Blood Runs Free

Kalen Holliday

[Are you still crazily sleep deprived, Kalen?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )

Grace Evans

[Nightmares!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 6) ( fail )

Grace Evans

It's a day like any other, really. Grace came to the Chantry to keep the books company, and fell asleep on one of the library couches, an old programming manual clutched to her chest, twitching as she does in her sleep most nights. It looks almost peaceful, if you don't know what's going on underneath.

Everything's fine. Everything's normal. Until it isn't.

She opens her eyes, blinks. Blinks again, and looks down at her hands, at her body, and then a piercing, terrifying scream emerges from within her.

Someone is in trouble. Chances are, at least Kalen and Pan have heard this sound before, coming from the random places in the Chantry where Grace has chosen to nap, and know the reason for it. They might just choose to ignore it, until she screams again -- wild, uncontrolled, terrified.

Patience Mason

The chantry at dusk seems a place of quiet solitude, of repose and consideration. The tiny house on the hillside would seem a spec from the air, insignificant and utterly benign if one did not know the truth that lay within.

Patience's arrival is heralded by the unexpected patter of feet upon the rooftop, for a second one might wonder if christmas had come early, but those sounds were to light for the heavy tread of one as weighty as saint nick, they were also to heavy to be any sort of raccoon be it individual or otherwise. No these footfalls resounded on the roof with directional intent, moving across the portion that was simply one story before the sound ended, and a thump as someone dropping to the patio stones might be heard.

The next moment Patience is walking through the front door, dressed in her riding leathers, with her hair piled high in the ever present victory rolls. She would take a few moments to look around, taking in the building she had only visited once before.

It was then that she might hear the scream...then that she might look for its source. A shame she'd never visited the library.

Pan Echeverría

Just the sound the priest wants to hear the second he walks through the front door: Grace screaming.

This is the first time he's been to the Chantry since Kalen summoned him after the collection of the dead Archmagus's bones and this time he didn't step into a door in one holy place and step out of a door in another holy place miles away. He drove. So he ends up walking in the door right behind Patience. Maybe they've already greeted each other.

Whatever he wanted to talk to whoever he saw first is going to have to wait. As soon as that scream hits his ears the priest steps around Patience and walks quickly. Does not run. But she can hear his footsteps picking up speed as they descend the stairs and slowing again as he lets himself in.

"Grace?" he calls. Not to try and locate her. He hears her just fucking fine.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is, as per usual when he's in the chantry, lounging across one of the living room couches with a book in his lap and a cup of coffee. There are shadows under his eyes dark enough that by contrast his pale green eyes seem colorless, as though color and energy both drained out of them. Still, judging by the coffee, he seems disinterested in forming any kind of truce with dreaming.

And the screaming from downstairs gives a good reason as to why.

He half-drops, half-tosses his book onto the table quickly enough at the first scream. He can let a lot of things go, Grace screaming is not even a little bit like one of them. He hits his feet quickly enough, sways a little, with an audible collision of teeth as his jaws snap shut.

His attention flicks, briefly to Pan and Patience. At least Pan can get to Grace. At least there is that.

Kalen doesn't try calling, Just heads toward the library much, much more slowly than he'd like.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander arrives in a slightly more traditional style to Patience, by bike. Anyone who may be listening would hear the purr of the engine as he pulls up alongside the vehicles already parked there. Today he has no particular reason to be there, he’s just curious to see who’s about. Maybe meet somebody new. So, helmet hooked over a handlebar and dressed in his own bike leathers, he heads towards the front door, flipping a dollar coin as he walks.

Faint, though it is, the scream still carries out of the house. Grabbing the coin from mid-air, he starts running into the house. Pushing the front door open, he skids to a halt at the sight of the two unfamiliar people. Kalen, though – Kalen he knows, and asks, “What’s going on?”

Grace Evans

When they arrive in the library, down the stairs, past the locked door, they will find her. Her book's been tossed aside, and she's shaking, grabbing herself in a hug, and staring at a point in space where nothing exists.

And the first person to open the door will get a warning. "Stay... stay there. Don't come near me."

Patience Mason

The older gentleman who followed Patience in was the one the Etherite followed now. A smile of reassurance was cast in Kalen's direction as Patience waved to him. "Appropriate social and temporal Salutations Kalen." It was probably the shortest sentence he had ever heard her utter, but then she was moving quickly, and perhaps that was her version of a quick hello.

She was moving then, moving behind Pan as they descended the staircase and if Pan proceeded in one direction to circumvent the table then Patience would proceed in the other, efficiently covering the most ground.

That is until Grace warns them not to come any closer, and Paige raises an inquisitive brow, her gaze sliding to the point in space that she was staring. "Grace, please quantify and assign appropriate clerical index markers to the ascribed frotean actuality." She said as she stuck her hand in one of the many leather pouch pockets at her waist before producing a slim tube that she held gently in her gloved hand.

"Establish a suitably extrapolated approximation of incumbent physical, noospherical and metaphysical endangerment based upon the Krelling doom scale, initiating a zero as a negative, to fifty four indicating temporal and relativistic planar collapse and nullification."

Pan Echeverría

Pan is the first one down the stairs. Biggest person in the house. Maybe not the strongest but he's tall and solid and about to round the corner towards the second half of his forties. Consciousness and power growing even as he stands here. Doesn't call himself an Adept yet but he's awful goddamn close to it.

He holds his hands palms-out so she can see he's not gonna hurt her and for now he listens. Lets Patience handle it. Which leads to his facial expression becoming a clear What the fuck?

Yes Grace. Please let everyone know there isn't an imminent planar collapse.

Kalen Holliday

All Patience gets in response to her greeting is, "Firefly."

"Grace," Kalen says to Alexander, as he follows Pan and Patience toward the stairs. "Probably not life-threatening unless we've been keeping cursed artifacts I don't know about in the library, but all the same." He does not wave Alexander ahead of him. Pan and Patience are already there.

Pan is there. If it can be okay, it will be.

Kalen wants to be there too, and, given another moment he will be.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander trails behind the others. The library is new territory to him. Partly because the only other time he was here, there were other things to work through. Partly, books. They have their uses but, well, they’re not so much his thing. So he slows, looking over the others at what’s going on in the room. Peering at the spot Grace seems to be staring at, trying to figure out what’s there. Wondering if there’s something going on that he just can’t see, yet – much like Sera and the rip in the Gauntlet he opened not so long ago. And wishing, again, that he knew more about what he was doing.

The new woman tells Grace... Something. Which gets a double-take. The words are English, but the sentences don’t seem to make all that much sense. Something to worry about later. Assuming that planar collapse doesn't wreck the rest of the day. To Grace, he calls gently, “Back away from it. Come to us.”

Grace Evans

There's a thing about viruses that most people don't know. Once you're infected with one, you are rarely entirely rid of it. Maybe the nightmares that Grace has continued to have since the incident indicated that everything was not, in fact, cleared out of her system.

Maybe Hydra lay waiting for her, after all this time.

It's the only thing that really makes sense, now that she can see it. She looks down at her hands, which she sees as crawling with ants, which burrow under her flesh, that sensation of writhing burrowing things inside of her, everywhere. Makes her want so desperately to just scratch them out, to rip at her skin and tear it off.

"They aren't real, they aren't real, they aren't real," she says, mantra-like. It's not a response to Patience. Not yet. She has to come to grips first, and then she might be able to speak.

Her breathing is labored, and she reaches up to wipe something away from her mouth, from her nose -- but the others won't see the blood that she feels, knows to be there.

"I am... I may be still infected with... a terrible plague. End of the world, Patience. Nullification of humanity, where does that land on the scale?"

The echoes of Hydra reach out to her. They are real.

She looks over to Alex, shakes her head violently. "No, stay away. It's meant to kill Awakened. Don't get near me. Don't you dare!"

[OOC: Just so everyone knows, the odd things that Grace is seeing, nobody else can. Her body is not actually covered with ants, she is not actually bleeding. It's all in her head. She looks normal, if a bit tired.]

Patience Mason

Patience, is an exemplar of her name as Grace goes through the throws of her nightmare, having manifested in the waking world. She was unawares of this plague, but then she was usually so disconnected from the other mages at large that she might well have missed the whole thing. She lets those sky blue eyes flicker to Pan, as if there might be some confirmation from the man before she turns her attention entirely back to Grace.

She speaks calmly, reassuringly infact, as a mentor might talk to a distraught pupil. "Nullification of the genus homo sapien sapien is idenitified and indexed as a level twenty two on the Krelling doom scale. While significant in scope to those bio-physically locked within the afformentioned genus, it is not..infact relativistically terminal." She reaches into another pouch in that moment and produces a pair of curious and bulky goggles which she sets upon her face, and with a flick of a button they begin to whir and occilate.

She then holds up that tube and red lasers begin to play over Grace, the books, the very room.

"Initiating cohesive reality data accumulation, please attempt to relegate internal processes as nominal as is noospherically possible Grace. Appropriate advisory, do not locate the source of the scan utilizing the incumbent optical nerves..such actualization may result in sterilization of the nerves."

[Arete 2 diff 4 WP]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Pan Echeverría

Now he turns towards the door just to keep the others from wandering any closer. So long as Grace is panicking and yelling at them not to come any closer there's no point agitating her. If Patience can't handle this that's why he's standing there like he is.

Younger Mages don't get stronger if they don't have to figure things out for themselves though. That's another reason he's standing there like he is instead of barreling over and fixing it himself.

"Let her Work," are the first words he says to Alexander. Doesn't give the younger man his name or explain who the hell he is or why he's performing an impression of a human barricade. Just assumes Alexander is going to listen.

Arrogant bastard.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen hits the base of the stairs and studies Patience with lazers and Pan standing there and Grace beyond them for a few seconds. He frowns a little, because it is Grace and he should therefore be right in the middle of it. But Pan. He trusts Pan.

And so he stops. He reaches out to put a hand on Alexander's arm to stop him if Pan's presence hasn't already done it. "Stop," he says quietly. "If he says to let Patience handle this, let her."

Alexander Brandt

Pan turns towards the door, tells Alexander to pretty much butt out. That gets A Look from Alexander, but he returns to peering past at what’s going on in the room. Grace is frantic wiping and scratching, Patience is... doing something, talking what sounds like nonsense. He could try pushing past Pan but one thing Alexander here knows is that there’s a lot he doesn’t know. So he stands his ground, looking round when Kalen lays a hand on his shoulder. There’s no flinch, no drawing away. But there is still a need to do something.

So he says, loudly enough for Grace to hear, “Tell us what you’re seeing.” Then, quieter to Kalen, “What did that virus do to her?”

Grace Evans

Grace shuts her eyes while the lasers scan the room, but when they open again, she finds that point in space again, and shakes her head at it. "No... no..."

She rises from the couch, stumbles over to the far end of the library, like she's running from something. Truth is, she wants to get as far away from the other Mages as possible. She's a Typhoid Mary, or so she thinks.

At the other side of the library, she strips off her jacket, that grey turtleneck she always wears. Just a tee shirt underneath. She slides down a bookshelf, to sit on the floor, putting her knees between herself and the others, trying to symbolically block them out.

Then, she starts scratching at her arms with unflinching viciousness. The relief is evident on her face, but soon enough, she'll start to draw blood at this rate. To rip her skin off, before the ants eat it away entirely.

"I'm seeing... It's not real. None of it is real. It can't be real."

Patience Mason

The slow and steady sweep of the lasers seem to find no focal point as Patience evenly guides her hand across the room, the silence of the lasers made up for by the whir and clicking of the goggles on her face as gears and servos move about, slotting lenses into place while retracting others. But then it stops, and Patience puts away the tiny tube, and pulls the goggles up till they rest high upon her forehead and she looks dolefully to the others as she stepped slowly into the room, gently approaching. She spoke firmly, calmly and entirely reassuring as she approached, hands out.

"Grace, no active virus of any effective endangerment is currently active within this geo-physical locality, nor within your bio-physical structure. Increased activity within neuro-chemical transmitter's and amplified stress within your reticular activating system posits the ninety seven point six four six percentile that you have actualized a negatively attributed rapid eye movement event. Your bio-phsyical, noospherical and metaphysical personage will remain nominal for the forcastable temporal juncture."

When she gets close enough her arms are held out, though she does not touch Grace as she says. "May I initiate a dermal extremity interlock with intention to release appropriate counter neuro chemical transmitters to relegate and pacify the negativity?" She inquires, her hands gesturing towards her....it looks like she wants to give the woman a hug.

[Cha+Leadership WP]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Pan Echeverría

"Alright."

This to the other two men. He completely turns away from Patience and Grace and makes a gesture with both hands. A very clear gesture: Out. Go. Move it.

Serafíne

Hey Sera. Focused as they are and have been on Grace there's no telling where she arrived or when and how. Well, there won't be a discussion on those points in this post. She's not there and then she is, see, stumbling a bit as she negotiates the stairs with the exagerated care of a drunk girl in heels negotiating stairs. Walks like a goddamned rock star see on the level ground, but the stairs, darling -

- half on one, half on the next, Sera, wearing a short black leather skirt, thigh-high fishnets ripped to shreds, heels, and a hot pink lace bustier with black lace cups beneath an unbuttoned flannel, the sleeves rolled up, bracelets stacked up her arms, blond curls all wild.

Steadily unsteady, sights the others (perhaps?) starting to climb back up and holds on to a railing. Her tongue is against her teeth as she searches through the resonance to feel and separate out the most familiar ones. She is so trashed.

Serafíne

(Perception + Awareness just for flavor/mah knowledged.)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Kalen Holliday

Pan gets more obedience from Kalen than...anyone still living. But at this Kalen shakes his head, crosses his arms, and settles back against the wall to wait. There is no glaring, no indication at all that the attempt to send him away upset him. Just this calm refusal to comply.

"Shhhhhhhhhh...." That is directed not at Pan, but at Alexander, quiet enough as to be barely audible. "They've got it." And he seems sure enough of that that it may seem strange he won't just go back upstairs.

Sera's entrance catches his attention, and so he follows that almost-command to Alexander with something even closer to an actual one. "Sera. Stairs. Please." Nevermind the please. That is not really a polite request.

Grace Evans

Grace shakes her head at Patience. "Stay away from me. Even if what you say is true, I don't --"

She doesn't make it through her sentence before her eyes focus on something beyond Patience's shoulder, and she screams again, her body going taut against the books at her back.

She screams like she's dying, like there is no controlling the horrible noise coming out of her throat.

And yes, in her mind, that's exactly what's happening.

Skin is melting off of her, bones are crumbling inside her. Viscera pours out into the carpeting, and blood. Oh the blood, it washes over everything, over Patience, and there's not even enough thought left in her to worry about that last one. The visions may not be real, but the pain -- oh it is real indeed.

Alexander Brandt

He’s getting angry now. Who the hell is this guy to shoo him away? If it wasn’t for Kalen, trying rather more successfully to keep Alexander back... But he does stay back. He doesn’t leave though, mouthing “Make me” at Pan. Kalen notices Sera, and tells Alexander to help her. A lasting look at Pan, followed by a glance towards Kalen and he turns to the stairs and holds out a hand for support.

Hand held by Sera, lending her support, he can only turn towards the door when there’s another scream. “Are you going to fucking do something?”, he yells at the others in the corridor. Mainly at Pan.

Patience Mason

Patience listens to Grace with an even, steady look completely accepting of Grace's desire to avoid contact. She might have done so infact, if it hadn't been for the sudden screams, the sudden tension and undeniable terror in Grace's features. She reacts then, stepping forward and hugging Grace firmly, it was against her wishes, and for that Patience would apologize, but she does it anyways.

Her arms wrap around the other woman, providing the smells of leather and oil, of that cool scent of high altitude air and a hint of raspberry. The feeling of leather and the sound of it, the physical contact might be enough to snap the terrified woman out of it. To bring a hint of reality to the terror.

This is at least the theory Patience is working on as she gently 'Shhhh's' Grace as she rubs her back, holding firm as she adds.

"Nominal, all active relativistic forces and theorum's are nominal, nominal Grace, there are no frotean elements in active engagement." Her voice soft and reassuring as she tries, oh she tries to calm the woman down.

[Cha+Lead]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Pan Echeverría

So much for that idea.

It looks for about half a minute as if Patience actually has the situation under control and is going to be able to calm down. That's where faith will get you sometimes. With Initiates and apprentices refusing to leave the room and the screaming getting louder.

He abandons that course of action to stride across the room. Doesn't rush over there with the intent to pull Patience off of her but the cadence of his boots hitting the floor is a clear enough indication that he's had it with the screaming.

"Patience," he says before he makes it over there, "move."

[do de do mind 2 time he's not letting the effect go this round]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 2, 6) ( success x 1 )

Serafíne

Sometimes there is one step and sometimes there are two floating at different levels and the room is pleasantly spinning as the world has forgotten the precision of its various axes and all of these things are just fine with Sera. Alexander can smell that smoke in her hair and see the glassiness in her eyes when he comes up to offer her a hand and she looks at him and looks at his hand and looks at him and she's smiling, wide, so out of synch with everything else going on, just happy and she says his name in her head three times before it makes it onto her tongue and then she says it not in her head but on her tongue, and then she does take his hand and another step, those heels, Jesus Christ, and then Grace screams like that and Sera's blitheness vanishes in the shadow of a heartbeat. Tightens her hand in Alexander's and bites her tongue until the blood sluices softly over her palette and pulls him closer as she leans on him to steady herself the rest of the way down the stairs.

"What's going on?"

(This is Sera's Watch the Weaving roll b/c she totally would.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday

His eyes track Alexander moving to help Sera and Pan moving to help Grace. Beyond the minimal motions required for observation, he remains still. Quiet.

He really was fine, and remains fine not barging into the room and getting into the middle of it. But of everyone there, with the new possible exception of Sera, if Grace wants to see anyone there after this...it's him.

"Pan's got it," is all he says softly to Sera. "Shhhhhhhh. It'll be alright. Just wait."

Alexander Brandt

At least the other man seems to be doing something now. What, he doesn’t know – one of the many things he doesn’t. Maybe it’s a flaw of Alexander’s, not wanting to stand by and watch while someone is obviously suffering. A need to help, to make things better. Even if he doesn’t really understand what’s going on, there’s still that urge to try. To do something. Make things better.

So he’s not sharing Kalen’s belief that things will be alright, right now. With Sera leaning on him, at least giving him some purpose here, he explains a little more. “Grace was screaming. Said something about about a virus, and how she didn’t want to infect us. Seems to be scared of something in there, but apparently nothing anyone else here can see.” He looks back to the door, trying to see what’s going on inside.

Grace Evans

After the little death is over, Grace slumps into Patience's arms. There's no more screaming, only shaky breaths. She doesn't return the hug.

It wouldn't be a hug that breaks Grace out of this. She doesn't like them. Doesn't like the sensation of touch. But Patience's voice, the strange words that she's never really had much trouble deciphering -- they do help to bring her back once the visions have cleared.

"It's not... That attack, I think it's over. For now, at least. Might be back. The last time I had this, they'd come in waves," Grace says, and her voice is worn through and gravelly with the screams.

She grabs Patience by the shoulders, then, trying to gently push her away. "Are you sure? Sure about that nominal?"

Pan is there, looking like the judgement of God that he is, looking like he's just about had it with her. And she returns him a bitter look. Just what she wanted in a time like this, right? To look up into the Light of Righteousness and be found wanting.

Patience Mason

Patience counts the seconds as she holds Grace close, utilizing her own body as a sensor as she seeks to evaluate and consider Grace's emotional and physical state. She counts down in her head as she watches the signs. Hoping they begin to recede.

They do, at least in their way and when Grace seeks release Patience gives it to her, spreading her arms wide on that initial push without even a hint of displeasure. Infact its the opposite she is smiling pleased to see that Grace is returning to herself. She nods to Grace's question and with that same tone indicates. "Probability states that your nominal actualization at this temporal juncture remains stable with a ninety eight point one one three likelihood." She stands then, offering Grace a hand should she want it, but not expecting.

She then looks at Pan, stepping to the side should he chose to continue his activities but she assures him, just as she assures everyone in the hallway. "The negatively aligned neuro-chemical transmitters are no longer applying a primary influence upon Grace's active noosphere. Further intervention is concurrently unnecessary."

Serafíne

Sera flashes a glance at Kalen all glassy and open-eyed, all weavering, but there that other sort of alertness there, beneath the familiar skin of drunk-girl that she wears familiarly. This is Sera's magic; how she finds it and how she skims her way into it. How she starts to peel back the layers-of-things adn there's something, well, not precisely sacred about Sera-the-lush, but perhaps powerful.

Yes, powerful.

She glances at Pan; of course she does. Shares Kalen's faith in the man - of course she does. To whom did she run after the Nephandus Adept came calling at her show?

"Hydra." Sera explains to Alexander. Just the word, just the thought, sobers her a bit. For the moment she isn't crowding in. "We were infected with a virus that made us sick, made us bleed, and made us hallucinate our own deaths. She's had nightmares ever since."

Pan Echeverría

If Grace had not stopped screaming there isn't a lot of doubt in the air that Pan would have pulled the Etherite off of her. He has that tension written into his shoulders. Didn't want to get involved in the first place because he knows the effect he has on the young woman. It's the same effect he has on everyone. Some people find comfort in the awe and others recoil from its strike.

But she does stop screaming. And Pan stops at Patience's side. Takes a step back. That bitter look Grace shoots at him does not go unnoticed but it doesn't bury itself in his flesh either. He hadn't had it with her. But Grace is not a mind reader and he is not projecting much for anyone else to go off of either.

Whatever effect he was going to force on her unravels. No backlash comes in its wake. It wasn't going to cause reality to rattle. Further intervention is concurrently unnecessary.

"Alright," he says. Quieter than he'd told her to move a moment ago. He looks at Grace not out of judgment or pity but brief assessment. The light down here doesn't do him any favors. He looks old. He is getting old. He's going to turn 46 in a few days. He drags his hand down his bearded face and takes another step back. "I'm gonna go make tea, then."

And out he goes. Up the stairs. Passes by Alexander and Kalen and Sera without saying another word. He coughs a smoker's cough at the top of the stairs and his footfalls lose their volume once he's reached the dining room.

Kalen Holliday

He lets Pan go. There is a slight frown as he tries to figure out way too many variables he doesn't entirely understand at once. Pan. Grace. Alexander. He sighs and leans a little bit to look into the library.

"Hey, Kit. You want me to come in or you want to just chill with Patience?" Look at that. Choices. Grace can have them.

Alexander Brandt

“Were infected. So she doesn’t have it any more, right? Was that.. a bad dream, then?” He’s asking Sera just as the screaming, thankfully, stops. There’s a hope that things are getting better. Or, at the least, not getting any worse. Pan stalks away upstairs without a word; Alexander watches him go, just as silently. He looks at Kalen, not understanding how this man could just let his friend – who is obviously cares about – suffer without trying to do anything to help.

To Grace, he calls, “You ok, Grace?” He’s still tense, still angry. It carries in his voice, but it’s not directed at her.

Grace Evans

Patience says everything is fine, in her own way. Fine. Okay. Great. For a few seconds, Grace just breathes, holds on to that feeling of air in her lungs (not blood).

There is still fear in her eyes though. Still, she shakes a little. It could all happen again. Usually, they could get some respite in between the waves of misery and death, but the waves were inexorable. They'd roll in like tides of blood, each one a little stronger than the last.

Sometimes, the lucid periods were the hardest to deal with, because then you had to come to terms with knowing what was coming next.

"You can come in. I think I'm not..." she puts a hand up to her nose, looks at her fingers after. "I'm not bleeding."

She doesn't take Patience's hand. Instead, she wraps one of hers around her mouth, shuts her eyes, and rocks slowly back and forth. Trying to stay calm.

Grace Evans

There's no real way to respond to Alexander. She's not okay. Not dead, but very much not okay.

Grace Evans

lol. I just realized: all of my characters are getting hugs for strange reasons. I need to play Ruby. Someone will hug her. It would be hilarious.

Serafíne

"You know how people come back from war all fucked up? PTSD and shit. How your now gets all soaked in your then?" Sera, low-voiced, drunk right now and really almost - sober. This spare light in her eyes, this framing half-smile that pulls back into her body, that she inhales.

"Let her know that I'll help her sleep tonight." Sera tells Kalen. She's never entered the library. She's not line of sight with Grace and hasn't been and she does not follow Kalen in. Does not crowd around. "If she wants me to."

Then Sera go of Alexander's hand, then, and turns around, and walks up the stairs.

Grace Evans

[Oh man, OOC chat fail. Sorry about that post]

Patience Mason

Grace's response is not idea, but it suits the moment, one is not totally fine after such an episode so she simply nods as she takes a few more steps back to give Grace the air she requires.

Infact she moves off, heading upstairs, and as she does she pauses to state.

"I require utilization of this physical structures lavatory, I shall re actualize your personages momentarily."

At that she's off up the stairs, heading to..well..the washroom.

[At that i gotta bounce out sadly folks, need to sleep :/]

Serafíne

(Me too. Fading Sera-and-Pan for the nonce. So tired.)

Kalen Holliday

Kalen nods to Sera. "Thank you," he says softy. "Tell...." Tell Pan something. But Kalen cannot even understand what he wants to tell Pan, much less how to relate it to Sera. So he just drops that entire line of thought and murmurs a second thank you to her.

Alexander gets a brief, weary smile. Good luck reading the expression.

And then he walks slowly into the library. "You are not bleeding. Sid cured the virus. It is gone. It is over." He sounds so perfectly, calmly certain of that.

Pan Echeverría

[Yes. Fading. We'll be picking up tomorrow if anyone wants to continue the hilarity in the afternoon.]

Alexander Brandt

The question, about the nightmare, wasn’t intended to belittle what Grace had been going through. He’d woken from them in his own past, but his demons were - mostly - put to bed. He’s seen the effects of call-outs gone bad on others. How they didn’t, quite, seem to be the same person when they returned to work. If they did.

Patience gets a quiet, “thank you” as she passes. She had, at least, been trying. She disappears upstairs, and Sera follows. Kalen heads in to Grace. Alexander stays by the door, leaning round so he can see Grace. “Can I get you anything?” he asks, temper dying down.

Grace Evans

She raises her head to Alex. "Pan was making some tea?" she suggests. As if to say she's going to stay down here for a while. Why not deliver something decidedly un-bloodlike that might make her feel more human?

She looks to Kalen then, and he eyes drop to the floor. "Then why am I still like this? Why didn't it go away?" she asks.

"You don't have to answer, nobody can answer that, I think."

She pushes herself up off the floor, wipes at her face again, but this time not to wipe away hallucinatory blood. "You've never seen me when I was having a spell. It's not pretty, I know," she says, and it's about as close as she's going to come to 'sorry I worried everyone with my screaming for no reason'.

She wanders over to the couch, wavering a bit in her steps. She's still trying to hold it together, but she manages to make it to sitting down again -- a minor victory.

Kalen Holliday

"Sometimes things happen, and you don't know how to let them go. In a broad, collective you sense. Not you specifically."

Kalen settles on the opposite end of the couch from Grace. "Imperfect world, Kit," he says gently, in response to her almost apology. "We all know that. We're just glad we were here."

"Sera said to tell you she'd sing you to sleep. She went up to help Pan with the tea, but she's here."

Alexander Brandt

Maybe okay isn’t the right word. Safe?. Not at immediate risk? However it’s best described, Grace is it. She asks for tea, which gets a barely audible growl from Alexander. Not at the request, but at who’s making it. But she’s with somebody she trusts, even if Alexander doesn’t quite know how to take him now. Someone who knows her better, who she apparently trusts. Someone better suited for being there for her.

“I’ll see what I can do. Call me if you need anything else.” Call? Yeah. Leaving Kalen and Grace, to give them some privacy, he heads upstairs. Heads to the kitchen where he asks Sera if she’d be able to take some tea down for Grace. Just as wordlessly as Pan passed Alexander earlier, he returns the favour. Then turns and leaves the house. The temper is still burning, and he doesn’t want to hang around where it could do more damage. There’s a roar of an engine from outside and the squeal of rubber as he drives off, burning the temper away with the adrenaline of speed as miles of asphalt pass under him.

Grace Evans

"Good. Good. I want her to put me out before it happens again," she says, shakily. "It always would... come and go."

She wraps herself up on the couch, legs curled up to her chest. Her shoes are still on, but she doesn't really care about that right now.

"I'm glad you were here too. Glad Sera's here. Fuck, I need this to not happen again."

Kalen Holliday

"Alexander too," Kalen says. "You couldn't see it, but...you should be glad he was here. There was a second I thought he was going to tackle Pan out of the doorway to get in here. I think you'll have some common ground on your level of adoration there." Which is very different from where Kalen stands, but then...they are normally so very different, aren't they?

"Do you want me to go get Sera now?"

Grace Evans

"Maybe," she says, looks up at him with fire in her gaze. Not at him, but at the situation itself. Just, why? Something Kalen said once echoes within her. The universe is a lucky little fuck, that it is so beautiful.

"Alex, he's... not a bad guy, I guess," she says. She guesses. Because, hey, he's a cop right? But then her eyes slide off of Kalen. For a split second, the books in the shelves behind him had started to bleed, bright red drops oozing out from between their spines.

She nods. "Yeah, go get Sera. Please."

Kalen Holliday

"Okay. She'll be right here. And then it will be better." [And...wrap there for now?]

Samosa?

Kalen Holliday

Some of them, Kalen calls. Because there are books to be had and connections to be made and because some people just came to the realization that they could have friends. Did have friends. Some of them already have access to the security system and have offices. There are two resident Bengal cats still growing into their paws and two half resident Mages still growing into...whatever the hell kind of bizarrely evolving relationship Kalen and Grace have.

The two rectangular buildings are freshly painted the pale blue edging into gray of a late afternoon in summer that heralds a coming storm. There are keypads and biometric locks on the doors to the buildings, which are solidly reinforced. The office building is furnished with elegant (but not ornate) handcrafted solid wooden furniture. Rich reds and golds in the upholstery. There are small statues and original paintings in gilded frames and antique maps in more gilded frames. There is only one full size statue, of a marble lion, which is in the conference room, which is not so much a conference room as a library. You could arrange a sizable group of people there, but the current arrangement favors several clusters of people and not a single unified mass. There are a few grouping of couches and chairs around low tables, and shelves that have an impressive number of books for the beginning stages of this project, but which are still largely empty because there are shelves on all the walls and splitting off little spaces with single chairs.

Thus far, most of the room's use has been by the cats. But...hey. No day like today to start changing that. And so they are all brought, eventually here. Where there is a table full of Indian takeout and coffee and tea and a bowl of dehydrated ice cream sandwiches because some things will just never fucking get old to Kalen. (They should be glad he didn't decide they needed more piñatas. Like he does.)

[I am so terrible at room description. But look! Floorplans! http://www.active.iotasigmapi.org/node/6]

Grace Evans

[Nightmares!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday

[So distracted by setting post I forgot those!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )

Grace Evans

Grace was already here, or at least already at the Office. She's got a weekend ahead of her, and it made sense to get a good start on that.

In her room sits the beginnings of a strange project. There is her dutiful office plant (an ivy named Chloe) which now sports a framework made out of what looks like some kind of metal construction kit. There are a few cylindrical objects scattered around, as well as what look like small robot arms and tracks. Perhaps they're meant for the frame that surrounds the poor Chloe?

Anyway, it's yet another project. One that apparently has nothing to do with books. Or stalkers. Or school.

Kalen has plans for the day as well, and Indian takeout, and it's just about time for that little meeting, isn't it? So she abandons the toys and goes to visit him (and his dehydrated ice cream) in the library.

"Hey," she says, and slides into a chair, curling her feet up into it (because she's already shed her shoes in her office).

Alexander Brandt

There was a phone call from Kalen a little while ago, asking Alexander to stop by somewhere new. The promise of books may not be as enticing to Alexander as it is to others, but the promise of meeting new people appeals. He’s still new to the city and, apart from some of the people he works with, he’s a little short on friends in the area too. So after a quick shower, he heads out on his bike.

And here he is, bike parked nearby. A helmet with the sheen of being fresh out the packaging, containing a pair of leather gloves, is held in one hand. A leather jacket, worn open, shows a tshirt underneath. Black jeans and a pair of bike boots complete his outfit. Alexander knocks on the door and paces around a little, wondering if he’d written the directions down right. Heading out to some unmarked buildings in the middle of nowhere? Good thing the man isn’t overly paranoid. Yet.

Ryne Kelly

One would imagine that a high school senior might have more interesting (or at least... teenager-ish) things to do on a Friday evening, but such was evidently not the case where Ryne was concerned, because when he got the call from Kalen about the warehouse that was also an office that was also a library, his response was an enthusiastic yes.

It was a couple of hours after dinner-time that Ryne's blue VW Golf parked itself in front of the building. The kid unlatched his seatbelt and twisted around to rummage around the back seat for a moment, pulling a silver-trimmed navy blue messenger bag out from under the seat. His hair was a mess of soft curls when he stepped out into the chilled spring air, the breeze causing his coat to billow around him before he grabbed the sides and wrapped it more snugly about his torso.

He looked around while he walked to the door, taking in the property and the architecture of the building. Alex was already there when Ryne walked up, and the kid glanced up at the (significantly taller) man with a curious expression. "Hey."

The security at the front door made him pause, and he pulled out his phone to text Kalen.

I'm here. Is there a secret code or something?

Ryne Kelly

[Resonance-detection!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Alexander Brandt

[Ooh, dice!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

[Oh. Dice. Tell me how distracted Kalen is tonight by resonance.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

"Hey," he says back to Grace. She notices the others before he does, which is hardly shocking given the amount of sleeping he didn't do last night. He glances at his phone when it chirps, smiles faintly, and texts back: Hey. I'm sending Grace to get you. You're going to love Grace.

And then he turns to the only person in Denver he'll ask to go do things for him. Like a minion. Everyone should have at least one. "Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...do you want to go get our friends and bring them here? Because it will take me like a million years to get them." He lets his eyes get huge and all faux-pleading.

Ryne Kelly

For those with enough awareness to notice, Ryne's newly Awakened resonance felt like the flow and fluctuation of moving water. Shifting and mutable, adaptive, seeking.... fluid.

Grace Evans

She rolls her eyes at Kalen's fake pleads. "Yeah, yeah. Make me a coffee? With one of those rock-candy things in?" she says, and detangles herself from the chair.

Off to go invite in 'our friends'.

Which, she does, happily enough. She did get enough sleep last night.

The door cracks, then slides open for Ryne, and there is Grace, giving him a look she hopes says welcoming, but probably looks just plain awkward at the meeting of someone new. "Hi. I'm Grace. Kalen's upstairs."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander turns at the sound of the VW approaching, breaking the silence that surrounded building, and watches the younger man emerge from the car. The sensation of fluidity tickles against Alexander, battling against the Frozen aura that surrounds him and putting him just a little on edge.

“Hey,” he replies, taking the other man in as he concentrates on his phone. “Any idea how we get in?” he asks, just as the door opens a crack. “Ah, like that. Hi Grace.” He stands and lets the other head in first.

Ryne Kelly

Ryne and Alexander were an interesting picture, when placed beside each other. One dynamic (fluid), one static (frozen.) And yet... ice and water were merely different states of the same element, were they not?

And despite their age difference (despite the fact that Ryne had the look of vivid and elfin youth about him, while Alex was older, more solid, and had probably experienced a great deal more of the world) they were both new to their abilities.

(People could wake up at any age.)

Ryne didn't seem especially phased by the solid chill he felt coming off of Alexander. If anything, he was interested. (All of this was interesting to him.) And when Grace opened the door, he looked up and met her gaze with alert, dark eyes.

"Hey." He smiled. "I'm Ryne."

And since Alexander seemed content to allow him to go first, Ryne stepped inside and made his way up the stairs to look for Kalen, following the faint prickle of the Hermetic's familiar, stormy resonance like a bloodhound follows a scent.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is just finishing coffee for Grace as Ryne finds him. He looks...well about the same as last Ryne saw him, which is abjectly exhausted and for some reason not just curling up to sleep anyway. He waves at the food and the coffee and the tea. "Hey. Make yourself at home. Food. Coffee. There are books. People to meet."

He smiles a little as he finishes Grace's coffee and retreats to a couch with his coffee. "One day, I'll have to take you to a circus." The smile widens a little and his eyes flash with amusement. "Of course, if I take you, it will be haunted or there will be extradimensional horrors or something. Granted, I'm not sure all clowns aren't extradimensional horrors, so maybe that's actually a universal constant. They would be just famished though, and there would undoubtedly be epic and cinematic and very confusing battles to the death in the funhouse."

"How are you?"

He half curls up into the corner of the couch. "It's true. Ask Grace. Every time I take her anywhere it's a disaster."

Grace Evans

Grace lets them in, and then makes her way up the stairs. Perhaps she means to lead, but it seems as if Ryne knows the way anyway, following the buzz of ozone that Kalen leaves in his wake.

In any case, she arrives back at the library with her newbies in tow, and slips over to the table to pick up her coffee. It must be hers, right? It's got the rock-candy stirrer. Then, it's back to her seat again, to curl up into it, and wrap cold hands around her mug.

"I don't know. The last one wasn't a total disaster. We did good, I think."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander follows the other two through the building, trying to peer through doors as they pass. Trying to figure out what goes on in this place, which must have taken a fair amount of cash to put together. And it must hold something fairly important, given the security to get into it.

But they arrive at Kalen, his own Stormy resonance getting stronger as they work their way through the building. “Hey, Kalen. You look... crap. Have you slept at all since that other night?”

Alexander’s eyebrows rise a little. He’s pretty sure they’re either joking not serious about haunted circuses and evil clowns. Although there never did seem to be anything particularly cheerful about them, so maybe they really are all evil. “The last visit to a circus wasn’t a disaster? Or the last fight in one?”

Alexander sorts himself out a cup of black coffee, and waves the French press at the others in offer. “I’m doing pretty well, thanks. Been playing with the coin a lot, and trying to figure out how the other things work out for me. Getting there, I think.”

Ryne Kelly

Ryne made a face. "I kind of hate the circus, honestly." But his momentary distaste was washed away when he saw the selection of Indian takeout laid out on the table.

"Dude, you are so awesome." He dropped his bag by a chair and walked over to the food, helping himself to small portions of everything that didn't appear to contain any meat (although he ignored the dehydrated ice cream.) When he sat down on the sofa, he set his plate in his lap and ripped off a piece of naan, swirling it through a pool of sauce before he popped it into his mouth.

He'd already eaten dinner. It didn't matter.

"So um... how do you all know each other? I mean, did you just meet randomly or...?"

Alexander Brandt

[Bah - "He's pretty sure they're joking about haunted circuses..." I can't proof my own typing. :$]

Kalen Holliday

"Well, then we're marginally safer from excursions involving extradimensional horror clowns."

He laughs at Alexander's greeting, then rolls his eyes. "Ugh. Don't remind me. And there have been no fights in a circus. Yet."

He watches Ryne fixing food with a faint smile. "Mmmmmmm...so I met Grace at her college, much like I met you. We played a guessing game about drupes and then I offered to teach her how to shoot. She also may have had some initial concerns I was actually a serial killer." There is a sudden flash a smile, because this next bit is just too perfect to drop on Ryne with no fucking explanation.

"Alexander I met while we were on our way to investigate a scarecrow of mysterious origin who turned out to be a manifested spirit who had come to ask us to come and hear the last words of a Mage who had been trapped in the spirit world but by the time we got to the spirit world he'd been dead for centuries because Time can be like that so we reached back through time, let him know through the vision that we'd come, took the book he left us, and came back. He's...sort of The Messenger, but not precisely because...that might be enough of how we met. But perhaps I should not explain the Avatar Storm right now."

Grace Evans

Grace snorts into her coffee, because Kalen is being himself, and this is a gleeful thing. "I did not think you were a serial killer, for the record."

Because that, of course, is the most interesting bit of verbiage that just came out of Kalen's mouth. Indeed.

She sets to drinking her coffee for a bit, and then joins Ryne in the making of a plate of naan and curry.

Alexander Brandt

“What’s a drupe?” Alexander asks, as he picks up a bhaji and leans on the back of a chair to nibble at it. “Some kind of animal?” Then, to Grace as well, “You guys shoot? Let me know next time you go to a range, I’ll keep you company if you like.”

Kalen explains how they – Kalen and Grace – met him, watching the other man’s reaction. As it comes to the end, he smiles sympathetically and holds out a plate. “Samosa?”

Alexander Brandt

[To clarify - the smile and plate offering are to Ryne]

Ryne Kelly

Ryne grew still while Kalen spoke, momentarily forgetting his food while his mind tried to process the information that he was being given. A handful of different reactions shifted across his expressive face, revealing themselves in hints and fragments of muscle movement, but he was guarding himself enough that none of them stuck out as immediately obvious.

That he was... skeptical of some of the things he was hearing was more than a little likely. But what conclusions he ultimately drew about Kalen and the others from this information, he kept to himself.

He didn't... actually say anything, either. Just raised his eyebrows a little and nodded, then took a bite of his food. When Alexander offered him a samosa, he shook his head and picked one up from his own plate (it'd been hiding behind a mound vegetable vindaloo.)

"I'm good, thanks."

Kalen Holliday

Kalen laughs, then leans over to ruffle Ryne's hair. "Sorry, Cloud. Couldn't help it."

He settles back and takes a sip of his coffee, briefly studying the three of them. "That's Grace, she's...been at this for long enough to have joined the Virtual Adepts, which are one of our Traditions, which are basically like factions. I'll let her explain more about that. But she's studied with them and with me and posssssssssibly with others....? I didn't exactly ask her for a resume."

"And that is Alexander, who probably Awakened around the time you did, which is relatively recently. I'm pretty sure the only reason he doesn't give me the same looks you do is because he's seen some really crazy things already. I have no idea what his opinion on souls is."

"Kit, Alexander...this is Ryne. He found out he was Awakened last I met him, when I accosted him in a coffee shop and took him home. For reasons I cannot entirely determine, but likely involve having no sense of self preservation, he came out here to see books and meet you and learn all the things."

His attention turns to Alexander briefly. "Oh. We just use the one in the building over there." He waves a hand lazily at where the other building sits, not that it's visible through the walls.

Grace Evans

"Drupes are fruits with a pit in them. Like cherries and apricots," Grace explains, and yet doesn't. Why does that have anything to do with anything?

"So you're saying you just let Kalen take you home, and then let him invite you to his scary warehouse? No sense of self-preservation. Riiight," Grace nods at Ryne. "Might want to fix that."

"He's not a serial killer. But still, man."

Grace nibbles on some naan dipped in deliciousness before continuing. "That's awesome though. Really, I mean it. You're Awake. What do you want to know first?"

Alexander Brandt

Alexander shrugs and puts the plate back on the table, unsure whether Ryne is taking everything in his stride, hiding it well that he isn’t, or doesn’t realise just how deep the rabbit hole goes – something he’s only starting to get an idea about himself.

“Last month, easy answer – souls don’t exist. This month? I know spirits exist now, but whether that’s the same thing as a soul? I might need to spend some time with that priest friend of yours to figure that one out.” He grabs another snack and his coffee cup and settles into a chair, shuffling a little to get comfortable.

He looks between Grace and Ryne as she talks. “These guys know a whole lot more than I do, but I guess we’re pretty much in the same boat. If you need any help with anything, though...” Swings and roundabouts – people have been so kind, supporting him as he tries to figure out which way is up, that it’s only fair he passes on the favour.

Ryne Kelly

Ryne wrinkled his nose in mild indignation when Kalen ruffled his hair. He ran a hand through the soft mess of auburn waves, as though to even it out, but Ryne had the sort of obnoxiously perfect hair that looked good even when it was messy.

"Also walnuts and pecans," he added by way of an answer to Alexander's question. "A lot of things we think are nuts are technically drupes."

He didn't explain how or why he knew the answer to that question, but perhaps among this crowd, he didn't have to.

"I didn't think he was gonna hurt me," came the answer to Grace's question. "Anyway, I needed to find out what he knew. And see, now I get to meet you guys. So win-win."

He ripped off another piece of naan and looked between Alexander and Kalen. "You really think you saw a spirit?"

Kalen Holliday

.Kalen smiles at Ryne's question, rises carefully, and heads over to get more coffee.

He looks away from them before he starts speaking this time. "Avatars and souls are intimately linked," he says, very softly. Haunted. "When we were dragged into the Umbra, what you felt was the fragments of Avatars which were shattered in...a cataclysmic event that proved the war with the Technocracy was...too costly for either side to continue. Whether their souls are part of that...I am uncertain."

There is a slight pause, and then he blinks, picks up a rock candy stirrer for his coffee, and then heads back to the couch. "By priest friend you mean Pan? The one in Denver? Have you met yet? Anyway...you two can tell him about that adventure. He's probably tired of hearing me talk."

Grace Evans

Spirit, sure. Or a daemon of Reality's OS. A piece of self-sustaining code, like the rest of us. Kalen speaks of the Avatars shattered. What they passed through, that felt like... like being flung through glass shards. Speaks of the War which is over (it is not over).

"How is the war ended when people are still being disappeared, though?" Grace asks, suddenly not so chipper. People like Gadfly, she means.

"This is why you don't just trust anyone you meet, Ryne. People who will hurt you will look nice enough at first. And when you're Awake, it's like a magnet for all the weird in the world to land at your doorstep. So just... be careful, okay?"

Alexander Brandt

“Ah. Ok.” Alexander doesn’t sound overly bothered about this new piece of information. It could be useful for quiz machines or radio call-ins. Otherwise? Not so much. But then Ryne asks about spirits. He turns a little in the chair, tucking one leg under the other, to better face him.

“Before things went weird, I was just as sceptical as you sound. Religion? For the gullible. Spirits? New age rubbish, used by fakers to part the gullible with their money who told them what they wanted to hear. ‘Oh yes, Granny is much happier now’.” He rolls his eyes. “I guess you could call me a practical kind of guy. I need to see something to really believe in it. So when I had something calling to me, trying to persuade me to jump through a rip I made into the spirit world? That opened my eyes. Then, with the scarecrow Kalen mentioned?” He nods towards Kalen. “When you’re pulled into a mirror world to this one, when you’re faced with what was essentially a dying man’s spirit which was slowly fading away after searching for help for who knows how long? When you see creatures that exist there, that don’t exist here?” He smiles again, emotions mixed at the memory – wonder at the potential, sadness that it had taken so long for the Sending to find who it was looking for, but happiness that its creator found his rest and the Sending its identity. “I don’t think I’ve seen a spirit. I know I have.“ There’s no doubt in his voice at all.

He takes a breath before answering Kalen. “I’ve not met him yet, but you did mention your teleporting friend before. And what else do you have tucked away here?” Then, a third thought. “Oh, when did you want me to take a look at his records?”

Ryne Kelly

"People are shitty. I knew that before I was Awake. You don't need to tell me to be careful, I get it."

(But did he though? Maybe he thought he did. Or maybe he had better instincts than people gave him credit for. Or maybe he was just a naive kid making empty reassurances.)

Alexander told his story, and Ryne listened, giving the man his full attention. Afterwards, he glanced down at his plate.

"That stuff you're talking about. Spirits and Avatars. They sound like memories." He spoke that last bit quietly (almost tentative,) before looking up and meeting Alexander's eyes. "I believe you. I'm just... wondering about it."

There was a certain thoughtful undertone to his words that seemed to imply not so much blatant disbelief as careful analysis.

"Tell me about the war."

(This last directed to the room at large.)

First Steps

Kalen Holliday

[Nigtmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 4, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is, if anywhere in the city, to be found in Federal. There is Pan's church and food and...so many of the places seem like maybe they belong to somewhere else, or possibly that they belonged somewhere else first, and Kalen appreciates that. And Vietnamese coffee.

So he is settled in a little booth overlooking the street with Vietnamese coffee dripping slowly onto condensed milk and a plate of spring rolls. He's mostly ignoring the spring rolls and the guidebook to Australia that he's holding in favor of staring out the window. There are people milling in the streets like ants or river or some such things, and wjile to some people he would seem to be paying attention at all Kalen is watching for things they have never dreamed could be read like tea leaves or star charts or stock predictions.

Lena Reilly

[[Magedar since midway through my post I've decided that's a good idea! Spec: Uncanny Instincts]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Lena Reilly

Kalen and Lena haven't seen each other in months. Like, literally, it's been almost four months to the day since the last time they've run into each other, and even that was a brief, uncomfortable rendezvous in the street that included Sid, which broke apart nearly as quickly as it had begun. Before that was a brief moment in a coffee shop when the deejay had braved her insecurities long enough to deliver some unsolicited advice. To this day she doesn't know what happened with it.

Regardless, it is no stretch to say that the Hermetic and the Cultist have not had the most in-depth conversations since the Hydra incident. Kalen has seen Lena in carefree moods pre-Hydra, and walled up in a thick emotional shell post-Hydra. The Lena that makes her way down the street appears to have possibly found some middle ground. She's not shying away from any potential person and walks with a level of confidence, but she's not exactly dancing along with whatever is playing through her iPod either (it's ATB, for the record). This is the woman simply...acting like a normal person.

As she comes close to the locale, she gets that tingle in the back of her mind. This time she can't quite pick it up enough to figure who what it is. But perhaps it's enough of a statement of her progress that she doesn't shy away and instead, after a moment's pause, turns to head inside. She could use some coffee. (Honestly though, when COULDN'T she?)

Kalen Holliday

[Oh. Dice. Awareness while you use crowds to meditate?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday

He senses Lena, like the heartbeat of a tree as its leaves start to blow away, bright colored and blazing. He can sense her, drawn on currents that pull here or twist there through crowds. And then she is still and those currents of people and possibility swell and spill and break around her. He watches that too.

Maybe he will see some of these people again. From another day of watching them move. At Pan's church. In the crowd here. Or when he's found someplace for late night tacos with Sera. In line with him while he picks up takeout for Grace. Years of watching people drifting, and they were always water headed away to never return. But now...now they are like migratory flocks of butterflies. Rain that was that stream and then the river and then rising fog and now returns.

He is absolutely enchanted with all of this now. All of the people. And all of the people, against whatever odds, have brought him Lena. Lena was always enchanting by way of being mysterious and unknowable and therefore like a challenge and a puzzle and a constant source of wonder.

By the time Lena is inside, he has torn his attention from the window enough to wave at her. The palm leaves flutter in the breeze from the vents and they know secrets. He could read them in the shadows. The past. /the future.

Lena. Focus.

He manages not be distracted by leaves or shadows or the fact that his coffee is ready to be stirred for the entire length of time it takes Lena to get in easy speaking distance. "Hey. I haven't seen you in ages."

Lena Reilly

She pauses as soon as she's inside, taking a moment to run a hand through her hair and look around. She's a bit self-conscious in this moment, we won't lie. Not of her appearance, necessarily, or at least her features. She's actually looking better that way than she has since she was first stung by a virus-carrying metallic bee. She's gotten most (but not all) of her weight back and she's eating well enough again, so that she doesn't look ravaged. It's chilly outside today, and she's wearing an indigo turtleneck and jeans with a fleece jacket over it all. She's more making sure that she's composed; it's been a long time since she's seen most of the mages of Denver and the last couple of times (outside of Sid) didn't go well. She aims to put a better face on that.

And then she sees Kalen. Lena and Kalen have always had a somewhat tentative dynamic between them. It's inevitable, with people as individually damaged as these two. There's always been respect there, but a guarded and wary respect. The smile that she gives Kalen contains none of that guardedness. Nervousness, yes. Uncertainty as to how she might be received by the Hermetic. But she's genuinely glad to see him and she makes her way over, plucking her headphones out as she does.

"Hey yourself," she says with a little nod. "It has been a while, yeah. You know, things." It's said as if in explanation. "How are you?"

Which, in her tone, could be roughly translated to How are you, but also how are we?

Kalen Holliday

Kalen's smile dissolves into a laugh. "I'm fucking awesome." It isn't sarcasm, there is actual delight practically glowing in his eyes. There are still shadows smudged under those eyes, yes. Wariness, nervousness, yards and miles and entire continents of distance...no.

"Have a seat." He nudges a chair out with the foot that will cooperate. "And one of these spring rolls. They are amazing. Unless you're allergic to shrimp. In which case, their egg rolls aren't half bad. Other than the coffee though, the spring rolls are the best thing here.

"How are you?" And when he asks that he means her. Not in that offhand formality way, and he watches her as he answers.

Lena Reilly

She seems...well, let's be honest. She's a little taken aback by what appears to be his honest reaction. But not in a bad way. There's a moment--half a moment, really--where she wonders if he's messing with her. But it's banished quickly and she imperceptibly relaxes. Her smile grows a little, becomes warmer, and she moves to take a seat.

"Thanks. I'll hold off on the rolls for the moment, at least until I get some coffee in me. But I reserve the right for one later." It's said with a little hint of humor to it. Hey, that's progress.

And then comes the $10,000 question: How are you? And to her credit, she doesn't give an answer right away. Answering too quick would be automatic, a praticed, auto-pilot sort of thing. I'm fine. She considers the question a moment, leaning back in her seat as she shrugs out of her jacket.

"I'm better." Which is about as honest as she's ever been. It's not I'm great, but it's a statement of improvement; of recovery. "Getting my feet back under me finally a little bit, or trying to. It's..."

She pauses there, tries to figure out how to explain it as she looks the man over. Finally, she settles on, "...a work in progress."

Kalen Holliday

He smiles at Lena reserving one of those spring rolls for after her coffee. "Of course. Spring rolls for when you want them. I never eat before coffee unless someone brings me food. Which happens on occasion. Though usually they have the sense to bring coffee too. Sometimes, they bring it still brewing in a French press though. And make donuts. Fresh donuts do demand to be devoured immediately."

His smile does not vanish when Lena does not say she is awesome, or great, or even good. It softens a little, perhaps, and there is some sympathy in his eyes. His tone stays almost the same though, save for a diminshing of that amused purr threading through it. "Sometimes life is like that. I'm glad you're better, at least.

"You can call me, you know. If you need anything. But not fresh donuts. Unless it's like 4:30 and the shops are just pulling them off their little cooling racks. I'm hopeless at cooking. The extent of my understanding of what goes on in kitchens is limited to coffee and reheating things other people make."

Lena Reilly

There was a time when she would have smiled politely and shaken her head, said Thanks, but I'll be okay. Lena tries to be self-reliant to a fault, and the key word in there may be fault. It's what has kept her isolated this past six months, shying away from those she considered either friends or associates. It's partially what made her lash out against a couple of them, and those are conversations she needs to have. It's certainly why she hasn't been to the chantry one time since that horrific experience.

But that time has passed, and instead of a polite smile and an even more polite maintenance of arm's length, she nods. "I appreciate that." She leans forward to put her elbows on the table, rest her chin in the upturned palm of her right hand. "I'm right there with you on the cooking though. I have a very bad prediliction for take-out. Put me in the kitchen with ingredients and you might as well be asking me to put together a superconductor with instructions written in Swahili." She lets her expression widen into a faint grin. "Which I don't speak, by the way."

Despite that grin, her eyes are serious. Not somber, but rather sincere and grateful for the offer. She sighs. "I need your number again though. My phone was ruined during that whole...thing. Kinda had to start over a bit in that respect. I'll probably need to get a Ginger re-installation soon too, I suppose."

Kalen Holliday

Kalen nods, and pulls out both his phone a business card. He slides the card toward her. "I'll text you too. But, a nice physical copy, just in case." And he does text her. "Whatever. If you want to talk. If you want soba noodles and absolutely not to talk. You wake up with a dead body in an alley." His smile widens, though whether because he's amused by the last example or at the memory of being called up by someone who just woke up with a body in an alley is hard to guess. "You know. Whatever."

"Ginger, I'm still learning to do, but I'm sure Grace will be happy to. Or you can catch me like...next week. But she could do it now."

Lena Reilly

She reaches out and takes the offered card, looking it over while he texts her. The little chirp on her phone makes her smile and she reaches back, slipping the card into the pocket of the shed jacket. There's a lot to consider in what the Hermetic said, and something in it makes her smile. Not the joke (or not-joke) about the body in an alley...not that she doesn't get the humor, but it's just not what brings warmth to her expression. Rather, because it sounds so similar to what she very recently told someone else. She was on the other side of this conversation, though the situation and specific subject matter were entirely different.

It would be hard not to notice the bit of reticence that hits her expression when Kalen mentions Grace. It's not disdain for the Virtual Adept. It's more of an anticipation for a conversation she's not entirely looking forward to. She smiles, though this one is a bit forced, and leans forward again now that the card is secured away. Her hands come to rest, palms first, on the table surface.

"Yeah, I was planning on contacting Grace about it when...well, when I have the chance. Our last conversation didn't go particularly well, but we should at least talk that out." She looks back at Kalen. "How is everyone else doing? I haven't talked to anyone outside of Sid in...god, a couple of months at least. More, in most cases."

Kalen Holliday

"I know," he says quietly. "Grace and I both practically live in the office, so...it's rather like living together. I don't know much about specifics in this case, beyond that it went badly and that she was rather concerned for you. I expect it will be fine, once you have the chance to talk again."

"Sid-" And here he pauses as someone arrives to take a coffee order from Lena. And perhaps a food order. He stirs the coffee that just finished brewing. Requests more spring rolls.

"Sid," he continues, leaning across the table and dropping his voice to barely audible. It looks a lot cuter than it is from the outside, like a date and not news. "Is joining Alyssa and I in forming a cabal. Grace has formally joined the Virtual Adepts and has acquired a new stalker. We have a new Mage who I may take on as an actual apprentice, not a weird-but-awesome-faux-apprentice." There is a little flash of an amused grin. "There is a greater than zero chance I'm falling in love with Serafine. We have not had a serious crisis for some time, so I'm expecting it soon. Giant lizards roaming the streets, frogs raining from the sky, plagues of locusts craziness. So far though...only spring."

Alexander Brandt

[Per+Aware, do I feel yooou?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 4 )

Lena Reilly

No food with her order; it's just the caffeine for Lena today. It's her addiction, and as such she prefers to have a little in her to settle her stomach and stave off any potential headaches before she starts to put anything solid in. She smiles and thanks the person bringing it over and lets them go before turning back to Kalen and listening.

There's a lot of news there, and it's all new to her. She's surprised by a few elements, and particularly surprised by others. There's a touch of reservation when he mentions he might be falling for Serafine, and she picks up her coffee to sip at it while he finishes. Once he's done, she sets it down and nods.

"I've been keeping up with Sid the last several days since we ran into each other on St. Patrick's Day. Haven't talked about our kind of stuff, though." And she leaves that there because she doesn't know how open Sid has been, but knowing her it's not much. And she's not going to be the person to tell other people about Sid's emotional state if she hasn't spread it; she and the Verbena are similar in that respect. "But that's cool, that you guys are forming up. I haven't seen an honest-to-goodness cabal in a long time."

She takes a breath, and lets it out slowly. "As for Sera...be careful there, okay?" It's said in the soft tone that she's concerned for Kalen, and that means something. When she's concerned for someone, it's because she considers them a friend and something in this conversation has finally shifted Kalen fully into that range, as opposed to the more arms-length friend that he was. "I don't...I wouldn't want you getting hurt, I guess, is all I'm saying."

Kalen Holliday

"Ah. There is beautiful story about a man who develops a relationship with a woman who happens to be a leopard out in the African desert. And it is a brilliant love story. They kill each other in the end, because they cannot reconcile their separate worlds and their jealousy, but that makes their love no less fantastic. Only also tragic.

"I have other lovers. And I know. I know." He smiles. "There are plenty of people I love and cannot have in that fashion. I'm not concerned. You've no need to be." The last bit is gentle, more reassurance than anything. A touch of amusement. No anger at all.

Alexander Brandt

Chilly it may be outside, but Alexander is enjoying the bite in the air. He’s out, wandering the city again. Someone on the station had mentioned Federal being a good place to go for Mexican food, so he’d come out looking. Nothing much has really caught his eye so far, so he’s been nosing around the occasional store, reading menus, and just generally watching people as they flow past in their normal routines.

One particular building catches his attention. Not for its appearance, or for its menu, but for the feelings that have been running along his spine as he’s wandered closer – the stormy feeling is familiar, but the withering and pulsing is somebody new. Alexander stands on the other side of the road to the restaurant and looks up at the window. Someone past pulls up their scarf as they walk past him, unconsciously reacting to the frozen sensation nearby.

Lena Reilly

She smiles a little bit, wistfully, when Kalen talks about the nature of love. She understands, all too well. And she knows exactly what he's saying, and there's a little nod when he assures her. The smile becomes a bit less sad at that moment, warming up by several degrees to gain an element of mirth to it.

"Well, I'm going to be concerned anyway." It becomes a grin. "And you, Mister Holliday, can't stop me from doing so. So there."

And that's when she feels that tingle at the back of her brain. Like with Kalen, she can't quite place the specific feel, but she does notice it if only vaguely. Her back straightens a little, her head turning a bit as she looks around curiously.

"Someone we know?" It's asked to Kalen.

Kalen Holliday

"Well," Kalen says with a soft laugh, "If you're going to be that way about it I'm not even going to try."

"Ah...yes. We do. That is our new friend I was just telling you about. Be gentle, he only joined the club like two weeks ago. Possibly not quite that yet. He's...perhaps not entirely a fan of the whole experience."

And he takes out his phone again and taps a number that he has entered but not until now actually called. And, assuming the phone is answered, he smiles and opens with, "Are you coming in? You can meet Lena. She's like our beautiful recluse. You won't otherwise have the change for months. Also, you need to try these these spring rolls. They are fantastic. Get in here."

Alexander Brandt

If Kalen or Lena happened to look out of the window, they’d spot a tall man, dressed in a thick hooded jacket, dark combats and walking boots fishing around in a pocket for his mobile phone. There’s a smile as he answers. “I’ll be right in,” he replies, checking for approaching trucks before jogging across the road and into through the door. Alexander’s awareness of the others’ resonances is strong today, so he has little problem finding the right table after walking up the stairs.

The jacket gets loosened as he approaches the table. “Hi,” he says, as he looks between Kalen and Lena. “Good to see you again, Kalen. And you must be Lena.” If it looks like Lena will be expecting a hand to shake, one will be offered. Otherwise it won’t be forced. Either way, gloves come off and get tucked into a pocket.

Lena Reilly

Ah yes, the new friend. Lena nods a little bit when Kalen advises her about his newness. She's been there, and she knows that in Denver it's a more...jarring experience than it is elsewhere. It's almost as if there are malevolant gods looming over the Mile High City, cackling with glee and waiting to deliver sweet, sweet emotional trauma. (Wait, what?)

She looks over her shoulder as Alexander comes in, giving him a quick polite smile. He's obviously the one the tingle comes from. Her own Resonance feels like a heartbeat, pulsing in his senses and drawing ever weaker, withering away without ever vanishing. She looks up at him and nods; there is no hand offered. But she's friendly, and welcoming (if a bit reserved; new people is a new situation after all).

"I am Lena. Nice to meet you. Kalen didn't offer me your name though." There's no reproach in her tone at that, just explanation. She gestures to a chair, as if to invite him to sit.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen looks over Alexander, and there is something different in his eyes. Serious and curious and difficult to read. And fleeting, because he's smiling again, and saying to Lena, "Oh. I haven't Named that one yet. How could I?"

He nudges the spring rolls toward wherever Alexander sits. "Fantastic. If you want food though, you should order it to go. And then we'll take you on a field trip. Or I will, at least. Lena might have plans. Or very important hermitting to do." He smiles, because he knows what Lena does for a living, and while it might not be strictly social...it doesn't really fit into the category of 'hermitting.'

And then he turns his attention back to Lena. "Do you?"

Alexander Brandt

Alexander shrugs his jacket off and hangs it on the edge of the booth before settling onto the offered seat. “Alexander,” he offers as introduction. “I didn’t know if Kalen had already mentioned my name, as he seemed to know I was nearby.” There’s a shrug, it doesn’t really matter that much – he’s quite capable of telling people who he is, after all.

He almost refuses the food, but a gurgle from a complaining stomach reminds Alexander as to one of the reasons he’d come out today. He starts skimming through a menu as he asks, “Field trip? That brings back memories. Dusty old museums. Staff older than the exhibits. Just tell me we don’t have to hold hands crossing the road?” He looks over the top of the menu at Kalen, an amused twinkle in his eyes. To Lena, “You don’t want to come? We can fire spitballs when nobody’s looking.”

Coffee and summer rolls are ordered to go.

Lena Reilly

She smiles a little as they banter a bit, and nods when she gets the newcomers's name. "Nice to meet you, Alexander." The smile becomes a bit apologetic though when the subject of going elsewhere. She gives Kalen a wry look, though not offended, at the hermitting comment. It's actually true, of a sort. She has been more or less a hermit since October. That being said...

"My hermit days are at an end, I believe." She smiles and rises a bit. "Unfortunately Kalen's right, I have to go back to my hotel and get ready for work. The clubs aren't going to DJ themselves tonight." A pause. "Well, they could if I just set a ton of remixes in the queue, but that's not going to happen. So as much as I'd like to go with, I think I should depart."

It's not anything against Alexander, and she doesn't show any reticence around him; maybe a bit more reservation, is all. It's simply that she's not quite ready for that visit, and when she heads back there it will have to be on her own terms.

"Tell Grace to give me a call so we can set up the phone thing. And, you know..." She waves vaguely. "So we can do the other thing we need to do. Alexander, I'm sure I'll see you around. Don't let Kalen drag you off into too exciting of adventures."

[[I would love to stay, but my TT ride arrives very shortly. Thanks for the scene!]]

Kalen Holliday

"Do I look like your babysitter? No. No hand-holding. I only do that for Grace. And Sid. And...pretty much anyone who decides they want to. But I'm pretty sure you can handle crossing the street on your own."

"Good. Because I think our Bear was getting lonely with only like three of us for company." There is a little affectionate warmth when he talks about their Bear. "And I'm glad to hear it, and I will."

And...back to Alex. "Sooooo...you get to come see the super secret clubhouse. Where we can have a much less careful conversation. On account of having company, at least."

Alexander Brandt

There’s a little disappointment at Lena’s leaving, but there will be other times for them to meet and get to know each other. Now that he thinks about it, this is something that should probably happen between him and Kalen too. Other than a different, unplanned field trip (dragged off on exciting adventures, been there already), and a short conversation in a bar somewhere else in the city, they’ve not actually talked that much.

There’s a short wait while they wait for the food order to arrive. “You have a bear? A pet? And a super secret clubhouse?” Another smile. “With secret handshakes and decoder wheels?”

Kalen Holliday

Kalen laughs, head falling back a little and some of the tension easing out of the set of his shoulders. And there is that amused purr again. "Yes-ish, though more accurately she has us. Fuck, no. Yes. And no and no, but we so, sooooooooooooo should."

"You can follow me, or we can take my car. For reasons that are perhaps difficult to explain, it's going to be a little tricky for you to find the place. Once you've been there, you'll know it though." He finishes the last of his coffee, and drops both of his remaining spring rolls in an offered to go box. "So...however you like."

Alexander Brandt

A bear that has people? Strange. Although strange does seem to be fast becoming the new normal these days. Interesting times, and all that. The things that are difficult to explain – difficult to explain, or difficult to talk about without getting all kinds of strange looks from others nearby? Only one way to find out, he guesses.

“I’ll follow, that saves you bringing me all the way back here to pick up my ride. Although if you have seats, it might be easier for you to bring the food.” He offers the box to Kalen. “It’s more likely to stay in one piece.”

Kalen Holliday

Kalen nods and takes the box. "Of course."

And then grins. "Off we go then."

[Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd, new room.]

---

Kalen Holliday

Kalen drives to the chantry like a sane person. Who respects speed limits. He knows who is following him, after all.

He slips out of the car and reaches in to grab their food. "Welcome home. At least in a broad spiritual sense. You may want to sense, as though you're sensing for other Mages, here. This place has its own presence." He watches Alexander make his first impressions of the House and possibly the node without rushing him up to the door. Metaphorically. Physically, Kalen isn't rushing anywhere for awhile yet.

Alexander Brandt

[Per/Aware - Dice are fun!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Alexander Brandt

If only Kalen knew. Once the two had made it out into the wider, emptier roads, Alexander had started getting a little impatient at the speed they were travelling. But they make it to the house - eventually – and Alexander parks his bike behind Kalen’s car. Pulling off his helmet and leaving it on the bike seat, he looks over the front of the house as Kalen introduces the place. For all that the place looks like some of the other houses in the town, there’s that feeling of something a little more that creeps in around the other Mages in the city. He looks over the outside of the house, the field, the stable with signs of recent repair work. “Who owns this place?” he asks while he looks.

The feeling seems to be coming from the back of the house. Looking back at Kalen, to check if the other man is going to stop him, he starts to walk round the side.

Kalen Holliday

"Ahhhhhhhh...Annie? I've never met her." He does not stop Alexander, but he does head after him. "It is ours to use.

"What you're sensing," he explains, and there is stress in his tone now that he's walking. "Is a Node. It's a wellspring of spiritual power that we can draw on. This one is a hotspring, but they are not always physical springs. Not generally, even. Though it isn't uncommon to find them in striking natural places."

Alexander Brandt

“So how did you guys find out about this place? Where’s Annie now?” He walks slowly, making sure Kalen can keep up as he moves around the side of the house towards the back. As the planted areas come into view he asks, “Who takes care of this place? I guess I get that it’s those of us who have woken up, but how many of us are there around here?” The spring comes into view as they walk; it’s definitely where the feeling that Alexander was picking up on at the front of the house is coming from.

Kalen Holliday

"There used to be a different crowd of Mages in Denver, and Annie knew them. They all died, and she lets us use this place, but I've never seen her come out here. She's not one of us, but she knows what this place is, so she keeps it for us. I think there are about fifteen of us, give or take. Though, not everyone gets out here often. Shoshannah lives here, I visit pretty often. Pan stayed here for awhile, and he still visits now. Grace comes here. Adam comes for the library. Sera loves the hotspring. Sid gets out here still, though I think less than she did."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander walks over to the side of the spring. He crouches, running a hand through the warm water as he thinks. Fifteen Mages, at least, in the city. Sera, Grace and Sid he’s met. Shoshannah, Pan and Adam are new names, but people he’s likely to bump into if he starts spending time here. The others? Kalen. Leonhard. Others.

“What happened to the others? The ones that were here before.”

Kalen Holliday

[WP]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen doesn't get any closer than about ten feet from the spring, and he watches Alexander touching the water with eyes suddenly more like a wary cat than about anything else.

He takes a slow breath. "I don't know. Beyond the fact that they were killed. Sid knows, I think."

Alexander Brandt

[Aware-as-emp - do we spot that things just went odd?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Alexander Brandt

Maybe it’s the breath, or maybe it’s the tone that Kalen replies in. Whichever it is, Alexander looks up at the other man and notices the look in his eye. Standing quickly, he back away from the pool. “I’m sorry, did I do... say, something wrong?” He takes a slow breath of his own. “If I do something wrong, or put my foot in it up to the knee, just tell me. I won’t know any better otherwise.”

Kalen Holliday

"Easy. Easy." The last time Alexander heard that tone, there was a potentially hostile spirit involved. And, it probably speaks more to what the Hell is happening in Kalen's head than Alexander trying to be sure he didn't do something wrong. "You're fine. I'm just a little on edge around water. Even," he waves at the hotspring. "Even there. You haven't done anything wrong. You're fine.

"Do you want a tour of the house?"

Alexander Brandt

There’s a slow sinking of Alexander’s shoulders, as he relaxes again. “Ah. Ok. Well, the request still stands. I know that there’s a lot I don’t know about all this.” He waves both hands around, gesturing at the less mundane world that he’s just getting to know. “And I’m not so arrogant that I can’t take advice from time to time. And I definitely need lots of that at the moment.” Especially with... well, that can wait.

He walks back towards Kalen, and away from the water. If it makes the other man uncomfortable being there, then there are plenty of other places they can go instead. Like inside. “I’d love a tour.”

Kalen Holliday

"And we'll teach you. We know it will take time. I think some people are likely to be a little nervous about you. And you should understand that from where they are, there are good reasons. Which we'll get into."

He starts back toward the house. "How much do you know now? I don't know what Sera has told you already."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander matches Kalen’s pace, trying to remember what he’s been told already.

“Sera didn’t get a chance to tell me much. I think we were going to start going through some of the basics when we met in the park, and everything kinda happened. Leonhard tried telling me some stuff, although I think it might have been a little dry to sink in. I know there was a war, between the Traditions and the Techo guys. The Traditions lost, but something big happened that hurt both sides badly. Something about a woman standing on a hill having visions, and that’s how the Traditions started...” He trails off a little. Apparently history isn’t really one of his strengths.

“Um. Probably not all that relevant. I know that I had a bitch of a day, and everything changed a little after that. I know that Mages exist, and can make stuff happen that people who haven’t Woken up can only imagine. And that trying to do it in front of them tends to end badly. I know that spirits exist, time can be played with, and chance can be seen. Oh, and that there are various scary things out there that would prefer we were dead, or lunch.”

He shrugs. “So, not all that much.”

Kalen Holliday

"Well," Kalen says, with no lack of amusement. "That's the basic idea. Reality is fluid, and you can manipulate it. There is more to what you can do than interact with spirits and time and fate, but that is all basically possible because Reality is fluid. Reality tries, very hard, to maintain a consensus. And so, when you take advantage of its fluidity, it often responds to punish you for breaking the shared understanding of what is possible. We call that Paradox, and it is worst when you do something in front of people who do not believe it is possible, but it can also happen without that. There are a number of dangers that we face, and one of those is the Technocracy. And we were involved in a war, yes. I don't think the war was ever officially called off, but there has been enough attrition on both sides that there are other pressing concerns. There is yet a lot of animosity, and that is going to be one of the things that makes your life more difficult."

He sighs, and opens the door to let Alexander into the house. "Welcome to the dining room. I have yet to see anyone eat at this table. Through there is the kitchen, which you are welcome to use. Basic food things, coffee, excellent tea selection. Through here," he heads toward the living room. "is the living room. There is a stairway that leads up to some bedrooms, and some stairs that lead down to the library. There is a bedroom there too. And a little gym there." He waves to each of those things as he speaks, then flops onto one of the couches.

"Also couches," he adds. "Sit down and let me tell you why you're going to spook people."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander follows Kalen into the house, and has a quick look in the kitchen when it’s pointed out. He’s careful not to knock anything, out of respect for whoever calls the place ‘home’ at the moment. He wouldn’t want someone poking around in his place, so he returns the courtesy. “Were you in the war?” he asks, when there’s a pause in the conversation. “You don’t look old enough.”

Following Kalen into the living room, he perches on the edge of an armchair. “Couches are good. And I already spook people. Tell people you’re a cop, suddenly they’re all turning into model citizens in case you’re going to arrest them. What was that film? Guy raised from a kid in a TV show, where his whole life is an act. Like that, but everyone has the same script.” He smiles, resignedly, at Kalen. “Just in case anyone gets worried that I said I was in security. Nobody bats an eyelid if they think you’re a lump of muscle with a gun.”

Kalen Holliday

"I am not old enough to remember the war as some do. Which is why I'm not as worried. Partly."

"Well, I batted an eyelash or three, but I think you will come to a few conclusions easily enough. There are things, as you've already seen, that the police are not going to be able to handle. Some of those we can resolve without breaking and entering and shooting people, but...there are times that our choices are to do those things or let a lot of innocent people die. I think you'll understand that in some cases, you're going to do more damage stopping us than we'd do in stopping something worse happening.

"It isn't just that. The Technocracy, they were often police or government agents. And they tended to have Static Resonance, which you do. To some of the people who fought them...it's hard to let go of what happened. And they're going to be nervous about you. Particularly now that you could betray not just a few of us, but this place."

Kalen sighs. "I saw you protecting Sera, though. I think that what you want is to help people. And you can do that with us. I think you know that, or will. And I'm not concerned that you're going to betray us. It may take a few of the others a minute."

Alexander Brandt

“That’s why I joined. The force, I mean. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life when I left school, drifted through dead-end jobs for a few years. I started to get an idea that I wanted to make the world a better place, as corny as that sounds, and saw a recruitment advert. The rest is history. So I have no intention of shouting to everyone about you guys and this place. If nothing else, I’ll probably get sent for a lengthy chat with a psychiatrist. Just... try to keep the major felonies away from me?

“I didn’t realise how I felt to others, though. How... do I feel to others? Just static? I know that we feel different to each other, but I’m not sure if I’ve sensed myself. Where does that come from?

Kalen Holliday

Kalen laughs, and resettles onto the couch in less of an 'I just collapsed here' fashion and more of an 'artfully arranged to look unarranged' manner like mussed spikes in his hair. "Well, I'll try to keep those to a minimum. But...I am trying to get you to hunt monsters with me. Sometimes they're shaped like people, but honestly, a number of them are not even remotely like people."

He looks at Alexander, a little thoughtfully. "You feel fucking cold. Not...like in an emotional sense, like...a glacier. Winter. And it's a constant kind of cold, steady. So...not even really glacial, because those change, if slowly. You're like a frozen slice of eternity."

Alexander Brandt

Definitely interesting times. Alexander shuffles back a little in the chair. Not exactly relaxed, but getting closer. “I’m still not sure I’m the right person for what you want to do. I can probably kick the crap out of things better than a random guy on the street. But, honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I...”

He pauses for a minute, looking at the floor, the ceiling, around the room. “I literally have no idea what I’m supposed to do to get anything of this to work. I don’t know how much Sera’s told you, but that first day? I ripped a hole into the Umbra, and almost jumped through. I could see the links and possibilities flashing between everything. I stopped time, for fuck’s sake. And now? I can’t figure out how I did any of it. I watched you and Sera do some weird stuff that I don’t understand. And I have no idea how to do... well, anything!” The frustration at having spend hours trying to work stuff out on his own finally comes out. And fades again, as he slumps back in the chair. “How did you work this stuff out?”

He listens to the description of his own resonance. “Wow. That... fits, I guess.”

Kalen Holliday

"I know. I know. It's okay." He smiles. "In fairness, perhaps not like you do. Most of the Order begins training before they Awaken. I did not, I had no idea what was happening and ran like all Hell because my Awakening involved nearly being eaten by a vampire. And then I slammed full force into Kharisma and set us both sprawling on the pavement. Which is how I met my first mentors, who were not of the Order at all. And it took time, but I was sort of enchanted by Kharisma, because gorgeous exotic dancers are especially enchanting to a rather large number of teenage boys. Most of my impatience was rather steam-rolled by her presence. And that was nearly constant, in the beginning."

"This part, I will tell you, is difficult. Time and Fate...I can help you with. Spirits...not so much. I can tell you about them, but I cannot see or work with them. Alyssa can, though. And she will." Absent the amused purr or deliberate distant, Kalen's voice is low and quiet, he's not trying to be soothing so much as he was at first, but calmness and steadiness aren't likely to hurt.

"If you learn from all of us, you'll have a very different of magic than most of any Tradition you may eventually join. Like I do. But you'll a flexibility and range you wouldn't otherwise have. You'll be able to sift through things for Truths after that, not just the things you're taught, but new things you'll encounter. I wouldn't go back, even if half the Order thinks I'm like some wild thing they have yet to civilize and we have to try a little harder to work together, they're practically crippled when it comes to working with anyone outside the Order. I don't think that should stop you, but I think you should know that it is a thing that can happen.

He grins. "That said...you ready to learn magic?"

Alexander Brandt

“Vampires? I thought Leonhard was trying to be dramatic. Um, anyway. You started out with one of the other Traditions? What made you choose the Order in the end?”

Still slumped back in the chair, Alexander turns his head to look at Kalen. “Honestly? I don’t really care what the others will think about me. I know very little about any of the Traditions at the moment, so there’s no urge to leap into bed with any of them. And if all they can see is how I make things happen and how that’s a problem, then that’s their problem. My problem, at least for the moment, is getting it to happen. And I’ll take any help I can get. “

Kalen Holliday

"Kharisma and Jack, she's a Cultist of Ecstasy and he's one of the Euthanatos, spent a few years working with me. They hit a point where they needed to leave, and I was fourteen. They weren't in a position to take me with them. So they brought me to a Hermetic chantry and left me to live there.

"I had...well there was pretty much nothing stable about my childhood. It was safe there. There was no moving or constant threat of eviction or real fear of much of anything. I should have known that it wasn't impossible it could fall, and I did, eventually." His eyes move away from Alexander's and his voice softens into something sad. "And it did. Fall."

He takes a breath, and looks back. "But at the time...I had a family. And a real home. I had ever thought to have either of those things. Marcellus told me that he could teach me to fight monsters. He told that I help keep people from suffering. Directly, or less directly. That maybe there there were no monsters directly responsible for...." His eyes widen, very slightly. Because that is, even in its vagueness, considerably more information than he generally shares. Less because of any real issues with trust and more because...it just isn't fun to talk about. "For a number of things. Which aren't important at this juncture. He maintained that a better world wasn't just less suffering because there were fewer monsters hunting, but because the fear they breed wouldn't spill over into everything."

Kalen smiles, and it is haunted maybe but also amused and affectionate. "He was ready to rebuild Camelot. For everyone. A beautiful, protected world. I wish he was here for you, instead. He'd be so much better at this. But's that's why. Because they gave me some hope for a better world and then they asked me to help them build it and I couldn't walk away from that."

Alexander Brandt

[*peers at the room* Boding, much?]

Kalen Holliday

[I may have copied those into an AIM message to Sam and asked if he was planning something....]

Alexander Brandt

“Sorry,” he starts after a moment. “I don’t want to drag up bad memories for you, so just tell me if I ask something you don’t want to talk about. But it almost sounds like you ended up with the Order out of chance, rather than choice. Or would you have picked it if things had worked out differently at the time?

“But the part about making the world a better place? That I get. And that, I think, I can buy into. Hell, it sounds like it’s just the advanced class for what I try to do already.”

Alexander looks around the room a little before adding, “Did you mention coffee earlier? I’m guessing we’re going to be here a while.”

Kalen Holliday

"There is coffee, yes." Kalen pushes himself up from sprawling over the couch and rises back to his feet. You can see the way there is tightness at the corners of his mouth and eyes, but you have to watch for it. At least the walk to the kitchen is short. And level. Nothing on Umbral mountains. "Come. I'll show you."

And he starts toward the kitchen. "Once we have that book restored and scanned, would you be interested in translating it? If not, there are others we can contact. But you were there, I thought I'd see if you were interested before we sent it out to be done."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander rises from the comfortable chair and follows the other man towards the kitchen and coffee. The box of food from the restaurant is picked up and carried along too – to be shared, if Kalen is still hungry. If Kalen is choosing to skim over his questions and move onto other subjects, he’s not going to push.

“I meant to ask, did you find someone to take care of his remains? And I’d be more than happy to have a go. There were bits that didn’t make a massive amount of sense, but I don’t know if that’s down to the language changing or the text being about things I didn’t understand.”

Kalen Holliday

"Yeah." He smiles a little and his eyes drop to the ground for a second. "I was still a little on edge and told Pan to get here when he could and I'd explain. So he teleported. He thought...." Kalen shakes his head. "But it was just as well. I kind of needed him." It bears noting that Kalen doesn't seem to find it at all odd that the teleportation is possible, Kalen is only baffled that it happened in this case.

Watch Kalen swing back to a topic that is now preferable to just how upset he was that he's glad he knows priests who can teleport. "It wasn't chance. It was Fate. It was always meant to be." His voice doesn't sharpen but it radiates the kind of perfect certainty you hear from some people when they speak about God. None of the venom that sometimes accompanies those words, but some of the love...perhaps. There is at least warmth.

Alexander Brandt

There’s a silence where there should have been a footstep, as Alexander stop for a moment as he’s told about teleporting priests. But this, apparently, is just One Of Those Things that is pretty normal in this new world. So he keeps walking after Kalen. “He must have quite the fervent congregation, if he can perform miracles like that.”

As he doesn’t know what’s in any of the kitchen cupboards, when they get there, Alexander helps how he can – checking the water in the kettle, or the filter machine, and topping it up if needed. “I’m not convinced about Fate. If everything’s already planned out, then what difference does it make whether or not we try to do anything. Surely we’re just doing what was intended. But,” he looks over from sorting out water to look at Kalen again, “I’m glad it all worked out in the end.”

Kalen Holliday

"They seem to be, but it is his faith and not theirs that allows him to do that." Kalen points Alexander to things for a moment, coffee beans and grinders and kettles. "I think that is what they are to him, though."

And then his expression all wonder and sorrow and hope at once. "There is Fate. But it is, in part, like Reality. Changeable. Fluid. There are things that are meant to be, and some that might be, and some that are just slightest glimmer of possibility. You can learn to see those things, those chances, unfolding outward like something blooming. Muliple branching paths off multiple braching paths twisting around each other like tangled vines. And then...then you can learn how to change their shape. Alter you destiny or someone else's. It...isn't to be done lightly. But it can be done."

Grace

[Nightmares!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace

[Magedar!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Alexander Brandt

Alexander turns, a tin of coffee beans in his hand, and leans back on the kitchen counter. Can open, he looks down at the beans. “I think I’ve seen that already, although I didn’t know what it was at the time.” It takes him a moment to work out how to describe it. “It’s like everything was connected. Almost like lightning, arcing between everything. And I could see possibilities, what could have been about to happen. But none of it was definite.” He shrugs. “Am I making sense?”

He turns back to the coffee grinder and starts pouring out beans.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen leans back into one of the counters, crossing his bad leg over the good one at the ankle and shifting a not insignificant portion of his weight onto his forearms where they're braced on the counter top.

"Perfect sense, at least to me. But I can see them, too. You haven't figured out how to focus on them when you want to yet, I'm guessing. You saw it more like lightning? Or connections...like...I don't know electrical pulses between synapses? It's important to understand what you saw, so that we can you a proper focus. Eventually you'll be able to move beyond that, to just use your Will. For now though, the props help."

Grace

Grace shows up at the Chantry with irregularity. Sometimes, she sleeps there. Sometimes she's there for a project. Sometimes she's there to keep some books company. But today, she's on a mission to hang up some fliers for the poor slobs who do not have Ginger for whatever reason.

She's not quite to the point yet where she can just make this sort of thing happen from her apartment or the office like some, so it's meatspace time, hoo-ray.

And what (or who), pray tell, does she feel upon getting out of her car and running up to the Chantry (because it's cold) but something familiar and something not so. At least it's not Eleanor. No, she would feel like being held underneath the icy, cracked lake until you died. And she would feel so much stronger.

Alexander. Cop Alexander. Mister Thursday. Assuming, that is, if she's got that frozen sensation pegged right, and it's not just the chill in the air.

The front door opens, and the shift of sands or of tectonic plates or the bit shift of a glitch in the system walks in. At least, that's what the others might sense if they are so in tune at the moment.

Alexander Brandt

The grinder loaded, he puts the tin down on the counter. He takes a breath, trying to remember the details.

“I guess it was like... I dunno, string maybe? Strands. Light and dark, dancing across everything that was close by. Maybe a little like the way static dances between things? Anyway, it kept shifting, but they would connect things together for a moment and then move on. I guess I just saw the potential in the connections?”

And then there’s the sound of the front door opening, and a vaguely familiar sense of someone coming in. “Grace?” he asks Kalen.

Kalen Holliday

"Okay. Good. If you were going to recreate the possibility for those connections with something, what would you use? If you don't have an answer for that yet, I'll explain how I do it, but if you can answer before I tell you that, it may be better."

He breathes in the sense of all those shifting changing possibilities. Of course, it is Grace. Not because of the sense of her, but because those possibilities are what she is on some primal level. They've practically summoned her with this conversation. "Grace," he confirms with a smile.

Grace

Grace has been summoned by conversation topics a lot lately, whether she knows it or not. How Mages come together and fly apart again isn't something she really understands, but it's probably something mystickal -- with a k, because Reasons.

In any case, she can hear the noises in the kitchen, and when Kalen is in a kitchen, it means only one thing. Caffeine, of course. She knows him too well.

And indeed, when her head peeks out from behind the wall like the Kit that he has Named her for -- she's got one word on her lips. "Coffee?"

Alexander Brandt

Shifting. Connections. Fate? No, not fate - chance. Potentials. Something not yet definite, then? Or something that creates links? String? Coins? Dice? Maybe. “Maybe dice, or coins, or something like that? That seems to fit in with the shifting chances, I guess. Cards? I’m not sure.”

He looks round to the head peeking out around the corner. Picking up the can, he gives it a shake and asks, “Sure is. How long did you want to be awake for?”

Kalen Holliday

"Grace and I prefer not to sleep, actually." Kalen makes a soft huff that is half amusement, half resignation. "Isn't that so, Kit?"

"Dice, coins, even cards aren't uncommon as a focus. If they speak to you, we should try them. We might have some here, actually. We can try once we finish the coffee if you like."

He turns to look at Grace with huge pleading eyes. "Kit...can you raid the board games for dice and playing cards and coins or poker chips or anything like that?"

Grace

"Awake? Forever," she answers, and perhaps she's talking about some other definition of Awake? "Seems like I'm meant to be anyway. Always too much to do to sleep."

She smirks at Kalen. "Yeah. Sleep's overrated."

Especially when it brings no comfort.

But her expression shifts when he starts talking about foci, and mentions cards and dice and coins and such.

"I could make him a dice roller. Hell, you could even, Kalen. Would be a good project for you. No limits to electronic dice, you know -- you can make it roll a thousand dice. You can make it roll dice with a thousand sides."

It's a kind of attempt at nudging him to the computing side isn't it? Possibilities should be so endless, Grace thinks.

Alexander Brandt

“So I should grind the whole tin then?” He gives Grace a smile, then adds more beans for the third drinker. They can always make more later on. Preferring not to sleep? Alexander isn’t a massive sleeper, but still gets it where he can. “Too much that can’t wait until morning? Or have you guys been whacked with the insomnia stick?”

“I’m happy to give it a try. Although I’m still not sure exactly what the ‘it’ I should be doing is.” The coffee grinder buzzes into life as he flicks the switch. Loudly, over the noise, he adds, “I don’t think a computerised thing is really my thing. I can get the basics done on them, but I never really got interested enough to learn more.”

Kalen Holliday

"Nightmares, actually." Kalen says it with a calmness that makes it sound unremarkable. Like constant nightmares are just a thing that happens. Some people have red hair. Some people are allergic to almonds. Some people would prefer not to sleep at all to dreaming. Perhaps they should make a series of picture books for new Magi. These are the Traditions. These are the Spheres. These are all the ways in which your new chantrymates are broken. It will be amazing.

He makes another huff at Grace, this one amused. "Oh, are you recruiting now? Because you totally should have come to House Griffindor with all the smug lion mages. We're the best." There's nothing at all barbed in it. If he was really trying to recruit Alexander like some of his brothers in the city...he'd be dictating foci.

He smiles at Alexander. "We'll get there. But after the coffee. You can wait that long, no?"

Grace

"Aww. That's so sad," Grace says once the coffee grinder stops, and it seems like she really means it, for whatever reason.

And then, she flips off Kalen with a bright-enough grin that makes the joke obvious. "Oh come on, Mr. I-Want-an-AI," she says, and turns tail -- to go raid a closet. For dice and cards and coins and whatever else. The games of chance that would make a name like Ars Fortunae make sense.

From a hallway away, they can hear her say "Just because you're wanting to enchant computers doesn't make you an Adept now does it?"

Alexander Brandt

Nightmares? All sorts of personal crap, with added vampires and who knows what else? Sounds pretty reasonable. He’d woken up in a cold sweat a few times since Awakening, but that seemed to be settling down. A few weird dreams as his subconscious worked its way around being dragged into the spirit world and helping a sentient spirit/construct find out what, and who, it was. And only the faintest idea what these others have been through that would make days of sleep deprivation preferable to facing their demons.

He turns to look at Kalen, in disbelief. “House Griffindor? That’s from those films, right? You’re not going to tell me that they’re based on real events too, are you? But yeah, I can wait. It’s less painful than beating my head against a wall trying to figure this out by myself.”

AI? Enchanting computers? Okaaay then, something else for the ‘ask about later’ list.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen laughs again at that. "No. No. There are a few people here who have taken to jokingly referring to the Order of Hermes as House Griffindor, which...you should be careful about around any of the Mages from the Order who aren't me. I think it's hilarious, but I always referred to House Flambeau as House Adrenaline Junkie whenever I could get away with it. A few of the Order tried to recruit Grace, and she was annoyed. I was just teasing her.

"Lets not worry too much about the Traditions for now. You'll need to know about them eventually, but for right now, let's figure out how you work with magic, and we can work from there on where to go, okay?"

Grace

Grace returns, carrying several objects in her arms. She has:

• A cube-shaped container holding 4 dice. The container is also a big die by itself.
• A pack of cards
• A pack of larger cards in a decorative box (they're probably of the Tarot variety)
• A large, tall box labeled "Jenga" because she found it in the games pile and it sounded fun.

She picks up on that last bit of conversation as she strides in with all that stuff. "You're seriously teaching him how? Oh I want to watch."

Alexander Brandt

“Well at least that means Harry won’t be showing up, then. Annoying, arrogant, sulky little... Anyway, coffee.” The ground coffee gets loaded into whichever device Alexander is pointed at, and left to work its own brand of magic. Milk, or cream if it’s there, is fetched from the fridge. “Basics are good,” he says in reply to Kalen.

Grace wants to watch? “Go for it. Just don’t go expecting much. Unless I accidentally tear open the Gauntlet again.” Half joking, half hoping that it’s a joke. He has a look through the various bits that Grace has brought in.

Kalen Holliday

"Ah. I doubt you'll be able to do that again for a little while. Which is good. Because there isn't much I can do about it if you do. Callisto, she's our Chantry's guardian spirit and that Bear we were talking about, could probably handle it though. We'll be alright." His smile is probably more reassuring than that explanation, but he seems to mean it at least.

"And...I'm going to try to help him find something that works for him. On a lot of levels, you don't really teach magic so much as help people remember it." Oh, Kalen. This is why you and half the Order don't get on.

Grace

Grace dumps all those boxes of things on the kitchen table, and then jaunts off to go prep herself a cup of whatever brew they've decided on, because hell yes, caffeine.

"You did what?" Grace asks, because like she knows what he's talking about.

Kalen always has the interesting ways to put things. You help people remember magic, do you? Like it was something they forgot while sleeping.

Alexander Brandt

“Apparently I opened up a rift into the spirit world, did something funky with chance, and then stopped time.” He opens up the normal pack of cards and starts shuffling them, trying to sound like this was an everyday occurrence. He looks at Grace. “Doesn’t everyone do something like that when they wake up?”

“Oh.” The cards are put down for a minute, and the takeaway box opened up. The summer rolls are cold now, but still edible. “Help yourself.” Alexander grabs one in one hand, and picks up the dice container in the other and gives it a shake.

Kalen Holliday

"I'm good with just coffee for now," Kalen says. "Those are the Vietnamese spring rolls I bring you though, Kit. If you're hungry." Not to be confused with the Thai ones. Or...okay...any of the various ones. There are a number of them.

Kalen smirks. "I dodged a vampire straight into the path of an oncoming truck. If I hadn't been so fucking terrified, it would have been like the greatest thing ever."

He smiles. "Kharisma and I did about a thousand breathing exercises. But, I think, if you want to just try, we can do that. What you're looking for is a way to connect to the sense of those connections in the patterns of dice. I'd recommend playing with them for a little while. It's probably going to take at least a minute or two. Watch the way they bounce or what numbers they land on or whatever you think is the most interesting and compelling thing."

Grace

Grace fiddles with her coffee cup, adding sugar and cream and caramel and then coffee from the french press, and then whipped cream from the fridge and then cinnamon sprinkles on top, until it becomes less coffee and more confection, right? A more glorious vehicle for the little molecules of excited neurotransmitters.

While she goes about it though, she watches Alexander. Alex. With his dice.

"Oh! Spring rolls. Yes, let us do that."

She grabs a spring roll and takes a perch at the table with her coffee. "Me, I did no such thing. I just had a vision. I think. Some guy was watching me the whole time, thinking I was on drugs."

She munches a bit of spring roll, and then looks a little alarmed at Alex. "I was not on drugs," she says, mouth half-full.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander takes a bite on the roll and, not having anything to put the rest down on, pops that in his mouth when the first piece has been swallowed. Wiping his hand on his trouser leg, he opens up the container and takes a closer look at the dice inside. Rolls them around in his hand, feeling for the weight. He looks up at Grace, as she explains her introduction into Awakened life, and starts to look down again just as she adds the part about not taking drugs. He sighs, rolling one of the dice around to get a better look at the numbers printed on the side. Yep, someone’s told her. “Did I mention that it was Sera who found me when it was all happening?” Sera, tripping away on mushroom tea as he thought his sanity was slipping away.

The cards get another look. Shuffled. Fanned. Cut. Then put down on the table again. He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a few coins. Keeping hold of a dollar coin, the others go back into his pocket. He flips it a couple of times, takes a closer look at both sides, then sets it spinning on the table.

“I’m not really sure what it is I’m looking for.”

Kalen Holliday

"Oh. Kit. He's more worried about saving the world. Do I look worried?" Of course, Kalen mostly gave up crime. Not that he didn't break into a place and help murder some people not that long ago. But they were possessed by an Umbrood spirit and he's pretty sure if he explains the nightmarish shadow realm tentacles Alexander will agree that it just couldn't have been helped.

Kalen watches him switch between things. "Okay. Take that coin, hold onto it, take a couple breaths and imagine what those connections looked like. Then try tossing it again."

Serafíne

Oh hey. Speak of the devil or maybe one of his more charming brethern and lo she appears. Maybe they're alert, maybe they can feel Sera from a mile or five or seven away. She wouldn't be all the fuck the way out here at or near dark - which is basically the wrong side of noon to her - for any reason other than the chantry.

There's no mistaking her resonance for that of any other. She is as immediate and as distinctive as the scrape of a lover's teeth against your skin. God, it was warm today and the air dry and the wind low and lulling but constant. Just the stream of it, down the long slopes, out onto the high prairie. Out here the grass is greening and spring bulbs are growing and there are daffodils, somewhere close, all in bloom, and Sera does not notice any of that, not really, because she does not give a living fucking about spring until she is out in the middle of it, sun on her skin, in a part somewhere, that is just starting to come alive at the edges with pale-skinned strangers blinking their huge eyes in the light, stretching to feel the lick of the sun's radiance on their bodies.

But yes: sundark and the chantry; a room in the chantry. A Sera entering the room, just far enough through the threshold to lean her shoulder against the door, watching them, her dark blue eyes and blown pupils.

"You're looking for how things are put together. Not any way you've ever known. How they fit. How they taste on the back of your tongue.

"Maybe it's not about connection for you; but where the pieces break apart. Pan prays with his fucking rosary. Grace writers computer programs. I get high and have sex. It's all magic."

Grace

Sera, she dances in (not literally, but metaphorically) all entrancement and actual grace, in a way Grace could never quite get the hang of.

And oh, look, her favorite people in the world are here, sitting down with a cop to enjoy coffee and spring rolls. Like whatever. It's so normal, so unlike the last time that the four of them were in one place together, that Grace snorts into her confectionary coffee.

"No, Kalen, you don't look worried," she says, but then anymore, half the time Grace puts fingers to keyboard she's either doing homework or breaking international laws. There is the problem. What does Alex have to say about computer crime?

And it's not like she's going to ask.

"Hey, Sera," she says, and Sera gets a smile.

Alexander Brandt

Basics – figuring out what works as a focus. Tentacles? That’s at least the intermediate class.

Alexander slams a hand down on the coin to stop it spinning – landing on tails, if anyone was keeping track. He rolls it round in his hands again, feeling the edges. Runs his hands over the text. And looks up as Sera speaks. There’s a smile for her, as she explains. “Well I’m not religious, computers aren’t my thing, and I wasn’t planning on making use of the kitchen table for that.” He is joking, but his attention passes back to the coin. Rolling it around between his fingers. Remembering.

Strands of dark and light, woven together. Reaching out towards him, the owl, the bike, the ice, the road, a rock... The pattern shifts, from moment to moment. It ties things together, then lets them go. Nothing is fixed, nothing is definite.

Then there’s the memory of the winter market, the ice creeping up his feet. The storm. The taste. The feeling that everything became brighter after waking from the dream.

He flips the coin.

Alexander Brandt

[So, Arete. 3 coincidental, 1 for the sphere. -1 for the Node nearby. So, TN3!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (9) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen breathes in the sense of Sera the same way he did when he first sensed Grace. Perhaps he registers Resonance like scent. Or perhaps it's a byproduct of thousands of breathing exercises in his training. He turns his head to where he can feel Sera coming from. "Sera," is all he says when she comes in, Just her name. Very softly.

"He's good people Grace." He starts to try to say like Pan is, but while he and Sera are on that page and he is pretty sure Grace is still unconvinced. So he just shifts back to watching Alexander and his coin curiously.

Serafíne

(Also do-di-do hope this works since my post is written. Difficulty: 7. -3 (resonance, focus, node))

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )

Serafíne

(EXTENDING BECAUSE MY POST IS WRITTEN. Plus willpower. Stop interrupting Sera when she wants magic, reality. +1 dif.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

"Hi Grace."

Sera's wearing a little black dress (the sort that should be capitalized all Little Black Dress) that leaves absolutely nothing about her whip-lean frame beneath it to anything like imagination. There are sections of opacity and transparency and you can see the way she moves beneath it. The hem covers her ass and then another inch or two, maybe, and then she has these lacy thigh-high stockings on that are opaque up to just above her knees, where the opaque black gives way to the Paris skyline.

"Kalen." The hum of her mouth around the frame of his name.

Her heels are stillettos and she wears them - yes Grace - with a kind of grave that still feels rather sprawling doesn't it. Masculine. Maybe it's just the way she stands, the quick and edgy little smirk with which she favors Alexander as he flips the coin.

And she can see the coin and a thousand coins and edges of the coins; then and yes and soon and now all wrapping themselves together into a hurtling and fractional moment and it is Alexander's potential focus and the coin in the air and she wants to reach out and seize it and hold it singularly in place, like an unrelenting squeeze of the heart.

So she does.

"Make a choice."

Sera says, as the coin hangs there, mid-air, frozen in time. Its own singular moment gone strange - this is precisely the point between, see - a threshold of reaction, liminal.

"Which way does it fall?"

- and then,

it fall the coin does. End over end over end.

Grace

"Everyone is good people in their own minds," Grace shoots back, but then... Oh. "No offense, Alex."

It feels so cold, so sharply cold all the sudden that she's certain Alex has figured it out. And then Sera slips in between and stops the coin in place -- oh Sera.

She does like to show off. With coins. With pretzels that were once manipulated into a midair happy face as time ceased its flow rather selectively. There's just no denying the strangeness of what they are when Sera's around, is there?

Alexander Brandt

There’s a flicker of what Alexander saw the first time, a dim flash around the coin as it spins in the air. Where before he was seeing links between everything, now it’s only faint trails of light and dark around the coin. Heads and tails both possibilities, landing on an edge a remote afterthought. There’s that taste again – maybe it’s him, maybe it’s Sera’s working. He’s concentrating on the coin, lost in thought. Grace’s comment goes unnoticed.

Head or tails? A 50:50 chance. Only there isn’t, not this time. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he’s sure.

The coin reaches its peak and freezes. He looks over to Sera as she asks how it lands, and he knows. “Heads,” he calls. The coin hits the table with a thud, then comes to rest. The face of Ulysses Grant looks up at the ceiling, a little condensation on the coin. Eyes wide, he looks up at the others. “Crap.” Then the smile breaks, wide across his face.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen rolls his eyes. Sure everyone is good people in their minds. But he was talking about in his mind, where there are very few good people. Although, he's getting a little sunnier about that outlook now.

His breath catches when the coin stops, then he smiles and breathes out when Alexander calls it. He starts to move, then remembers this is Alexander, and so does not reach out to catch his shoulder. "Bravo. There you are, then. Now you've got one of them figured out."

Serafíne

"Bravo," Sera tells him; she's already moving. This louche elegance to her, this drunken sort of halo that feels warm, expansive. And her bravo is fucking sincere. There's a charge to it, an energy, the word feels like itself in her mouth, see? Forward moving, the call-and-response of it, lovely.

A supple curve to her mouth; the edges, the sparking, fractional seconds as the coin falls. She's rubbing the meat of her thumb gainst the old ink of a tattoo she does not remember receiving and feeling her place - in time. In time.

The slip of her eyes to Kalen seems to include him in her applause.

Then she is in motion, arching from the doorframe, her heels loud on the kitchen tile. Looping close enough to Grace to ruffle her hair. Stopping long enough at the bar to grab a bottle before disappearing deeper into the chantry.

Serafíne

(My darlings, it is bedtime for me! nini!)

Grace

Sera and the hair fluffing. It is a thing. Grace's hair gets messed with, mussed up -- but it was already mussed up to begin with, so there's no loss.

Grace munches more spring roll, like this stopping-time-and-predicting-the-future thing is something that just happens. Because it is. Awesome and inspiring as it may be, there is still food to eat and coffee to consume. Life goes on.

"So is that your first time actually trying to do it instead of accidentally doing it?"

Alexander Brandt

Alexander picks up the coin from the table, now slightly colder than when he flipped it. He rolls it around in his fingers again, amazed that it worked. He looks to the others again, still grinning. “Thank you. For everything you’ve done.”

Grace asks her question. “Yeah. I’ve been trying to work it out myself, but wasn’t getting anywhere. I guess I just needed a helping hand.” He nods to Kalen. “Will the others work the same way? The time, and the spirit thing?”

Kalen Holliday

There is just a slight dip of his head to Sera at the look, and he watches her move through the kitchen and then disappear. Alexander it seems, will have something like his introduction to magic. Join some Tradition or another with his mongrel training. Or not. He could remain without a Tradition at all.

"Of course. He are here to help." Kalen smiles. "And...in a general sense, yes. You'll need to find something to connect with. Fate and Time...are mostly the same in how I approach them, but that isn't always true. You have some idea though now, how to figure out how it works."

Grace

"Went better than my first time," Grace says, oblivious to the fact that someone could take that in multiple different ways.

"I ended up making a fool of myself. Fucked up my code real good, in front of my teacher, by the way, who proceeded to call me a newb."

She munches more spring roll, and then starts going at it again. "My first taste of paradox, that was."

Alexander Brandt

Picking a Tradition is a long way down the road, if Alexander ever does choose one. It’s too early for him to know which one he’d fit in with, assuming that would be any of them. So, for now, there’s no rush. He’s got all the time in the world.

“So I just need to find something that fits in with how I see the other things working? Ok. That I can do.” He’s already thinking about what could work. A few possibilities.

Alexander looks at Grace, still playing with the coin, as she tells him about her first time trying this. “Kalen was telling me about that before you arrived; Reality bouncing back hard when you push against it. What happened to you? With the paradox?”

Grace

"Nothing too bad. I wasn't trying to rip open holes into other realities or anything," she smirks.

"It feels just.... wrong. Like ice in your veins, you know? I hear if you screw up too badly it can hurt you pretty bad though. Kill even. So don't screw up."

Grace washes down Vietnamese spring rolls with coffee, giving herself a whipped cream mustache. Just the kind of accessory one needs after exhorting another not to kill themselves, right?

Kalen Holliday

Kalen settles back and lets Grace answer. Much as when Sera stepped into the middle of his lesson for Alexander, he seems totally fine with this new and interesting education by tag team. Alexander has seen the chantry, he's learned what one focus is, that's more than what Kalen expected to accomplish today. Grace can explain Paradox.

"It can," he confirms. "And it's especially dangerous if you're already injured."

Alexander Brandt

“Hey, I don’t make a habit of it. Just the once. And then that other time with the scarecrow. But that so wasn’t my fault!” Alexander laughs a little as Grace lowers her cup, running his forefinger along his lip as a hint.

“Any advice on avoiding it? Or is it just an occupational hazard?” Like drunks. And hen parties.

Grace

"I've only run across it the once. Probably because I don't tend to do anything too fancy," she explains. "Reality, it kinda snaps back with equal force as what you applied to it, you know?"

Grace gives Alex an odd look when he wipes his finger across his lip, and then he can see the lightbulb go blinking on in her head. She wipes off her mustache and pops the last bit of spring roll into her mouth. Munch munch munch.

"Iono though, maybe ask Kalen that question? I am kinda newb myself," she says, in between chewing.

Kalen Holliday

"Well. How much it will affect you does depend on how you do magic. Anything that doesn't scream that it is magic is going to attract less attention from Reality. Anything with less people who don't believe watching is going to attract less attention. So, if I conjure a lightning bolt and strike someone with it, Reality gets relatively angry. If I make electricity jump from some mechanical device like a bizarre malfunction, Reality only gets a bit annoyed. If I forget manipulating energy and just look at how energy is flowing through some wires...Reality is pretty okay with that."

Alexander Brandt

“So... why didn’t reality bitch-slap me when I woke up? Ripping holes between worlds and stopping time doesn’t sound too subtle, even if it was only me and a bird there.” A quick leap of thought. “So it’s only people who count when it comes to watching?”

The coin has been shifted between two fingers and is being quietly tapped against the top of the table, almost unconsciously.

Grace

"I don't know, man. About why you weren't uh... slapped. I mean," she says, and shrugs. "Maybe you got lucky."

She waves her fingers in the air, all woo-woo. "Maybe it was Fate."

Kalen Holliday

"Sometimes you just don't attract attention. Mages...spirits...a very few people, they can watch you because they believe. Most people though, no. They see what you do and even if they want to believe it will still upset Reality. But those things, the exact how and why...I can't explain those."

Alexander Brandt

Tap. Tap. Tap.

There’s a shrug at the suggestion of Fate getting involved. “I’m not a big believer in Fate. Chance, maybe. But how long have you been at this, Grace? The whole Awakened thing, I mean. I’m guessing you use your computer to focus yourself? How does that work?”

To Kalen: “So that cabal you were talking about? Getting rid of nasties from the city the that the usual people – police, FBI, whoever – can’t take care of? That’s still what you want to do? Make the city a safer place? What kind of thing are you expecting to come up against?”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Oh, any coffee left? I got sidetracked.”

Grace

Heh heh heh. He wants to know how that works, eh? Best to show than tell, isn't it? Grace pulls the laptop bag off her shoulder and extricates the computer from inside. Plops it up on the table next to her coffee.

"Thing is, I can show you how it works. Want to see?"

She's going to show him whether he wants to or not. The question is rather unimportant.

"I don't believe in fate much myself, really. More of an anthropic principle of fate. I am alive here and now because I'm here and I'm now. There's other worlds out there where I'm not, but I'm not around in them to care about that fact."

The laptop gets booted up, and the Programs loaded. It only really takes a few seconds of almost-silent churning. From the looks and speed of this machine, Grace takes her focus very seriously.

"I've been Awake since July, actually. Last year," she says, offhand, as she messes with the thing.

"Now, I'm not going to tell you that this is The Way. I know enough Mages to know that most of them don't see things the way I do. But there is some pretty compelling evidence out there that suggests that our world isn't what you would call real.

"And by that, I mean the evidence suggests that the world is actually virtual. Like, if you believe that the world is made up of atoms, theoretically, there is a data-set that would describe each atom with such perfection you could duplicate them all, recreate the entire universe, even. So, at a fundamental level, we are the it-from-bit. Ones and zeros. Non-analog."

Her fingers fly on the keyboard as she talks, filling the screen up with what must be (to the uninitiated) bizarre syntax. Code, of a kind.

"And I tap into the code," she says, and hits the 'enter' key. The black screen fills with white, a never-ending scroll of symbolic text, shifting and bizarre and impossible to make sense of.

[Prime 1: Watch the Code -- Diff 4, Spending WP because]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday

"Oh, that is still what I'm doing." Kalen smiles. "We've had a really scary spirit try to plunge the world into madness and terror, we've had people try to engineer a virus to destroy us, we've had a handful of other things. Grace has a stalker. I have people trying to kill me and I suspect it's because they think I know their secrets, because my girlfriend, or exgirlfriend, or fuck if I even know right now...knows them. And, depending on the secret I might. That's all thus far, but I've only been here since...August...?"

And he lets Grace show Alexander Code. In fairness, he also looks. He is fascinated by how she does that. It doesn't work for him, but he still wants to see.

Alexander Brandt

He does want to see, and nods at the offer. Still playing with the coin, he grabs a cup of - now lukewarm – coffee, and offers the remains of the French press to the others. Alexander moves to Grace’s side and watches over her shoulder.

“How have you found it? The whole new life thing? Do you still have your old life too? What you did before it all went nuts, I mean.” The code means nothing to Alexander. Word processing, email, a bit of web surfing, and the systems the force uses to manage itself are his limit. Anything involving figuring out which set of brackets to use is way above his head. “So, the theory is that we’re not real either? We’re not running around in some teenager’s console, are we?”

He watches her work her own brand of magic on the laptop, getting that tingle, that taste, as it happens. But the symbols on the screen? “It’s very pretty, but I have no idea what I’m looking at. Ich verstehe es nicht.” He glances at Grace, then looks back at the screen. “Not a language I understand.”

Grace

[Matter 1, Entropy 1, Correspondence 1; diff 4; Rendering Reality! Woo! Spending WP because.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Grace

Grace pinches her lower lip in her teeth when he asks how she's found it. Well, before this, she didn't have nightmares. She also didn't have so much more. "Life is just... more. More everything," she says, sadness creeping in a little. "More of the bad, yeah. More good things too."

"I still have some of my old life, really. I'm a grad student at UC Denver. Still trying for that degree, you know. But I had to quit my job, they didn't like me taking random weeks off here and there, and I don't blame them."

She doesn't explain why she's having to take those random weeks off, mind you. Just that she does take them.

"All the code on my screen is all well and good, but what can you do with it, right? It doesn't make sense, it's raw data" Grace cracks her knuckles and smirks at the assembled like of course she's going to show what she can do with it.

The fingers, they fly again, the code of reality flittering across her screen still, until it isn't any longer.

Code is meant to be rendered, and that is what happens here. With another flourish of enter-key pressing, Grace takes the Data and makes it sing for her, oh yes she does.

"You see, the Data is the underlying code that makes up Reality. So while your senses might be limited to a few channels of that Data, if you can pry it loose and look at it directly, you can do all sorts of neat stuff with it," she says as her screen resolves into a picture-perfect view of the room they're in. But the colors that everything is painted with aren't the real colors. Some things are blue, others red. Where there's a crack in Grace's coffee cup, it glows with a bright purpley sheen.

"Like here, I've mapped out a data-density routine for all the physical stuff in the room. So you can see where the stuff that's very 'dense' is. Data-wise, I mean. Some would call it Entropic, like the higher the color goes up, the more decayed that item is than others? But as you can see, the more complex items, the ones with many parts and such, they are also higher density than the more simple objects."

Talky talky, she is so focused and fast with her speech, like she goes into a whole separate realm when discussing this kind of thing -- almost as if the other people could have got up and left, and she'd still be here talking to an empty room about Entropy.

Kalen Holliday

He watches Grace explain Entropy, quiet again. He is a terrible example for how Awakening and old lives mesh. Because his old life was one he was glad to leave behind. It isn't like that for most people.

So he lets Grace talk about her life and turn the things she can sense into a thing on a computer screen that they can see. He might like the flexibility in what he can do, but he can't show other people what he does, not like this.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander waves his mug in the air, peering at the screen to see if anything changes. “Do people generally keep their old lives when this happens? I’m not so sure I want to give it up.” Give what up, though? He’s already walked away from one city, trying to make a new life in a new place. Is there much to keep hold of? For the moment, yes; he’s still – trying – to make things better, in his own little way. Maybe there will be bigger ways in the future but, for now, not so much. “What do the colours mean?”

He looks past Grace to Kalen, watching the man watching the screen. “So if I did join you guys, what would you expect from me?” He looks back at the screen, impressed at what he’s seeing even if he has no idea how it all works. “And how do you see the world? Not through a laptop, I take it. Oh, what was the dust thing you did before? Is that what you use to play with time?”

Grace

Alex is full of questions. And that's good, even though Grace's smile twitches a bit when he says he doesn't want to give up his old life. His job, perhaps. Because ugh, there are so many better jobs. "People tend to have trouble with keeping their old lives, Alex. It's hard," she says. Picks up her cup and runs a finger over the crack before drinking more coffee.

"The colors mean complexity. They go from red, through the spectrum up to purple -- least data dense to most data dense, least complex to most complex," she explains. "Although, they can also mean fragility. The more complex a thing is, the easier it is to break. Like, you can see the crack in my cup here it stands out a lot, because the surrounding cup is a lot less complex than a crack with a bunch of tiny fissures and imperfections, right?"

Motormouth of a woman, here. And it's all because she's showing off so.

Kalen Holliday

"Mostly to just be you," Kalen says. "You're solid in a crisis, and we can teach you about more context and more tricks to help you not be quite so lost. Although, I'm not going to lie, I was kind of lost when we got dragged into the spirit world. Sometimes you just roll with where you are, because sometimes things'll just go sideways and crazy. If you end up in a Tradition, awesome. If not, also awesome. Most of us eventually do, but you do what you want there. None of us are worried about it."

"The dust thing is how I play with Time." He smiles a little as he echoes that phrasing, and even tired there is a hint of a purr there. "And sometimes Fate." He does reach out now, and squeezes Alexander's shoulder if he doesn't pull away. "I know this is a lot. You're doing fine. Promise."

"Though I am going to leave you with Grace and go take a nap. Good night."

He waves to Grace. "I'll see you at the office. Call and let me know where you're sleeping."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander doesn’t pull away from Kalen, but does look gratefully at the man. How anybody ever managed to work their way through all of this without any kind of help or advice, he’ll never know. There just seem to be so many dangers and pitfalls to catch the unwary. “I’m certainly feeling a lot happier about it all than I was this morning.”

He drains the last of the cold coffee in his cup, then stifles a yawn. Looking slightly sheepish, he apologises. “Sorry, I’m not sure where that escaped from.” Checking his watch gets raised eyebrows. “And I had no idea it was getting so late. I really should head off soon.”

Going to rinse his cup under the sink, he calls out to Kalen as he heads off. “Thanks again, for all the help. Let me spend a bit more time with Sid and Alyssa and I’ll let you know one way or the other. And I need to talk to Alyssa about the spirit thing anyway.” Then, to Grace, “And thank you, for showing me what you do. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to do things the way you do, but at least it’s clear that there’s no one true way to do things.”

Grace

Kalen wants to know where she's sleeping, and if it were any other person, Grace might find that a bit creepy. Instead, she responds with a "Yeah, sure," because she knows why he wants to know where she is all the time.

Disappearances happen. They do. And when they happen to someone close to you, when you spend your nights dreaming about all the possible ways in which they could so 'disappear', well.

Grace closes her laptop. "Yeah, I've got things to do too. I'll see you around," she says, like it's an inevitability. Because Mages, right?

After being so abandoned, she posts a little note in the doorway about the e-library system -- the same note she posted to Ginger. For those who do not have phones or do not have Ginger yet. She would have posted another notice about Ginger, were it not for the fact that Alexander now has access to the Chantry, apparently. Natch.

Going to have to have a talk with him about that 'cop' thing soon. And how far he's willing to bend the rules.

Alexander Brandt