Veil of Smog, Chapter 1

[Izzarra]

Spoiler: OOC

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No OOC thread, discord: https://discord.gg/FJucygvn

Spoiler: Players and Characters

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Players and Characters

Player	Character	Concept
Izzarra	Yume Tsukiyomi	Kitsune Shrine Maiden / Spirit Medium
MechaAce	Shroud	Regular Human
Batcathat	Rufus Walcraft	Alchemist
Xihirli	Counterbalance	Boxer
Esprit15	Sarah Stillwater	Chronomage / Speedster

The times change, but the battles don't. Magic flares up to a bonfire and fades down to an ember, but never burns out entirely. The names of the gods and the natures of their worship gain and lose popularity, but humanity always finds reason to give praise upwards. The names given to the enemies crawling up from below change, but the cautionary tales hidden in the stories remain. The heroes who rose to destroy the wickedness have faded into legend, but their call to action still echoes in our ancestral memory.

You have always seen the world a bit differently. Maybe it was in the window of that house. Yes, that one. The one everyone half-jokingly said was haunted. Everyone knew it was just an urban legend, they knew the murderer behind the disappearances had been caught years ago, but people walked past with their eyes averted anyways. You looked long and hard, and you saw something through the window. You didn't know what it was, and still don't wholly. When fact and reason fell short, you turned to mythology. Some of the stories got halfway to explaining what you saw, but other details seemed not to fit. You may have tried to ignore it, to move on with your life. You may have vainly tried to forget what you saw, but it burrowed into the back of your mind like a parasite. It gnawed away at your thoughts, and poisoned your perceptions. You began to see signs of the unnatural, the strange, and the inexplicable everywhere. Not only did the phenomena not make sense, they seemed truly impossible. Hard as you tried, you could find nobody to corroborate your account. It was as if they just weren't seeing the same things as you, as if the world genuinely was different for them. The truth seemed hidden from these people; hidden behind a veil that seemed oh so thin to you.

[Charybdis1618]

Welcome, friends, to Veil of Smog! Story progression will take place here. The initiating post will come soon.

[Charybdis1618]

Your life had a rhythm to it. Unusual as it may have been, separate from the mundane lives about you as it may have been, it was yours. You lived in, if not comfortable, at least stable and familiar equilibrium with your world. All that changed three days ago.

Sometimes, the smallest things have the largest impacts upon our lives. In each of your cases, it was a tiny slip of paper. You found it somewhere personal, somewhere private, somewhere secure. Somewhere nobody should have been able to get to, but somewhere you were absolutely guaranteed to find it today. The note said simply "Come to the Jackalope Room at The Smoking Pit in three days, at noon. There, you will discover your fate."

(Please describe who you are, and where the note was found.)

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

In the Olympic mountains west of Seattle there is a small Japanese Tamashigo shrine. The resident shrine maiden is one Yume Tsukiyomi. Most of the time she looks to be a young woman of Japanese decent except she has white hair and jade green eyes, she is in fact not human. The shrine doesn't get much activity so there is no need for a large on site staff. The days are peaceful, tending to the grounds, practicing martial arts, exploring the wilderness, the occasional call to perform various rituals and ceremonies.

While her private room doesn't have special security precautions, she has never had anyone break in before.
The appearance of a note with such a cryptic message is intriguing.

[Esprit15]

Midnight awakens from her meditation. Sleep was strange for a Hunter. The vast majority of her life could be spent living a mile a minute. She could start her faucet, then get dressed and put on her makeup in the time it took for water to touch her toothbrush if she wanted. But Father Night would not be denied his cut of time, not even from an immortal. And so she long ago learned to enjoy the ancient ritual of waking when Father Day saw fit to illuminate the sky and warm the air. Dawn had always said the ritual was something that kept them human - to take the time to enjoy the feeling of preparing one's self for the day.

And so when Midnight awoke, she breathes in the stagnant air of the apartment and stretches, before taking her time and walking to the kitchen to start the electric kettle. She turns on the faucet and smiles. 1926. That was the first year she lived in a house with a faucet. Her husband then was a stock broker in Spain, and while she had seen them in hotels in the United States the century prior, she never imagined that she would live somewhere where she would own one. And now the act of flipping a tap and water simply flowed into your house was as common as breathing. She carefully fills the kettle and flicks a switch, and the device instantly begins to heat up. Emanuel was also when she first had electricity in her home. She takes a quarter cup measure and fills the hand grinder with coffee beans, taking care to not spin the handle too quickly. She was a cook in the Hungarian army back when the beans were introduced to Europeans. Thought the drink made with the beans was equal parts divine and vile back then, and quickly became hooked on it. She hated electric grinders though. The noise was excruciating, and there seemed to be something lost in the flavor when the beans were crushed with the zeal the mechanical device employed. When the beans were ground, she poured them in the press, and added the steaming water. She then returned to the other side of the apartment to get dressed for the day.

In the office, Sarah Stillwater was the aloof, formal type. In her last life she had accidentally become the office mother, and absolutely refused to be that involved in the personal lives of her short lived coworkers again. It made hunting difficult, and meant being far more open about her life. That meant lies and tracking lies and the whole thing was so much work that she considered killing off Diana after only three years just to get out of the mistake. So Sarah was instead the woman who wore glasses in the office and was totally wearing contacts outside of work and whose style of dress was so in line with dress code that one would think it was based on her. As she looks at the woman in the mirror, for the first time in a while she notices the subtle scars before they disappeared under layers of primer, foundation, blush, and powder. A claw from a werewolf. Blotches from the draining touch of a ghost. The last vestiges of necrosis from the poisoned blade of a friend. A split lip from a wine drunk celebratory brawl that would have made a Roman blush. And in a moment, it's all gone, beneath a physical mask as much as it was behind a mental one. Her messy hair is in a moment carefully arranged as the stylist recommended: "Office professional. Long enough to look feminine, short enough to be practical. Parted to..." blah blah blah blah blah.

Sarah steps out of the bathroom and warms a pan on the stove, carefully placing two slabs of bacon and enjoying the sizzle as they meat hits the hot metal. When a decent pool of grease forms, she removes the meat and cracks two eggs into the pan, and adds more spice than she would have dreamed of adding to food a millennium ago - that is, a typical amount, if slightly less. While the eggs sizzle, she quickly slices the bacon up and then tosses it back into the pan. After a few seconds, she scoops the eggs out of the pan with a spatula and carefully places them on her plate, and sits by the window to continue watching the sun rise over the city. Father Day was quickly chasing his brother's purple cloak across the blue sky. Soon she would be at work, but for now she could still enjoy a morning meal that required neither farming nor hunting nor garden nor servants. People were always surprised when Sarah spoke fondly of her little studio. And while she had lived in bigger and more luxurious, she'd never enjoyed the same combination of luxury and anonymity as she had in the 21st century. It was so... normal for everyone today to live like this, and most had no idea.

Eventually, she reaches into her suit pocket and checks her pocket watch. Hardly necessary - she knew the time of day quite well by the height of the sun and the time of year. But the ritual of checking the time before leaving was something she too found pleasant. She flips open the watch... and her heart skips a beat.

The time was 8:30am. Exactly what she expected.

Not expected was a single, little slip of paper.

Clearly, purposefully affixed to the inner side of the cover.

In a watch that nobody would reasonably pay attention to.

Hidden in a suit pocket.

Hanging in her closet.

Inside her locked apartment.


"Come to the Jackalope Room at The Smoking Pit in three days, at noon. There, you will discover your fate."


In the time it would take a pin to drop, Midnight grabs her bow and quiver, stows them in her backpack, and without bothering to clean up her breakfast leaves the apartment. She only pauses briefly to check that the door lock indeed works.

[Charybdis1618]

In the time it would take a pin to drop, Midnight grabs her bow and quiver, stows them in her backpack, and without bothering to clean up her breakfast leaves the apartment. She only pauses briefly to check that the door lock indeed works.

Do you intend to hang out around The Smoking Pit for the next three days, if you're leaving immediately?

[Esprit15]

Midnight stops by the Smoking Pit before work to at least get a vibe of the area. Was it a bar, a store, etc? If the former it would presumably be closed at that hour, so she’d then check on it after work.

[Xihirli]

Leif pounded another nail in under the hot sun. He wiped his brow and took a long gulp from his water bottle.
“Hey! Nartz…Nah… New kid!” The foreman shouted from the ground. Leif scooted over to the side of the roof and looked down.
“Yeah?” He called down.
“You old enough to drive yet?”
Leif nodded.
“Then come drive the truck, some of the beams broke. Go get more.”
Leif grabbed his hammer, gathered up the nails, and slid down the ladder. “On it. How many do we need, and what kind?”
The foreman handed him a slip of paper. “Give that to Chazz, he’ll help you load up. If we need any smaller than we got, tell Chazz to train you on the saw while he cuts em.”
Leif nodded, slipped the paper into his pocket, and reached for the keys. The foreman tossed them, and Leif fumbled. The keys hit the cement under his foot, partially buried in a layer of wood dust. Leif picked them up and walked to the truck. He slapped the hood to scare off any animals hiding under it and got in.
He tried a few stations on the way over. After the third song where he couldn’t find out if the singers wanted to have sex with a woman or a truck he shut the whole radio off.
Rett’s Builders. He’d had to show up to a volunteer rebuilding after a storm to get in, but he was fitting pretty well. Steady work, a manageable amount of disrespect, and none of the staff said anything if he grabbed a beer from the employee fridge. Though he did want to get to a state where he’d have an easier time getting the T. California, maybe. He’d been traveling in roughly that direction ever since… he shook his head and kept his eyes on the road. Thinking about that just made her flare up.
He backed up so that the back of the truck would be nearest the main building when they were loading. Popping out, he opened the back up. “Chazz!” He hollered. The portly man who minded the workshop when the laborers headed out threw the door open.
“We need these from the shed.” Leif handed over the list. “And foreman says if we need to cut some smaller you should show me how.”
“Which foreman?”
“Uh…” Leif shrugs. “Not Rett.”
“No **** it ain’t Rett. Rett’s giving a quote for the new mall. Who was it?”
“Get off my back, Chazz. I don’t know, alright? I’m still learning the names here. Do we need to cut some smaller or what?”
Chazz spared a moment to glower at Leif. “Yeah, we do. This way.” Then, in not nearly a quiet enough voice, he added ‘bitch.’
Leif pretended he didn’t hear it. Chazz was way less replaceable than him. And Leif was… pretty sure Chazz was HR? It was tough to tell, Leif wasn’t exactly looking for a legally structured spot when he threw his lot in with Rett’s.
“We’re going to load up what we’ve got first, since the small stuff goes in last anyhow,” Chazz instructed. “Fill the truck with eight of the four-by-four-by-tens.” He pointed out some ten-foot-long beams. Leif nodded and hoisted one up, backing away from the wall to get room to balance the beam on his shoulder.

Leif was caked in sweat, but the truck was mostly full. “Alright Chazz, let’s cut some.”
“You really don’t know how to?” Chazz asked, glancing up from his newspaper.
“Of course I do. I just haven’t with Rett’s, and I don’t have a damn certificate that says ‘can feed the saw.’ Now come on, let’s get this done.” Leif nodded to the machine. Chazz sighed and stood.
“Get three four-by-four-by-fours, we’ll make them into twos.”
Leif nodded and piled up three of them in his arms while Chazz got the machine going. Chazz took the first one and didn’t explain a damn thing as he set it down and pushed it into the saw.
Leif was glad he didn’t explain anything – Chazz was liable to slip in a sexist joke or two while he was around, if the older man got to talking for too long. Which might have been alright if not for the overlong apologies. Leif watched the machine to see if anything was different from the saws he’d seen in the past. Everything seemed the same… then his blood hissed.
“No… not now…” Leif mumbled.
“Something wrong, kid?”
The world at large quieted so that the shrieking could get louder. The colors all around him molded, brushed together. His skin started flaking off as parts of him died and then recovered in milliseconds. The saw… the saw! Its electronic buzzing filled his ears… and her ear, too. Leif’s left eye turned purple as the yellow face made out of the dead skin on Leif’s poked out and shouted “SILENCE!”
“Whoa!” Chazz said, and lurched backwards. His hand slipped and his arm was headed right for the saw.
Leif darted forward and grabbed Chazz’s arm before it could hit, but the back of his hand went right into it. His hand lit with burning pain as blood splattered, but he was able to pull Chazz and himself away from the thing.
“Holy ****, kid! What the hell was that?”
“What was what? You slipped… ****!” Leif said, cradling his hand.
“The face, and… you’re hurt! Let me look at that.”
“No, I’ve had worse. First aid kits are still in the restrooms, right?” Leif turned his body to put his back in between his hand and Chazz.
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Great.” Leif speed-walked to the bathroom and kicked his way in. The heavy door slammed behind him and Leif listened for a second to make sure he was alone. He lifted one hand off of the other to see it flawless, without a hint of a nick where a saw had gotten him.
“Stay the hell in unless you’re going to actually leave,” he whispered, and wrapped his uninjured hand until he was pretty sure it looked wrapped. He had to finish his shift and get to class, anyway.

That night, Leif met up with Ezana and the gang at the usual place. The night started as it often did – with a hug between Leif and his friend who'd named himself after an ancient Ethiopian King.
"Can't wait to see you in the ring tonight, Counter."
“Sorry, Ezana, I’m not fighting today.” Leif shrugged. “Sweetheart says I gotta stop coming home with a broken nose.”
“Heh. Yeah, right. I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen you bruise, Counter. Not that you don’t get your **** kicked in half the time.”
“I said I’m not fighting, Ezana. Just wanted to say hello to the crew.”
“Fine, I won’t beat your face tonight. Come on, we’re all further in.”
A brawl was already underway between Gristle and Bloodhound, so Leif was at least able to join the chanting audience without too many people calling him out. But shortly after Gristle was carried off of the bloody pavement, Knives (so named because no matter how carefully he was searched he seemed to always be able to pull a knife in his fights) clapped Leif on the back.
“Counter! Whaddaya say? You and me take the next spot and we all have one last hurrah from Counterbalance?”
“Nah, Counter can’t play tonight, his sweetheart says no,” Ezana teased.
“Oh, can we not keep him out past midnight either? How about a beer? You allowed to drink a beer?” Knives offered him a bottle, and Leif took it.
“Yes, Knives, I am. And I’m staying to watch the whole night. Don’t want to miss my boy Ezana making sure you can never hold a knife again, after all.” Leif took a swig while the guys immediately surrounding him and Knives added in jeers at whichever one of the arguing pair they thought of a clever insult for.
Knives laughed and pulled Leif into another bear hug. He was going to have a lot of those that night. “When I’m stabbin’ ya again and again, I can’t getcha to back down, but now that I wanna scrap you’re chickening out?”
Leif laughed along with the surrounding crowd and ignored everyone who yelled for him to get into the ring.
A fight between Ezana and Knives followed shortly, and at first Knives was getting his ass handed to him, but when he came up from the ground swinging a knife at Ezana’s throat the crowd failed to act surprised. Leif fought his way to the front of the impromptu fight ring made of the bodies of those waiting for their turn to brawl, ready to step in and drag Ezana out if things got bad. They’d all taken a stabbing or two, but Knives could get out of hand fast.
The fights were governed by simple rules: weapons are confiscated, then you’re thrown into the middle of a ring and you fight until one of you falls or quits. Other than that, no real rules. Importantly, the confiscation happened outside of the actual fight arena, so if you “found” a weapon inside, that was all fine. Knives wasn’t seen as a cheat, it wasn’t against the rules to not be searched thoroughly enough. If anything, the others admired his skill at hiding his weapons.
Knives swung his switchblade in a wide arc to get Ezana to back up, and once he had room he lined up for a throw at Ezana’s gut. Leif felt a large hand wrap around his arm and pull him in, followed by a piercing pain right under his ribcage.
Ezana tossed Leif back at the ring, where he was dragged to the back with people shouting: “Get him to Patches!”
Patches wasn’t a scrapper, but they took him into the crew because he’d flunked out of medical school. He charged less than hospitals and asked significantly fewer questions. He was pretty good at dealing with stabbings too, from all the practice he got.
“Alright, give him some room. I’m gonna take the knife out. Leif, get ready to cover it…” Patches handed over a gauze-soaked pad. “...and I’ll wrap it. Ready?”
Leif nodded, and grunted as the knife came back out. He covered up the rapidly-healing puncture wound, listening to Ezana beat the snot out of Knives in the background.
The crowd broke up and the Ethiopian-American stepped out victorious, snatching up his winnings before crouching down next to Leif.
“Standard stab wound fee, one-fifty,” Patches told Leif.
“Sounds reasonable. Ezana, pay the man.” Leif nodded to his friend, who chuckled and forked over the cash.
“Sorry, Counter, but I knew you could handle it. And you’ve disarmed Knives the same way.” Ezana meant Leif had used his own torso to hold onto Knives’s weapons, not someone else’s. It worked.
“Remind me never to go up front again.”
“Pass,” Ezana grinned, and helped Leif stand. “Come on, I’ll drive you home as thanks for your help.”
Leif threw his shirt in the back of Ezana’s car so that the fighter wouldn’t see that it wasn’t nearly as bloody as it should have been.

Leif didn’t bother hiding the bandages from Aster, who should have just gotten in from their last shift at the bar, he just headed into the bathroom and started unwrapping them.
“Leif, I told you I didn’t want you getting into any fights.”
“I didn’t… not on purpose, anyway. I just stopped in to say hello to the boys. Knives had a gift for me.”
“He stabbed you?”
“Not exactly on purpose, either.” Leif told Aster what happened, then brushed his teeth and let Aster vent.
“Ezana claims to be your friend and uses you as a human shield? He could have killed you!” At a sidelong glance from Leif, Aster sighed. “Okay, he couldn’t have killed you, but he didn’t know that!"
Leif let them keep going and slid open the closet door to find something to change into after his shower. "Uh... Aster? Why is uh... this in the front of the closet?"
Aster looked up at the funerary gown front and center in the closet. It was big, for a dress of its size, though Leif's measurements had mostly changed since the last time he'd worn it. "Uh... I don't know. I just got in from the bar."
Leif cautiously lifted it up and started moving it back into the back of the closet where it belonged. First the heavy dress... then the separately hung veil.
A card fell out of the veil, and Leif picked it up.
"What's it say?" Aster asked.
"Come to the Jackalope Room at The Smoking Pit in three days, at noon. There, you will discover your fate."
Aster looked confused and concerned, and started gathering their key, Leif's key, and the spare to make sure all three were accounted for. "Does this mean...?"
Leif nodded somberly. "Someone knows."

[Charybdis1618]

Midnight stops by the Smoking Pit before work to at least get a vibe of the area. Was it a bar, a store, etc? If the former it would presumably be closed at that hour, so she’d then check on it after work.

The Smoking Pit is a combination bar and barbecue joint. It has a palpable air of neglect and apathy. You can practically feel the grease sticking to the seats and tablecloths just by looking at it. Inside, you see a number of hunting trophies hung on the walls. Over the doorway to the rentable private room in the back is a jackalope head, a rabbit head with antlers attached. As you look at it, it feels like it looks back at you, staring into your soul. There are a few patrons, sitting like they never intend to leave their spots. The bartender wears a sauce-stained black apron, and nods quietly as you enter.

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

Yume looks up The Smoking Pit on her phone. She steps outside and with the wave of her arm disappears from sight. To the casual observer some branches on trees twitch slightly as an invisible figure hops from tree to tree as light as a sparrow. Wavelets in the Puget sound splash unusually as she crosses over to the city. Drivers are oblivious as she catches a ride atop the occasional box truck.

Eventually she arrives at the bar where she carefully looks around, only the faintest of footsteps to give away her presence.

Spoiler: OOC

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Concealment (All Visual Senses), Precise, Passive

[MechaAce]

Fiona was in uniform, laying on a dusty rock, watching some tangos through her scope. She in Afghanistan, or was it Iraq or Syria this time? She took the point as they crept up on a small house, colorless and sandblasted. She kicked open the door and then was in a luxurious study surrounded by antique books.

She looked down and was in a respectable suit, looked up and saw the Shroud was on her face. The client she was with now had a lizard head and was sucking on the blood of a Chinese woman in a maid uniform. A pistol was in her hand, barking loudly as she tried to put the thing down, but it took sawing at its neck with her combat knife to do it, she had to twist the handle over and over.

Then she was twisting the throttle of her jet-black bullet bike, firing a SMG one-handed at a van in front of her, the open door filled with armed thugs. The sound of the bullets was drowned out by the roaring of the vehicles. She caught two with a burst and they fell forward onto the blacktop. Just two left.

A glowing "2:00" floated in front of her. She was in bed, at home, laying on her side. Just a dream. All the things she'd seen and done over the years have just sunk in deeper, the newer stuff compressing the older ones, a palimpsest of trauma. The Shroud was laying next to the phone dock... she put her hand on it... and the compact Glock 43 pistol underneath it. A bit of solid reality after another night of bad dreams. Something crinkled under it though. She pulled it off (and onto her face without a second though), saw the folded paper that was definitely not there when she went to bed, scanned over the text... and picked up the gun in a flash, throwing off the comforter. She was on her feet in a flash, covering the four corners of the room. Nothing there, whoever did it had come and gone, and had to be something weird.

Before she could think twice, she was creeping down her hall to Mei Ling's room, pistol in a two-handed grip until she let go with one to work the knob. The small woman was still there, dispelling visions of her having been taken, or left in pieces. She sank down the wall to sit on the floor and read the note again. A threat? An oblique one. "Well, you have my attention..." she said to herself.

One would think there'd be no going back to sleep after this much of a jolt, but after checking the doors and windows, Fiona managed.

She went about her business normally, not letting on to Mei Ling about anything more than a meeting in three days. She drove by there the next day, taking a look, and did some online research, reached out to a contact in the police, another former brother in arms to see if there was anything noteworthy about the location or its owner, if it was in anyone's turf.

In any case, it wasn't Fiona Johnson that showed up at the designated time and place, but the masked vigilante known in whispers as The Shroud, a small arsenal under her knee-length coat.

[Charybdis1618]

Yume looks up The Smoking Pit on her phone. She steps outside and with the wave of her arm disappears from sight. To the casual observer some branches on trees twitch slightly as an invisible figure hops from tree to tree as light as a sparrow. Wavelets in the Puget sound splash unusually as she crosses over to the city. Drivers are oblivious as she catches a ride atop the occasional box truck.

Eventually she arrives at the bar where she carefully looks around, only the faintest of footsteps to give away her presence.

The smells of cooking meat, burning fat, moldering beer, and languishing human fill the air inside. You have to step carefully to avoid sticky or dirty spots in the floor that would show a pawprint. Even when hiding under a table, you feel the jackalope's eyes following you. Somehow, despite being dead, and despite seeming mundane, it stares into your soul.

[Esprit15]

The Smoking Pit is a combination bar and barbecue joint. It has a palpable air of neglect and apathy. You can practically feel the grease sticking to the seats and tablecloths just by looking at it. Inside, you see a number of hunting trophies hung on the walls. Over the doorway to the rentable private room in the back is a jackalope head, a rabbit head with antlers attached. As you look at it, it feels like it looks back at you, staring into your soul. There are a few patrons, sitting like they never intend to leave their spots. The bartender wears a sauce-stained black apron, and nods quietly as you enter.

Sarah nods to the man as she enters, and takes a seat at the bar. She should have gone home to change. She looked like she came straight from the office. The woman glances at the taps and frowns briefly. Nothing great. “Afternoon. Can I get… eh, the bock and a menu?” She didn’t really intend to order any food, but a beer meant she was paying, and paying customers got more service than non-paying.

“I’m kinda new around here. Nice little place. Owner or worker?”

[Batcathat]

I'm too old for such drama, was Rufus' first thought after reading the small note he had found in the middle of his desk, where it certainly hadn't been the night before. It seemed someone had gone through quite a bit of trouble to satisfy their flair for the dramatic.

Picking up his cane and absentmindedly tapping it against the floor, he read the note again. Discover your fate, eh? Dramatic, indeed. But he couldn't deny a growing tingle of excitement at the mystery. It could be a trap, of course. Then again, someone who could enter his home unseen needed no melodramatic charades to do him ill.

He held up the note towards the light, studying it without really expecting to find much. "Jiminy", he called out over his shoulder.

"What?" The homunculus came out from under one of the tables, where he'd made his... lair? Office? World's smallest man-cave?

Rufus bent down – the cane creaking under the strain – and handed Jiminy the note, which looked like a poster in his doll-sized hands. "What do you make of this?"

"Someone really wants you to come to their birthday party?"

The only response was a noise equal parts annoyed, dismissive and degrading.

"Who sent it?"

Rufus walked over to the window and stared out at the street, as if hoping the mysterious sender happened to be passing by. "That would be the question. I just found it on the desk in my supposedly quite secure workshop."

Had he been a more accurate simulacrum of a human, Jiminy would have started sweating nervously. Among his many, many duties was overseeing the security of Walcraft House.

Though what humanity he lacked in the sweat department, he made up for in the blaming his subordinates department. "Pike!"

Moments later, the golem in question lumbered into the room. Unlike Jiminy, the golems were human-sized and always walked as if they weren't quite sober. "Ye-ees?"

"Have any outsiders entered the house today?"

"Nh-ooh", replied the golem.

Rufus rolled his eyes. Unfortunately, the golems shared not only the basic materials with a brick wall but also the approximate IQ level. "Might as well ask the houseplants if they've seen anything." He sighed. "No use worrying about how the message was left for now, there are too many options."

Jiminy raised an eyebrow. "So what are we worrying about?"

In an unexpected feat of athleticism, Rufus grabbed the note out of Jiminy's hands and read it once more. "My fate, it would seem."

Spoiler: OOC

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If it's not clear, Pike and some other so far unseen golems are the personnel of Walcraft House. The rules specifically mentions golems as one of the examples, so I'm assuming it's alright.

[Charybdis1618]

Yeah, golems are fine. Were a mundane to visit the house, they would assume that Pike was an ordinary, if slow, bodyguard. How tall is Jiminy?

[Charybdis1618]

Sarah nods to the man as she enters, and takes a seat at the bar. She should have gone home to change. She looked like she came straight from the office. The woman glances at the taps and frowns briefly. Nothing great. “Afternoon. Can I get… eh, the bock and a menu?” She didn’t really intend to order any food, but a beer meant she was paying, and paying customers got more service than non-paying.

“I’m kinda new around here. Nice little place. Owner or worker?”

He speaks, his voice husky from years of inhaling smoke. "Tom. I'm the general manager, so a bit of both. Menu's on the board. We have a special on elk sausage tonight, if you're curious. One bock, coming up while you think about it."

[Esprit15]

Elk actually did sound amazing. “Think I’ll have to try that.”

The answer that he was promoted into the role, rather than established it. “Gotcha, gotcha.” Her gaze drifts to the jackelope. “There a story behind that?”

[Charybdis1618]

Elk actually did sound amazing. “Think I’ll have to try that.”

The answer that he was promoted into the role, rather than established it. “Gotcha, gotcha.” Her gaze drifts to the jackelope. “There a story behind that?”

Without breaking the flow of conversation, he scribbles your order on his little pad and passes it behind his back through the window. "Not much of one. Was brought in by a regular of ours. Weird guy, but helluva hunter. I wouldn't doubt that he dropped both the elk and the rabbit himself."

[Esprit15]

Both? Midnight just nods. She had assumed it was just a rare species. “Who just brings in a mounted animal like that to a bar though? Even a regular. Was he already kind of an odd guy?”

[Charybdis1618]

Both? Midnight just nods. She had assumed it was just a rare species. “Who just brings in a mounted animal like that to a bar though? Even a regular. Was he already kind of an odd guy?”

"Not unusual here. Most of this taxidermy comes from our regulars. Except that oryx over the door. That one was me." He beams for a moment. "We're a haven for some local hunters. We buy good-quality meat off you and serve it as a special. Speak of the devil..."

He turns around and grabs the place from the window. Beside two steaming links of sausage, each butterfly-cut and seared on a grill, there is a small mound of macaroni and cheese and a short length of corn on the cob. He grabs a roll of silverware from under the counter.

"Here you are. Enjoy. I'll be around if you need anything else."

With that, he sidles away to take an order from down the bar.

The food is decent. Nothing special in seasoning, but it was clearly made with care. The corn and mac both taste fresh, at a minimum. The sausage is plump and solid, with a nice balance of meat and fat. The gamey flavor of the elk is front and center, without being overwhelming.

[Esprit15]

“Haven for local hunters, eh? Well I do enjoy a bit of bow hunting every now and then.” Midnight takes a swig of the beer before slowly digging into the food. She wasn’t fond of corn - Americans put too much of the crop in their food as is - but she could at least appreciate the preparation. The mild seasoning was nostalgic for the ancient woman. She eats slowly, savoring each bite.

As she eats, she makes note of the other patrons and the animals that have been hunted here. She does her best to memorize faces. Whether anyone (besides her) looked out of place in appearance or behavior.

Eventually, she gets up and goes off in the direction of the restroom. As she steps into the hallway, she places her hand in her pocket, feeling the tick of her pocketwatch. The time between each tick grows longer as she walks in time with it. Two seconds per tick. Ten seconds. A minute. She feels the gears nearly stop as she steps into the bathroom. At this speed a normal human wouldn’t even register her presence as she looked around the bar more closely.

Spoiler

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Using Quickness and HiPS to examine the whole bar. Looking at how many rooms there are, if there’s anything strange about them, if there seem to be any hidden doors, etc.

Let me know what, if anything, I need to roll.

[Charybdis1618]

No one looks out of place per se. Nobody is paying undue attention to their surroundings, nobody watched you go with undue interest. Nobody here at the moment seems overtly magically active. As for the building itself, it seems mostly mundane. The feeling of the jackalope staring into your soul remains even now, but nothing physically bars your entry into the Jackalope Room. It seems like a perfectly ordinary party room, tacky red and white checkered tablecloth notwithstanding. There is a surprisingly large walk-in freezer, but it only contains hanging animal carcasses and ordinary food items. Its cellar storeroom is well-organized. There is nothing like a business office or manager's desk. You're pretty sure Tom noticed the freezer door open briefly, but he did nothing more than push it closed in passing. None of the walls are thick enough to have a hidden door, and the cellar seems to take up the entire footprint of the building.

Spoiler

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Don't bother rolling, it's obvious there's nothing special or untoward about this place or its patrons.

[Izzarra]

Yume Tsukiyomi Kitsune Shrine Maiden Conditions: None

The smells of cooking meat, burning fat, moldering beer, and languishing human fill the air inside. You have to step carefully to avoid sticky or dirty spots in the floor that would show a pawprint. Even when hiding under a table, you feel the jackalope's eyes following you. Somehow, despite being dead, and despite seeming mundane, it stares into your soul.

It is at times like this that Yume wishes that it was easier to wear shoes while in her native anthropomorphic form.
She pulls out an ofuda, a specially prepared talisman with Japanese calligraphy, and places it on her forehead and channels some ki into it causing the ink to change into the appearance of a third eye. Then looks at the jackalope again.

Spoiler: OOC

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Sight Tag
- Counters Concealment/Invisibility (Vision)
- Counters Illusion (Vision)
- Magical Awareness (Vision)

[Charybdis1618]

It is at times like this that Yume wishes that it was easier to wear shoes while in her native anthropomorphic form.
She pulls out an ofuda, a specially prepared talisman with Japanese calligraphy, and places it on her forehead and channels some ki into it causing the ink to change into the appearance of a third eye. Then looks at the jackalope again.

There is a minor magical signature to the jackalope head. It is harmless, and would have no effect upon a mundane. It is a sort of communication magic, designed to convey an impression that the head is watching you.

[Charybdis1618]

The appointed day and time arrives.

Please make a round of Initiative rolls to see who arrives first. Those who scouted the place in advance get a +3. When the order is established, I'll announce when people should arrive. Give us time to have the encounters sequentially.

[Esprit15]

Midnight takes the day off and around an hour before the meeting, casts her ritual. A simple spell, but it required the sacrifice of time and effort to Mother Earth nevertheless. As she finishes, Arkhermiens lights up like a Yule tree with the characteristic orange-blue of transmutational magic and the gravelly-platinum of temporal magic. She gives the bow a single draw in quicktime, and the string stretches appropriately, rather than snapping like a traditional bow would when drawn at such speed.

Satisfied, she carries the bow over her shoulder today as she makes her way to The Smoking Pit. Maybe if the meeting went well she would have an actual chat with locals about wild game in the area, get some information about what lurks in the woods. That was a huge benefit from the last thirty years compared to the prior thousand or two - way fewer people treated her going hunting as something too bizarre. The past few decades after a warming up period, she could just talk to hunters about what they found in the woods, listen to the “Ain’t seen nothin’ like it” stories. And her personal bow would certainly draw eyes. The weapon was once a simple bow made from the heartwood of a single tree, but over the millennia grew to be a composite of wood, bone, and horn. Only a few splinters of the original remained.

She gives the room a once over look before heading into the jackalope room.

[Charybdis1618]

The main room is abandoned. The barkeep glances you over, then glances at the jackalope without a word.

The doors to the Jackalope Room are closed, with a sign hung from a hook reading "Reserved for private event." Opening the door, the smell of a summer barbecue wafts out. You see plates of ribs, sausage, corn, and roasted asparagus, as well as bowls of pasta salad, potato salad, leafy salad, mashed potato, and baked beans. Pitchers of sangria and lemonade sit in ice bowls at the end. In the head seat of the dining table, you see a single man sitting. He is late middle-aged, his shaggy brown hair streaked with grey. His face is tanned and lined, with a short cropped beard also streaked with grey. He pushes himself to his feet as you enter.

"Welcome. I take it my invitation reached you. Call me Loukas. How may I address you?"

He has a faint accent coloring the edges of his words, possibly Spanish from the trill on the r sounds.

[Esprit15]

”Podéis llamarme Stillwater, Señor Loukas,” Sarah says as she takes a seat, noting the accent and switching effortlessly to the other language. She flips open the pocket-watch and places the paper on the table in a brusque motion.

Spoiler: OOC

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How we doing with magical auras?

[Charybdis1618]

"αυτό δεν θα είναι απαραίτητο," ("That won't be necessary,") he sighs. "My English is fine. Greek schools teach it too. Anyhow. Welcome. Please eat. The ribs are excellent this time of year. Stillwater, I parsed? Yeah, excuse the means of the invitation. I had to do it that way. I shall explain when all our guests are here. Oh, and please stop trying to read my magic. It will just confuse you."

Spoiler

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You definitely saw the faint aura about the jackalope head, and could figure out that it was mostly a communication effect as described before. It would have no effect on a mundane. Looking at Loukas, you can see a swirling mist behind his eyes, dancing across the surface of his brain, looking like many things and nothing all at once.

[Esprit15]

”You’ll forgive my suspicion when someone sneaks messages into my apartment. Humans don’t like having their privacy violated like that. Given the clientele at our meeting point, you should be more than aware of that.” She does not end the spell early, both out of prickly spite and because ideally the other guests would not be similarly obscured.