The next day, when Compton climbs out of the fart sack he putters through his morning absolutions with more direction and urgency than usual. Avoiding most his collegiates, which isn't at all difficult as 20-something junkies are notoriusly night-hawkish, he starts to collect the odds and sods he takes on his road trips. Almost ritualistically after all these years. Such things as a bottle of Canadian Club, some charcoal, spray paint, rope, multi-tool, and some arcane choices from his library. Lastly he dons his ever present army coat and rolls some of the bodies laying around the Loft for some cash.
On his way out the door he leaves a note on the fridge as an afterthough, it reads:
Gone to get my gun. -C.
Out on the street, bright and early. The only thing stiring in the slums are the odd alley cat. Compton unpacks a can of spray paint and marks out a roughly rounded square on the sidewalk, and then puts an H in the middle. Next he digs out a piece of pink paper which he sets alight with a cheap BIC. Dropping it to the ground where it burns out on top of the rough depiction of a Honda symbol and looks at his watch, quietly counting down the seconds.
[Willpower] Compton spends a Willpower point.
Compton rolls intelligence+occult (8 dice) at a difficulty of 7:
<9> <7> <9> -1- <7> <10> <8> 4
Achieving 5 successes, resulting in a phenomenal success!
There is a quiet in the air. Like a collective holding of breath before something incredible is going to happen. A sense of anticipation fills the air. And it happens. There is a rushing sound, like that of air being displaced. You see some faint glow, almost like a short aurora borealis before its there. The ugly little Honda Element sitting there. The window is open. There is a bag of groceries on the passenger seat and the keys are still in the ignition. It would seem someone had just gotten home from shopping. In the back are several more bags of food.
"Sweet." is his simple appraisal of the situation and collects his stuff. Dropping it in the back amongst the sundries of suburban life he greets his rather homely travel companion, "Hey toots. Good to see ya again. Wanna go for a ride?"
Compton gets in without waiting for an answer. He's not crazy you know. Well, not that way.
Indeed, the car does not respond to your words. At least, not immediately. When you turn the key in the ignition, it comes to life. The engine makes that purring sound that a new foreign car makes. It has all the fixin's. Power steering, power windows, power seats, air conditioning, a CD player and a CD collection (Complete works of Billy Joel, Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand). The seats are leather and it still has that new car smell.
Compton slips on the Barbra as a guilty pleasure, safe in the knowledge that the kids are all near dead right now and it is safe to do so.
'Send in the Clowns' is on when COmpton hits the Highway heading in to the sunrise.
WEATHER REPORT: The clouds overhead begin to move off, leaving clear skies.
It takes about forty minutes to clear through all of the streets and mini-highways before hitting actual interstate highway. There's nothing quite as freeing as good music, windows open and a vehicle on cruise control to really make one appreciate a road trip. About two hours in to your trip, in the distance, you can see that there might be some fairly unpleasant weather as the clouds are gray looking and the wind blowing in to your window carries the taste of moisture on it, the threat of rain.
Of cource there is. This is fucking Oregon... Compton thinks. Suddenly missing the relativly temperatness of Ontario.
But his mind isn't just on these trivial things. He's on a mission afterall. In search of his lost Grail... fucking FedEx. As he thinks this he reaches over and rummages through his sachel for a clunky looking piece of equipment. From the looks of the black thermo-resin casing with fake chrome trim, dating it at least 30 years old it is some kind of primitive radio device. He plunks it on the spacious dash and fiddles with a tuning knob until a steady dull beep comes through clearly.
What Compton is doing is setting up a link with his Patron, Pa Bell. A Spirit Guide have you, residing in the burnt out shell of Telstar-1.
For the moment it's silent. Perhaps simply too far from the mark for you to get any kind of read for Pa Bell to work with. Fortunately for you that your ride through Oregon is mercifully short, just a small part of the trip. A rainy part of it. A fairly unimpressive part of it but it's done and over with as the I-82 takes you through to Idaho. Yes. Idaho. Home of the potato. Woop de shit. Look? There's a sign on the side of the road. Fifteen miles to the site of the World's Largest Potato!
Compton is sorely tempted. Having something of a weird compulsion to buy campy postcards... but no. That would be staged as he doesn't have to actually stop there, it'd be frivilous. Shame really.
Okay, so we're in Idaho. It's been a few hours and he's drank a quart of the Sunny D he's found in one of the bag. Weird stuff. Like new age Tang.
He decides it's time for a rest and pulls off at the first Gas n Gulp he finds.
Around noon, you just can't hold it any longer. You pause on the side of the road and contribute to the environment by providing liquid fertilizer for the plant life that grows along the highway. As for the food part, it would seem that the person who owned this car was most assuredly not on Atkins or any other diet. There are some frozen things in there that will surely be nastified relatively soon and are candidates for pitching. But this individual also has a collection of chips, cookies, two bags of premium blend coffees and a ton of soft drinks. There is also a pathetically small bottle of Sunny D.
Frozen goods, kindly opened and donated to the crawling/flapping wildlife in Idaho before Compton remounts and goes looking for a gas station before the appearance of the buggy starts to get on his nerves.
It only takes about twenty more minutes before you are able to find a gas station. Bob's Pump and Dump. Yes. That's the name. An honest to goodness, independant gas station. You pull in to the place and see the one lone pump sitting sourly in the middle of the lot. When you pull in, a fairly unsettling looking man in his mid fifties wearing overalls and a baseball cap approaches. It might be stereotypical but it's true. And he's there. Watching you with washed out blue eyes set in to the soft folds of his pig-like face.
"Fill 'er up." Compton says, not one to judge being washed out and wrinkly himself.
"Ya happen to see any kind of boxes falling from the sky of late?" He asks, figuring why the hell not? He must be getting close, and he really has nothing else going for him in this matter.
The man just stares at you for a moment when you ask the question before he walks around to the side of the vehicle. Flipping the gas tank cover off, he removes the pump and sticks it in the hole, holding the handle tightly. The old mechanical display shows the dollars and gallons rolling by. "Bahkses? I ain't seen any Bahkses fallin' from tha sky... sorry mister. You'll need to find crazy shit like that further south." Indeed, Provo, UT is about seven hours away yet.
:'aint from round ere' so to speak. Really, excpet for looking it up on Mapquest the night before, he hasn't looked at a map or asked directions once. Kinda going on blind fate here. %r%rComps pays up and get the Yuppie-mobile rolling. South it is.
Compton 'aint from round ere' so to speak. Really, excpet for looking it up on Mapquest the night before, he hasn't looked at a map or asked directions once. Kinda going on blind fate here.
Comps pays up and get the Yuppie-mobile rolling. South it is.
The stones grind under the tires and a small cloud of dust is all that remains of you at the station. The porky fellow just watches, shaking his head in disbelief. The highway eventually turns straight south for a while. The scenery changes, becoming a little less green. The sun begins to set as night falls over the country, leaving you with the remaining four hours of your trip to Provo to be done in the darkness of night.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Monday, March 01, 2004
Anyone else?
Hola. Anyone else having trouble connecting?
I get an invalid data type for the slayer.kyndig.com host. Does someone have a numerical address that works?
Danke.
I get an invalid data type for the slayer.kyndig.com host. Does someone have a numerical address that works?
Danke.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Non Blog
[Okay. I forgot to log this but it's plot so I thought I should bring it up in paraphrased form.]
Pobble goes to library to do some drug related study. Woman (Anastasia) comes along, asking about Nylarathotep. This is obviously strange, but she states that she wants to talk about Cornelius.
Conversation ensues in the office, details are revealed on both sides. She, along with her 'colleagues' (An undisclosed group, who can sense magickal happening and have a talent for seeing the invisible. Apparently drawn to Pobble by some manner of soothsaying.)
Not a lot of new information, besides a replica of a medallion worn around Corni's neck that they have. It wasn't magickal as it was a copy, but they think its related to some kind of teleporation and or mind attacking. It seems that Cornelius worships something called Nylarathotep. This suggests that he is in fact a Nephandi.
They are going to try and get the real medallion and bring it to us for inspection.
Based on the outcome of the subsequent transactions and trust building, details as to this faction (in which the spokesperson is a Violin Instructor) may follow.
Yay.
Sorry about the log-forgetting.
Pobble goes to library to do some drug related study. Woman (Anastasia) comes along, asking about Nylarathotep. This is obviously strange, but she states that she wants to talk about Cornelius.
Conversation ensues in the office, details are revealed on both sides. She, along with her 'colleagues' (An undisclosed group, who can sense magickal happening and have a talent for seeing the invisible. Apparently drawn to Pobble by some manner of soothsaying.)
Not a lot of new information, besides a replica of a medallion worn around Corni's neck that they have. It wasn't magickal as it was a copy, but they think its related to some kind of teleporation and or mind attacking. It seems that Cornelius worships something called Nylarathotep. This suggests that he is in fact a Nephandi.
They are going to try and get the real medallion and bring it to us for inspection.
Based on the outcome of the subsequent transactions and trust building, details as to this faction (in which the spokesperson is a Violin Instructor) may follow.
Yay.
Sorry about the log-forgetting.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Dead Man's Gun pt 1
[Five days before Compton awoke to find a crumpled printout of an eBay auction stuffed in his shirt. From the scribbled notes in Hiro’s barely legible stupor-speek, Compton began stalking what is listed as, “Jesse James’ 1875 Schofeild Pistol *MINT*”.]
You keep repeatedly checking the auction and find that as the minutes tick by, it would seem that no one has noticed your bid is presently the highest one in. Each second going is a little more painful than the last until it seems like pure agony before it indicates that the auction has ended. You are the winner. The site instructs you that the seller of the item will contact you to arrange for payment as well as delivery. The auction indicated payment should be by PayPal with the different made up in the auction price and what PayPal takes out by the buyer. Shipping would be FedEx and would be free.
Sitting hunched over the keyboard in the dark like a decrepit gargoyle. His weathered features lit by the monitor in the depth of the Library. He pokes at the keyboard angrily with a bony finger, grumbling and swearing at the PC, willing it to respond quicker - the options hidden in arcane nooks of digital construct. His prize in peril he jabs at the space bar and the 'BID' bar depresses on the screen sending his last attempt to thwart Mr. X's attempts of stealing his prize.
8,000 bones Compton thinks to himself. "Fuck, better get a receipt for this." he mumbles to himself, remembering Keene's last tirade about expense accounts.
Quickly Compton clicks his way over to PayPal. Although technically versed and fairly PC-savvy for a guy pushing 70, he still isn't very smooth about it. His brow wrinkled with frustration, and hands clammy with anxiety. He realizes he's almost in shock, 'I finally found it' he thinks to himself as he goes through a 10 second reverie of the events that have brought him up to this point over a lifetime, as he slips a AmEx card from his pocket. The name on it reads Cally Grant, for anyone keeping score and he bashes in the numbers completing the transaction.
You wait a moment and then refresh the screen. PayPal indicates the payment has successfully gone through to the seller. There is a moment later when you see the little icon in the corner of the screen that indicates you have e-mail.
"Clickity-click, Babah-trick." Compton says as a form of personal computer mantra and opens Pine, to view the message of the end of a quest.
Congratulations Buyer!
We appreciate your prompt payment for Item #19390712348723, Jesse James Revolver for the price of $8,000US. We will send out your package via Federal Express next day shipping. A tracking number for your package will be provided tomorrow. We appreciate your business and will provide positive feed back on the next business day.
Thank you for doing business with Western and Indian Relic Brokerage Exchange!
Compton sits back, angling the ancient office backwards and depositing his bare feet next to the monitor on the desk. Folding his arms behind his head, he gazes at the long eerie shadows cast up the walls and bookcases of the library and rare grin cracking his features.
"I found it." he thinks to himself, "Finally, after all these years, a real Relic." HE even thinks the word capitalized. Most of his young companions wouldn't get it, what he's feeling. They haven't spent their lives searching. Their years with disappointment after disappointment... Don't realize how rare real power is... since most of those fuckers can do shit without even trying... and slowly the grin disappears in to his normal grimace.
Closing his eyes he pictures Jesse James' 1875 Schofeild Calvary Pistol hanging on his bedroom. "I'll have to make a mount for It." he tells the shadows idly.
The next day drags on like so much molasses crawling up hill in artic temperatures. Sure, you have other things to do but nothing sucks worse than having to wait for something you REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want. Just like when you were a kid. An e-mail arrives, as promised indicating the FedEx tracking number (888922781982 if you're interested) and the positive feedback is also delivered (A pleasure to do business with. Real asset to EBay. A++++++++!!!!).
Unfortunately for the seller and FedEx those tidbits of info are lost on Compton. Sure he could figure it out and do his bit to join the eBay cult or follow his treasures progress but neither function is in Compton's bag of Web surfing tricks. So instead he bids his time surfing for free porn with Hiro's pile of free passwords and polishing of a 40 of Cash's plunk. As the day crawls on he begins to grind his teeth more and more. His old jaw clacking annoyingly for anyone in earshot.
Mercifully the day ends and the new day dawns, bringing the time when the revolver should arrive. FedEx priority guarantees that a package shall arrive by 10:30 local time the next day. So when ten thirty comes and goes, it's a little bothersome but not terrible. What sucks is the day continues on and on... with no sign of the delivery truck.
As the sun rises and falls, so does Compton's spirits until him descending in to the depths of a murderous brooding. Spitting bile and sarcasm with the odd tirade at the expense of any number of unrelated parties. Eventually he grabs the old handset in the library hooked up to Pa Bell, the line already ringing through to 1-800-Go-Fed-Ex without any dialing, the tracking number printed out by the Raven dot-matrix in the corner.
The phone rings for a long time. "Thank you for calling Federal Express. If you have your tracking number, please press one and enter it. Press two for customer service."
Compton goes to hit one, then realizes that's not going to work with the 1950's era rotary he's working with, and just sits tight assuming at some point a live voice will get on the line.
Eventually the phone routes the call to an operator. "Thank you for calling Federal Express. This is Rhonda. Can I have your tracking number please?"
Compton very tensely reads off the string of numbers, ready to hear any number of excuses: tied up in traffic, typo'd address, stuck in the red tape, it was a firearm after all...
Some clickety-clickety on the other end. You can hear her sharp intake of breath. "Excuse me sir. I need to transfer you to a supervisor." And before you can even respond, you hear that mind dulling muzak all these companies have during internal holds. Eventually, on your 90th birthday, the phone picks up. "Sir? My name is Sean and I'm a team leader here with Federal Express. I have some... news regarding your package."
"Oh?" Compton manages, surprisingly with some control, despite a clenched jaw and white knuckling the receiver, ("No you don't you fuckers... not after being this close" he thinks to himself.)
"The plane that was carrying it from Santa Fe experienced some... difficulties and crash landed in Utah near the Salt Lake.." The supervisor says with some trepidation in his voice. "The plane lost most of its load before it crashed... we have recovery teams out there but it could take some time."
Compton is stunned. He just stares at the phone, mouth agape.
"Who did this?" he asks oddly, already making his own assumptions. Then, "How long...?' and finally, "Where is my gun sparky?"
"/Sir/. We're working on this. There are a lot of packages that are missing. They're all important to FedEx. We're more than willing to reimburse you for the value of your item up to its fullest cost. I would be happy to send you that form out." The young man says on the other end of the phone.
"Look 'son'... Cash won't cover it. We're talking a life time here. Cosmic chances." his facade of civility is quickly eroding, "Fuck, someone like you'd never understand... Just tell me, where the gun is."
"We don't know. The packages are spread out over a sixty mile area. When the cargo hold of the plane shattered, it lost packages all over the place. They could be anywhere... in the desert... in mountains. I'm sorry." And the young man does sound sorry, really. Probably been getting this all day.
"Fine. What 60 mile area then. I'll find it myself." The anger bleeds away in to the psycho-scary seriousness that is always more scary than the wild maniac. Something about his tone makes you believe he'll do it too.
"Ahh..." The young man seems caught off guard by the request for a moment. "Let me find out for you sir. Please hold." And before you can respond, you're in Muzak land.
Compton digs around under the desk idly while waiting and is rewarded with a half-bottle of rye in a milk crate.
The line is picked up. "Sir? It occurred in the area of Grand Junction, Utah. That's where the plane finally landed. It was approaching from the south west... “The young man responds. Then, as if to make up for it. "You know... you can submit the claim anyway. This way, if you don't find your package... you still get your money back."
Compton's mouth curls up wickedly thinking about the AmEx card in the trash bin now, "Nah, that's alright... but tell me, what, happened to the plane?"
"Honestly sir, I'm not entirely sure. It's not something they really tell us. But if you're really going out there, I imagine you'll find out." The young man finally responds.
Compton hangs up without further ado. Looking at the piece of space junk in the middle of the Library, he says, "Well, old man. Looks like it's time for a road trip."
You keep repeatedly checking the auction and find that as the minutes tick by, it would seem that no one has noticed your bid is presently the highest one in. Each second going is a little more painful than the last until it seems like pure agony before it indicates that the auction has ended. You are the winner. The site instructs you that the seller of the item will contact you to arrange for payment as well as delivery. The auction indicated payment should be by PayPal with the different made up in the auction price and what PayPal takes out by the buyer. Shipping would be FedEx and would be free.
Sitting hunched over the keyboard in the dark like a decrepit gargoyle. His weathered features lit by the monitor in the depth of the Library. He pokes at the keyboard angrily with a bony finger, grumbling and swearing at the PC, willing it to respond quicker - the options hidden in arcane nooks of digital construct. His prize in peril he jabs at the space bar and the 'BID' bar depresses on the screen sending his last attempt to thwart Mr. X's attempts of stealing his prize.
8,000 bones Compton thinks to himself. "Fuck, better get a receipt for this." he mumbles to himself, remembering Keene's last tirade about expense accounts.
Quickly Compton clicks his way over to PayPal. Although technically versed and fairly PC-savvy for a guy pushing 70, he still isn't very smooth about it. His brow wrinkled with frustration, and hands clammy with anxiety. He realizes he's almost in shock, 'I finally found it' he thinks to himself as he goes through a 10 second reverie of the events that have brought him up to this point over a lifetime, as he slips a AmEx card from his pocket. The name on it reads Cally Grant, for anyone keeping score and he bashes in the numbers completing the transaction.
You wait a moment and then refresh the screen. PayPal indicates the payment has successfully gone through to the seller. There is a moment later when you see the little icon in the corner of the screen that indicates you have e-mail.
"Clickity-click, Babah-trick." Compton says as a form of personal computer mantra and opens Pine, to view the message of the end of a quest.
Congratulations Buyer!
We appreciate your prompt payment for Item #19390712348723, Jesse James Revolver for the price of $8,000US. We will send out your package via Federal Express next day shipping. A tracking number for your package will be provided tomorrow. We appreciate your business and will provide positive feed back on the next business day.
Thank you for doing business with Western and Indian Relic Brokerage Exchange!
Compton sits back, angling the ancient office backwards and depositing his bare feet next to the monitor on the desk. Folding his arms behind his head, he gazes at the long eerie shadows cast up the walls and bookcases of the library and rare grin cracking his features.
"I found it." he thinks to himself, "Finally, after all these years, a real Relic." HE even thinks the word capitalized. Most of his young companions wouldn't get it, what he's feeling. They haven't spent their lives searching. Their years with disappointment after disappointment... Don't realize how rare real power is... since most of those fuckers can do shit without even trying... and slowly the grin disappears in to his normal grimace.
Closing his eyes he pictures Jesse James' 1875 Schofeild Calvary Pistol hanging on his bedroom. "I'll have to make a mount for It." he tells the shadows idly.
The next day drags on like so much molasses crawling up hill in artic temperatures. Sure, you have other things to do but nothing sucks worse than having to wait for something you REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want. Just like when you were a kid. An e-mail arrives, as promised indicating the FedEx tracking number (888922781982 if you're interested) and the positive feedback is also delivered (A pleasure to do business with. Real asset to EBay. A++++++++!!!!).
Unfortunately for the seller and FedEx those tidbits of info are lost on Compton. Sure he could figure it out and do his bit to join the eBay cult or follow his treasures progress but neither function is in Compton's bag of Web surfing tricks. So instead he bids his time surfing for free porn with Hiro's pile of free passwords and polishing of a 40 of Cash's plunk. As the day crawls on he begins to grind his teeth more and more. His old jaw clacking annoyingly for anyone in earshot.
Mercifully the day ends and the new day dawns, bringing the time when the revolver should arrive. FedEx priority guarantees that a package shall arrive by 10:30 local time the next day. So when ten thirty comes and goes, it's a little bothersome but not terrible. What sucks is the day continues on and on... with no sign of the delivery truck.
As the sun rises and falls, so does Compton's spirits until him descending in to the depths of a murderous brooding. Spitting bile and sarcasm with the odd tirade at the expense of any number of unrelated parties. Eventually he grabs the old handset in the library hooked up to Pa Bell, the line already ringing through to 1-800-Go-Fed-Ex without any dialing, the tracking number printed out by the Raven dot-matrix in the corner.
The phone rings for a long time. "Thank you for calling Federal Express. If you have your tracking number, please press one and enter it. Press two for customer service."
Compton goes to hit one, then realizes that's not going to work with the 1950's era rotary he's working with, and just sits tight assuming at some point a live voice will get on the line.
Eventually the phone routes the call to an operator. "Thank you for calling Federal Express. This is Rhonda. Can I have your tracking number please?"
Compton very tensely reads off the string of numbers, ready to hear any number of excuses: tied up in traffic, typo'd address, stuck in the red tape, it was a firearm after all...
Some clickety-clickety on the other end. You can hear her sharp intake of breath. "Excuse me sir. I need to transfer you to a supervisor." And before you can even respond, you hear that mind dulling muzak all these companies have during internal holds. Eventually, on your 90th birthday, the phone picks up. "Sir? My name is Sean and I'm a team leader here with Federal Express. I have some... news regarding your package."
"Oh?" Compton manages, surprisingly with some control, despite a clenched jaw and white knuckling the receiver, ("No you don't you fuckers... not after being this close" he thinks to himself.)
"The plane that was carrying it from Santa Fe experienced some... difficulties and crash landed in Utah near the Salt Lake.." The supervisor says with some trepidation in his voice. "The plane lost most of its load before it crashed... we have recovery teams out there but it could take some time."
Compton is stunned. He just stares at the phone, mouth agape.
"Who did this?" he asks oddly, already making his own assumptions. Then, "How long...?' and finally, "Where is my gun sparky?"
"/Sir/. We're working on this. There are a lot of packages that are missing. They're all important to FedEx. We're more than willing to reimburse you for the value of your item up to its fullest cost. I would be happy to send you that form out." The young man says on the other end of the phone.
"Look 'son'... Cash won't cover it. We're talking a life time here. Cosmic chances." his facade of civility is quickly eroding, "Fuck, someone like you'd never understand... Just tell me, where the gun is."
"We don't know. The packages are spread out over a sixty mile area. When the cargo hold of the plane shattered, it lost packages all over the place. They could be anywhere... in the desert... in mountains. I'm sorry." And the young man does sound sorry, really. Probably been getting this all day.
"Fine. What 60 mile area then. I'll find it myself." The anger bleeds away in to the psycho-scary seriousness that is always more scary than the wild maniac. Something about his tone makes you believe he'll do it too.
"Ahh..." The young man seems caught off guard by the request for a moment. "Let me find out for you sir. Please hold." And before you can respond, you're in Muzak land.
Compton digs around under the desk idly while waiting and is rewarded with a half-bottle of rye in a milk crate.
The line is picked up. "Sir? It occurred in the area of Grand Junction, Utah. That's where the plane finally landed. It was approaching from the south west... “The young man responds. Then, as if to make up for it. "You know... you can submit the claim anyway. This way, if you don't find your package... you still get your money back."
Compton's mouth curls up wickedly thinking about the AmEx card in the trash bin now, "Nah, that's alright... but tell me, what, happened to the plane?"
"Honestly sir, I'm not entirely sure. It's not something they really tell us. But if you're really going out there, I imagine you'll find out." The young man finally responds.
Compton hangs up without further ado. Looking at the piece of space junk in the middle of the Library, he says, "Well, old man. Looks like it's time for a road trip."
Monday, February 09, 2004
Hunting Mr. Dark
Pool Hall - Back Room
The walls of this room were possibly once white, but are now stained nicotine yellow with yet dirtier splotches in places. The dark red carpet seems newer and less obnoxious than the one found in the main hall. Tall lamps stand in each corner of the room, shaded so they cast their light upwards giving the room a certain ambiance.
The central space is occupied by a trio of well used couches with newish slipcovers in dark shades - One green, one red, one blue. Arranged into a vague triangle, a low table sits between them with a black ashtray sat upon it. Against one wall is a stocked mini-bar sealed with a padlock and next to this a rack has been mounted on the wall containing poker chips and cards, similarly locked. The mood of the room is shot to peices by what sits squarely against the far wall opposite the door: The porcelain goddess. One shiny clean toilet with a wooden seat and lid, sitting next to a washbasin. A little way down towards the right corner hangs a payphone. A noticable thing is that it is overly quiet in here, perhaps the walls have been soundproofed as none of the sound from the adjacent hall carries over.
Obvious exits:
Door [O]
You paged Quiet with 'Hey'.
You paged Quiet with 'Listen, can I talk to the dead girl?'.
[waiting... waiting... waiting...]
Long distance to Quiet: Penny shakes you.
From afar, Quiet is shaken. Wha?
You paged Quiet with 'Dead girl.'.
Quiet pages: Which dead girl. There are lots.
You paged Quiet with 'I wanna talk to her. Can I talk to her? The one we were looking for. that one.'.
Quiet pages: How did you wanna talk to her?
From afar, Quiet shakes you.
You paged Quiet with 'Hi, I'm back. Sorry. SO yeah - wanna contact her. Just a sec'.
Quiet pages: Just gotta gimmie the how and I'll be glad to give it a try. :)
You paged Quiet with 'I want to summon her, if she's open to it (spirit 3/corr 1)'.
Quiet pages: You don't need Spirit 3. Just spirit 2. May I join you?
You paged Quiet with 'I knew that. Honest. Join away.'.
Quiet will be joining you in three seconds.
Quiet has arrived.
OOC> Quiet says, "I knew you did. Otherwise I'd have to take your magick license away. ;)"
OOC> Quiet says, "Go ahead and pose what it is you are doing."
Penny has a bad photocopy of the girl. The girl in question. It's upside down on the table and she's trying to make it levitate, trying to make it stand up on edge and turn around to face her. Penny says to the photocopy "Look, your parents .. /and/ your mentor were worried sick. We know you're over there so just come this way. Come over here and tell us who got you. We're all really sorry.."
OOC> Quiet says, "Extended ritual?"
OOC> Penny says, "If you wouldn't mind. With a wp spend first?"
OOC> Quiet says, "I don't mind. How many rolls?"
OOC> Penny says, "3 - one to get her attention, one to bring her across and one to send her back."
OOC> Quiet says, "That would actually be two different effects. attention/bringing across would be one. Sending back would be another. How many rolls for the first effect?"
OOC> Penny says, "we get a reduced diff here in the sanctum, too so.. whatcha think - diff 5? // 2"
OOC> Quiet says, "werks for me"
OOC> Penny says, "Right on."
[Ed Note: TOTALLY forgot I wasn't actually IN The sanctum, perhaps A Sanctum... props to Quiet?]
OOC> Quiet says, "Bombs away. Fire off the dices."
[Willpower] Penny spends a Willpower point.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
5 8 5
Achieving 3 successes, resulting in a complete success.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
10 4 8
Achieving 2 successes, resulting in a moderate success.
OOC> Penny dances!
OOC> Quiet says, "Woot! Very nice."
OOC> Quiet says, "Go ahead. Make one more pose and then I'll come in."
The paper tilts up.
Even Penny's surprised - she's never attempted something so basic this sober. "The thing is, if you were rubbed out by the same people we're semi/quasi hiding out from? We really need to know, so could you come talk to me?"
The paper tilts up and then it falls off the board. It flutters to the ground where it lays for a moment. Then it trembles and the girl's eyes blink. She gazes up at you. "Who... who are you?" The soft, spectral voice seems to echo oddly from where the picture lies.
Penny pivots the chair and plants her feet on either side of the paper. She leans over, elbows to knees and says in her nicest, most convivial voice "Aw sweets, I'm Penny. Your mentor sent us chasin'after you but you were way ahead of us, weren't you."
"I... I can't be here." She says softly. "He'll know! And he'll find me." The girl sounds fearful. The paper flutters and sweeps along the ground a few steps. As if she were trying to run. "What... what do you want from me?"
"No one can find you if you come on out," she coaxes and offers her hand "Come on out. It's safe up here with me. Come on up and tell me who did this to you, that's all I want you to do - just come up here and talk to me." Penny kicks the chair back and gets down on the floor where the paper is.
"I /can't/ leave. I'm bound... I can feel it." The paper shivers again and then she says, "What do you want?"
You say, "Who bound you? Who put you there? WHO? Are you alone?" She's furious and kinda freaked out. Why won't she come out? Penny's actually breaking a sweat. "Who put you there?"
"The dark one... the wax man." The girl responds, her voice still has that hollow echo. "There are so many here... hundreds.. I don't know for sure..." She sounds really scared, alone. "I'm with the Frankenstein... he killed me."
Penny seethes, hands fisted "And there's no way to get out? None at all? No door? No window? Hundreds?" Piecing in together, Penny shrieks "He put you inside the figure? WHY? What is it making you do? Does..." and exactly what was she going to say. She's lost her ability to talk, just gaping at the talking piece of paper.
"We are all trapped here... we hear dark whispers from those who have been there from the beginning. That we shall be consumed... burned up. A ritual of some dark purpose... I don't know. But I'm so scared. Dying is one thing... but this means I will never..." Words trail off and the paper quivers a bit.
You say, "Okay, okay. Don't.. I'm coming to get you." Somewhat bravely, Penny declares this with a voice not entirely forceful "Okay? I'm coming. We're coming and .. just .. don't tell anyone. Is there anything you /can/ do?"
"Nothing... there is one here... a little girl. Somehow she got free... but she stays behind. Because if he knows, he'll replace her." The paper trembles again a moment. "I'll see if she can find you... oh no... I hear him... he's coming..." The words trail off and she screams. And then the paper bursts in to flames.
Penny reaches to put out the flames - you never know what Pobble's left laying around. Or that fucking monkey. Who is cowering behind a chair to Penny's left. She takes it out on him "Couldn't you be the least bit helpful Dave? You could've TOLD me. That fucking creep from the record store. And ENID, .. Daisy'll be so disappointed. Dave, get out here. You're on recon. Don't even START" when the Monkey starts to disappear "you know what's going on here," she points to a nebulous space between herself and Pobble's lab "so don't even pretend like you're just working for him, okay?" Penny, she's hysterical.
Pobble opens the door and enters from the main room.
Pobble has arrived.
Okay so like, this is how it is:
Penny's out of sight but her hat and jacket are draped across the back of that first couch. Get a little further into the room and there's Penny folded up in some medatative state. Nearby is a pile of ashes. Dave's still chittering in a corner some kind of crazy-sounding shit about Penny torturing spirits.
There is the sound of a key rattling in the lock, one.. two.. three. Click, clock, clack. The door creaks open, the motion coinciding with the exhalation of noxious smoke from the entering individual. Haloed in the barlight-through-drugsmoke haze, Pobble strolls into the back room with a bottle of beer in his non-smoke holding hand. He stops, peering across at David L with eyes that would be curious if they weren't struggling to focus through the haze of potent narcotics. "Whots going on 'ere then?"
You say, "Your monkey's got no balls." A declarative.
Penny's eyelids flutter and her posture slackens. Her spine cleaves her to the couch and she hauls herself up with an elbow climbing into the cushion. "Went a little astral to check it out. We have a little problem," she goes on, not missing a beat "the kid we're supposed to be returning to her Mentor is not-quite-dead and I don't really know if it's responsible to return her ghost to her Mentor or not! I mean.. if something had happened to me I know I'd want to be with you guys in whatever unfinished form. It totally beats an eternity of lonely wandering y'know? All pathetic and unresolved but impotent at the same time?"
"You what what?" Pobble wanders over and plonks himself down next to you on the couch. The motion causes him to expel another little burp of intoxicating fumage. Thin silver topped fingers proffer the black smokestick in your general area as he swigs from his bottle. "That hermetic wench is dead but not forgotten? Where'd you find her?" Putting the bottle between his legs, Pobble extracts a small baggie of white powder from his pocket and throws it at Dave. Dave grabs it and burrows his way into one of the couches. There are sounds of sniffing.
"Mr. Dark put her in the Frankenstein statue.." indicating with pointed finger that she is not in fact having you off "..it's what she said. And there's hundreds more like her. And it's Mr. Dark's doing. Scared the shit out of me when I couldn't pull her through to me. But we have to get her." It isn't nobility or anything like it, in Penny's voice has crept a familiar note; greed. "We're getting paid to and should live up to expectation if not legend." Penny unfolds her legs and pulls the bottle out from between Pobble's. She swigs "So go find that map in Hiro's mess and we'll be on our way."
"Ha ha." exclaims the good Dr sucking down a hearty dose of narcotic bliss as a metaphorical pat on the back. "So I was right. Crazy fucker Cornelius was up to no good the whole time. Can't fuckin' make a wax crowbar my ass." He makes a little wave, "Don't need a map, I knows where that place is well enough." The far couch makes a snorting noise then chitters quietly. Pobble purses his lips, reacing forward to ash into the central cigarette-waste disposal container. "Intrestin'.. Interestin interestin intrrestingg." Repetition causes slurring. Steve lies back lolling head lazily against the back of the couch. Something registers and his noggin rolls to one side - your side - and he asks dazily "You want to go now? Like.. right now right now?"
"No, I want to go when I've had time to think about how stupid it would be to steal a spirit from whatever jail it's stuck inside from really what amounts to an unknown enemy. Keene would kill me for thinking so no, I do not want to wait and /think/. I want to go right now, right now." She was saying all this as she was getting off the floor, getting her jacket, picking up markers from the pen/cil jar. Penny's ready.
Pobble says, "Joo yoo think he's a neffanzi?" The smoke between his lips waggles up and down spuriously as he queries. A hand lazily pats pockets, checking for supplies in the face of unexpected action. Drugs, check. Weaponry, check. Monkey under sofa snorting cocaine, check. Inclination to elevate one's position from couch, absent. Pobble closes his eyes for a moment, "Not later later?"
You say, "Now now, right fucking now. Get up, get that fucking monkey and let's get in the car and drive. I don't know shit about what he is but I want him to know we can't stand that kinda shit. Not a fucking minute of it." She checks her own pockets; nothing but lint. "Look I don't wanna kill the guy, I just want to get the kid so you got a gun or something? Just in case?"
The chemist nods, and seems to concentrate a moment. Dave saunters out from under the couch and moves to Pobble's side as he stands. The smoke is stubbed out and he stretches, yawning. "Fine fine.. I just hope you know what you're doing since I have no fucking idea what's going on." Moving towards you he wraps an arm about your shoulder, "If this all goes town the shitter," A solemn nod, "It was good." Dr Steve's face melts to one side, making it hard to choose in favour of these words being serious doubts as to the survival of the dastardly duo this evening.
[Ed Note: Then, speak of the devil... ]
As Pobble steps out...
Keene comes in from the main hall.
Keene has arrived.
Smells like something burning. Dark in here but not as dark as it could be.
So Pobble just stepped out for a smoke or maybe to find something to lock Penny in the office with. Either way he's not here and she's making notations in a glossy unfolded map of the Wax Museum. "Ready?" manic, crazy look in her eyes "Oh. Steve." What she says, what she calls you when she's disappointed.
Keene comes in from the bar, spritzing his coat with a little Febreze bottle as he closes the door behind him. He looks over at Penny with his usual unreadable expression, continuing to spritz himself while making his own assessments of the situation.
"Hello, Penny. What are you up to?"
Penny says, "See this is exactly what I was telling Ste" confused a minute "-Steve. .. STEVE!" So annoyed, she grabs the map up in a fist, not realizing. "This is just what I said to him, I JUSt said it to him. He wanted to go later and not now and I knew YOU'D agree with him" accusing Keene of something clearly apparent to her "I hate it when you gang up on me." Like the pout could last long. "The point is she's not quite dead and her Mentor's still paying, right? He didn't say she had to be in one piece, right?"
Long distance to Quiet: Penny is scening out some more of the preamble. You're welcome to watch.
Quiet will be joining you in three seconds.
Quiet has arrived.
"I was told," Keene says, after a moment's consideration of Penny's incoherent rambling, "that he wished to know what her disposition was. We had no power to prevent her death, since we were informed of this well after the fact. Or so I believe."
Keene fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and rests it between his lips, digging in his pocket for a lighter. "How dead is she, anyway?"
Penny says, "So what, you think he was fishing for info she was actually more dead than alive? Like ..maybe he sent her off on purpose? I never even thought'a that." Her fidgeting paused for a moment, she comes back to life pulling at her clothes - she knocked something over, a paper cup rolls and bumps into an arc on the floor. Inbetween wiping down the wet, Penny looks up at matches hanging off the edge of the table, indicating with a nod "You got anything we can put her in? Like a spare Ronald or something? She got bound once so we can throw her in something til we get back to the loft... y'know, so we don't lose track of her."
As always, what Keene chooses not to answer is more telling than what he actually decides to acknowledge. He walks over to the table, picks up a match, strikes it against something convenient and lights up. The cigarette soothes the turbulence within, at least for a while.
"Does it have to be particular?" asks Keene. "A particular size, a particular shape, a particular color?"
"Nah, anything really" Penny seems sure of it but adds "Bigger than a breadbox? Duffle sized? The thing is we gotta go now and get her and find out what he's doing with the other hundred or so he's got stashed there." She's just about packed up and ready to go.
"Charming," Keene says, completely deadpan. He puffs on his cigarette, turning to head towards the door. "Off we go once again, to our imminent deaths. I'm going to make sure this is on my expense report. I probably have something in the car."
OOC> Penny shakes Quiet
OOC> Quiet wakes up. Eh? Wha? Ya need me for sumpin?
OOC> Penny says, "Yeah. We're leaving (with an invisible Pobble) for the Wax Museum."
OOC> Quiet says, "Okay. My alter evil is there already."
OOC> Penny doesn't want to scene with him; unless he's somehow bugged the pool hall's office and knows who I am and why I'm coming.
OOC> Quiet says, "He's always there unless he's out for some reason. Whether or not you see him."
OOC> Quiet says, "Cornelius lives there."
OOC> Penny says, "right so. off we go, non-chalant to unbind a spirit."
-= Jones and Greens =-
There is a mixture of various ethnicities and social backgrounds within this small area, a melting pot all come into one. The very businesses appear to take a culturally diverse avenue of theme. Many smaller stores here can be found selling foreign foods and other rarities such as special health items. Besides the consumable goods, other fine import stores are littered about as well, making this small area more interesting for those that enjoy window browsing.
The nickname of 'Tourist Lane' has been placed upon the area, proving that out-of-towners often stay at a small cluster of higher class hotels. Both those visiting for vacation as well as business reasons can be found in almost equal amounts. Small stands of maps, newspapers, and novelty items can be found down the lane to take advantage of those visiting the city.
Contents:
Phineas
Obvious exits:
Dark Horizon DH
OOC> Penny lets Keene set.
Driving in a black luxury sedan -- an Infiniti of some variety -- Keene and Penny take a trip from the bad part of town to another bad part of town ... the tourist district. The vehicle rolls into a nearby parking garage, where it makes its way to a certain part of the structure that is statistically unlikely to be disturbed by most car thieves or homeless people.
Climbing out of the vehicle, Keene sets the car alarm and begins walking towards their destination. Across his shoulder is his messenger bag's strap, with the bag itself having weird dents in it from an over-large object within.
"This is an exceptionally poor idea, you know," Keene says, deadpan.
Phineas has disconnected.
"Pobble thinks so, too. Don't worry." Penny's a bit keyed up. Sugar-high of a variety unknown to even six-year-olds. She's putting on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses as they walk down the block toward the Wax Museum. The pair look strange among a vacationing crowd, "I wouldn't do this with your approval anyway." She chews the cap off a marker and tips it felt-side down in her back pocket. When it bleeds out, it'll just add to her urban hippy look.
"You realize," Keene says, reaching into his coat, pulling out a hip flask, and taking a swig from it before holstering it once again, "that you need me alive to collect on whatever boon he'll give us for this job."
He puts his hands in his pocket, watching traffic idly as they grow nearer to the museum. "Because I would rather not get Chased."
"Shoulda parked closer."
Penny's head is now in the game. Because when questioned, witnesses usually describe how the angry young person elbowed and shoulder their way through the crowd. So she throws her shoulders back and affects a pleasant, if not sunny, air. She takes a hold of Keene's hand, fellow tourist and tugs him as they close on the doors to the museum.
"Subtle," Keene says, being tugged along. He keeps at least one hand on his bag throughout.
A very nice, plastoral looking building in the busier part of town. Recently rennovated, it has a pleasant facade to it, completely with a large hedge around the property, manicured lawn and topiaries of animals.
You enter the waxworks. The large double doors swing open for you.
Dark Horizons Waxworks - Main Room(#1957RJ)
This room is not particularly large. Just an entrance room, really. Heavy black curtains hang over the windows in front, shutting out almost all of the ambient light from the world beyond. The room is lit only by real candles and gas lamps. The air carries an old, almost must scent to it, giving you the sense of walking in to a building centuries old, even though it is a relatively new rennovation.
The walls are mostly wood panelled but not in any particular order. Chaos seems to be theme of the decor. The ceilings are high. Ridiculously high seeming, as if they extended far beyond human vision, in to the pitch depths up above. Something may be lurking up there, even now. In several spots there shelves are set in to the wall. Each shelf is empty. The books themselves appear to be sunken in to the walls, giving the room an even odder feel. The floors are completely bare of any sort of coverings. Just finely polished stone. In the center of the main room is a series of ten chairs. The really nice kind, with deep seats and thick velvet cushions. There is a circular table in the middle of them with two books displayed.
Off to the left side is a smallish office. In the back center of the room, you can see a pair of doors, oaken. One door has the face of a smiling demon, a brightly polished brass nameplate under it says Fiction. One door has the face of an angry, almost leering demon, another brightly polished brass nameplate under this one says Fact. There are no visible handles, just a hole in each open mouth with tongues sticking out.
+views available
Contents:
Cornelius
Obvious exits:
Fiction FI Fact F Out O
Keene enters from the street.
Keene has arrived.
OOC> Cornelius says, "Please, pose entry. I will be Quiet's extension for scening until otherwise notified that the NPC Cornelius has shown himself."
OOC> Keene says, "K."
"Wow look at the doors," she whispers, pretending awe. Convincing. And when she thinks no one's looking, Penny grins at the table and chairs, mutters something under her break to Keene and steers him toward the doors "So which shall we check out first, fact or fiction?" Some kind of open-ended joke, they stare.
The museum is empty. Or so it seems. It's extremely quiet and the lights are extremely dim. It would seem that no one is home at the moment.
Keene has a messenger bag over one shoulder that has weird bulges in it. It contains something larger than the bag really ought to contain. He acts the part of a tourist perfectly, having a true gift for deception. Everything from his eyes to his body language reads `sucker' rather than `terrorist'.
"Fiction sounds neat," the suited man says.
Penny was headed that way anyway. But the word 'neat' coming from Keene is enough to stop her mid stride. Puts a bounce on it, heel to toe "But Tommy I heard there was one of *the president* in Fact - can't we go there first?" She blocks the door and handle to the Fiction room; full-on - vamping it up horror-story-style. The door swings open and she leans backwards into the tilt.
It even creaks.
Keene generates a put-upon expression as Penny whines at him, moving to intercept her. "Jen-Jen," he says, generating a cutesy name on the fly, "if we go see the President now, it won't be as special as if we saw it last. Hey, be careful --"
He jerks forward into the Fiction room, as if to try to pre-empt her from a spill. Keep moving, Keene.
You enter the door marke Fiction.
Dark Horizons Waxworks - Fiction
Welcome to the hall of Fiction. The hallway is filled with a series of scenic wax sculpture of infamous men, women and monsters from literary history. Each one of these is done up fantasically but with enough of a sense of reality in them to create an air of true menace. This hallway breathes life in to dark figures in fiction, the grand literary tradition of horror, both modern and gothic. Each scene seems to be worse than the last. The gore. The expressions of agony, of torment. It's a difficult thing to look at for long. Unless you like that sort of thing.
This hallway is fairly long, wrapping around to the side, probably heading back the way you came. The floors here are rough, unworked earth it would seem. The ceiling here is extremely high, invisible to the eye. Very dark up above. Occasionally you can hear a menacing sort of scrabbling noise in the rafters. As though something were following you as you move along the displays. From somewhere in the darkness, light fog trickles down. It leaves maybe a foot worth of cover on the ground, hard to penetrate.
+views available
Obvious exits:
Out O
Cornelius enters from the main room.
Cornelius has arrived.
Keene enters from the main room.
Keene has arrived.
Penny who is Jen-Jen (Jenny jenny who can I turn to?) makes a grab for Keene on his way past her, slips onward expecting the door to swing shut. Did it? The noise was absent and it's lack settles down into the pit of the stomach. She scuffs her boots down the hallway, commenting as she goes along "Poor Lizzie, doesn't she always get a bum rap.."
The hall of Fiction is extremely quiet. Silent like the grave. Your voices echo strangely in this place. With it's foggy bottoms and large, open tops. Everything here feels... wrong. In a very subtle, difficult to define kind of a way.
OOC> Penny says, "awareness rolls?"
OOC> Cornelius says, "Yes. Awareness + Perc, diff 7 for the moment."
Keene rolls perception+awareness vs 7 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 0:
8 4 10
Achieving 3 successes, resulting in a complete success.
Penny rolls perception+awareness (7 dice) at a difficulty of 7:
7 -1- 2 5 3 5 3
Achieving 0 successes, resulting in a failure
Keene grabs onto Penny, trying to keep her upright. Once they're through the door, though, he releases her and adjusts his messenger bag strap. "Wow, this place is creepy," he says, the master of understatement.
OOC> Penny says, "You'd think MY odds were better."
"Jeepers Freddie," she elbows him and laughs in a pretty careless way "You should hear yourself. I bet it's just the temperature change - all that dry ice in one place tends to get a little on the stale side a few hours in." On the whole Penny's pretty blase. Or good at faking blase.
Penny's good. Keene is better. He laughs in that overly loud American way, making an exaggerated `spooky' face. "But bad ventilation is spooooooky," he says, like Count Chocula.
+view of Frankenstein's Monster:
Dark, dreary gothic village setting mayhaps provide you with some sense of where this takes place. Several small vllage huts are in the background. A moon hangs high in the sky. Apparently some of the fog generators must be above this display because it is foggy also, excess spilling to the walkway. In the scene you can see Frankenstein's Monster in all of it's terror and pity provoking grandeur. It stands there, face weirdly illuminated by a greenish light. In it's arms is a small, broken body. A young girl with a wilted daisy still clutched in her right hand that hangs out loosely. Her eyes are glassy, lifeless. She seems to stare out at you, jaw broken and hanging. The monster itself has a mixed expression of horror at its actions and savage triumph.
"Come this way," sounds cheerful and curious about what's around the next corner. Penny turns in toward the dark, gothic village setting. "Now is that what they're paying to see?" She looks at the broken kid-statue, arms folded, head tilted - judging. She walks to it's side - not to get a closer look but maybeb to keep out of it's direct line of sight.
Keene, meanwhile, blunders forward and transposes himself between Penny and the statue -- reading her body language, knowing how this game works. He stares at something inconsequential off to the side of the statue, doing his best cow-eyed tourist impression. "This reminds me of that movie, with the guy," he says. Keene works for Clear Channel. He knows all about inane banter.
The display of the Frankenstein's monster seems almost brooding. The girl's vacant eyes quite oddly seem to follow Penny's movements. You don't see them move... but wherever she is standing, the eyes seem to be looking.
OOC> Penny says, "I'd like to do another roll. Matter/Prime myself - raise my body temperature the better to melt the statue's two pair of eyes."
Cornelius pages: How do you mean, exactly? Not sure how that effect would work.
You paged Cornelius with 'As a foci-related effect: Wax melts at 138 degrees so via foci: Penny can write 138 degrees on her hands with the magic marker and radiate body heat of that temperature, using prime she can hurry along the damage to whatever trap is keeping the girl's spirit lodged in the figure.'.
Cornelius pages: Mmm. You would need a lot of successes for body heat alone to have that impact. Unless you were very close to the statue. Like, right next to it on the display.
Long distance to Cornelius: Penny intends to put her hands on it.
Cornelius pages: Okay... then pose the action first and then I'll call for rolls.
Concealed briefly, Penny backs up into Keene and casually writes all over the backs of her hands. The Sharpie stink is strong. New. "Open the bag, just unzip it" Penny's turned Keene around to explain with brief gestures and in some other language what it is she intends to do. Melt the eyes, break the cage, catch the girl and run. Really fast.
Keene unzips the bag casually, making it look like he's looking for something. "Shoot, I should get a picture of this for Leroy," he says, but unzips the bag too far -- a box-shaped object falls out, sliding onto Penny's feet. It isn't very heavy. Meanwhile, various papers also fly out, causing Keene to chase after them and gather them up in his arms. "God damn it!" he says, fumbling with the various sized press releases he gathered off the fax machine for this purpose. Nothing like a klutz to draw attention away from a peyote-soaked maniac.
You paged Cornelius with 'this is where I'd turn and hit the statue.'.
Cornelius pages: As a formality, please do me a favor and pose stepping on to the platform to do this.
Long distance to Cornelius: Penny didn't see a platform in a desc.
You paged Cornelius with 'Did I miss it?'.
Cornelius pages: I am sorry. It's nothing specifically statted. And unneeded really. Don't sweat it.
When Penny steps close to the display and she passes the area where that is the boundry of the scene, the air ripples slightly and she simply vanishes from sight.
Cornelius pages: When you step across the boundry, you feel a faint tingling of your skin. Then you find yourself standing in a forest at night. In the distance is a small gothic village where the lights are lit. The air is extremely chill and there is a breeze blowing. In the distance you hear the sounds of an animal.
Keene continues scrambling around, picking up papers around him. Something in the back of his mind warns him something is wrong -- and he turns, seeing (or rather, not seeing) Penny. He keeps picking up the papers, putting them all in the bag and zipping it back up. For a few moments, Keene considers the situation. What to do?
He decides to try something -- Keene picks up the box-shaped object he'd left on the floor (actually, a very small hamster cage, complete with wheel) and eases it past the threshhold of the boundary of the scene with his shoe, waiting to see if anything happens.
You paged Cornelius with 'You think I'd be able to tell if I just stepped into the spirit world? awareness roll?'.
Cornelius pages: Without the roll you can tell you're inside of some kind of pocket spirit realm. Like a mini-realm, subject to whatever rules were established during its construction. it seems very real however.
Cornelius has disconnected.
Sorry, Quiet is not connected.
No one to page.
OOC> Penny says, "... great."
The walls of this room were possibly once white, but are now stained nicotine yellow with yet dirtier splotches in places. The dark red carpet seems newer and less obnoxious than the one found in the main hall. Tall lamps stand in each corner of the room, shaded so they cast their light upwards giving the room a certain ambiance.
The central space is occupied by a trio of well used couches with newish slipcovers in dark shades - One green, one red, one blue. Arranged into a vague triangle, a low table sits between them with a black ashtray sat upon it. Against one wall is a stocked mini-bar sealed with a padlock and next to this a rack has been mounted on the wall containing poker chips and cards, similarly locked. The mood of the room is shot to peices by what sits squarely against the far wall opposite the door: The porcelain goddess. One shiny clean toilet with a wooden seat and lid, sitting next to a washbasin. A little way down towards the right corner hangs a payphone. A noticable thing is that it is overly quiet in here, perhaps the walls have been soundproofed as none of the sound from the adjacent hall carries over.
Obvious exits:
Door [O]
You paged Quiet with 'Hey'.
You paged Quiet with 'Listen, can I talk to the dead girl?'.
[waiting... waiting... waiting...]
Long distance to Quiet: Penny shakes you.
From afar, Quiet is shaken. Wha?
You paged Quiet with 'Dead girl.'.
Quiet pages: Which dead girl. There are lots.
You paged Quiet with 'I wanna talk to her. Can I talk to her? The one we were looking for. that one.'.
Quiet pages: How did you wanna talk to her?
From afar, Quiet shakes you.
You paged Quiet with 'Hi, I'm back. Sorry. SO yeah - wanna contact her. Just a sec'.
Quiet pages: Just gotta gimmie the how and I'll be glad to give it a try. :)
You paged Quiet with 'I want to summon her, if she's open to it (spirit 3/corr 1)'.
Quiet pages: You don't need Spirit 3. Just spirit 2. May I join you?
You paged Quiet with 'I knew that. Honest. Join away.'.
Quiet will be joining you in three seconds.
Quiet has arrived.
OOC> Quiet says, "I knew you did. Otherwise I'd have to take your magick license away. ;)"
OOC> Quiet says, "Go ahead and pose what it is you are doing."
Penny has a bad photocopy of the girl. The girl in question. It's upside down on the table and she's trying to make it levitate, trying to make it stand up on edge and turn around to face her. Penny says to the photocopy "Look, your parents .. /and/ your mentor were worried sick. We know you're over there so just come this way. Come over here and tell us who got you. We're all really sorry.."
OOC> Quiet says, "Extended ritual?"
OOC> Penny says, "If you wouldn't mind. With a wp spend first?"
OOC> Quiet says, "I don't mind. How many rolls?"
OOC> Penny says, "3 - one to get her attention, one to bring her across and one to send her back."
OOC> Quiet says, "That would actually be two different effects. attention/bringing across would be one. Sending back would be another. How many rolls for the first effect?"
OOC> Penny says, "we get a reduced diff here in the sanctum, too so.. whatcha think - diff 5? // 2"
OOC> Quiet says, "werks for me"
OOC> Penny says, "Right on."
[Ed Note: TOTALLY forgot I wasn't actually IN The sanctum, perhaps A Sanctum... props to Quiet?]
OOC> Quiet says, "Bombs away. Fire off the dices."
[Willpower] Penny spends a Willpower point.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
5 8 5
Achieving 3 successes, resulting in a complete success.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
10 4 8
Achieving 2 successes, resulting in a moderate success.
OOC> Penny dances!
OOC> Quiet says, "Woot! Very nice."
OOC> Quiet says, "Go ahead. Make one more pose and then I'll come in."
The paper tilts up.
Even Penny's surprised - she's never attempted something so basic this sober. "The thing is, if you were rubbed out by the same people we're semi/quasi hiding out from? We really need to know, so could you come talk to me?"
The paper tilts up and then it falls off the board. It flutters to the ground where it lays for a moment. Then it trembles and the girl's eyes blink. She gazes up at you. "Who... who are you?" The soft, spectral voice seems to echo oddly from where the picture lies.
Penny pivots the chair and plants her feet on either side of the paper. She leans over, elbows to knees and says in her nicest, most convivial voice "Aw sweets, I'm Penny. Your mentor sent us chasin'after you but you were way ahead of us, weren't you."
"I... I can't be here." She says softly. "He'll know! And he'll find me." The girl sounds fearful. The paper flutters and sweeps along the ground a few steps. As if she were trying to run. "What... what do you want from me?"
"No one can find you if you come on out," she coaxes and offers her hand "Come on out. It's safe up here with me. Come on up and tell me who did this to you, that's all I want you to do - just come up here and talk to me." Penny kicks the chair back and gets down on the floor where the paper is.
"I /can't/ leave. I'm bound... I can feel it." The paper shivers again and then she says, "What do you want?"
You say, "Who bound you? Who put you there? WHO? Are you alone?" She's furious and kinda freaked out. Why won't she come out? Penny's actually breaking a sweat. "Who put you there?"
"The dark one... the wax man." The girl responds, her voice still has that hollow echo. "There are so many here... hundreds.. I don't know for sure..." She sounds really scared, alone. "I'm with the Frankenstein... he killed me."
Penny seethes, hands fisted "And there's no way to get out? None at all? No door? No window? Hundreds?" Piecing in together, Penny shrieks "He put you inside the figure? WHY? What is it making you do? Does..." and exactly what was she going to say. She's lost her ability to talk, just gaping at the talking piece of paper.
"We are all trapped here... we hear dark whispers from those who have been there from the beginning. That we shall be consumed... burned up. A ritual of some dark purpose... I don't know. But I'm so scared. Dying is one thing... but this means I will never..." Words trail off and the paper quivers a bit.
You say, "Okay, okay. Don't.. I'm coming to get you." Somewhat bravely, Penny declares this with a voice not entirely forceful "Okay? I'm coming. We're coming and .. just .. don't tell anyone. Is there anything you /can/ do?"
"Nothing... there is one here... a little girl. Somehow she got free... but she stays behind. Because if he knows, he'll replace her." The paper trembles again a moment. "I'll see if she can find you... oh no... I hear him... he's coming..." The words trail off and she screams. And then the paper bursts in to flames.
Penny reaches to put out the flames - you never know what Pobble's left laying around. Or that fucking monkey. Who is cowering behind a chair to Penny's left. She takes it out on him "Couldn't you be the least bit helpful Dave? You could've TOLD me. That fucking creep from the record store. And ENID, .. Daisy'll be so disappointed. Dave, get out here. You're on recon. Don't even START" when the Monkey starts to disappear "you know what's going on here," she points to a nebulous space between herself and Pobble's lab "so don't even pretend like you're just working for him, okay?" Penny, she's hysterical.
Pobble opens the door and enters from the main room.
Pobble has arrived.
Okay so like, this is how it is:
Penny's out of sight but her hat and jacket are draped across the back of that first couch. Get a little further into the room and there's Penny folded up in some medatative state. Nearby is a pile of ashes. Dave's still chittering in a corner some kind of crazy-sounding shit about Penny torturing spirits.
There is the sound of a key rattling in the lock, one.. two.. three. Click, clock, clack. The door creaks open, the motion coinciding with the exhalation of noxious smoke from the entering individual. Haloed in the barlight-through-drugsmoke haze, Pobble strolls into the back room with a bottle of beer in his non-smoke holding hand. He stops, peering across at David L with eyes that would be curious if they weren't struggling to focus through the haze of potent narcotics. "Whots going on 'ere then?"
You say, "Your monkey's got no balls." A declarative.
Penny's eyelids flutter and her posture slackens. Her spine cleaves her to the couch and she hauls herself up with an elbow climbing into the cushion. "Went a little astral to check it out. We have a little problem," she goes on, not missing a beat "the kid we're supposed to be returning to her Mentor is not-quite-dead and I don't really know if it's responsible to return her ghost to her Mentor or not! I mean.. if something had happened to me I know I'd want to be with you guys in whatever unfinished form. It totally beats an eternity of lonely wandering y'know? All pathetic and unresolved but impotent at the same time?"
"You what what?" Pobble wanders over and plonks himself down next to you on the couch. The motion causes him to expel another little burp of intoxicating fumage. Thin silver topped fingers proffer the black smokestick in your general area as he swigs from his bottle. "That hermetic wench is dead but not forgotten? Where'd you find her?" Putting the bottle between his legs, Pobble extracts a small baggie of white powder from his pocket and throws it at Dave. Dave grabs it and burrows his way into one of the couches. There are sounds of sniffing.
"Mr. Dark put her in the Frankenstein statue.." indicating with pointed finger that she is not in fact having you off "..it's what she said. And there's hundreds more like her. And it's Mr. Dark's doing. Scared the shit out of me when I couldn't pull her through to me. But we have to get her." It isn't nobility or anything like it, in Penny's voice has crept a familiar note; greed. "We're getting paid to and should live up to expectation if not legend." Penny unfolds her legs and pulls the bottle out from between Pobble's. She swigs "So go find that map in Hiro's mess and we'll be on our way."
"Ha ha." exclaims the good Dr sucking down a hearty dose of narcotic bliss as a metaphorical pat on the back. "So I was right. Crazy fucker Cornelius was up to no good the whole time. Can't fuckin' make a wax crowbar my ass." He makes a little wave, "Don't need a map, I knows where that place is well enough." The far couch makes a snorting noise then chitters quietly. Pobble purses his lips, reacing forward to ash into the central cigarette-waste disposal container. "Intrestin'.. Interestin interestin intrrestingg." Repetition causes slurring. Steve lies back lolling head lazily against the back of the couch. Something registers and his noggin rolls to one side - your side - and he asks dazily "You want to go now? Like.. right now right now?"
"No, I want to go when I've had time to think about how stupid it would be to steal a spirit from whatever jail it's stuck inside from really what amounts to an unknown enemy. Keene would kill me for thinking so no, I do not want to wait and /think/. I want to go right now, right now." She was saying all this as she was getting off the floor, getting her jacket, picking up markers from the pen/cil jar. Penny's ready.
Pobble says, "Joo yoo think he's a neffanzi?" The smoke between his lips waggles up and down spuriously as he queries. A hand lazily pats pockets, checking for supplies in the face of unexpected action. Drugs, check. Weaponry, check. Monkey under sofa snorting cocaine, check. Inclination to elevate one's position from couch, absent. Pobble closes his eyes for a moment, "Not later later?"
You say, "Now now, right fucking now. Get up, get that fucking monkey and let's get in the car and drive. I don't know shit about what he is but I want him to know we can't stand that kinda shit. Not a fucking minute of it." She checks her own pockets; nothing but lint. "Look I don't wanna kill the guy, I just want to get the kid so you got a gun or something? Just in case?"
The chemist nods, and seems to concentrate a moment. Dave saunters out from under the couch and moves to Pobble's side as he stands. The smoke is stubbed out and he stretches, yawning. "Fine fine.. I just hope you know what you're doing since I have no fucking idea what's going on." Moving towards you he wraps an arm about your shoulder, "If this all goes town the shitter," A solemn nod, "It was good." Dr Steve's face melts to one side, making it hard to choose in favour of these words being serious doubts as to the survival of the dastardly duo this evening.
[Ed Note: Then, speak of the devil... ]
As Pobble steps out...
Keene comes in from the main hall.
Keene has arrived.
Smells like something burning. Dark in here but not as dark as it could be.
So Pobble just stepped out for a smoke or maybe to find something to lock Penny in the office with. Either way he's not here and she's making notations in a glossy unfolded map of the Wax Museum. "Ready?" manic, crazy look in her eyes "Oh. Steve." What she says, what she calls you when she's disappointed.
Keene comes in from the bar, spritzing his coat with a little Febreze bottle as he closes the door behind him. He looks over at Penny with his usual unreadable expression, continuing to spritz himself while making his own assessments of the situation.
"Hello, Penny. What are you up to?"
Penny says, "See this is exactly what I was telling Ste" confused a minute "-Steve. .. STEVE!" So annoyed, she grabs the map up in a fist, not realizing. "This is just what I said to him, I JUSt said it to him. He wanted to go later and not now and I knew YOU'D agree with him" accusing Keene of something clearly apparent to her "I hate it when you gang up on me." Like the pout could last long. "The point is she's not quite dead and her Mentor's still paying, right? He didn't say she had to be in one piece, right?"
Long distance to Quiet: Penny is scening out some more of the preamble. You're welcome to watch.
Quiet will be joining you in three seconds.
Quiet has arrived.
"I was told," Keene says, after a moment's consideration of Penny's incoherent rambling, "that he wished to know what her disposition was. We had no power to prevent her death, since we were informed of this well after the fact. Or so I believe."
Keene fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and rests it between his lips, digging in his pocket for a lighter. "How dead is she, anyway?"
Penny says, "So what, you think he was fishing for info she was actually more dead than alive? Like ..maybe he sent her off on purpose? I never even thought'a that." Her fidgeting paused for a moment, she comes back to life pulling at her clothes - she knocked something over, a paper cup rolls and bumps into an arc on the floor. Inbetween wiping down the wet, Penny looks up at matches hanging off the edge of the table, indicating with a nod "You got anything we can put her in? Like a spare Ronald or something? She got bound once so we can throw her in something til we get back to the loft... y'know, so we don't lose track of her."
As always, what Keene chooses not to answer is more telling than what he actually decides to acknowledge. He walks over to the table, picks up a match, strikes it against something convenient and lights up. The cigarette soothes the turbulence within, at least for a while.
"Does it have to be particular?" asks Keene. "A particular size, a particular shape, a particular color?"
"Nah, anything really" Penny seems sure of it but adds "Bigger than a breadbox? Duffle sized? The thing is we gotta go now and get her and find out what he's doing with the other hundred or so he's got stashed there." She's just about packed up and ready to go.
"Charming," Keene says, completely deadpan. He puffs on his cigarette, turning to head towards the door. "Off we go once again, to our imminent deaths. I'm going to make sure this is on my expense report. I probably have something in the car."
OOC> Penny shakes Quiet
OOC> Quiet wakes up. Eh? Wha? Ya need me for sumpin?
OOC> Penny says, "Yeah. We're leaving (with an invisible Pobble) for the Wax Museum."
OOC> Quiet says, "Okay. My alter evil is there already."
OOC> Penny doesn't want to scene with him; unless he's somehow bugged the pool hall's office and knows who I am and why I'm coming.
OOC> Quiet says, "He's always there unless he's out for some reason. Whether or not you see him."
OOC> Quiet says, "Cornelius lives there."
OOC> Penny says, "right so. off we go, non-chalant to unbind a spirit."
-= Jones and Greens =-
There is a mixture of various ethnicities and social backgrounds within this small area, a melting pot all come into one. The very businesses appear to take a culturally diverse avenue of theme. Many smaller stores here can be found selling foreign foods and other rarities such as special health items. Besides the consumable goods, other fine import stores are littered about as well, making this small area more interesting for those that enjoy window browsing.
The nickname of 'Tourist Lane' has been placed upon the area, proving that out-of-towners often stay at a small cluster of higher class hotels. Both those visiting for vacation as well as business reasons can be found in almost equal amounts. Small stands of maps, newspapers, and novelty items can be found down the lane to take advantage of those visiting the city.
Contents:
Phineas
Obvious exits:
Dark Horizon DH
OOC> Penny lets Keene set.
Driving in a black luxury sedan -- an Infiniti of some variety -- Keene and Penny take a trip from the bad part of town to another bad part of town ... the tourist district. The vehicle rolls into a nearby parking garage, where it makes its way to a certain part of the structure that is statistically unlikely to be disturbed by most car thieves or homeless people.
Climbing out of the vehicle, Keene sets the car alarm and begins walking towards their destination. Across his shoulder is his messenger bag's strap, with the bag itself having weird dents in it from an over-large object within.
"This is an exceptionally poor idea, you know," Keene says, deadpan.
Phineas has disconnected.
"Pobble thinks so, too. Don't worry." Penny's a bit keyed up. Sugar-high of a variety unknown to even six-year-olds. She's putting on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses as they walk down the block toward the Wax Museum. The pair look strange among a vacationing crowd, "I wouldn't do this with your approval anyway." She chews the cap off a marker and tips it felt-side down in her back pocket. When it bleeds out, it'll just add to her urban hippy look.
"You realize," Keene says, reaching into his coat, pulling out a hip flask, and taking a swig from it before holstering it once again, "that you need me alive to collect on whatever boon he'll give us for this job."
He puts his hands in his pocket, watching traffic idly as they grow nearer to the museum. "Because I would rather not get Chased."
"Shoulda parked closer."
Penny's head is now in the game. Because when questioned, witnesses usually describe how the angry young person elbowed and shoulder their way through the crowd. So she throws her shoulders back and affects a pleasant, if not sunny, air. She takes a hold of Keene's hand, fellow tourist and tugs him as they close on the doors to the museum.
"Subtle," Keene says, being tugged along. He keeps at least one hand on his bag throughout.
A very nice, plastoral looking building in the busier part of town. Recently rennovated, it has a pleasant facade to it, completely with a large hedge around the property, manicured lawn and topiaries of animals.
You enter the waxworks. The large double doors swing open for you.
Dark Horizons Waxworks - Main Room(#1957RJ)
This room is not particularly large. Just an entrance room, really. Heavy black curtains hang over the windows in front, shutting out almost all of the ambient light from the world beyond. The room is lit only by real candles and gas lamps. The air carries an old, almost must scent to it, giving you the sense of walking in to a building centuries old, even though it is a relatively new rennovation.
The walls are mostly wood panelled but not in any particular order. Chaos seems to be theme of the decor. The ceilings are high. Ridiculously high seeming, as if they extended far beyond human vision, in to the pitch depths up above. Something may be lurking up there, even now. In several spots there shelves are set in to the wall. Each shelf is empty. The books themselves appear to be sunken in to the walls, giving the room an even odder feel. The floors are completely bare of any sort of coverings. Just finely polished stone. In the center of the main room is a series of ten chairs. The really nice kind, with deep seats and thick velvet cushions. There is a circular table in the middle of them with two books displayed.
Off to the left side is a smallish office. In the back center of the room, you can see a pair of doors, oaken. One door has the face of a smiling demon, a brightly polished brass nameplate under it says Fiction. One door has the face of an angry, almost leering demon, another brightly polished brass nameplate under this one says Fact. There are no visible handles, just a hole in each open mouth with tongues sticking out.
+views available
Contents:
Cornelius
Obvious exits:
Fiction FI Fact F Out O
Keene enters from the street.
Keene has arrived.
OOC> Cornelius says, "Please, pose entry. I will be Quiet's extension for scening until otherwise notified that the NPC Cornelius has shown himself."
OOC> Keene says, "K."
"Wow look at the doors," she whispers, pretending awe. Convincing. And when she thinks no one's looking, Penny grins at the table and chairs, mutters something under her break to Keene and steers him toward the doors "So which shall we check out first, fact or fiction?" Some kind of open-ended joke, they stare.
The museum is empty. Or so it seems. It's extremely quiet and the lights are extremely dim. It would seem that no one is home at the moment.
Keene has a messenger bag over one shoulder that has weird bulges in it. It contains something larger than the bag really ought to contain. He acts the part of a tourist perfectly, having a true gift for deception. Everything from his eyes to his body language reads `sucker' rather than `terrorist'.
"Fiction sounds neat," the suited man says.
Penny was headed that way anyway. But the word 'neat' coming from Keene is enough to stop her mid stride. Puts a bounce on it, heel to toe "But Tommy I heard there was one of *the president* in Fact - can't we go there first?" She blocks the door and handle to the Fiction room; full-on - vamping it up horror-story-style. The door swings open and she leans backwards into the tilt.
It even creaks.
Keene generates a put-upon expression as Penny whines at him, moving to intercept her. "Jen-Jen," he says, generating a cutesy name on the fly, "if we go see the President now, it won't be as special as if we saw it last. Hey, be careful --"
He jerks forward into the Fiction room, as if to try to pre-empt her from a spill. Keep moving, Keene.
You enter the door marke Fiction.
Dark Horizons Waxworks - Fiction
Welcome to the hall of Fiction. The hallway is filled with a series of scenic wax sculpture of infamous men, women and monsters from literary history. Each one of these is done up fantasically but with enough of a sense of reality in them to create an air of true menace. This hallway breathes life in to dark figures in fiction, the grand literary tradition of horror, both modern and gothic. Each scene seems to be worse than the last. The gore. The expressions of agony, of torment. It's a difficult thing to look at for long. Unless you like that sort of thing.
This hallway is fairly long, wrapping around to the side, probably heading back the way you came. The floors here are rough, unworked earth it would seem. The ceiling here is extremely high, invisible to the eye. Very dark up above. Occasionally you can hear a menacing sort of scrabbling noise in the rafters. As though something were following you as you move along the displays. From somewhere in the darkness, light fog trickles down. It leaves maybe a foot worth of cover on the ground, hard to penetrate.
+views available
Obvious exits:
Out O
Cornelius enters from the main room.
Cornelius has arrived.
Keene enters from the main room.
Keene has arrived.
Penny who is Jen-Jen (Jenny jenny who can I turn to?) makes a grab for Keene on his way past her, slips onward expecting the door to swing shut. Did it? The noise was absent and it's lack settles down into the pit of the stomach. She scuffs her boots down the hallway, commenting as she goes along "Poor Lizzie, doesn't she always get a bum rap.."
The hall of Fiction is extremely quiet. Silent like the grave. Your voices echo strangely in this place. With it's foggy bottoms and large, open tops. Everything here feels... wrong. In a very subtle, difficult to define kind of a way.
OOC> Penny says, "awareness rolls?"
OOC> Cornelius says, "Yes. Awareness + Perc, diff 7 for the moment."
Keene rolls perception+awareness vs 7 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 0:
8 4 10
Achieving 3 successes, resulting in a complete success.
Penny rolls perception+awareness (7 dice) at a difficulty of 7:
7 -1- 2 5 3 5 3
Achieving 0 successes, resulting in a failure
Keene grabs onto Penny, trying to keep her upright. Once they're through the door, though, he releases her and adjusts his messenger bag strap. "Wow, this place is creepy," he says, the master of understatement.
OOC> Penny says, "You'd think MY odds were better."
"Jeepers Freddie," she elbows him and laughs in a pretty careless way "You should hear yourself. I bet it's just the temperature change - all that dry ice in one place tends to get a little on the stale side a few hours in." On the whole Penny's pretty blase. Or good at faking blase.
Penny's good. Keene is better. He laughs in that overly loud American way, making an exaggerated `spooky' face. "But bad ventilation is spooooooky," he says, like Count Chocula.
+view of Frankenstein's Monster:
Dark, dreary gothic village setting mayhaps provide you with some sense of where this takes place. Several small vllage huts are in the background. A moon hangs high in the sky. Apparently some of the fog generators must be above this display because it is foggy also, excess spilling to the walkway. In the scene you can see Frankenstein's Monster in all of it's terror and pity provoking grandeur. It stands there, face weirdly illuminated by a greenish light. In it's arms is a small, broken body. A young girl with a wilted daisy still clutched in her right hand that hangs out loosely. Her eyes are glassy, lifeless. She seems to stare out at you, jaw broken and hanging. The monster itself has a mixed expression of horror at its actions and savage triumph.
"Come this way," sounds cheerful and curious about what's around the next corner. Penny turns in toward the dark, gothic village setting. "Now is that what they're paying to see?" She looks at the broken kid-statue, arms folded, head tilted - judging. She walks to it's side - not to get a closer look but maybeb to keep out of it's direct line of sight.
Keene, meanwhile, blunders forward and transposes himself between Penny and the statue -- reading her body language, knowing how this game works. He stares at something inconsequential off to the side of the statue, doing his best cow-eyed tourist impression. "This reminds me of that movie, with the guy," he says. Keene works for Clear Channel. He knows all about inane banter.
The display of the Frankenstein's monster seems almost brooding. The girl's vacant eyes quite oddly seem to follow Penny's movements. You don't see them move... but wherever she is standing, the eyes seem to be looking.
OOC> Penny says, "I'd like to do another roll. Matter/Prime myself - raise my body temperature the better to melt the statue's two pair of eyes."
Cornelius pages: How do you mean, exactly? Not sure how that effect would work.
You paged Cornelius with 'As a foci-related effect: Wax melts at 138 degrees so via foci: Penny can write 138 degrees on her hands with the magic marker and radiate body heat of that temperature, using prime she can hurry along the damage to whatever trap is keeping the girl's spirit lodged in the figure.'.
Cornelius pages: Mmm. You would need a lot of successes for body heat alone to have that impact. Unless you were very close to the statue. Like, right next to it on the display.
Long distance to Cornelius: Penny intends to put her hands on it.
Cornelius pages: Okay... then pose the action first and then I'll call for rolls.
Concealed briefly, Penny backs up into Keene and casually writes all over the backs of her hands. The Sharpie stink is strong. New. "Open the bag, just unzip it" Penny's turned Keene around to explain with brief gestures and in some other language what it is she intends to do. Melt the eyes, break the cage, catch the girl and run. Really fast.
Keene unzips the bag casually, making it look like he's looking for something. "Shoot, I should get a picture of this for Leroy," he says, but unzips the bag too far -- a box-shaped object falls out, sliding onto Penny's feet. It isn't very heavy. Meanwhile, various papers also fly out, causing Keene to chase after them and gather them up in his arms. "God damn it!" he says, fumbling with the various sized press releases he gathered off the fax machine for this purpose. Nothing like a klutz to draw attention away from a peyote-soaked maniac.
You paged Cornelius with 'this is where I'd turn and hit the statue.'.
Cornelius pages: As a formality, please do me a favor and pose stepping on to the platform to do this.
Long distance to Cornelius: Penny didn't see a platform in a desc.
You paged Cornelius with 'Did I miss it?'.
Cornelius pages: I am sorry. It's nothing specifically statted. And unneeded really. Don't sweat it.
When Penny steps close to the display and she passes the area where that is the boundry of the scene, the air ripples slightly and she simply vanishes from sight.
Cornelius pages: When you step across the boundry, you feel a faint tingling of your skin. Then you find yourself standing in a forest at night. In the distance is a small gothic village where the lights are lit. The air is extremely chill and there is a breeze blowing. In the distance you hear the sounds of an animal.
Keene continues scrambling around, picking up papers around him. Something in the back of his mind warns him something is wrong -- and he turns, seeing (or rather, not seeing) Penny. He keeps picking up the papers, putting them all in the bag and zipping it back up. For a few moments, Keene considers the situation. What to do?
He decides to try something -- Keene picks up the box-shaped object he'd left on the floor (actually, a very small hamster cage, complete with wheel) and eases it past the threshhold of the boundary of the scene with his shoe, waiting to see if anything happens.
You paged Cornelius with 'You think I'd be able to tell if I just stepped into the spirit world? awareness roll?'.
Cornelius pages: Without the roll you can tell you're inside of some kind of pocket spirit realm. Like a mini-realm, subject to whatever rules were established during its construction. it seems very real however.
Cornelius has disconnected.
Sorry, Quiet is not connected.
No one to page.
OOC> Penny says, "... great."
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Penny & Piggy take it outside.
[Ed Note: There were two-and-a-half really great poses here that weren’t in my /recall. Sean, please please tell me you have them in your buffer or something. I’ll cry if you don’t.]
Something something about smoke coming out across the ceiling from the library. And Penny BANGS out the door and declares “I’m going out.”
Something something about Hiro in a chair hooked up to something with wires, pants around his ankles, a roll of pennies in his mouth. He, too, declares “I wanna come.”
Something else like: Penny says “So come,” sly? Did she know what he was up to? Hmm. “Nobody’s stopping you.” She fiddles with the door. Something something about the other magic word, KET, to open the door.
Nothing happens.
Penny looks up at the uncooperative door. Her eyes move from edge to edge, then spots it "Who set the deadbolt?"
Hiro loses the wires and pulls up his pants, fiddling unsuccessfully with his belt. He looks up at the question, and promptly looks away. "I didn't want to be interrupted," he answers coyly, stripping off the rubber gloves. "Let's go."
*click*
Industrial - Factory
-= Jones and Lynx =-
To the west the more residential area is left behind while the long stretch of road spans towards the east. The apartment buildings and other stores of consumer goodness dwindle to nothingness while warehouses start to appear every so often. Many of the old factories that have become the namesake of the district have ironically closed down to instead become storage for different goods.
The street becomes more and more filled with holes, the pavement wearing thin and causing vehicles to bounce up and down on the pot holes. Quite frequently large trucks can be seen making their way down the roads. They haul lumber, paper, or some other material out to their destination, be that one of the local warehouses or the docks. During all hours there are the sparkle of lights, both day and night shift available in most of the factories that are still in operation.
Obvious exits:
Cowpunchers
===============================| +IC Time |================================
Current Time: Mon Feb 02 23:09:15 2004
Time of Day: Evening Weather: Sleet
Moon: Waxing Crescent Temperature: 34F (1C)
===========================================================================
A bar that has a good few cowboys milling about it.
Hiro makes his way into the Cowpunchers.
Hiro has left.
You make your way into the Cowpunchers.
Cowpunchers - Main Room(#1194RIJMs)
Loud country music assails the senses, issuing forth from a jukebox in the corner. Leaning over the bar next to the door must be 'the newcomer', a man around 55 years old. He's usually cleaning the bar with a rag when he's not drawing a beer from the taps in front of him. The usual liquors are available on the shelfs behind him, reflected in the mirror that says "Cowpunchers" with a red hat tipping up in a ya-hoo move over a lassoo.
Weekday evenings, this bar is filled with older men, having a sociable drink before going on home to the wife. But on weekends the place fills up with the factory workers relaxing before the dreaded work week comes once more. At these times it gets rowdy, when the cowboys that still live on the ranches to the east of here clash with the factory workers. Most fights wind up on the street, out of respect to the owner's age, but occasionally the cops have to be called in.
Contents:
Hiro
Echo
Ingrid
Kiet
Dennis
Matt
Petra
Obvious exits:
OOC> Dennis says, "Sorry, guys, the 'Puncher is pretty much ICly closed for a family get-together. :("
OOC> Penny says, "lock the door?"
You make your way to the streets outside.
Industrial - Factory
-= Jones and Lynx =-
To the west the more residential area is left behind while the long stretch of road spans towards the east. The apartment buildings and other stores of consumer goodness dwindle to nothingness while warehouses start to appear every so often. Many of the old factories that have become the namesake of the district have ironically closed down to instead become storage for different goods.
The street becomes more and more filled with holes, the pavement wearing thin and causing vehicles to bounce up and down on the pot holes. Quite frequently large trucks can be seen making their way down the roads. They haul lumber, paper, or some other material out to their destination, be that one of the local warehouses or the docks. During all hours there are the sparkle of lights, both day and night shift available in most of the factories that are still in operation.
Obvious exits:
Cowpunchers North on Lynx East on Jones West on Jones
Hiro comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Hiro has arrived.
Alabaster Smith comes into the area from the east.
Alabaster Smith has arrived.
Hiro *zzzp*: he's tugging on the zipper of his pants, having just christened the entrance to Cowpunchers to express his disdain for the locked door. The closest bar in town, and they lock the doors. Lam-O. "You got a cigarette, Penny?" he asks, turning away from the offending establishment.
Alabaster Smith is just in time to catch that interesting little act as he wanders down the street. An eyebrow quirks.
Penny pats herself down. Jacket pockets first; outside, inside. Jeans. Breast pocket. Nothing. Then she digs around in that bag of hers. "Lucky you," Penny tugs out a silver cigarette case; hard to miss what glitters on the outside - the initials VAV. Flips the case to Hiro and digs around for matches or something, finds something else instead. The way her hand slows, stops and tenses sends out the 'wrong' vibe "The fu- I swear to god if that fucking monkey's been in my bag..."
Alabaster Smith seems, it might seem, to have been headed for Cowpunchers, but his attention is diverted by the unusual pair, who he studies in some brief detail.
Hiro pauses, cigarette case snapped open, fingers poised in mid-air. He gives Penny a sidelong look, shows teeth. He's the only one that seems to get a kick out of the chimpanzee. Looks away, then, to hide the expression - busines himself with fitting a cigarette between his lips, patting himself down for a lighter. Snap - there's one, flourescent orange bic. Spark - flash - inhale.
Penny stops, pulls her hand out - clean. "You're so fucking sexy Piggy," walks up to him, takes the lit cig from his mouth while he stands there, electric in some way. His charisma goes a long way with her, it would seem. So right. Penny walks up to him, steals his smoke and fixes his pants and shirt for him. Buckles his belt. Puts a hand through his hair.
None of this is sisterly.
"What'd they say when you went in?"
Alabaster Smith quirks an eyebrow again. "Pardon me," he calls. "Is the establishment closed, or are y'all just hanging out?" He's got one of those Deep South accents you can scrape roadkill off the grill with.
"Barn party. Livestock, no pants, bad scene." Hiro directs this at Smith, over Penny's shoulder. Simultaneous response, like. His hair doesn't improve with Penny's ministrations - it's a lost cause. "Heypennsygrabthefortyouttamybag," he mumbles, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
Hiro pages: record bag. No records. A forty ouncer and a zip-lock bag full of pills and powders.
Clearly Hiro's hands are useless. Or useful but only in a very specific manner for a very specific task. Penny circles him, cigarette burning down in her mouth, works the knot out of the twist-ties keeping the record bag closed on his back. She tugs and tugs. And tugs. Gets her hands down in it, small rattling, plasticky rustling noises slither down the uplifted glass fourty ounce-er. She keeps her hand in the bag, murmurs something into his ear.
Alabaster Smith watches the Hiro and Penny, expression amused yet mostly neutral. "Ah see. A barn party. Hmm. Pity, Ah was hoping to save some souls and get a drink."
"Blue goes down, red goes up, yellow goes sideways." Hiro reaches back - plucking the cigarette from between her fingers. Hits it, long and hard. Exhale around the words: "The rest's self-explanatory." He beams inexplicably at Alabaster - ashing his smoke in the gutter. "You wanna hit the forty, preacher?"
Penny and Hiro are to the left of the door to Cowpunchers. Penny is smoking even though Hiro has his hand out, waiting for that cigarette to be returned. Her hands are otherwise occupied, a fourty in one and the other deep in his record bag. Her mouth couldn't be closer to his ear otherwise she'd burn him.
"So I says to 'r, I says... Ma'... don' bother me now, man, I got my headgear on..." To avoid having their conversation rained out by this abysmal weather, Pobble and Cash are sticking close to the sides of buildings. They approach in a conversational gate, Cash getting wet away from the protection of Pobble's super villain umbrella. He walks head down, watching his feet tromp through puddles in the production of micro tidal-waves. Cash continues the end of his antic dote trailing his fingers over the memory of his orthopedics aids.
Pobble strolls. Or rather, he would stroll were he not king pimpin' and combat booted. So its more of a strut. Well. It would be a strut if he weren't so obviously wasted. Lets call it swaggering. All S's, so lets call him shitfaced. Pupils agape, if they were mouths they would be the mouths of persons who had just seen the ghosts of their long dead parents, agape, all slack jawed. The irises have given up hope and gone into hiding. A cigarette dangles precariously from a thin lip as if stuck there with superglue. Another cigarette clings for dear life to his begloved silver tipped fingers. The umbrella is held waveringly, the black and white alternating segments twisting around through some wrist action chicanery.
Alabaster Smith smiles broadly at Hiro. "That's a generous offer, Brother, but Ah shall pass for the moment. Get me started on preachin' and Ah might need it later."
Hiro continues to drag on his imaginary cigarette - only, hey, now it's real - Penny's a thief and Hiro's smoking all her cigarettes. The attractive silver case drops into his pocket. Fresh flash of butane flame, flashed peace sign at the approaching duo. "Oi, assholes," he greets.
Penny hasn't seen Pobble or Cash yet, isn't even aware that the cigarette's gone - must be holding her breath or something. She tugs him and the bag back into the uncovered light outside the door to the bar. "Nnnsweet. I need.." She palms something out of his bag, pockets it and lets go of the straps.
Under the thin awning, Penny sneezes. She puts the other hand back in her bag, digs.
Hang Loose. Loose indeed, since the gesticulation brings about the downfall of the tragically fated cigarette between Pobble's fingers. Appropriately the finger-formation is replaced with a request for another cigarette. Brain catches up with reality, and fingers find the substitute cigarette on the lips. It is removed, after a long last-cigarette-on-earth drag. The rain-pearled umbrella toting yeti flashes a most charming smile as he moves with his companion to stand near the dastardly duo outside Cowpunchers. "Good evening, my droogan brothers. And sister." As he says the latter, he eyes Penny with a strange look. It's about half a mile away from enviousness, and three quarters from lust. Pobble taps his nose, and the expression vanishes like Houdini. "What transpires in the shadow of the house of slaughter?" he asks dreamily.
"Far out." Cash throws some fingers in pairs to Hiro and Penny, accompanied by a complicating ghetto sign ending in a *snap*.
"Whadda ya..." The rest of this greeting is interrupted by something square that grabs Cash's attention as his steps have taken him into proximity. Soaked jeans cry when he bends down to pick up said shiny blue square. Flipping the lost BlockBuster's card in his hand, he eyes it as a prize and nods to himself. It ends up back in Pobble's chest, handed over to the space cadet. "We should check into this." He whispers back, then "Whadda ya doin'.... man." for the two loiterers and company.
Echo comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Echo has arrived.
Echo steps through a void into the OOC Nexus.
Echo has left.
Alabaster Smith watches the others, studying them with a pleasant, unchanging smile, choosing to remain silent for the moment.
So now Hiro has two cigarettes, and he doesn't even notice it. Reality can't be as muddled as his head: teeth bared in a grin, squeaking with grinding-away enamel. Happy birthday. Both smokes wedged between index and middle fingers of the same hand, burning against one another. He jerks backwards at Penny's insistent tugging, stumbles, nearly falls back. Doesn't seem to notice, aside from an untrusting look aimed at the treacherous ground--
--attention snaps up. Fixes, somewhere between Pobble and Cash.
"Reckon them shitheels closed their cow club to us cattle rustlers, pardner," he drawls. Then, in more appropriate english: "So we've taken our sex and drugs to the street, where it belongs."
Jon comes into the area from the west.
Jon has arrived.
OOC> Jon waits for an idea of the scene before jumping in.
Hiro and Penny are on the doorstep of Cowpunchers. Hiro's smoking two tandem cigarettes: Penny's behind him, rooting through her bag. Pobble and Cash approach across a stretch of asphalt, Smith stands off to one side, scrutinizing. The vibe is manic, crazed, drug and drink fueled.
Penny was eyeing the corner of the building; specifically the darker, more sheltered area. Interrupted.
Pobble.
Penny moves sideways; away into some shadow only to be headlighted. There's a look - a fast gesture waved to them, to Cash and Pobble - not a good-bye. She seems to find her spine a minute later and calls to Pobble The Bear "You just stay the fuck away from me," she points with her left hand "you stay away," backing away, a tremor in her voice, hissing "He said it wasn't /time/.. Hiro keep him away from me.."
It takes a while for the idea to leave his cranium, some grand plan for free porn rental using this found BluckBusters card. And true to this, Cash seems detached from this group for a few beats as this scheme works it's self out. The obvious catch being, BlockBusters doesn't carry porn.
"Fuggin natzis... They don' even have porn, man." Cash utters in disgust, turning back to his friends that brave this weather. Of course without a mainline view of the inner workings of this drunkard's dome, these words are meaningless and out of place. "I'm still cookin' ya know. I got some mad kabob I put together."
Pobble, standing with a giant black and white segmented golf umbrella to stave off the downpour, stands near Smith, Hiro and Penny. Eyes that are suggestive of some kind of drug induced haze channel surf, flicking between the pair and the static fuzz of no-person somewhere between them which is only visible to the befurred man. An approximation of outrage crawls onto his features, but it's definately a half-arsed effort by the muscles. The desired look is missed, and the expression that shows up in it's place is more like.. senile old man thrown into bath of jam. Penny's actions cause him to step back a few, raising his cigarette holding hand palm outwards. "I haven't come for it. It's not time." Somewhere in the London drawl there is a sympathetic tone of apology. A blue blockbuster card is dropped into a pocket.
[Public] Eri has joined this channel.
Huh? (Type "help" for help.)
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) says, "Speaking of Steampunk, Wild Wild West is on TNT."
[TIC] Pig Boy (Saturday) says, "nice"
Jon comes up the street with an umbrella over his head. The umbrella is black, and says 'Interzone Records' on it. He's walking at a good pace, a mostly smoked cigarette in hand. He pauses as he gets close to Cowpunchers and drops the cigarette butt on the soaked sidewalk, stubbing it out with his boot. He pulls a pack of Marlboro's from a pocket along with a black Zippo lighter. He removes a cigarette that's just a touch crumply from being in his pocket and straightens it out with his fingers. Once he's finished he lights the cigarette and puts the pack along with the lighter in his pocket. It takes a bit of work and time, but he gets it. Just his luck, that the minute he gets it all worked out, the rain stops. He mumbles under his breath as he exhales smoke. "Fuckin' rain."
Hiro looks away. Just like that - not his scene. Flicks something into his mouth, riposte off the thumb of his left hand, tips his head back for a long moment to catch some dirty rainwater - wash it down. Hard swallow of minimal liquid and something small'n knobbly. "Lovely day, inn't?" he asks Cash, after a moment: passing off his second, longer cigarette. It's a sad, soggy affair - barely burning with its twin.
It's not a particularly welcome offer, but Cash accepts it none the less. If not only to fulfill the symbology that weighs it, but to continue the pass eventually over to Pobble. Perhaps the unhappy and wet cigarette can snuggle up with a BlockBusters card and spoon a bit. "Whatever. This place never stops with the rain. And I need some more red soda, fugger." A search begins behind the denim flap of Cash's jacket and ends when he pulls out a flask to unscrew.
Penny discovers a ledge to lean on and positions herself where Pobble can't see her face. She disappears along the side of the building using Hiro as a shield. Her voice thins to a sometimes heard rant about time and it's meaning for another five minutes.
Then it's quiet. As the rain stops, there's a sound of something metal hitting the blacktop; and rainwater sluicing off the roof, tapping that metal in pairs of clinks. Other noises; interior distortions of conversation and music and one shuttle of gravel under a sliding foot.
Pobble takes the cigarette, it finding a home next to the cigarette he already has lit. Taking a puff on both at once he seems to look straight through Hiro at Penny for a moment before shrugging his rain laden fur clad shoulders and focusing his attention back on what blocks his perception of what he was seeing anyway. Umbrella spins, splaying out droplets everywhere and with a deft flick of the thumb it pops down as he angles it into some empty air. He sounds suddenly tired, swaying with the motion of demasting the rain deflector. "They kicked us out? Christ. I've not even been inside yet and they kicked me out." He'd sound angry if he diddn't sound so drug addled. "This is, an outrage." Sucking again on both of the cigarettes he twirls, swinging the brolly up under his arm like a baton. Looking about as if for a manager, he nearly spears Hiro with it's overly pointed end.
Jon puts his cigarette between his lips and puts his umbrella down. He exhales more smoke as he removes the cigarette from his lips. "Fuckers in there comin' up with reasons to kick people out?" He says it loud enough for anyone around to hear. He pushes his glasses up his nose. "Sometimes I wonder why the fuck I bother walkin' my ass down here." If he notices any hint of drugs in Pobble's voice, he makes no sign of it.
Hiro jerks back, recoils from Pobble's Penguinesque assault upon his person. He looks back and to the left (back, and to the left...): flicks the remainder of his cigarette off into the gutter. Buckle-down of the snaps on his record-bag. One last look between his partners in crime. Then, gone, not a word, retreating around the side of the bar - mumbled words, scuffle, straining noise, thump of meat against wall.
Alabaster Smith may be a preacherman, but so far he hasn't shown any signs of objecting to the presence of booze, tobacco, or other drugs. He just keeps to himself, watching, listening, keeping dry.
Enid comes into the area from the west.
Enid has arrived.
From afar, Hiro tries to get you to your feet and against the wall, so you're not all sprawled out in the dust. Then books inexplicably.
"I hope he's goin' ta make soda..." Cash watches the techni-colored lab coat stalk off in silent retreat. Rain still dripping from the tip of his thrice broken nose. The presence of a preacher man settles, hunched outside an establishment of ill repute amongst scallywags. Long hair is parted, the better for Cash to see with. And above the fallen Penny and besides the wet fur man, the drunk drinks from his flask and smiles.
"Hey man." Cash offers to evangelic watcher.
"Bastards." says Pobble, turning to look towards the entrance to Cowpunchers. "You're all a bunch of bastards." He doesn't shout, and any trace of anger has dissapated. Mustered with the sucking of two cigarettes and expelled with carcinogens to the wind. An umbrella pokes from under his arm in a manner that still threatens to skewer the unwary as he turns to Cash, casting a perplexed look at Penny along the way. "Oi reakon," he begins, but then turns to nearby Jon, "Do this often do they?" he asks, voice fading in the brief five word question from curious to apathetic run off. Hand swings in a wide arc, palm open, cigarettes dangling. Apparently he wants Cash's flask.
Alabaster Smith dips his head. "Brother," he replies to Cash. God only knows what Smith's reasons for staying are. Maybe he just likes the ambience.
Everyone stands near Cowpunchers. Except Penny, who's slunk into a niche. Cash seems Drunk. Pobble looks fucked and sometimes agitated. Penny is hiding and rambling.
---------------------------------[ Glance ]---------------------------------
Enid................Punk rock Goldilocks. Skinny. 20ish. Half-finished tattoos.
Height: 5' 4 Weight: 110 lb Age: App: 2 Cha: 4
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Jon.................Tall, lanky young man with a slender build and very dyed hair.
Height: 6'3" Weight: 145 lb Age: App: 2 Cha: 2
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Pobble..............
Height: 5'10 Weight: 140 lb Age: App: 2 Cha: 3
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Cash................
Height: Not Weight: 177 Age: App: 2 Cha: 2
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Alabaster Smith.....Tall, thin, red-haired, blue-eyed, well-dressed
Height: 6'1" Weight: 170(?) Age: 30 App: 2 Cha: 4
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Penny...............Tall. Hot. White hair.
Height: 5'9" Weight: 123 Age: App: 3 Cha: 3
-----------------------------------[ - ]------------------------------------
Jon chuckles, smoke coming from his mouth in little puffs as he does. "S'like anything else, man. Bunch of uptight bastards decides they wanna keep a certain class of folks out, they'll come up with any goddamn reason to do it. Doesn't even have to make sense." He shrugs it off. "I've been kicked out of my share of places cause people didn't like my look. Whatever that fuckin' means."
A moan.
A hand then. On the cornerpiece of the building.
It must be Penny where Hiro propped her up before he ran off. No explanation. Nothing. Man left in a big hurry. From experience, some know that's never good. The hand, Penny's hand, keeps readjusting itself like she's clinging to the edge of the world.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
<6> 4 3
Achieving 1 successes, resulting in a marginal success.
Enid rounds the corner, swinging her motorcycle helmet in one hand and whistling. Oh, somebody's in high spirits. You'd have to be in high spirits to try to whistle out a melody from psytrance. She passes in front of Cowpuncher's just in time to hear Jon opine about The Man keeping him down, a complaint that she answers by bumping into him with her shoulder. "You!" she says. "I don't like the look of you, Sickert. You're ugly an' you smell funny an' I wanna cigarette." She's at least thoughtful enough not to help herself to contents of his pockets, instead she extends a hand and wait. Of course, as she's waiting the realization slowly dawns on her that they're not alone here, at night, in front of a nightclub. She gaze darts self-conciously from one side to another.
Long distance to Pobble: Penny is channeling god, talking to it. Penny's done a massive quantity of herion to achieve this calling-forth. I'd roll to sense were I you.
Pobble rolls 4 (4 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
<10> 5 5 2
Achieving 1 successes, resulting in a marginal success.
Cash rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 4:
<5> 2 <8>
Achieving 2 successes, resulting in a moderate success.
"So like... what're you doin ova there, Penny." Someone finally comes round to it, as Cash hands off his flask to be hit. Pobble gets a ripe whiff of the stuff, it's running down each side of the silvery flask and mixing with the rain water. The denim man steps over to where Penny makes sidewalk angels.
"Get yer act together... man." Cash tries to coach the girl back off the cement.
"Damn the Man. Next thing you know Music Town will take over." Enid's arrival brings a wonky smile to Pobble's lips with a sideways nod. "Awrighty." he says, and then he twitches just a little. As if a bee had just stung him in the side. It's not pain however that flash-marks his features but.. a look of loss. It dissapears as quickly as it came. While still facing Jon and Enid, eyes swivel to look sideways towards Penny's hand. Harsh drags on the twin cigarettes, in the waiting-for-scentencing fashion. Arm with umbrella takes flask. He begins to turn, suddenly appearing confused.
Jon bumps forward a little as Enid shoulder blocks him. "Well, I don't like your looks either bitch, and you dress funny." All the same he pulls out his slightly crumpled pack of Marlboro's and black Zippo and hands them to Motorcycle Mama Enid. "Here. I'm not gonna fuckin' light it for you." He tries to look stern and offended, but he can't help it, a bit of a smile tugs at the corner of his eyes "Where's your bike?" He pokes her in the leg with his umbrella.
Enid loops her arm through the faceplate of the helmet so as to free up both hands for cigarette-lighting. She bends her head down and cups her hand around the Zippo, not that it needs protection from any stray breeze. "'Round the corner," she says, tossing the lighter back to Jon. "Good luck findin' parking out here on a club night." As her tunnel vision expands to include the rest of the crowd in front of Cowpunchers, she smiles up at Pobble - the sort of sunny and beautific smile possessed only by children and happy drunks. It wavers in the face of Pobble's confusion, and Enid turns that expression on the white-suited Alabaster Smith. "Reverard," she drawls, exhaling smoke. "You've wandered a bit far from home, haven't you?"
Alabaster Smith smiles at Enid broadly, giving her the full attention of his personality. "Sister," he declares, "Ah am at home anywhere on God's green Earth. What brings you here?"
It pours out of her, an eerie language so gutteral at times it could be finnish and so sharp it may be japanese but it's definitely not english. The tone of the conversation Penny carries on seems to be a series of questions, one after another, sometimes interrupting herself. Tongue too full and heavy to round out the words properly. Penny stands up again with Cash acting as ballast, dry heaves and coughs. Too many pills. Or something.
With a last double drag, the twin cigarettes are flicked away bouncing off the wall to fizzle out on the rain drenched sidewalk. Pobble's look of confusion snaps away as he takes a swig from the flask in his hand, causing him to drop the umbrella which was held by his elbow. Itching palms it seems, now free fingers rub at the red gloves and looking back to Enid he says "Sorry. Bear with me a second." Tone has shifted to verging-on-sadness as he turns to head over to Penny, placing a supportive hand on her shoulder. Eyes find Cash, and he asks "Whaddshe have?"
You whisper "It isn't time yet but it keeps .. moving. Circulating. Like it's in the blood. . and it just wants to slip out." to Cash.
[TIC] Pobble says, "You saying anything understandable?"
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) says, "Enochian"
[TIC] Pobble has Enochian 3!
Jon continues to draw on his cigarette. He shoots a glance at Smith as he talks to Enid. He adopts his best 'bad ass' posture, though he is far from bad ass in appearance. He doesn't make any aggressiv moves or anything, but he gets that big brother pose by Enid, protective. "Who's your friend in the suit Nid?" As Penny heaves and coughs and Pobble speaks, his attention turns there.
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) is asking where it came from, where it will return to, what it wants; those things we never worked out that night on the beach.
Enid leans against Jon, not necessarily because she has any difficulty standing, but because cramps her friend's attempts as bad-assittude. She taps ash off of the end of her cigarrette. "Just takin' in the local color, Reverend. That's the Reverend Alabaster Smith, Sickert," she says, gesturing towards the man in the white suit. "Here to bring salvation to the great unwashed masses. Say hello to the nice man. He ain't gonna bite," she teases, but her sunny mood is short-lived as Penny begins to dry heave and speak in tongue. "Well. Shit." She looks to Pobble for confirmation or reassurance or, well, something. "She alright?"
Matt comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Matt has arrived.
OOC> Matt says, "whups.. not here. sorry."
Matt makes his way north.
Matt has left.
"I dunno man. Mebbe she's the one that drank the last of the -red- soda." Helpful, much like a mailbox, Cash's center of gravity is low and provides Penny with rock in her trouble turbulent existence. Though the Cash ship sways over its anchor, but it's never uncontrolled in its drunken stupor. With an economy of movements, Penny is twirled and stood straight in an Aikido dance move.
Alabaster Smith grins toothily at Jon, and offers a hand. "Evenin', Brother," he greets. "As the lady says, Ah'm Alabaster Smith, a humble man of God here to do His works." He glances to Penny, eyebrow arching, as if affronted that she might show him up. "Ah do believe the Lord is sending us a sign."
Jon kind of casually leans forward and shakes Smith's hand, his attention distracted to Penny now. "Hi, I'm Jon Sickert." He keeps watching Penny even as he brings his hand back, "Red soda, booze, fuck man, she's on something. And I don't think it's friggin' Jesus." He lets Enid lean against him with no problem as he drops his cigarette to the ground and stubs it out. "I don't know what this would be a sign of, other than some people can't handle their shit."
Alabaster's interjections bring a curious look from Pobble. Although the situation doesn't seem to be all that humorous, his lips twist into a sardonic smile. "You have no idea." he says. Passing Cash's flask back to it's rightful place - Cash's hand, the unobvious humour passes and he nods to Enid with a reassuring 'Trust me, I'm a Doctor' look about him. "She'll be fine." From a pocket, Pobble pulls a handful of something, picks one, deposits the rest back and presses whatever it is into Penny's hand. "You'll be fine Pens." he says again, pulling a half drained plastic water bottle from another oversized pocket and giving it to the woman.
Dennis comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Dennis has arrived.
Zoe comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Zoe has arrived.
Alabaster Smith smiles broadly at Jon. "The Lord, He works in mysterious ways, which is another way of saying He doth maketh the weird shit to happen, and leaves us to interpret it."
Penny is dry heaving, steadied by Cash near the doors to Cow Punchers. Pobble stands close by. Near the cluster stand Jon and Enid, Enid leaning on Jon. Alabaster smith stands against a wall near Jon and Enid.
Enid looks from Cash to Pobble and finally to the shakey Penny, eyes narrowing suspiciously. Somehow, she's less than reassured. "You think so?" she asks to Pobble, taking a drag on her cigarette as if she's been suddenly reminded of her own need for some medicine. The reverend's explanation is what finally calm her, and she lets out a sullen, "You've got that right," in agreement.
Dennis slips out of the Cowpuncher, gives Zoe a nod of farewell, and walks on down the street.
Dennis makes his way west.
Dennis has left.
Zoe goes home.
Zoe has left.
A little baggie is still clutched in her hand, a clue. Penny doesn't quite go limp but she's not the same person that was just out for a beer with her homes Hiro. A little paler, well. A lot paler. Hardly a contrast with her wet white hair plastered to her head. She stares at Cash with dilated pupils and a slack, sad smile. "He never goes completely," sounds rational. But she can't hold her head up and the second, the very second Pobble touches her, Penny tenses and buries her head on Cash's shoulder, like someone touched with a live wire.
Pobble's hand comes away from her hand, red and wet.
Examining her through the wet strands of his hair, Cash looks at the back of Penny's skull while she mans up to the doc's orders. "She'll be cool, man." Not that he sounds any more comforting in the matter now that he's retrieved his flask from sir Pobble. It's hit, his 30 proof breath travels and steams in the cold air. Penny's head resting on the swaying shoulder, Cash slowly infests her with the drunken swagger that snakes in his spine constantly. It's contagious, and now that she's allowed her weight to be placed atop of the squat Jew, unavoidable. "Far out." Cash digs it, he never goes completely. That'll be comforting in lonely times.
Jon watches the scene and nods idly at Smiths' words. "I suppose. I never put much stock in God myself." He notes the red on Pobble's hand. He doesn't say anything, but he does keep his gaze where the action's at. "Where you been tonight? I ran by the store and you weren't there. I thought you were closing?" That's it make light conversation. He feels for his cigarettes and lighter and doesn't find htem in his pocket. "Gimme my smokes."
Pobble lets out a long low sigh as he stares down at his fingers. Silver daubed with red. Red on white, red on red. For some reason or other, this turn of events doesn't seem to surpise him. Neither does the fact that Penny spasms when he touches her. The bloody finger smears something onto the bottle in his other hand and he holds this out to Penny as he takes a step back, reaching into his pocket and taking out another pair of cigarettes. He lights both, sucking in and speaking around them. He's starting to look tired.
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) says, "this feels weird. this scene. drama. but maybe not in a good way."
[TIC] Pobble says, "Enochian symbolic equivalent of 'Chill' written in blood on the water bottle. It does seem weird."
[TIC] Pobble says, "I feel ya."
[TIC] Pobble says, "I'm the one that usually does all the falling down in bloody heaps."
Enid has returned the lighter, but she produces Jon's pack of Malboros from her jacket pocket and stuff them back into his. "I had to go pick somethin' up for TC," she says, eyes downcast as she makes some attempt to keep from staring at the Penny-related commotion. "An' now I need a beer," she says in the same sort of way that people usually say they need oxygen. "You drinkin', Reverend?" she asks, turning towards the door.
"Funny you should put it that way," Alabaster comments to Jon, "for He has much invested in you." He shakes his head at Enid. "Sadly, Ah fear my time right here is done, and Ah have to take care of some business."
Penny drops the baggie, takes the bottle and slumps into Cash. In tune with his wobble, her eyes kinda roll up back into her head. She curls the bottle inward toward her chest and 'hnnns' humming her way back to functioning "I cut .. myself. Didn't I. Shouldn't have touched ..me .. P-p-pobs I'm not ..ss-safe." Her eyes roll over toward the other trio, says "Oh.. shit," like she might cry.
Jon watches Smith and gives the man a vague smile before he turns back to Penny and that ensuing drama. "Dude, there anything one of us can do to help? I mean, she ain't lookin' any better." He gives an unsure look to Enid as if seeking her advice silently. "I mean...shit like this can get bad quick sometimes."
Enid's mouth forms a straight line. "Night then, Reverend." She catches Jon's look and gives him a barely perceptible shake of her head. "C'mon." She looks right past him at the bleeding girl. "I think it's time for us to go inside."
Shaking his head, Pobble turns back to Jon, Enid and Smith. Cigarettes waggle between his lips as he says "She'll be fine. Honest." He does sound quite certain of this as he reaches down and picks up his umbrella. "Home's not far Pens. You can rest soon." Straightening up as demanded, Pobble begins to lead his companions up the road with a tired smile to Enid, "See you soon.." A nod to John, "Thanks guvna."
OOC> Penny says, "Night guys ..uh ..sorry it got so weird. Blame it on the rain?"
OOC> Enid laughs. "No problem."
OOC> Pobble says, "Yeah, next time it'll be much worse. I mean, better."
Jon nods to Pobble then looks back to Enid. "Come on, I'll buy you a beer." He heads toward the bar then.
OOC> Jon laughs. "Nah, thanks for the RP. Weird is okay :)"
Enid disappears with Jon into the club.
Enid makes her way into the Cowpunchers.
Something something about smoke coming out across the ceiling from the library. And Penny BANGS out the door and declares “I’m going out.”
Something something about Hiro in a chair hooked up to something with wires, pants around his ankles, a roll of pennies in his mouth. He, too, declares “I wanna come.”
Something else like: Penny says “So come,” sly? Did she know what he was up to? Hmm. “Nobody’s stopping you.” She fiddles with the door. Something something about the other magic word, KET, to open the door.
Nothing happens.
Penny looks up at the uncooperative door. Her eyes move from edge to edge, then spots it "Who set the deadbolt?"
Hiro loses the wires and pulls up his pants, fiddling unsuccessfully with his belt. He looks up at the question, and promptly looks away. "I didn't want to be interrupted," he answers coyly, stripping off the rubber gloves. "Let's go."
*click*
Industrial - Factory
-= Jones and Lynx =-
To the west the more residential area is left behind while the long stretch of road spans towards the east. The apartment buildings and other stores of consumer goodness dwindle to nothingness while warehouses start to appear every so often. Many of the old factories that have become the namesake of the district have ironically closed down to instead become storage for different goods.
The street becomes more and more filled with holes, the pavement wearing thin and causing vehicles to bounce up and down on the pot holes. Quite frequently large trucks can be seen making their way down the roads. They haul lumber, paper, or some other material out to their destination, be that one of the local warehouses or the docks. During all hours there are the sparkle of lights, both day and night shift available in most of the factories that are still in operation.
Obvious exits:
Cowpunchers
===============================| +IC Time |================================
Current Time: Mon Feb 02 23:09:15 2004
Time of Day: Evening Weather: Sleet
Moon: Waxing Crescent
===========================================================================
A bar that has a good few cowboys milling about it.
Hiro makes his way into the Cowpunchers.
Hiro has left.
You make your way into the Cowpunchers.
Cowpunchers - Main Room(#1194RIJMs)
Loud country music assails the senses, issuing forth from a jukebox in the corner. Leaning over the bar next to the door must be 'the newcomer', a man around 55 years old. He's usually cleaning the bar with a rag when he's not drawing a beer from the taps in front of him. The usual liquors are available on the shelfs behind him, reflected in the mirror that says "Cowpunchers" with a red hat tipping up in a ya-hoo move over a lassoo.
Weekday evenings, this bar is filled with older men, having a sociable drink before going on home to the wife. But on weekends the place fills up with the factory workers relaxing before the dreaded work week comes once more. At these times it gets rowdy, when the cowboys that still live on the ranches to the east of here clash with the factory workers. Most fights wind up on the street, out of respect to the owner's age, but occasionally the cops have to be called in.
Contents:
Hiro
Echo
Ingrid
Kiet
Dennis
Matt
Petra
Obvious exits:
OOC> Dennis says, "Sorry, guys, the 'Puncher is pretty much ICly closed for a family get-together. :("
OOC> Penny says, "lock the door?"
You make your way to the streets outside.
Industrial - Factory
-= Jones and Lynx =-
To the west the more residential area is left behind while the long stretch of road spans towards the east. The apartment buildings and other stores of consumer goodness dwindle to nothingness while warehouses start to appear every so often. Many of the old factories that have become the namesake of the district have ironically closed down to instead become storage for different goods.
The street becomes more and more filled with holes, the pavement wearing thin and causing vehicles to bounce up and down on the pot holes. Quite frequently large trucks can be seen making their way down the roads. They haul lumber, paper, or some other material out to their destination, be that one of the local warehouses or the docks. During all hours there are the sparkle of lights, both day and night shift available in most of the factories that are still in operation.
Obvious exits:
Cowpunchers
Hiro comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Hiro has arrived.
Alabaster Smith comes into the area from the east.
Alabaster Smith has arrived.
Hiro *zzzp*: he's tugging on the zipper of his pants, having just christened the entrance to Cowpunchers to express his disdain for the locked door. The closest bar in town, and they lock the doors. Lam-O. "You got a cigarette, Penny?" he asks, turning away from the offending establishment.
Alabaster Smith is just in time to catch that interesting little act as he wanders down the street. An eyebrow quirks.
Penny pats herself down. Jacket pockets first; outside, inside. Jeans. Breast pocket. Nothing. Then she digs around in that bag of hers. "Lucky you," Penny tugs out a silver cigarette case; hard to miss what glitters on the outside - the initials VAV. Flips the case to Hiro and digs around for matches or something, finds something else instead. The way her hand slows, stops and tenses sends out the 'wrong' vibe "The fu- I swear to god if that fucking monkey's been in my bag..."
Alabaster Smith seems, it might seem, to have been headed for Cowpunchers, but his attention is diverted by the unusual pair, who he studies in some brief detail.
Hiro pauses, cigarette case snapped open, fingers poised in mid-air. He gives Penny a sidelong look, shows teeth. He's the only one that seems to get a kick out of the chimpanzee. Looks away, then, to hide the expression - busines himself with fitting a cigarette between his lips, patting himself down for a lighter. Snap - there's one, flourescent orange bic. Spark - flash - inhale.
Penny stops, pulls her hand out - clean. "You're so fucking sexy Piggy," walks up to him, takes the lit cig from his mouth while he stands there, electric in some way. His charisma goes a long way with her, it would seem. So right. Penny walks up to him, steals his smoke and fixes his pants and shirt for him. Buckles his belt. Puts a hand through his hair.
None of this is sisterly.
"What'd they say when you went in?"
Alabaster Smith quirks an eyebrow again. "Pardon me," he calls. "Is the establishment closed, or are y'all just hanging out?" He's got one of those Deep South accents you can scrape roadkill off the grill with.
"Barn party. Livestock, no pants, bad scene." Hiro directs this at Smith, over Penny's shoulder. Simultaneous response, like. His hair doesn't improve with Penny's ministrations - it's a lost cause. "Heypennsygrabthefortyouttamybag," he mumbles, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
Hiro pages: record bag. No records. A forty ouncer and a zip-lock bag full of pills and powders.
Clearly Hiro's hands are useless. Or useful but only in a very specific manner for a very specific task. Penny circles him, cigarette burning down in her mouth, works the knot out of the twist-ties keeping the record bag closed on his back. She tugs and tugs. And tugs. Gets her hands down in it, small rattling, plasticky rustling noises slither down the uplifted glass fourty ounce-er. She keeps her hand in the bag, murmurs something into his ear.
Alabaster Smith watches the Hiro and Penny, expression amused yet mostly neutral. "Ah see. A barn party. Hmm. Pity, Ah was hoping to save some souls and get a drink."
"Blue goes down, red goes up, yellow goes sideways." Hiro reaches back - plucking the cigarette from between her fingers. Hits it, long and hard. Exhale around the words: "The rest's self-explanatory." He beams inexplicably at Alabaster - ashing his smoke in the gutter. "You wanna hit the forty, preacher?"
Penny and Hiro are to the left of the door to Cowpunchers. Penny is smoking even though Hiro has his hand out, waiting for that cigarette to be returned. Her hands are otherwise occupied, a fourty in one and the other deep in his record bag. Her mouth couldn't be closer to his ear otherwise she'd burn him.
"So I says to 'r, I says... Ma'... don' bother me now, man, I got my headgear on..." To avoid having their conversation rained out by this abysmal weather, Pobble and Cash are sticking close to the sides of buildings. They approach in a conversational gate, Cash getting wet away from the protection of Pobble's super villain umbrella. He walks head down, watching his feet tromp through puddles in the production of micro tidal-waves. Cash continues the end of his antic dote trailing his fingers over the memory of his orthopedics aids.
Pobble strolls. Or rather, he would stroll were he not king pimpin' and combat booted. So its more of a strut. Well. It would be a strut if he weren't so obviously wasted. Lets call it swaggering. All S's, so lets call him shitfaced. Pupils agape, if they were mouths they would be the mouths of persons who had just seen the ghosts of their long dead parents, agape, all slack jawed. The irises have given up hope and gone into hiding. A cigarette dangles precariously from a thin lip as if stuck there with superglue. Another cigarette clings for dear life to his begloved silver tipped fingers. The umbrella is held waveringly, the black and white alternating segments twisting around through some wrist action chicanery.
Alabaster Smith smiles broadly at Hiro. "That's a generous offer, Brother, but Ah shall pass for the moment. Get me started on preachin' and Ah might need it later."
Hiro continues to drag on his imaginary cigarette - only, hey, now it's real - Penny's a thief and Hiro's smoking all her cigarettes. The attractive silver case drops into his pocket. Fresh flash of butane flame, flashed peace sign at the approaching duo. "Oi, assholes," he greets.
Penny hasn't seen Pobble or Cash yet, isn't even aware that the cigarette's gone - must be holding her breath or something. She tugs him and the bag back into the uncovered light outside the door to the bar. "Nnnsweet. I need.." She palms something out of his bag, pockets it and lets go of the straps.
Under the thin awning, Penny sneezes. She puts the other hand back in her bag, digs.
Hang Loose. Loose indeed, since the gesticulation brings about the downfall of the tragically fated cigarette between Pobble's fingers. Appropriately the finger-formation is replaced with a request for another cigarette. Brain catches up with reality, and fingers find the substitute cigarette on the lips. It is removed, after a long last-cigarette-on-earth drag. The rain-pearled umbrella toting yeti flashes a most charming smile as he moves with his companion to stand near the dastardly duo outside Cowpunchers. "Good evening, my droogan brothers. And sister." As he says the latter, he eyes Penny with a strange look. It's about half a mile away from enviousness, and three quarters from lust. Pobble taps his nose, and the expression vanishes like Houdini. "What transpires in the shadow of the house of slaughter?" he asks dreamily.
"Far out." Cash throws some fingers in pairs to Hiro and Penny, accompanied by a complicating ghetto sign ending in a *snap*.
"Whadda ya..." The rest of this greeting is interrupted by something square that grabs Cash's attention as his steps have taken him into proximity. Soaked jeans cry when he bends down to pick up said shiny blue square. Flipping the lost BlockBuster's card in his hand, he eyes it as a prize and nods to himself. It ends up back in Pobble's chest, handed over to the space cadet. "We should check into this." He whispers back, then "Whadda ya doin'.... man." for the two loiterers and company.
Echo comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Echo has arrived.
Echo steps through a void into the OOC Nexus.
Echo has left.
Alabaster Smith watches the others, studying them with a pleasant, unchanging smile, choosing to remain silent for the moment.
So now Hiro has two cigarettes, and he doesn't even notice it. Reality can't be as muddled as his head: teeth bared in a grin, squeaking with grinding-away enamel. Happy birthday. Both smokes wedged between index and middle fingers of the same hand, burning against one another. He jerks backwards at Penny's insistent tugging, stumbles, nearly falls back. Doesn't seem to notice, aside from an untrusting look aimed at the treacherous ground--
--attention snaps up. Fixes, somewhere between Pobble and Cash.
"Reckon them shitheels closed their cow club to us cattle rustlers, pardner," he drawls. Then, in more appropriate english: "So we've taken our sex and drugs to the street, where it belongs."
Jon comes into the area from the west.
Jon has arrived.
OOC> Jon waits for an idea of the scene before jumping in.
Hiro and Penny are on the doorstep of Cowpunchers. Hiro's smoking two tandem cigarettes: Penny's behind him, rooting through her bag. Pobble and Cash approach across a stretch of asphalt, Smith stands off to one side, scrutinizing. The vibe is manic, crazed, drug and drink fueled.
Penny was eyeing the corner of the building; specifically the darker, more sheltered area. Interrupted.
Pobble.
Penny moves sideways; away into some shadow only to be headlighted. There's a look - a fast gesture waved to them, to Cash and Pobble - not a good-bye. She seems to find her spine a minute later and calls to Pobble The Bear "You just stay the fuck away from me," she points with her left hand "you stay away," backing away, a tremor in her voice, hissing "He said it wasn't /time/.. Hiro keep him away from me.."
It takes a while for the idea to leave his cranium, some grand plan for free porn rental using this found BluckBusters card. And true to this, Cash seems detached from this group for a few beats as this scheme works it's self out. The obvious catch being, BlockBusters doesn't carry porn.
"Fuggin natzis... They don' even have porn, man." Cash utters in disgust, turning back to his friends that brave this weather. Of course without a mainline view of the inner workings of this drunkard's dome, these words are meaningless and out of place. "I'm still cookin' ya know. I got some mad kabob I put together."
Pobble, standing with a giant black and white segmented golf umbrella to stave off the downpour, stands near Smith, Hiro and Penny. Eyes that are suggestive of some kind of drug induced haze channel surf, flicking between the pair and the static fuzz of no-person somewhere between them which is only visible to the befurred man. An approximation of outrage crawls onto his features, but it's definately a half-arsed effort by the muscles. The desired look is missed, and the expression that shows up in it's place is more like.. senile old man thrown into bath of jam. Penny's actions cause him to step back a few, raising his cigarette holding hand palm outwards. "I haven't come for it. It's not time." Somewhere in the London drawl there is a sympathetic tone of apology. A blue blockbuster card is dropped into a pocket.
[Public] Eri has joined this channel.
Huh? (Type "help" for help.)
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) says, "Speaking of Steampunk, Wild Wild West is on TNT."
[TIC] Pig Boy (Saturday) says, "nice"
Jon comes up the street with an umbrella over his head. The umbrella is black, and says 'Interzone Records' on it. He's walking at a good pace, a mostly smoked cigarette in hand. He pauses as he gets close to Cowpunchers and drops the cigarette butt on the soaked sidewalk, stubbing it out with his boot. He pulls a pack of Marlboro's from a pocket along with a black Zippo lighter. He removes a cigarette that's just a touch crumply from being in his pocket and straightens it out with his fingers. Once he's finished he lights the cigarette and puts the pack along with the lighter in his pocket. It takes a bit of work and time, but he gets it. Just his luck, that the minute he gets it all worked out, the rain stops. He mumbles under his breath as he exhales smoke. "Fuckin' rain."
Hiro looks away. Just like that - not his scene. Flicks something into his mouth, riposte off the thumb of his left hand, tips his head back for a long moment to catch some dirty rainwater - wash it down. Hard swallow of minimal liquid and something small'n knobbly. "Lovely day, inn't?" he asks Cash, after a moment: passing off his second, longer cigarette. It's a sad, soggy affair - barely burning with its twin.
It's not a particularly welcome offer, but Cash accepts it none the less. If not only to fulfill the symbology that weighs it, but to continue the pass eventually over to Pobble. Perhaps the unhappy and wet cigarette can snuggle up with a BlockBusters card and spoon a bit. "Whatever. This place never stops with the rain. And I need some more red soda, fugger." A search begins behind the denim flap of Cash's jacket and ends when he pulls out a flask to unscrew.
Penny discovers a ledge to lean on and positions herself where Pobble can't see her face. She disappears along the side of the building using Hiro as a shield. Her voice thins to a sometimes heard rant about time and it's meaning for another five minutes.
Then it's quiet. As the rain stops, there's a sound of something metal hitting the blacktop; and rainwater sluicing off the roof, tapping that metal in pairs of clinks. Other noises; interior distortions of conversation and music and one shuttle of gravel under a sliding foot.
Pobble takes the cigarette, it finding a home next to the cigarette he already has lit. Taking a puff on both at once he seems to look straight through Hiro at Penny for a moment before shrugging his rain laden fur clad shoulders and focusing his attention back on what blocks his perception of what he was seeing anyway. Umbrella spins, splaying out droplets everywhere and with a deft flick of the thumb it pops down as he angles it into some empty air. He sounds suddenly tired, swaying with the motion of demasting the rain deflector. "They kicked us out? Christ. I've not even been inside yet and they kicked me out." He'd sound angry if he diddn't sound so drug addled. "This is, an outrage." Sucking again on both of the cigarettes he twirls, swinging the brolly up under his arm like a baton. Looking about as if for a manager, he nearly spears Hiro with it's overly pointed end.
Jon puts his cigarette between his lips and puts his umbrella down. He exhales more smoke as he removes the cigarette from his lips. "Fuckers in there comin' up with reasons to kick people out?" He says it loud enough for anyone around to hear. He pushes his glasses up his nose. "Sometimes I wonder why the fuck I bother walkin' my ass down here." If he notices any hint of drugs in Pobble's voice, he makes no sign of it.
Hiro jerks back, recoils from Pobble's Penguinesque assault upon his person. He looks back and to the left (back, and to the left...): flicks the remainder of his cigarette off into the gutter. Buckle-down of the snaps on his record-bag. One last look between his partners in crime. Then, gone, not a word, retreating around the side of the bar - mumbled words, scuffle, straining noise, thump of meat against wall.
Alabaster Smith may be a preacherman, but so far he hasn't shown any signs of objecting to the presence of booze, tobacco, or other drugs. He just keeps to himself, watching, listening, keeping dry.
Enid comes into the area from the west.
Enid has arrived.
From afar, Hiro tries to get you to your feet and against the wall, so you're not all sprawled out in the dust. Then books inexplicably.
"I hope he's goin' ta make soda..." Cash watches the techni-colored lab coat stalk off in silent retreat. Rain still dripping from the tip of his thrice broken nose. The presence of a preacher man settles, hunched outside an establishment of ill repute amongst scallywags. Long hair is parted, the better for Cash to see with. And above the fallen Penny and besides the wet fur man, the drunk drinks from his flask and smiles.
"Hey man." Cash offers to evangelic watcher.
"Bastards." says Pobble, turning to look towards the entrance to Cowpunchers. "You're all a bunch of bastards." He doesn't shout, and any trace of anger has dissapated. Mustered with the sucking of two cigarettes and expelled with carcinogens to the wind. An umbrella pokes from under his arm in a manner that still threatens to skewer the unwary as he turns to Cash, casting a perplexed look at Penny along the way. "Oi reakon," he begins, but then turns to nearby Jon, "Do this often do they?" he asks, voice fading in the brief five word question from curious to apathetic run off. Hand swings in a wide arc, palm open, cigarettes dangling. Apparently he wants Cash's flask.
Alabaster Smith dips his head. "Brother," he replies to Cash. God only knows what Smith's reasons for staying are. Maybe he just likes the ambience.
Everyone stands near Cowpunchers. Except Penny, who's slunk into a niche. Cash seems Drunk. Pobble looks fucked and sometimes agitated. Penny is hiding and rambling.
---------------------------------[ Glance ]---------------------------------
Enid................Punk rock Goldilocks. Skinny. 20ish. Half-finished tattoos.
Height: 5' 4 Weight: 110 lb Age: App: 2 Cha: 4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon.................Tall, lanky young man with a slender build and very dyed hair.
Height: 6'3" Weight: 145 lb Age: App: 2 Cha: 2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pobble..............
Height: 5'10 Weight: 140 lb Age: App: 2 Cha: 3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cash................
Height: Not Weight: 177 Age: App: 2 Cha: 2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabaster Smith.....Tall, thin, red-haired, blue-eyed, well-dressed
Height: 6'1" Weight: 170(?) Age: 30 App: 2 Cha: 4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Penny...............Tall. Hot. White hair.
Height: 5'9" Weight: 123 Age: App: 3 Cha: 3
-----------------------------------[ - ]------------------------------------
Jon chuckles, smoke coming from his mouth in little puffs as he does. "S'like anything else, man. Bunch of uptight bastards decides they wanna keep a certain class of folks out, they'll come up with any goddamn reason to do it. Doesn't even have to make sense." He shrugs it off. "I've been kicked out of my share of places cause people didn't like my look. Whatever that fuckin' means."
A moan.
A hand then. On the cornerpiece of the building.
It must be Penny where Hiro propped her up before he ran off. No explanation. Nothing. Man left in a big hurry. From experience, some know that's never good. The hand, Penny's hand, keeps readjusting itself like she's clinging to the edge of the world.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
<6> 4 3
Achieving 1 successes, resulting in a marginal success.
Enid rounds the corner, swinging her motorcycle helmet in one hand and whistling. Oh, somebody's in high spirits. You'd have to be in high spirits to try to whistle out a melody from psytrance. She passes in front of Cowpuncher's just in time to hear Jon opine about The Man keeping him down, a complaint that she answers by bumping into him with her shoulder. "You!" she says. "I don't like the look of you, Sickert. You're ugly an' you smell funny an' I wanna cigarette." She's at least thoughtful enough not to help herself to contents of his pockets, instead she extends a hand and wait. Of course, as she's waiting the realization slowly dawns on her that they're not alone here, at night, in front of a nightclub. She gaze darts self-conciously from one side to another.
Long distance to Pobble: Penny is channeling god, talking to it. Penny's done a massive quantity of herion to achieve this calling-forth. I'd roll to sense were I you.
Pobble rolls 4 (4 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
<10> 5 5 2
Achieving 1 successes, resulting in a marginal success.
Cash rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 4:
<5> 2 <8>
Achieving 2 successes, resulting in a moderate success.
"So like... what're you doin ova there, Penny." Someone finally comes round to it, as Cash hands off his flask to be hit. Pobble gets a ripe whiff of the stuff, it's running down each side of the silvery flask and mixing with the rain water. The denim man steps over to where Penny makes sidewalk angels.
"Get yer act together... man." Cash tries to coach the girl back off the cement.
"Damn the Man. Next thing you know Music Town will take over." Enid's arrival brings a wonky smile to Pobble's lips with a sideways nod. "Awrighty." he says, and then he twitches just a little. As if a bee had just stung him in the side. It's not pain however that flash-marks his features but.. a look of loss. It dissapears as quickly as it came. While still facing Jon and Enid, eyes swivel to look sideways towards Penny's hand. Harsh drags on the twin cigarettes, in the waiting-for-scentencing fashion. Arm with umbrella takes flask. He begins to turn, suddenly appearing confused.
Jon bumps forward a little as Enid shoulder blocks him. "Well, I don't like your looks either bitch, and you dress funny." All the same he pulls out his slightly crumpled pack of Marlboro's and black Zippo and hands them to Motorcycle Mama Enid. "Here. I'm not gonna fuckin' light it for you." He tries to look stern and offended, but he can't help it, a bit of a smile tugs at the corner of his eyes "Where's your bike?" He pokes her in the leg with his umbrella.
Enid loops her arm through the faceplate of the helmet so as to free up both hands for cigarette-lighting. She bends her head down and cups her hand around the Zippo, not that it needs protection from any stray breeze. "'Round the corner," she says, tossing the lighter back to Jon. "Good luck findin' parking out here on a club night." As her tunnel vision expands to include the rest of the crowd in front of Cowpunchers, she smiles up at Pobble - the sort of sunny and beautific smile possessed only by children and happy drunks. It wavers in the face of Pobble's confusion, and Enid turns that expression on the white-suited Alabaster Smith. "Reverard," she drawls, exhaling smoke. "You've wandered a bit far from home, haven't you?"
Alabaster Smith smiles at Enid broadly, giving her the full attention of his personality. "Sister," he declares, "Ah am at home anywhere on God's green Earth. What brings you here?"
It pours out of her, an eerie language so gutteral at times it could be finnish and so sharp it may be japanese but it's definitely not english. The tone of the conversation Penny carries on seems to be a series of questions, one after another, sometimes interrupting herself. Tongue too full and heavy to round out the words properly. Penny stands up again with Cash acting as ballast, dry heaves and coughs. Too many pills. Or something.
With a last double drag, the twin cigarettes are flicked away bouncing off the wall to fizzle out on the rain drenched sidewalk. Pobble's look of confusion snaps away as he takes a swig from the flask in his hand, causing him to drop the umbrella which was held by his elbow. Itching palms it seems, now free fingers rub at the red gloves and looking back to Enid he says "Sorry. Bear with me a second." Tone has shifted to verging-on-sadness as he turns to head over to Penny, placing a supportive hand on her shoulder. Eyes find Cash, and he asks "Whaddshe have?"
You whisper "It isn't time yet but it keeps .. moving. Circulating. Like it's in the blood. . and it just wants to slip out." to Cash.
[TIC] Pobble says, "You saying anything understandable?"
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) says, "Enochian"
[TIC] Pobble has Enochian 3!
Jon continues to draw on his cigarette. He shoots a glance at Smith as he talks to Enid. He adopts his best 'bad ass' posture, though he is far from bad ass in appearance. He doesn't make any aggressiv moves or anything, but he gets that big brother pose by Enid, protective. "Who's your friend in the suit Nid?" As Penny heaves and coughs and Pobble speaks, his attention turns there.
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) is asking where it came from, where it will return to, what it wants; those things we never worked out that night on the beach.
Enid leans against Jon, not necessarily because she has any difficulty standing, but because cramps her friend's attempts as bad-assittude. She taps ash off of the end of her cigarrette. "Just takin' in the local color, Reverend. That's the Reverend Alabaster Smith, Sickert," she says, gesturing towards the man in the white suit. "Here to bring salvation to the great unwashed masses. Say hello to the nice man. He ain't gonna bite," she teases, but her sunny mood is short-lived as Penny begins to dry heave and speak in tongue. "Well. Shit." She looks to Pobble for confirmation or reassurance or, well, something. "She alright?"
Matt comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Matt has arrived.
OOC> Matt says, "whups.. not here. sorry."
Matt makes his way north.
Matt has left.
"I dunno man. Mebbe she's the one that drank the last of the -red- soda." Helpful, much like a mailbox, Cash's center of gravity is low and provides Penny with rock in her trouble turbulent existence. Though the Cash ship sways over its anchor, but it's never uncontrolled in its drunken stupor. With an economy of movements, Penny is twirled and stood straight in an Aikido dance move.
Alabaster Smith grins toothily at Jon, and offers a hand. "Evenin', Brother," he greets. "As the lady says, Ah'm Alabaster Smith, a humble man of God here to do His works." He glances to Penny, eyebrow arching, as if affronted that she might show him up. "Ah do believe the Lord is sending us a sign."
Jon kind of casually leans forward and shakes Smith's hand, his attention distracted to Penny now. "Hi, I'm Jon Sickert." He keeps watching Penny even as he brings his hand back, "Red soda, booze, fuck man, she's on something. And I don't think it's friggin' Jesus." He lets Enid lean against him with no problem as he drops his cigarette to the ground and stubs it out. "I don't know what this would be a sign of, other than some people can't handle their shit."
Alabaster's interjections bring a curious look from Pobble. Although the situation doesn't seem to be all that humorous, his lips twist into a sardonic smile. "You have no idea." he says. Passing Cash's flask back to it's rightful place - Cash's hand, the unobvious humour passes and he nods to Enid with a reassuring 'Trust me, I'm a Doctor' look about him. "She'll be fine." From a pocket, Pobble pulls a handful of something, picks one, deposits the rest back and presses whatever it is into Penny's hand. "You'll be fine Pens." he says again, pulling a half drained plastic water bottle from another oversized pocket and giving it to the woman.
Dennis comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Dennis has arrived.
Zoe comes out of the Bucking Bronco's doors.
Zoe has arrived.
Alabaster Smith smiles broadly at Jon. "The Lord, He works in mysterious ways, which is another way of saying He doth maketh the weird shit to happen, and leaves us to interpret it."
Penny is dry heaving, steadied by Cash near the doors to Cow Punchers. Pobble stands close by. Near the cluster stand Jon and Enid, Enid leaning on Jon. Alabaster smith stands against a wall near Jon and Enid.
Enid looks from Cash to Pobble and finally to the shakey Penny, eyes narrowing suspiciously. Somehow, she's less than reassured. "You think so?" she asks to Pobble, taking a drag on her cigarette as if she's been suddenly reminded of her own need for some medicine. The reverend's explanation is what finally calm her, and she lets out a sullen, "You've got that right," in agreement.
Dennis slips out of the Cowpuncher, gives Zoe a nod of farewell, and walks on down the street.
Dennis makes his way west.
Dennis has left.
Zoe goes home.
Zoe has left.
A little baggie is still clutched in her hand, a clue. Penny doesn't quite go limp but she's not the same person that was just out for a beer with her homes Hiro. A little paler, well. A lot paler. Hardly a contrast with her wet white hair plastered to her head. She stares at Cash with dilated pupils and a slack, sad smile. "He never goes completely," sounds rational. But she can't hold her head up and the second, the very second Pobble touches her, Penny tenses and buries her head on Cash's shoulder, like someone touched with a live wire.
Pobble's hand comes away from her hand, red and wet.
Examining her through the wet strands of his hair, Cash looks at the back of Penny's skull while she mans up to the doc's orders. "She'll be cool, man." Not that he sounds any more comforting in the matter now that he's retrieved his flask from sir Pobble. It's hit, his 30 proof breath travels and steams in the cold air. Penny's head resting on the swaying shoulder, Cash slowly infests her with the drunken swagger that snakes in his spine constantly. It's contagious, and now that she's allowed her weight to be placed atop of the squat Jew, unavoidable. "Far out." Cash digs it, he never goes completely. That'll be comforting in lonely times.
Jon watches the scene and nods idly at Smiths' words. "I suppose. I never put much stock in God myself." He notes the red on Pobble's hand. He doesn't say anything, but he does keep his gaze where the action's at. "Where you been tonight? I ran by the store and you weren't there. I thought you were closing?" That's it make light conversation. He feels for his cigarettes and lighter and doesn't find htem in his pocket. "Gimme my smokes."
Pobble lets out a long low sigh as he stares down at his fingers. Silver daubed with red. Red on white, red on red. For some reason or other, this turn of events doesn't seem to surpise him. Neither does the fact that Penny spasms when he touches her. The bloody finger smears something onto the bottle in his other hand and he holds this out to Penny as he takes a step back, reaching into his pocket and taking out another pair of cigarettes. He lights both, sucking in and speaking around them. He's starting to look tired.
[TIC] Penny (Thursday) says, "this feels weird. this scene. drama. but maybe not in a good way."
[TIC] Pobble says, "Enochian symbolic equivalent of 'Chill' written in blood on the water bottle. It does seem weird."
[TIC] Pobble says, "I feel ya."
[TIC] Pobble says, "I'm the one that usually does all the falling down in bloody heaps."
Enid has returned the lighter, but she produces Jon's pack of Malboros from her jacket pocket and stuff them back into his. "I had to go pick somethin' up for TC," she says, eyes downcast as she makes some attempt to keep from staring at the Penny-related commotion. "An' now I need a beer," she says in the same sort of way that people usually say they need oxygen. "You drinkin', Reverend?" she asks, turning towards the door.
"Funny you should put it that way," Alabaster comments to Jon, "for He has much invested in you." He shakes his head at Enid. "Sadly, Ah fear my time right here is done, and Ah have to take care of some business."
Penny drops the baggie, takes the bottle and slumps into Cash. In tune with his wobble, her eyes kinda roll up back into her head. She curls the bottle inward toward her chest and 'hnnns' humming her way back to functioning "I cut .. myself. Didn't I. Shouldn't have touched ..me .. P-p-pobs I'm not ..ss-safe." Her eyes roll over toward the other trio, says "Oh.. shit," like she might cry.
Jon watches Smith and gives the man a vague smile before he turns back to Penny and that ensuing drama. "Dude, there anything one of us can do to help? I mean, she ain't lookin' any better." He gives an unsure look to Enid as if seeking her advice silently. "I mean...shit like this can get bad quick sometimes."
Enid's mouth forms a straight line. "Night then, Reverend." She catches Jon's look and gives him a barely perceptible shake of her head. "C'mon." She looks right past him at the bleeding girl. "I think it's time for us to go inside."
Shaking his head, Pobble turns back to Jon, Enid and Smith. Cigarettes waggle between his lips as he says "She'll be fine. Honest." He does sound quite certain of this as he reaches down and picks up his umbrella. "Home's not far Pens. You can rest soon." Straightening up as demanded, Pobble begins to lead his companions up the road with a tired smile to Enid, "See you soon.." A nod to John, "Thanks guvna."
OOC> Penny says, "Night guys ..uh ..sorry it got so weird. Blame it on the rain?"
OOC> Enid laughs. "No problem."
OOC> Pobble says, "Yeah, next time it'll be much worse. I mean, better."
Jon nods to Pobble then looks back to Enid. "Come on, I'll buy you a beer." He heads toward the bar then.
OOC> Jon laughs. "Nah, thanks for the RP. Weird is okay :)"
Enid disappears with Jon into the club.
Enid makes her way into the Cowpunchers.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Power Play: A scene.
Hiro slouches in his seat. This is not indicative of boredom, or uneasiness, or intoxication -- part of what defines 'Hiro' as 'Hiro' is simply that he slouches. An ashtray balances precariously on his chair's left arm, full of cigarette butts and ash and roaches and bottlecaps, overflowing to the critical mass point, teetering on the brink of a mess Daisy will have to clean up, because it's Daisy's job and Hiro is Friday and Hiro does whatever he damn well pleases, thank you very much.
He hits the joint, greasy brown with resin, and passes it to the right, to Penny. His eyes are fixed on the dome dominating the coffee table, an antique stock ticker liberated from eBay.
"We gonna do this?" he asks Penny.
Penny has her legs kicked over the right arm of her chair. She could be touching heads with Hiro if she were high. Taking the joint from him, she inhales a few times, cough-talking "We-gon-na-do-this," snorts smoke out her nose.
How the Invisible College got their hands on one of the first Edison Universal Stock Printers, on ebay no less, was definitely due in some part to Pobble's ever expanding collection of connections; amazing what money will buy. Penny, glazed but interested, can't take her eyes off the thing - a victorian masterpiece of brass, mahogany and a large roll of spooled white paper - "..it looks like an upended turn-table, really" she continues some internal monologue outwardly "and when we ask it to, the spirit will turn over the gears and .." she passes the joint back.
"Listen up," puts her fingers on the plaque, covering someone's name obscenely-wealthy-at-one-point. Who she's talking to isn't quite clear "Tap that little thing over there." Maybe she meant Hiro. 'That Little Thing' is the paper-forwarder. "You should try talking to them, ..it, with me, y'know?"
Hiro says, "Ok, is there any specific system for describing rotes here?"
Hiro says, "Like how we should break it down or something?"
Quiet says, "You can describe it to me now. I've not seen one yet. I assumed there wasn't but that is a failure on my part. I'll check with Oblivion."
Hiro says, "OK. We're using the stock ticker as a kind of ouija board. It's a relic -- a symbol of power just because of it's antiquity. We've wired it right into the fuse box. A computer microphone -- one of those cheap plastic boom mics people use for dictation and like net teleconferencing -- is wired directly into the current, and the ticker has a fresh roll of paper. It's two-way communication, so we can speak to it and it can respond through the stock ticker. We're trying to contact the largest, oldest electricity spirit in residence -- the big one, the one Hiro's already nicknaming 'Old Man General Electric'. The big kahuna that was in charge of the generators. The idea is that the ticker acts as a beacon, to draw the spirit in to speak to us."
Quiet pages: Thats fine. Two of you pose the beginning. Then make the first roll. Then the second pose. Then a second roll. Using anything to modify the DC of your roll?
Slouched in his high-backed chair, Hiro gives something like mumbled assent; exhaling a viscous cloud of marijuana smoke. He straightens, or at least tilts his slouch forward: laying fingertips against the edge of the stock ticker. Eyes close half-way, either from concentration or intoxication. He clears his throat, taking this very seriously -- steampunk telegraph machine his own postmodernist ouija board.
Hiro rolls arete (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
<8> <5> <10>
Achieving 3 successes, resulting in a complete success.
The paper moves inch by inch, threading itself through the mechanism to make contact with the two alphanumeric wheels. Penny sits back and takes the joint from Hiro again, tokes.
She exhales over the dome, then the perspective changes dramatically. The smoke seems to displace itself inside the glass dome and expand it outward, super-imposing and image of itself the full width of the table.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
<5> -1- 2
Achieving 0 successes, resulting in a failure
Penny watches the dome, stunned to a more upright position "That wasn't supposed to happen."
The air slowly takes on a charged feeling. Like the sense before a storm, the tingling of the static in the air of electricity looming in the distance.
"Hsst," Hiro hisses through his teeth, all don't-anger-the-spirits touchy about this shit. Maybe his favorite porn site was down this morning. A deep breath, released through bared-clenched teeth... which Pigboy didn't brush this morning. Fingers splay out, pinkie to index spread across the rim of the machine's base. "Imagination at work," he recites, enunciating each syllable carefully. No, no sanskrit, no forbidden languages. Corporate slogans.
Hiro rolls arete (3 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
4 3 -1-
Achieving -1 successes, resulting in a botch!
Quiet winces. At least it's a 0.
Hiro says, "Yeah :b"
Hiro says, "smoking dope and invoking forbidden powers. I don't see how we're going wrong.."
Quiet says, "Now all you need is some hideous Lovecraftian book."
"Would you fucking concentrate? Fuck, man fucking thing maxed out Pobble's Centurion for the quarter.." - of course, he doesn't know that yet, she asides "don't tell him, okay. Okay. Okay okay" her best Joe Pesci "just let it happen, right?" She closes her eyes and lowers her chin to her chest; not quite zen but it'll do.
[Willpower] Penny spends a Willpower point.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
5 <9> <9>
Achieving 2 successes, resulting in a moderate success.
Quiet says, "That would give us a total of six unless I can't count."
Hiro nods.
It happens again; a ghost of the ticker expanding outward toward Penny and Hiro - and then past them. Past the table and the down to the floor, the image increasing overhead like a projection until it loses all resolution.
Penny reaches out into the space in front of her, chipped nail polish throwing off points of light, like morse code. "Do you see it yet?"
Eyes flicker shut, open slowly. Hiro snatches his hands back from the machine as if shocked: fingertips rubbing together, fidgeting. He kipes the half-smoked joint from Penny, takes a long hit to 'center himself'. Exhale, a long narrow stream. Tone formal, offering the weed back to his partner in crime:
"Lord of Turbines," he murmurs. "We offer praise. Who brings illumination, driving out ignorance? Who drives civilization? Who powers our city, steam, fire, and current?" Pause. "Tell us your name, that we might return to you what is yours, that your wires might live again, that the machines might sing your praise."
The feeling of static in the air continues to build as the charge grows. From the microphone you can hear what sounds like interferance coming through. A faint whine comes from the speaker, must be really bad reception from the otherside. Slowly your hair begins to stand on end. "Who.... summons...." Comes a crackling voice from the microphone. Small metal objects slowly begin to slide to larger ones as the feeling intensifies. Outside you can hear a rumble of thunder.
"I... am.... Arcer." The crackling, staticy voice has the sound of a voice rusted from disuse.
Fuck. Hiro doesn't remember all the right honorifics. He's read too many comic books and not enough hermetic texts. But he's winging it, right? If John Constantine can bind the lord of plagues, he can make a deal with a generator. "The Invisible College seeks barter," he says, quietly. "We wish to return to you the glory that was once yours. Your turbines are full of dust, your wires silent, your home under the sway of foreign current. We would make the city's power lines yours again." Pigboy looks at Penny sidelong - like, do I sound pompous enough? Is this flying?
Totally pompous. Penny gives Hiro a look like he's just in from outerspace "Hello Arcer," fingers twitching til she makes fists on the table, reflexively chatting like it's a regular sort of phonecall "I'm Penny and that's Hiro. We're part of The Invisible College and if you don't have anything better to do, we'd like to invite you to stay with us." She looks up, briefly, to check the status of her hair-on-end "..provided you can find some way to not charge the air around us all the time."
"Ahhh..." The voice comes, carrying the hollow echo of a metal chamber that is empty with the faint crackle of electricity. "The turbines.... they are silent... I... I have been sleeping.... for a long time...." It does, indeed, sound almost like an old man. A confused, sleepy one, but an old man. The thundering outside settles down but the static electricity and magnetism can still be felt in here. "Where... where have the men gone... who shall tend the turbines... who shall check the wires and monitor my gauges..." There is a thunk as the televisions suspended by chains bang against each other.
"Everything is wrong... they left... Home Office... orders. Why will you do this?" It asks, confused tone becoming curiosity.
Hiro's questioning look turns into a frown. He was feeling very Hermetic for a moment. Clears his throat, returning his attention to the ticker. "The.. uhm, details." Pause. "Well, Arcer. They no longer believed in you. They left a long time ago. We do believe in you: we'd like to see you prosper. We've made this place our home, and we'd like you to do what you've always done. We'll help you - we'll give you back the city's wires, turn your turbines back on, repair the place so you can do what you're meant to do. In return, all we want is for you to look after us like you looked after the others. Only we won't abandon you like they did."
Another look with Penny. Under his breath: "That better? Jeeze."
You say, "The price of progress, Arcer" Penny explains further giving Hiro the nod, still convivial - chatty when she's high "the men left when their methods became obsolete. But now we're here. There are seven of us but we're not like the men that left. We can restore you to a purposeful existance," she lowers her voice, eggs on "We can give you a strength they never could. Do you want that?"
"Strength...?" The voice rises in inflection, the word rolls out on the waves of static through the microphone. "Yes... I had strength once... before they left. They abandoned me..." Your hair rises up more now as the spirit becomes more aroused. "More efficient... generation methods... turbines... not worth replacing... operating costs too high..." It recites as if snippets of the past flash back from its memories. "Agghh.... they abandoned Arcer! I served them.... and they broke the covenant!" Everything in the room is charged up now as everything arcs off to everything else. Even yourselves. Not dangerously so... just odd. You can tell it is upset.
Hiro lights a fresh cigarette: hands -- just barely shaking, controlled -- cupped around the tip, cheap dayglo-orange bic flashing butane blue. Flare of the cherry in the ill-lit room. "Arcer," he murmurs, plucking the smoke from between his lips, exhaling with the words. Keep cool. "We ain't interested in efficiency. We're interested in you. Fuck them, man--" So much for formal language and high ritual. "--bottom line hounds, dig? They don't know shit about shit." Pointed jab with his cigarette's tip, to drive the point home. "We're here to make a new deal."
Penny subvocalizes to Piggy "Say something nice to it now." She settles back into her chair and digs around in both pockets of her jacket. Tugging out papers and a dime, she kicks her feet back up and starts the process of rolling again. "Tell it about the parties we throw and what kind of energy we require." She's utterly relaxed, in her element. This is her thing and educating Piggy is the most fun she's had in weeks. "Stay cool, just be cool. hard part's over."
"New... deal.... A new contract." It's voice suddenly surges. "I will re... renegociate with new owners." Arcer finally replies, the static level dropping rapidly so that it's only slightly abnormal in here now instead of Dr. Frankenstein's Lab. "What are the terms...?"
Hiro looks, again, to Penny: she's rolling a joint and he's on his own. He taps ash onto the mouldering pile and leans forward, elbows propped on his knees. "You help us, we help you, Arcer. We make this place run again, we keep it running, we give you access to the greater city." Nova-flare of the cigarette in the flickering light; will-o-wisp trail as the cherry drops. Tobacco and marijuana smoke hang in the air in a haze. "You give us power, you keep us safe, you listen and watch to what happens in your world and keep us posted. It's like..." Pause. "Like a symbiotic relationship."
"Ah..." The crackling voice responds after a long period of silence. "I will... consider this offer..." The voice echoes a bit in the speaker. "Bring me.... bring me copper. I wish to taste fresh copper... five pounds... bring this tomorrow. And I will bring my answer."
...and Hiro, Hiro's grinning like the cat that got the canary. Or the pig that ate the truffle. Or whatever. "You got it Arcer," he answers.
The static feeling is all but gone now. "I will go.... and don't forget... to turn lights off... when you're not using them... don't waste energy..." And then, as it came, so it is gone.
He hits the joint, greasy brown with resin, and passes it to the right, to Penny. His eyes are fixed on the dome dominating the coffee table, an antique stock ticker liberated from eBay.
"We gonna do this?" he asks Penny.
Penny has her legs kicked over the right arm of her chair. She could be touching heads with Hiro if she were high. Taking the joint from him, she inhales a few times, cough-talking "We-gon-na-do-this," snorts smoke out her nose.
How the Invisible College got their hands on one of the first Edison Universal Stock Printers, on ebay no less, was definitely due in some part to Pobble's ever expanding collection of connections; amazing what money will buy. Penny, glazed but interested, can't take her eyes off the thing - a victorian masterpiece of brass, mahogany and a large roll of spooled white paper - "..it looks like an upended turn-table, really" she continues some internal monologue outwardly "and when we ask it to, the spirit will turn over the gears and .." she passes the joint back.
"Listen up," puts her fingers on the plaque, covering someone's name obscenely-wealthy-at-one-point. Who she's talking to isn't quite clear "Tap that little thing over there." Maybe she meant Hiro. 'That Little Thing' is the paper-forwarder. "You should try talking to them, ..it, with me, y'know?"
Quiet pages: Thats fine. Two of you pose the beginning. Then make the first roll. Then the second pose. Then a second roll. Using anything to modify the DC of your roll?
Slouched in his high-backed chair, Hiro gives something like mumbled assent; exhaling a viscous cloud of marijuana smoke. He straightens, or at least tilts his slouch forward: laying fingertips against the edge of the stock ticker. Eyes close half-way, either from concentration or intoxication. He clears his throat, taking this very seriously -- steampunk telegraph machine his own postmodernist ouija board.
Hiro rolls arete (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
<8> <5> <10>
Achieving 3 successes, resulting in a complete success.
The paper moves inch by inch, threading itself through the mechanism to make contact with the two alphanumeric wheels. Penny sits back and takes the joint from Hiro again, tokes.
She exhales over the dome, then the perspective changes dramatically. The smoke seems to displace itself inside the glass dome and expand it outward, super-imposing and image of itself the full width of the table.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 5:
<5> -1- 2
Achieving 0 successes, resulting in a failure
Penny watches the dome, stunned to a more upright position "That wasn't supposed to happen."
The air slowly takes on a charged feeling. Like the sense before a storm, the tingling of the static in the air of electricity looming in the distance.
"Hsst," Hiro hisses through his teeth, all don't-anger-the-spirits touchy about this shit. Maybe his favorite porn site was down this morning. A deep breath, released through bared-clenched teeth... which Pigboy didn't brush this morning. Fingers splay out, pinkie to index spread across the rim of the machine's base. "Imagination at work," he recites, enunciating each syllable carefully. No, no sanskrit, no forbidden languages. Corporate slogans.
Hiro rolls arete (3 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
4 3 -1-
Achieving -1 successes, resulting in a botch!
"Would you fucking concentrate? Fuck, man fucking thing maxed out Pobble's Centurion for the quarter.." - of course, he doesn't know that yet, she asides "don't tell him, okay. Okay. Okay okay" her best Joe Pesci "just let it happen, right?" She closes her eyes and lowers her chin to her chest; not quite zen but it'll do.
[Willpower] Penny spends a Willpower point.
Penny rolls 3 (3 dice) at a difficulty of 6:
5 <9> <9>
Achieving 2 successes, resulting in a moderate success.
It happens again; a ghost of the ticker expanding outward toward Penny and Hiro - and then past them. Past the table and the down to the floor, the image increasing overhead like a projection until it loses all resolution.
Penny reaches out into the space in front of her, chipped nail polish throwing off points of light, like morse code. "Do you see it yet?"
Eyes flicker shut, open slowly. Hiro snatches his hands back from the machine as if shocked: fingertips rubbing together, fidgeting. He kipes the half-smoked joint from Penny, takes a long hit to 'center himself'. Exhale, a long narrow stream. Tone formal, offering the weed back to his partner in crime:
"Lord of Turbines," he murmurs. "We offer praise. Who brings illumination, driving out ignorance? Who drives civilization? Who powers our city, steam, fire, and current?" Pause. "Tell us your name, that we might return to you what is yours, that your wires might live again, that the machines might sing your praise."
The feeling of static in the air continues to build as the charge grows. From the microphone you can hear what sounds like interferance coming through. A faint whine comes from the speaker, must be really bad reception from the otherside. Slowly your hair begins to stand on end. "Who.... summons...." Comes a crackling voice from the microphone. Small metal objects slowly begin to slide to larger ones as the feeling intensifies. Outside you can hear a rumble of thunder.
"I... am.... Arcer." The crackling, staticy voice has the sound of a voice rusted from disuse.
Fuck. Hiro doesn't remember all the right honorifics. He's read too many comic books and not enough hermetic texts. But he's winging it, right? If John Constantine can bind the lord of plagues, he can make a deal with a generator. "The Invisible College seeks barter," he says, quietly. "We wish to return to you the glory that was once yours. Your turbines are full of dust, your wires silent, your home under the sway of foreign current. We would make the city's power lines yours again." Pigboy looks at Penny sidelong - like, do I sound pompous enough? Is this flying?
Totally pompous. Penny gives Hiro a look like he's just in from outerspace "Hello Arcer," fingers twitching til she makes fists on the table, reflexively chatting like it's a regular sort of phonecall "I'm Penny and that's Hiro. We're part of The Invisible College and if you don't have anything better to do, we'd like to invite you to stay with us." She looks up, briefly, to check the status of her hair-on-end "..provided you can find some way to not charge the air around us all the time."
"Ahhh..." The voice comes, carrying the hollow echo of a metal chamber that is empty with the faint crackle of electricity. "The turbines.... they are silent... I... I have been sleeping.... for a long time...." It does, indeed, sound almost like an old man. A confused, sleepy one, but an old man. The thundering outside settles down but the static electricity and magnetism can still be felt in here. "Where... where have the men gone... who shall tend the turbines... who shall check the wires and monitor my gauges..." There is a thunk as the televisions suspended by chains bang against each other.
"Everything is wrong... they left... Home Office... orders. Why will you do this?" It asks, confused tone becoming curiosity.
Hiro's questioning look turns into a frown. He was feeling very Hermetic for a moment. Clears his throat, returning his attention to the ticker. "The.. uhm, details." Pause. "Well, Arcer. They no longer believed in you. They left a long time ago. We do believe in you: we'd like to see you prosper. We've made this place our home, and we'd like you to do what you've always done. We'll help you - we'll give you back the city's wires, turn your turbines back on, repair the place so you can do what you're meant to do. In return, all we want is for you to look after us like you looked after the others. Only we won't abandon you like they did."
Another look with Penny. Under his breath: "That better? Jeeze."
You say, "The price of progress, Arcer" Penny explains further giving Hiro the nod, still convivial - chatty when she's high "the men left when their methods became obsolete. But now we're here. There are seven of us but we're not like the men that left. We can restore you to a purposeful existance," she lowers her voice, eggs on "We can give you a strength they never could. Do you want that?"
"Strength...?" The voice rises in inflection, the word rolls out on the waves of static through the microphone. "Yes... I had strength once... before they left. They abandoned me..." Your hair rises up more now as the spirit becomes more aroused. "More efficient... generation methods... turbines... not worth replacing... operating costs too high..." It recites as if snippets of the past flash back from its memories. "Agghh.... they abandoned Arcer! I served them.... and they broke the covenant!" Everything in the room is charged up now as everything arcs off to everything else. Even yourselves. Not dangerously so... just odd. You can tell it is upset.
Hiro lights a fresh cigarette: hands -- just barely shaking, controlled -- cupped around the tip, cheap dayglo-orange bic flashing butane blue. Flare of the cherry in the ill-lit room. "Arcer," he murmurs, plucking the smoke from between his lips, exhaling with the words. Keep cool. "We ain't interested in efficiency. We're interested in you. Fuck them, man--" So much for formal language and high ritual. "--bottom line hounds, dig? They don't know shit about shit." Pointed jab with his cigarette's tip, to drive the point home. "We're here to make a new deal."
Penny subvocalizes to Piggy "Say something nice to it now." She settles back into her chair and digs around in both pockets of her jacket. Tugging out papers and a dime, she kicks her feet back up and starts the process of rolling again. "Tell it about the parties we throw and what kind of energy we require." She's utterly relaxed, in her element. This is her thing and educating Piggy is the most fun she's had in weeks. "Stay cool, just be cool. hard part's over."
"New... deal.... A new contract." It's voice suddenly surges. "I will re... renegociate with new owners." Arcer finally replies, the static level dropping rapidly so that it's only slightly abnormal in here now instead of Dr. Frankenstein's Lab. "What are the terms...?"
Hiro looks, again, to Penny: she's rolling a joint and he's on his own. He taps ash onto the mouldering pile and leans forward, elbows propped on his knees. "You help us, we help you, Arcer. We make this place run again, we keep it running, we give you access to the greater city." Nova-flare of the cigarette in the flickering light; will-o-wisp trail as the cherry drops. Tobacco and marijuana smoke hang in the air in a haze. "You give us power, you keep us safe, you listen and watch to what happens in your world and keep us posted. It's like..." Pause. "Like a symbiotic relationship."
"Ah..." The crackling voice responds after a long period of silence. "I will... consider this offer..." The voice echoes a bit in the speaker. "Bring me.... bring me copper. I wish to taste fresh copper... five pounds... bring this tomorrow. And I will bring my answer."
...and Hiro, Hiro's grinning like the cat that got the canary. Or the pig that ate the truffle. Or whatever. "You got it Arcer," he answers.
The static feeling is all but gone now. "I will go.... and don't forget... to turn lights off... when you're not using them... don't waste energy..." And then, as it came, so it is gone.
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