondering if she should ask Ariadne if she could refit Andrew's uniform, next time she saw her. On the one hand, that seemed to kinda be taking advantage of her superhero team connections? On the other hand, it seemed like it should be a fairly trivial feat for thread magic. Lily didn't think she'd mind if one of her teammates asked her to drop by to spruce up their houseplants, or something.

(She'd do it herself, but unfortunately, the police uniforms were not made of 100% cotton fibers.)

Not important! She'd admit she...kinda wanted to hang around and listen to whatever interview Ntombi Peters was giving, but that probably wouldn't be authorized, and would be suspicious even if it was. She passed by without giving Ntombi a second glance, since Lily Woods had never met her.

"All good, I don't think I'll need anything super specialized for this," Lily said. Granted, being used to working in a fully stocked scientific laboratory, Lily's views of what counted as "normal expected" lab equipment might have possibly differed from the views of the Forester's Bay Police Department.

...Annnnd Hannah was waiting for them outside the lab. Her tone of voice, the glare she shot Andrew, and of course, the scent behind it all, were once again enough to bring Lily back to the mindset of their last fight. Andrew would be close enough beside her to notice her normal perfume-like scent shift immediately to the smell of fresh-baked bread.

Although...there was a part of her that was just quietly sad about that. She heard Andrew sigh and smelled the feelings on his breath as he braced himself for a fight. She noticed the change in her own scent, of course. She didn't...want this. She loved her brother and her sister, and she didn't want the first thing they all did upon walking into the same room as each other to be to prepare for a fight. It had never been like that before.

(Of course, thinking about it just made her even angrier at Hannah, for having to be so confrontational all the time, because sometimes family wasn't easy.)

"What?" she asked, her voice flat, defensive, her arms crossing unconsciously in front of her.

[Abracadangit]

"Is that..." Kal wonders, not entirely sure if she could trust her combat-addled memories of Wrath, at this point.

"You have met her before," Ariadne chimes in. "But she was not so nice, hnn, hnn."

"I'm going to follow her for a little bit, see if I can learn anything. Nothing too aggressive without the team here, though."

"You don't need them for every little thing," Ariadne counters, sounding callous and distrustful of help as ever.

"I know, I know, relax. Not a self-deprecation moment. I know I don't need them for every little thing. But this might turn out to be a big thing."

Kal looks ways before she enters the Garage, hoping this won't end up being a scene.

[Dorni]

Books and Bindings

"Exactly. Their 'tastes' are so narrow and anything outside of that might as well not exist to them." The sudden scent of the bookstore entrance drew a sniff from Flint, but not an unpleasant one. It reminded him of the local library they'd frequented as kids. It had been a weekly ritual for their parents to take the two of them to drop off last weeks stories and spend time choosing new ones - at least until sometime in high school when they'd gotten into video games.

He met the old man's glance with a pleasant smile. The pigeon got a glance as well, but Flint gave a small shrug and turned away. This was an older bookstore. A proprietor with eccentric taste in decorations was to be expected after all.

What was more surprising was Dante's sudden interest. "Warned?"

[Zelphas]

Finding Nothing

Surprisingly, the woman laughs in response to Remy's choice of words, a soft, sweet sound swiftly strangled by embarrassment. "Oh, I don't mean to--it's just... you sound like Ca--a fr--a coworker of mine." A bit of Texas drawl shows through on her words as she becomes more flustered, stopping and starting what she is saying several times. "I didn't mean to say--er, I should..." she trails off into silence.

A long few moments later, she painfully attempts to change the subject. "It's funny--wait, no, this place, I mean--" Mortified for reasons perhaps known only to her, she makes herself keep talking. "People don't--don't usually, I mean--come here much. You can kind of... disappear." The woman shrinks back from that word, folding in on herself slightly. "Not something I think I'd... I'm just filling the air, aren't I? I'll stop..."

Evidence Interrogation

Hannah doesn't change her stance as Lily marches up to her; her back is straight, arms crossed as well, still in full detective interrogation mode. "You're here because you're one of the best--if not the best--biochemist in Forester's Bay, and you might pick something up our techs missed," she says flatly, laying out the accolade as a statement of fact. "Once you find what you can find--if anything new--then your part in this is done. We can take care of the rest." Behind you, Andrew sighs again, radiating resigned, brotherly disappointment at the tone of the conversation.

Spoiler: Insight (Really Perception for Lily, but still) DC 20 (nested)

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From her scent, it seems like this is something of a compromise from Hannah, as though even admitting that you could help in the investigation as Lily is a stretch for you. Within her confrontational tone, she actually thinks she's being generous by letting you through at all.

Spoiler: DC 25

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...If that's the case, though, why is she here to say it, and why did she say it how she did? It's almost like she's trying to provoke you into a confrontation--a fight, or at least a screaming match. She'd get in a lot of trouble if she started screaming at a civilian in the middle of the police station, so why is she doing it?

Spoiler: DC 30

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Hannah would get in trouble... but so would you, for yelling at a police officer, especially in the current climate of Forester's Bay. It's not a stretch to think that if you start fighting loudly with your sister here, you could get kicked out of the police station... and then Hannah would have "protected" her little sister, in her own mind at least.

Patterns in Patterns

The street is almost entirely deserted; the Industrial Block is not somewhere to be caught out alone, though the daylight (and her own mystical strength) has kept Kal from being accosted by anything or anyone on her trip there.

The Garage of the future smells like motor oil, oil paint, wood shavings, and heated metal; an art studio and a car repair shop, rolled into one. The place is well lit with surprisingly soft lighting given its general shape and presentation as a small warehouse or car garage. The entire building is divided in half by a low wall that doesn't quite reach the ceiling; sounds of sandpaper and an occasional low buzz from a saw can be heard over the wall from the back end. The front area seems to be a gallery of some sort; several pieces of standing sculpture, from meticulous recreations of cityscapes in miniature wood to abstract piles of half-melted metal, dot the space, each with a small placard holding the name of the artist and of the piece. A smaller amount of paintings and engravings hang on the walls. Ariadne has things to say about each and every piece, if Kal wishes to listen.

Near the small door set in the center of the low wall are three people; Wrath, and a man and a woman. Wrath is speaking to them in a low voice that seems charged with some amount of emotion, though there's enough distance and noise in the Garage that Kal can't quite make out what she's saying. The woman, tall with short greying black hair and sharp features, is listening intently, her face hard to read. The man, short with thick, dark brown hair and a bushy beard, sees Kal enter and brightens with professional enthusiasm, half-raising a hand, before a snapped interjection by Wrath turns his attention back to her. Wrath doesn't turn around herself.

Books and Bindings

Dante glances back at Flint, irritated at the question, before shrugging and softening his features. "You are getting closer to that level, I suppose, and it is not one of the larger secrets. How much do you know of the myths of... our associate?" he begins, changing his verbiage at the last second since he is technically in public. "Birds of any stripe are not the most welcome in the Main Drag, given the circumstances. Some of our... friends are a little more enthusiastic about the issue than others, so I wanted to make sure the man heard the warning before he came into trouble. I'm surprised he hadn't heard before, is all."

Over Dante's shoulder, the "pigeon" ruffles its feathers ever so slightly before stilling again. The proprieter doesn't respond.

Spoiler: Expertise (Egyptian Myhtology) DC 20 (can be untrained) or (History) DC 25

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In Egyptian legends, the snake Apophis was thwarted in his attempts to consume the sun by a band of gods who protected Ra and his charge, most notably Ra's grandson Horus. Horus was a hawk-headed god, and had a strong connection to birds.

[Ridai]

Remy would like to think he at least speaks a bit more fluently in social situations, but then again, that usually is only the case when he isn't put on the spot. Damn loading pauses when he's nervous. Regardless, he can sympathize, and feels kind of bad for her, so in an attempt to be at least a bit reassuring, he raises a hand, palm facing down (and moving down), saying "Okay, calm down, it's fine. Really. Like actually fine, not 'bull**** polite lie' fine. Deep breath."

Short bit of silence, hands haphazardly back in his lap, staring ahead at nothing. "Don't really need to come here to disappear. Could do with people getting disappeared reappearing, though." Mental slap. Great move, Remy, blurting out personal problems to a stranger. At least it was relatively vague.

Remy really hates smalltalk.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lily's anger wasn't anything...focused, or specific here. It was just a kinda automatic reaction to a confrontation with Hannah - her anger from previous fights rearing back up. It was silly and she knew it was silly, but that didn't make her immune to it. When someone you love so much pisses you off, it hits ten times harder and ten times deeper than if it were a stranger.

Or at least, that was where her anger at the start of this conversation had come from.

But when Hannah made her statement, even without her augmented sense of smell, Lily would have caught the core intention behind it. It was all too obvious. Hannah considered herself to be compromising here, to be generously allowing Lily to take the risk of getting involved in her civilian capacity as a scientist.

Or, to put it another way, she wasn't sure Lily could handle even that.

No surprise, Hannah had said exactly the right thing to absolutely infuriate her sister. Lily had always been proud, particularly of her intellectual and scientific achievements. For Hannah to doubt her in a heroic capacity stung, sure, but to doubt her here, to think it was her job to protect her from doing some forensic chemistry in a freaking police lab...!

Yeah, without her heightened senses, Lily absolutely would have straight-up exploded here. Honestly it was a testament to Andrew's bravery that he hadn't taken a few steps back.

...But Lily did have her heightened senses, and that meant she wasn't basing her assessment of Hannah's words and intentions on her own natural, intuitive rapport. It meant she was able to pick up every tiny change in her sister's biochemistry and analyze it. It meant she recognized exactly what Hannah was trying to do here. Exactly how she was trying to manipulate her.

Exactly how willing she was to risk career repercussions to protect her helpless baby sister.

Gods blast it, fighting with people you love sucks!

Lily closed her eyes for a second or two. Just...processing. Letting it all flow through her. She was proud and she was angry, but for one getting a look at the evidence was potentially important and for another she didn't actually want to get her sister in trouble with her boss. So though it took an effort of will, she did not start screaming at Hannah at the top of her lungs.

She redirected that anger to the holdout option available to all younger siblings everywhere.

Sheer, irreverent cheek.

"I mean, obviously? I'm good at what I do, but it's not like Lily Woods, local biochemist extraordinaire, has much else to contribute on the police investigation front," she said, with a frankly trollish smile. It wouldn't take a superhuman sense of smell, or even Lily's natural rapport, to understand the subtext behind that statement: Floral doesn't answer to you, so nyeh.

[Abracadangit]

Kal does her best impression of someone looking at the art as she draws closer, but not too close. She does genuinely find the art interesting; as a designer herself, she enjoys checking out exhibitions or galleries when she can, if not for inspiration then just to see what people are making, and sometimes a little networking never hurt either.

Spoiler: OOC

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Routining Insight to get the information discussed in our aside. Gonna move close enough that it's non-threatening, but hopefully close enough to overhear more of what's being said.

[Dorni]

Books and Bindings

Flint pressed his lips in a thin line. His anger was complicated. He'd wanted to have just one afternoon where everything didn't circle back to the cult in some way. An out-of-the-way bookshop and the slim possibility of finding something useful to their new talents had seemed fairly safe. Putting aside the cult and getting lost in discussions with Dante about runes and aether was one of the few times that felt like they were their old selves. He'd hoped Dante wouldn't try bringing cult business into this mini-trip.

At the same time, there was no use pretending he could ignore the cult. Dante's warning was honest and potentially useful for avoiding trouble.

"I'll keep it in mind," he answered, a little stiffly. "Go ahead and warn him then."

[Zelphas]

Finding Nothing

The woman breathes in slowly, working to calm herself down. Her laugh in response to Remy's small comment has a bitter tinge to it, and... surprises Remy; for the few seconds between turning to talk to the woman and turning away, her presence had almost faded from his mind.

"Oh, so I was--I mean, I thought you might be..." The woman obviously struggles with her words and with trying to follow Remy's instructions about calming down. "You seemed like you... might be someone who had troubles with disappearing...too."

Evidence Interrogation

Hannah's eyes narrow, her irritation shining through for this moment clearly. Then, she gives Lily a tight smile. "Right. Looking over these scraps of evidence is definitely the best thing you can do with your time. You're smart enough to know that." She steps marginally to one side, as though allowing Lily through.

"So, should I call off the riot squad, or..." Andrew comments under his breath. He definitely didn't want that to be heard by either of his sisters. No sir.

Patterns Within Patterns

"--privacy won't be interrupted by a security system," Wrath is saying as Kal draws closer, her tone intent and tense. With Proxy grabbing up sheet metal by the truckload and going after museums, it's only a matter of time until he pops up here, and can I help you?" The last four words are somewhat louder, with Wrath turning to face Kal fully, her tone and face belligerent. The tension in the room ratchets up a few more degrees.

"Ana," The woman says after a moment, placing a hand on Wrath's shoulder. "We appreciate your concern, but we've talked about this. We aren't paying you, so you don't get to be our bodyguard." Wrath continues to look at Kal suspiciously, her stance growing only marginally less combative. "I found some interesting metal in the scrapyard yesterday," the man comments. Wrath's eyes flick his way for a second. "Not sure what alloy it is; high melting point, and it didn't give off any toxic fumes that I could find when heated. We set it aside for you." It takes another moment, but Wrath finally jerks her shoulder out from under the woman's hand, gives Kal another long, suspicious look, and turns away, moving quickly through the doors to the back room with a half-angry glance at the man.

"Sorry," the man says to Kal finally, his face creasing in an easy smile. "Tense times. Welcome to the Garage of the Future; name hasn't been changed yet." "Or ever." "It's an ongoing discussion. Do you have any questions?"

Books and Bindings

The skin around Dante's eyes tighten as he looks at Flint, the ghost of a not-quite-argument rising between the two brothers as it had more and more frequently of late. "...You find something in Latin that looks interesting, keep it in mind. I might know a translator." With that, Dante moves away.

Between the Bindings is an old used bookstore in every respect; eight-foot-tall bookshelves running most of the length of the store, crammed with dusty volumes of almost any stripe imaginable. Tiny cards at the ends of the bookshelves give general ideas as to genre and organization, but it's still quite the mess of paper and ink.

Spoiler: OOC

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Give me a Perception Check (with Mystic Sense) if you're looking for magical books, and/or an Investigation check if you're looking for books on magic.