GUIDELINES AND SUCH:
1) This scene is going to be hella Choose Your Own Adventure-y. Y'all can do whatever you want with the information I give to you and if we end up having to pause and pick up on another day that's totally fine. Depending on what we end up doing there may be a slight chance of PC death or there may be a v. strong chance of PC death.
2) To that end: I've budgeted 5 hours for this scene. If anyone 100% cannot stay past 5 hours and isn't willing to chance the scene lasting longer than that we won't become bitter rivals if you bow out now. 5 hours is also not a hard-stop. I may call for a pause depending on what's going on pursuant to the above or I may plow forward for another few hours if people can stay that long and I think there's an end in sight. But 5 hours is my optimal run-time.
3) Repeating the v. strong chance of at least one person dying warning here. If you don't want to chance it either tonight or in the event of us having to reconvene and you want to bow out now: again with the lack of bitterness and rivalry.
4) I don't care who posts when. You can quadruple-post if it keeps things moving. But I don't want more than 15 minutes passing between my post and the post of the last person in the heap unless someone's discussing something with me OOC bc my rocks-falling finger gets itchy after about 20 minutes.
5a) If we do end up in a combat situation or if you have a "can I do this magic thing?" question please IM me your questions instead of asking in the room. If I see backseat STing I'm going to cry.
5b) If you have questions please for the love of cheese ask them. If you have a question and don't ask it I'm going to cry.
6) Have fun. If you don't have fun I'm going to cry.
7) Okay that's enough OOC nonsense I'll have a post up for you in 10-15.
thump
Bob Suarez Realty is not the largest rental agency in the city of Denver but it's large enough that he's developed something of a reputation as a slumlord among those who have found themselves in a tenant-landlord relationship with the man. He isn't a crook exactly but he has the distracted air of a man whose brain has ceased to imagine the world as anything other than a bottomless pit of Excel spreadsheets and bank statements.
His cousin Miranda Delacruz works at the University of Denver. Maybe in the library or maybe in the law department. She and Eleanor are friendly with each other but only so friendly as two people can be when one of them feels like drowning in a winter lake and the other one wears a cross around her neck. She had a favor to ask. Hey Professor Yates how you doing listen my cousin Bob is having a bit of trouble with one of his properties do you think you can help?
And maybe this is how Richard gets involved. Eleanor is a sharp woman. She can pick out an unnatural situation even if it doesn't flash its lights as it approaches.
Alyssa though. She has a reputation. Private investigators often develop reputations even if they'd prefer to maintain a low profile. This particular private investigator received a phone call one sweltering sunny morning and whether she picked up or left a message the gist of it was the same.
This is Bob Suarez, I'm the manager of some properties here in Denver. I have a situation I'm looking to resolve and was hoping you're taking on new clients. My number is...
Elijah has the dubious honor of renting his current claptrap of a walkup from Mr. Suarez. Mr. Suarez decided to drop by a few minutes after his overnight guest took off for the day. Knocked on the door and asked Elijah how everything was going. The guy was never very tall but he looks like he might have been getting on in pounds before the stress of the job got to him. A paunch still sat about his midsection and his hair thinning. He seems decent when you talk to him. Kind of sweaty but it's summertime and there's no goddamn air conditioning in this building.
Seems decent. Knows Elijah's a student living with a lady roommate maybe isn't so much with the working steady hours. Listen, if you're not too busy with school, you think you can do something for me? A very small something. I'll give you fifty bucks now and knock a hundred off your rent next month if you're interested.
Elijah Poirot
Was he interested?
"Hey, man, no problem, what's up?"
Of course he was interested. A hundred bucks off the rent was a lot of money. It was a lot of money and sometimes Elijah didn't even care if whatever ti was that he was supposed to be doing was legal because a hundred bucks was a lot of money and he was supporting two people on his crappy student income combined with his equally crappy allowance. He was, however, looking a little incredulously at his landlord and hoping to get a feel for precisely how legal all of this was.
Jenn wasn't exactly good to help for the rent. She covered groceries when she could, but whatever money she had went to paying for school. Maybe it was guilt that told him to take the job. Hundred bucks off the rent, he thinks.[nightmares, did we survive the evening?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 4, 6) ( fail )
Eleanor Yates
[wp]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Alyssa Solomon
Alyssa doesn't need to like her clients to work with them. In fact, more often than not she has a certain level of disdain. Whether it's standard P.I. work like trying to catch soon-to-be-ex-wife #3 in something dirty so the divorce goes easier or more occultish things like an alleged medium wanting to use her to add an air of credibility to her tricks and traps, Alyssa has worked for many people who she doesn't particularly like. Sometimes she flips the script on them if she finds herself morally opposed to the work--there's plenty of legit work that she can let a few shitstains go--but if she can do some real good while accomplishing her job than so much the better.
And let's be clear: she probably doesn't much like the good Bob Suarez. That will be her immediate inclination when she ends up hearing about his reputation as a slumlord. But work is work and even when she finds that out, it's the job that matters. The only thing that matters in regard to the client is how good his money is.
And so she does her due diligence on the man. Because whether she's willing to work for the moral dregs of society or not, forewarned is forearmed and she would rather not have to find out that she's fucked after she's waist-deep in whatever she's doing for him. And that means she's pulling the whole deal: Google search, a look into his properties, public records check, et. al.
[[Per+Investigation!]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Eleanor Yates
This is like asking your son-in-law to fix your computer. Or asking the doctor at your church to look at this, does it seem infected to you? A flat stare and a patientI'll see what I can do is usually the answer someone gets. But Miranda is a sweet young woman. She is passionate about her work, she has an agile mind, and Eleanor respects these things. But it's really, in part, because Richard is right there when Miranda asks. And Richard's warmth and kindness rises easier to the surface than Eleanor's seems to, rises faster. More than that, though, he and she share a glance, confirming between them the flicker of strangeness they hear in the request. She nods to Miranda. She says
I'll see what I can do,
but it means something different.
--
The next day, she and Richard go to their appointment with Bob at his office.
Richard Levasseur
Turns out Richard is hanging out in Eleanor's office when Miz Delacruz comes around. He's there a lot these days, so often that some of Eleanor's department colleagues are starting to assume he'll be applying for some graduate program in law next year; never mind that his declared majors are Mathematics and Physics. One of her colleagues has even dropped by one day soon after Richard's departure, leaning against her doorjamb to divulge the 'news' in an excited hush:
Do you know who he is? He was an Olympic swimmer in 2012.
--
So: he's at her office again. And he's in the middle of talking about something or other and then there's a knock on the door and he is politely quiet and quietly curious and then Miranda leaves -- he smiles goodbye -- and after the door closes behind her he looks at Eleanor with one eyebrow up.
Something about that whole exchange just seemed odd.
"I'll come with," he says. And only half-joking: "Should I bring a gun?"
Because he has one now, you see. She was there the day he bought it. Signed the papers, turned over the paperwork and the ID; waited the waiting period, applied for permits and licenses.
Eleanor Yates
Before they go, he asks if he should bring a gun. Eleanor doesn't laugh. She considers it for a bit. She frowns slightly. Then she nods.
thump
Bob Suarez has an office in the basement of one of his properties on the borderlands between the city proper and the suburbs. A three-story brownstone with a set of recessed concrete steps leading down into the unlocked basement level. Lots of sunlight down here. Brown berber carpet in the corridors. It smells new.
He's expecting them. He opens a sturdy oak door with RENTAL OFFICE pasted above a mail slot where the folks in this building can slip their checks at the end of the month and greets them with a handshake. Wasn't expecting two of them but what're you gonna do. Beggars can't be choosers.
---
He doesn't know the PI is checking him out but he wouldn't be surprised if he did know. That's smart business. His business ethics are shady but not outright immoral. A few reviews pop up from former tenants complaining about the slowness of repairs or the presence of drug addicts and mentally ill neighbors.
Someone on a public forum tells a story about their neighbors. No names given but the husband and wife both wound up at the state hospital in Fort Logan about a month ago and the two young boys are staying with relations in Miami. They were renting from a property owned by Suarez realty at the time.
---
They all get the same version of the story. Maybe Suarez tries to present himself like a better educated man than he actually is when he talks to the law professor and her protégé. Doesn't make an effort to rein in his accent or his slang talking to the PI. Holds himself like he's talking to his son instead of talking to some kid who's renting from him. But the truth doesn't change with the wording.
I started renting a house to this couple back in 2012, young professionals with a couple of kids, very nice. Quiet. About a year after they moved in the husband had an accident, wound up in the hospital afterwards and didn't come back out. Committed, you know. The wife wound up in the hospital herself in May. Left some babbling message on my voicemail about the upstairs bedroom just before they came and got her. I bought the property just before they moved in and I'd heard rumors, people saying the place was haunted, but that's just Hollywood stuff, you know? My property manager... nice guy, but he's a little superstitious, if you know what I mean. He refuses to go over there and do a walk-through of the place. I can't get anyone else in the place if people are saying it's haunted.
Elijah Poirot
[am I gonna get sold into prostitution? Per+awareness, -1 (because nightmares)]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Eleanor Yates
"Good afternoon, Mr. Suarez," Eleanor says, shaking his hand as she comes in, stepping aside for Richard to -- likely -- duck his head and follow her inside. She is not carrying a bag, but Richard is with her. He knows what's underneath that tailored blazer with the three-quarter sleeves. They have a white-and-blue striped silk linking, the cuffs turned up to reveal it. It's a nice piece. So is the weapon resting in the small of her back.
During his story, she tips her head, listening. She asks him if one of the Haunted Denver tours have come snooping yet, because then he's really in trouble. She has an idea what's coming. She asks anyway.
"What would you have me do to help, Mr. Suarez?"
Elijah Poirot
"Does it have air conditioning? Because I dont care if it's haunted, so long as it has air conditioning," he told the man with a laugh. But he was watching, though. he just had to do a walk through. A walk through wasn't bad, he just had to be sure the place wasn't haunted and Elijah?
Elijah wasn't so sure about this, actually. Bob Suarez wasn't a bad guy, he just rented Elijah and Jenn a crappy apartment, but this all sounded kind of like it was going to end with someone wearing Mister Poirot as a man-suit. A very small man suit because Elijah was a skinny man and there wasn't a lot of skin to work with, "but you could probably just market it as a haunted house if it is. I mean, there arepeople who pay money for that."
A beat.
"Are you sure I'm qualified to do this?"
Richard Levasseur
While Eleanor speaks to Mr. Suarez, Richard looks around the office. Looks at the furniture, the decor, the knickknacks on the desk and the shelves. The certificates and diplomas(?) and pictures-with-famous-people. Or maybe just the cracked paint, peeling wallpaper.
Gets a sense of the place, the purpose, the person. Comes back to the conversation, eventually, standing next to his acarya: so tall and lean that it seems a wonder he doesn't bash his head on the ceiling every time he shifts his weight.
Alyssa Solomon
She's fine dealing with this kind of a person. Everyone's got a little dirt on them, after all. The only truly clean are those who haven't lived long enough to roll in the mud, and Alyssa herself has done a fair amount of rolling. So she takes the meeting, hears what he has to say.
And in truth, it's not a particularly unexpected kind of thing. A lot of the apartment owner types who come to her find her by way of concerns over the, shall we say, spiritual well-being of their holdings. Most of the time it's nothing serious, just some superstitious types with far too wide of imaginations. But she never treats it as if it's no big deal because sometimes...
Well, sometimes it's more than that. And she'd rather not undersell the situation. She heads to his office in her work clothes--white button-down shirt, slacks, leather jacket. Minimal goth makeup, but enough so that the clients aren't surprised when they see her fully dressed. A little crimson eyeshadow, heavy eyeliner, striking lipstick. Nothing major. And she listens to what he has to say.
"All right," she says after all of that. "I'll need to get in to see the place, obviously. Any information you have on the past owners is important. Hearsay and rumors as much as anything legitimate and confirmed. The only way to prove it's not haunted is to find rational explanations. There's a lot that could be the case here, and the more information I have the more I'll be able to strike off the list so you can hopefully get back to normal."
Or not normal, if it turns out to be otherwise.
thump
"You're a lawyer, right?"
Like he didn't know that when Eleanor and her assistant or bodyguard or whatever he is came over here. Like that wasn't why his young cousin was asking for help in the first place. Bitching about the situation one night and Miranda is so eager to help and the situation sounded weird to her and isn't Eleanor a little weird anyway? Maybe it's fate. Maybe it's just sketchy.
This office is bare. He doesn't spend much time here. Two windows only Richard can look through because Richard is just about head-butting the ceiling peer out into the green brightness of the afternoon. Birds chirp. Kids are out of school and bellowing as they race around the neighborhood.
He isn't asking this because she's a lawyer. He's asking this because this situation is weird.
"I wanna make sure the place is clean before I go renting it to someone else. You know? So no one else gets hurt. I'll bulldoze it and sell the plot if that's what I gotta do, but I'm busy with my other properties, I don't have time to go digging around myself. All I know about the place is it was unoccupied for forty-fifty years before I bought it and the guy who owned it before was a lawyer. Whatever your rate is, I'll pay you time-and-a-half if you can come back and tell me there's nothing to worry about."
---
Are you sure I'm qualified to do this?
Suarez snorts. He doesn't believe in ghosts but this place has him spooked. Elijah seems like a weird kid himself. You hear rumors about the landlord and the landlord hears rumors about his tenants. Rumor has it this kid is schizophrenic or has a sixth sense or something else.
Maybe Suarez believes in ghosts. Or maybe he just can tell something's off about Elijah and he needs the money.
"You got common sense, right?" he asks. "How hard can it be to walk into a place and tell me it ain't haunted?"
This sounds like the near-end of the conversation. He's not going to force Elijah to take the keys and the address and the fifty bucks. He's a busy man.
---
Obviously she'll need to see the place. Information is important. An envelope sits on his desk. It's thick in the middle bulging with a key. He's going to pay her. There's probably cash in it too.
"Unfortunately," Suarez says, "I'm having trouble finding records on the place. The original owner was a lawyer. I don't know if he died or moved or what, but the place's been empty for a long time, probably since before you were born. All I know is his name was Walter Corbitt. The previous tenants were Louis and Laura Marconi, but I don't know how much help they're gonna be to you."
Elijah Poirot
"I'm down, letcha know if I find anything weird," he said. His landlord was a busy man, and Elijah? Elijah needed the money- a hundred bucks off the rent, and fifty bucks now? This should be easy money.
Alyssa Solomon
Empty before she was born. She smiles a little at that and nods, listens. It's all adding up to a lot of maybe, in her opinion. And in truth, a lot of what she's asking is to cover herself; in a lot of cases like this she doesn't need to do all the legwork until after she checks the place out. She's asking the kinds of questions that people expect her to ask because if she just says "Okay, I need to get in" then people start wondering how she's doing what she's doing. If there's no ghost, she can then track down the leads.
"Well, you never know," she says, writing down the names offered in a little notepad. Even if he has the information already printed, she prefers to write her own notes up. "I'll cross the Marconi bridge when I come to it."
And then she reaches out, sets her hand on the envelope and rises. "I'll start right away. Gonna begin with looking the apartment over for all the normal reasons a place might seem haunted. Settling, bad wiring, you know. So if the neighors start claiming someone's poking around today...yeah, it's me."
A little wink and then that's where she's headed off.
Eleanor Yates
That makes the corner of her mouth turn up wryly, dryly. She's not in a bad mood today. Her eyes aren't ringed with dark circles. Richard wasn't there when she woke up today, but he saw her later: energetic, willing to help, a step beyond Just Barely Alive. It's a good day, for Eleanor. Most of her days are good days. It helps to balance out just how bad it is when it's not a good day.
"More or less," she agrees. But then he gets to it: he actually is sort of worried. He wants someone to tell him it's fine, it's not fucked up or yeah, burn it to the ground, salt the earth. An objective third party. Maybe even someone a little weird.
Unoccupied for forty or fifty years. Eleanor is surprised it wasn't bulldozed before. He offers her an outrageous sum and she curls her lips in, licks them, because he has no idea what her rate was. She huffs a small laugh. They go back and forth a bit, her finding out where this place is, the name of the lawyer who used to be there. But in the end, she just shakes her head: "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help you, Mr. Suarez," she tells him, moving to get to her feet. "There are peole in the back of Westword who can help you cleanse the aura of your property if that's what you're looking for." She rises from the chair across from his desk and nods to the door, for Richard.
Maybe he tries to get her to stay. Maybe Richard is confused. Or maybe Richard isn't surprised at all, not so long later, when they get back into her BMW and she tells him: of course we're going to the house.
Richard Levasseur
Richard is a little confused. He doesn't argue, though. At least: he doesn't argue there in Mr. Suarez's office. Having never sat at all, he simply heads for the door. Sweeps it open just in time for Eleanor to walk through without missing a beat.Smooth. He thinks, briefly and amusedly, of turning to drop a one-liner on Mr. Suarez:
You couldn't afford her anyway.
-- but dismisses it. Childish. Instead, just a polite smile, a nod goodbye. He shuts the door quietly behind them, the length of his stride catching him up to Eleanor within two or three steps.
Credit him this: he doesn't ask until they're in the car -- Why aren't we going? To which she says: Of course we're going.
To which he laughs under his breath and buckles himself in. "Sneaky."
thump
The envelope Elijah receives was folded in half and stuffed into Suarez's back pocket. He hands it to him now with a modest amount of gratitude and then goes on his way. Inside the envelope is a key with a large manila tag tied to its ring by a string. The address is penned on the tag with black Sharpie. Somewhere in Aurora is where he's eventually headed. A new 50-dollar note sits beneath the key, creased only by the envelope's folding.
---
Alyssa's envelope is not folded. It is flat and fresh when it goes into her hand. She receives half of their agreed-upon sum now. The rest will come to her when she reports back later. That was their arrangement. Maybe he'll be good for it or maybe he's as big a jerk as every other slumlord in every other city in the world.
It's a quiet jaunt out to the suburbs. Good weather means the other drivers are somewhat tolerable. The neighborhood where the house sits is on a side street in a mixed commercial-residential zone. Not isolated like in a housing tract but not right on top of the neighbors either. Close enough to hear screams but maybe not close enough to care.
The grass is dying. No one has watered it the last month and the summer has been dry so far. It's the only house on the street with a yellowing lawn but other than that the house itself is indistinguishable from its neighbors.
---
Eleanor and Richard don't receive keys or an address. Suarez has no idea that they don't need either of those things. He just snorts and smirks as they turn to go.
"Thank you for your time," he says. At least he can sleep easy tonight. If this place is as fucked up as he's been hearing it is there go two less people getting involved.
He opens the door to see them out and then he shuts the thing behind them.
Eleanor Yates
"We've both been getting a weird feeling about this ever since Miranda came to see me," she says, pulling away from curbside parking. "The last thing I want, if this goes sideways, is for someone to find out we did anything but visit his office and hear him out."
She has the neighborhood -- the area the house is in. She'll figure the rest out by feel. They are going straight there. And she is listening, feeling for the magic that will tell her here.
This is the house.
HELLO! :D IT'S ME!
Eleanor Yates
[corr 1 / entropy 1 / life 1 / mind 1 / prime 1 / spirit 1: WTF senses are go.
coincidental. using a unique focus for entropy but whatever her diff is 3.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
Alyssa Solomon
She's not worried about whether Bob's good for it or not. She'll get paid one way or another. She hopes he doesn't renege but she always prepares for that situation, because the essence of human nature is to try and fuck each other over for a nickel. She's a bright, optimistic sort, our Alyssa.
And so her cherry-red, deeply weathered '89 Acura Legend Coupe pulls up next to the place and idles. It took her no time at all to do a quick run to her apartment to change out of the norm clothes and make up her face. The crimson eyeshadow is extended out, the lips turned to black with a red stripe down the middle. She's shedded the slacks for a pair of jeans, shoes for steel-toed Docs. She waits to apply her eyeliner until she's sitting out in front of the place, at which point she takes out a particular bottle. She's careful with it; after all, it's precious to her. Not everyone has cosmetics laced with their own blood.
And that's what she uses to rim her eyes. A little curly-Q is put in the corner; reminiscent of a particular pop culture archetype of Death, in order to get her in synch with the spirit world. She wants to see before she has to go in and start setting up candles and the like. But she doesn't want her sight to make her vulnerable, so a little is dabbed at the widow's peak of her hairline, and just inside that same line at each temple. She speaks a few words in Enochian as she does, sealing the Effect and (hopefully) granting her both sight and protection.
[[Mind 1/Spirit 1: Spirit Sight conjoined with a Mind Shield. Used crucial component. WP to the Effect. Diff 4 for Level 1 Coincidental effect.]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Elijah Poirot
He was eventually headed somewhere in Aurora, but until then he was content to take the funds and the key-an-address combo, but until then he had someone to call and see if he could get her to be helpful.
Ringring.
"Jeeee-eeeeenn-" he whined as the phone rung on her end. He hoped she answered. he hoped that she was sober enough to-
"Hello?" a tiny female voice replied.
"Hey! Jenn, I think I got us a discount on our rent, but the landlord is being weird, can you look some crap up for me?"
"Only if you pick up milk on the way home," she informed him.
"We're out again?"
"It went bad."
"Oh," Elijah said
"Yeah. We seriously need to talk to him about an air conditioner. I'll talk to you when you get home," and with that, Jenn hung up and Elijah texted her the jist of what he needed looked up. The rest was left up to the more resourceful of the two.{Jenn's Per+Streetwise]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Richard Levasseur
[I WANNA DO THAT TOO. corr 1 / entropy 1 / forces 1 / matter 1 / prime 1 / time 1: WTF senses are go? :D
also coincidental. no awesome focuses. so... diff 4!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah Poirot
{Jenn's per+investigation}
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
thump
[doo de doo]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
thump
The neighborhood and the house itself live in the shadow of industry and one would think this place would be crawling with the ghosts of those who didn't get out of the way quickly enough.
Maybe it is. But the Gauntlet here has grown thicker with the passage of time and the encroachment of the city and the metal and the concrete. Spirits of manmade elements find its passage easy but nothing else does. Any spirits that would make their way across the membrane would be a worrisome explanation for the events transpiring here but even Richard can tell that ghosts are not what ails this place.
thump
This place feels as inviting as a tomb.
The brick bungalow is falling into disrepair but anyone with eyes can see this. Anyone with a pulse can feel the withering stillness come over a place where nobody lives anymore. They can sense without seeing what is going on inside the place.
That withering isn't the fault of negligence. Something inside is sapping the life out of the place. Using it to sustain a life force that can't truly call itself life.
Alyssa Solomon
She frowns a little as she looks over the house, suppressing the instinctual shiver that comes with a feeling of dread. She's not unexpecting the sensation, but she disregards it for now. She's the master of her destiny and her nervous functions as well, dammit. That feeling is information that she needs and she's grateful for it, but she's not letting it dissuade her.
So she slips out of her car, grabbing the attache case containing her foci and heading up to the house. She is looking the place over appraisingly painted brows furrowing and feeling just a bit better by the gun under her jacket (not that she thinks it'll help right now, but it does make her feel less apprehensive). She's digging a flashlight out of her pocket as she steps forward, reaching with out the keys to unlock the door and step inside.
"Let's see what you're all about," she mutters to herself as she crosses the threshhold.
Eleanor Yates
It's not hard to find the house in question, though she has not seen pictures of it and has no address for it. The white BMW does not slow as she passes it, however. She turns a corner. She parks on the other side of the block. She is a yogi; he was an Olympian. They leave her car and walk, and as they do, Eleanor speaks quietly to her apprentice:
"There's something inside, alive," she tells him, "and mindful, though I'm not sure what form that mind takes. She frowns. "It's not undead."
They see a woman heading inside. A woman with a key. Eleanor does not slow her steps, but they hitch slightly, and she looks up at him to see if he recognizes the woman.
Elijah Poirot
Jenn told Elijah what she had to tell him once he came home with the milk. That was the agreement. She had stripped down to a sports bra and some shorts, revealing the various other tattoos the young woman had aside from her irises and whatever was scrawled across her left collarbone. Something from some poem about gaining courage. Keeping Elijah out of her hair for the last four hours had been miserable.
By the time she was done, she drank half a gallon of milk.
"'lijah, this is fucked up, we don't need the rent that bad," she said after having relayed what she knew about the Marconis, the hospital, that poor boy (oh, how her heart bled for them).
"It's just quick in and quick out," he assured Jenn as he started to get his things together.
"What if whatever is there follows you home?"
Elijah paused, turning his attention to Jenn. He didn't have words for a long time before he shot her a disarming smile. "You're catching my crazy, Jenn."
"According to what I just told you, I think crazy might be contagious, could you at least see if you could talk to the Marconis about what they saw? Call the hospital and see if they can have visitors?"
Elijah took the keys and started on off the door. His messenger bag was full of… well… a book and some mentos. It wasn't exactly full.
"I'll call," and with that, he took the keys to Jenn's civic and headed out the door. On the way, he tried to call the state hospital to see if the macrons could have visitors or if that would be hazardous to their treatment. He started on off to drive to the house. May as well at least look at the place, walk around, and then promptly tell Suarez the place was haunted. no harm, no foul, hundred bucks.
They needed the money. It was a hundred bucks.
Richard Levasseur
For someone who is purportedly supernatural, Richard has had surprisingly few brushes with the unsleeping world. There was that night with Eleanor, with Billy, with the rope and the stepstool. There was the night he crossed over himself, followed the dead into their grey underworld and back.
And there's today. For all that he reads, and learns, and discusses with his mentor, this could well be considered only his third experience in the field. Only his first since formally naming himself Euthanatos. He is not used to it: the sense of premonition in the air, that withering silence. It is not at all the sort of wintry stillness that surrounds his mentor. There is no comfort in it. There is no acceptance, no safety, no sense of the cycle.
Just dread. Passing the house, Richard turns his head to look at it. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
--
"I don't know her," he answers, though the question was unspoken. His gun feels very heavy at his back. He is used to dressing light, traveling light. It is a little unnatural, he thinks, to feel that extraneous mass, that weight and that volume. A holster, a semiautomatic. Bullets. Death-dealing.
"Should we follow?"
Alyssa Solomon
[[Per+Alert]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Eleanor Yates
She would tell him: your gun is for protecting yourself.
She would tell him: mine is for turning the Wheel.
But the truth is, those purposes often intersect.
Eleanor keeps walking, slowly and steadily. "Not just yet," she says, but they still have half a block to go.
thump
The key fits into the only exterior lock and though the hinges whine for not having opened in nearly a month Alyssa encounters no resistance as she pushes the door inward.
Run down the length if not exactly the center of the ground floor is a corridor. Windows in the other rooms let in no light for the curtains hung over them. As Alyssa glances around she can see four sets of dead bolts have been installed on the front door's frame though not engaged before she arrived. Dust motes float in the air. Six doors altogether and a stairwell leading to the first floor at the northeast corner of the hall.
The first two doors on the northern end of the corridor are closed. The last door stands ajar. A glance south reveals the living room and its trappings. Entertainment center and couch and shelves filled with books and knickknacks.
Even from the corridor Alyssa can see the room is choked with crosses, images of the Virgin, and other Catholic religious artifacts. She cannot see the dining room from where she stands and the door to the kitchen has been removed from its hinges. It lies in front of the threshold like a lazy baby gate. The smell of rotting meat and turned milk hung in the air like an accusation.
---
The Marconis are not permitted visitors. Family only. Elijah understands what that means. He can try to press the issue but this is a strange time he's living in. HIPAA won't let the charge nurse tell him anything other than "No" over the phone.
---
As Eleanor and Richard walk the last few blocks to the place they pass by a corner deli where two men sit out front smoking cigarettes to pass the time. The two men watch the pair and then go back to their conversation. Sounds like Italian.
Richard Levasseur
[per+alert: italian?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elijah Poirot
The Marconis were not permitted any visitors, family only. It had been a long shot, yes, but Elijah knew what that meant and knew how hard he could push a nurse over HIPPAA. He didn't want anyone to get fired over this. certainly not over a hundred bucks, but son enough the young man was driving off to the house in Aurora. He knew what he was going to do. Walk in, stand for fifteen minutes, ad then walk right back out. No fuss or muss and certainly no walkthrough. Just standing.
Suarez had a reputation for being a crap landlord, so if there was anything broken or damaged, Elijah could claim ignorance, right?
He just wanted to know if it was haunted, not if the electrical outlets worked. He parked the civic and took a minute to breathe.
Elijah Poirot
The Marconis were not permitted any visitors, family only. It had been a long shot, yes, but Elijah knew what that meant and knew how hard he could push a nurse over HIPPAA. He didn't want anyone to get fired over this. certainly not over a hundred bucks, but son enough the young man was driving off to the house in Aurora. He knew what he was going to do. Walk in, stand for fifteen minutes, ad then walk right back out. No fuss or muss and certainly no walkthrough. Just standing.
Suarez had a reputation for being a crap landlord, so if there was anything broken or damaged, Elijah could claim ignorance, right?
He just wanted to know if it was haunted, not if the electrical outlets worked. He parked the civic and took a minute to breathe.
Alyssa Solomon
"Son of a bitch."
That's the first thing she says upon entering the room and smelling the air. That's before she even had a chance to assess the crosses, because she knows those signs. Those are signs of something otherworldly, and often attributed to things demonic in nature. When she actually takes in the room and sees how jacked up it is, the frown only deepens.
Her first reaction is protective, although it may not seem so to others. She withdraws a blade from the briefcase, simple but elegantly-designed and adorned with several Enochian symbols. It looks like it's kept quite clean...or at least it is until she pulls a vial from the briefcase. She pops the cap on the vial and begins an incantation to both Azrael and Kalfu the loa of the crossroads, calling on him to grant her weapon the ability to strike down the wicked. Only then will she enter the room and start examining the artifacts, to see if she can get any sense of what's being kept at bay outside of something bad.
[[Prime 2: Enchant Weapon. Diff 5, one Quint to lower diff & WP]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
thump
To anyone walking past who doesn't speak Italian it sounds as if the guys are discussing nothing of any importance. They are not the same age although it's hard to tell with some folks. The older of the two of them is saying:
"You know, this neighborhood is going straight to Hell. It used to be nice, you know. Nice quiet little neighborhood." The younger guy chuckles. "Fuck you, I'm serious. You wouldn't remember that business with the chapel, you were off whoring your way across Europe."
"I learned it from watching you, you old goat."
Richard Levasseur
It would be the height of stupidity, not to mention bad manners, to whip around and immediately translate everything for Eleanor. So Richard doesn't do that. They walk past. Neither Richard nor Eleanor slows. Somewhere past the end of the block, with a hundred feet and a cross-street to separate them, Richard leans down to mutter to Eleanor:
"You ever hear anything odd about a chapel in this area? Those two guys were talking about the neighborhood going to hell. Something about 'that business with the chapel'."
Eleanor Yates
[area knowledge! int + streetwise]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Alyssa Solomon
The magic's coalescing, but it hasn't woven itself into the blade for its temporary boost. She doesn't stop, doesn't let frustration show that she's taking longer than she's like. It's about Will. She may be a Hollow One, but she carries imprints of that Hermetic upbringing and foremost is the confidence (arrogance) that her Will is indomitable. It WILL be obeyed.
[[Extending! +1 diff to make it 5 again]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elijah Poirot
He didn't want to be here, but if he did this right, it was daily the non-work-iest hundred bucks he's ever made. He considered lying. He was going to lie. he was going to lie his face off to Suarez and tell him that he'd looked over the place and everything was fine. Yeah, yeah that was right. He fumbled with the key at the front door, finding that he didn't have to actually work to unlock it and-
"Oh fuck," he cursed. This place was creepy enough and now there was probably some scary assed bugler in the house.
"I'm gonna get shot," he said. Elijah closed his eyes as he tried to enter the house.
Eleanor Yates
Eleanor knows that Richard speaks at least two languages other than English. She does not know the full list, but as they pass the men, she does glance up at him. And he leans down to tell her. She frowns a little, hearing this. "Chapel of Contemplation," she tells him, "about nine years ago. Been a long time since I've heard any mention of it." Her frown deepens; they are nearing the house, the closed door. "It wasn't a church. I don't know if it was officially named a cult, but that's what it was. I don't know what their mythology was."
She looks up at the house the woman went into. "They were of interest to the police regarding the disappearance of children in the neighborhood -- it was a lot. You know how long it takes when the victims are poor." And not white. Only one poor little black kid isn't important enough to get upset about, after all. "They raided the chapel -- some officers and several cult members died. I don't think there were official autopsies, or else they didn't turn anything up. And then they turned around and released almost all of the arrested cult members, except for the so-called pastor. He got forty years.
"People forgot about it." She resists the urge to look back at the older men. "Most people."
They are at the steps. She looks up at him. And just when she's about to say they can go inside, there
is Elijah. Eleanor sees him, and Eleanor blinks. He's got his hand on the door. She calls out -- loud enough that he can hear, not loud enough for the men down the street: "Hey!"
She does not use his name.
Elijah Poirot
[Don't panic! It's just Eleanor! -1 because nightmares suck]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 7) ( success x 1 )
Elijah Poirot
He was going to open the door, but then? Then he didn't open the door. he didn't open the door because he heard a hey and he jumped and the already tired man took a look in the direction of the voice and there was a feeling, a notable feeling but he knew that feeling and-
"Fuck!"
He pulled his hand away from the door and turned his attention quickly to… Eleanor and Richard?
Eleanor Yates
"Trespassing," Eleanor says, with a light tone of chiding that has to be a joke. "Or home invasion. We just saw a woman enter with a key."
Richard Levasseur
"Could be related," Richard says. "Could be coincidence."
People in their line of work: they don't believe in coincidence. They believe in fate. For example: Elijah. Just happening to be here, same place, same time, same -- purpose? Eleanor calls out. Richard, again, the silent party: tall and golden and
grimmer, perhaps. No pun intended. He lifts a hand in greeting, and then they close the distance to the startled Elijah. Eleanor possibly makes a joke. Richard looks up at the house, this abandoned structure, this shell forty years empty. Except for whatever it is inside now, waiting and hungry.
"How'd you find out about this place?"
Elijah Poirot
They just saw a woman enter with a key. Elijah looked down at his own key and his mind started to wander. Suddenly, the thought that maybe getting shot was not such a strange idea. Elijah took the key out of the door and shoved it into his vest pocket along with his pocket watch.
"My landlord asked me to do a walk through," Elijah replied as he warily took a few steps away from the door. Sure, it probably had to be a joke, but he was certainly not expecting to see them, "he's knocking a hundred bucks off next month's rent if I do it, so I figured it is easy enough work."
He looked at the Euthanatoi cautiously, "what brought you guys here?"
Eleanor Yates
"Mr. Suarez is your landlord?" she says, but she's almost not asking. She's confirming. Coincidences, accidents, run-ins. She shakes her head a little, sighing. "Someone needs to tell Miranda that he's shady."
After that head-shake, Eleanor answers: "An acquaintance at the school asked me to talk to him about the property he's having trouble with. He wanted me to go in and see if anything was wrong, since it's supposedly haunted. Obviously I told him I wouldn't be able to help him." She at least stopped short of telling him to call the Ghostbusters.
With that, Eleanor climbs the steps up to Elijah. "As I said, we did just see another woman go inside. With a key. I imagine she, like you and like myself, was asked to be here. And I hope you don't think I'm paranoid for finding that a bit unsettling, that someone has gathered a collection of disparate individuals to come out here to a supposedly haunted house with a devouring semi-sentient life form inside."
Eleanor holds out her hand, palm up, for the key. "If you don't mind, I think I'll go in first."
Alyssa Solomon
She frowns over the room and disregards it, moving onward. She starts in on a slow room-by-room journey, out into the first closed door (1). You always want to go clockwise if possible, never counter.
Elijah Poirot
"Yeah, me and Jenn rent a place from him that's around here, " he'd gathered some seemingly unrelated individuals, likely paid them different sums and sent them out into the world. Somehow, Elijah had a feeling that he was getting the raw end of the deal and that was about the time that Eleanor said something about a devouring semi-sentient entity.
Elijah gave Eleanor his key, brows raised and surprise written plain as day across his youthful features. "Iiiii would say that isn't paranoid, that's… I really kind of got the feeling that he knew something was up with this place. So… uh… anything else I need to know about this place?"
thump
The door across the hall from the living room is closed but like the front door it takes no effort to open. A long string dangles down from a bare light bulb and not much room to maneuver presents itself. The gloom inside means she has to make objects out of shapes: stacked boxes and a rusted water tank and an old bicycle trussed up so one wheel reaches towards the ceiling and the other near touches the floor. A boarded-shut cabinet stands on the righthand side of the room.
From down the hall and upstairs comes a loud noise. A thumping. Like a large heavy object dropping onto the floorboards. It's directly over the kitchen and loud enough that the three out on the front stoop can hear it as clear as can Alyssa stood in the corridor.
Though she's grown accustomed to the smell of neglect by now this smell that comes upon the place now is different. Rotten eggs and septic flesh. Not strong enough to churn the stomach but impossible to ignore.
Richard Levasseur
"I don't think we know much more than you do," Richard replies to Elijah, as though the duty of filling him in falls naturally to him now that Eleanor had the key in hand, door in mind. "Sounds like there was some cult activity here some years ago. Don't know exactly when. Don't know if it's related.
"You don't need to come if you don't want to," he adds, "but if you're staying, then you should stick with us. Do you have any way of defending yourself, just in case?"
Alyssa Solomon
Her nose wrinkles and her stomach turns a little, but a bad smell isn't enough to make her shy away. It makes her ready and a little wary, but it doesn't send her scurrying away. She's made of stronger stuff than that.
The noise, obviously, gets her attention. She's not so worried about the lack of light either, and her flashlight clicks on. She's not expecting a place like this to have power.
"Bob, you fucking idiot," she says. For no other reason than that she needs someone to swear at. He's the dumbass that bought a place like this. She turns around and follows the sound, going back into the living room without hesitation and passing through it toward the kitchen. She intends to go up if that's where the sound is, and the best way to find the stairs is to follow the sound.
Elijah Poirot
He inhaled deep, and tried to place the smell. He knew things, he'd heard things, he'd been told things by those who were no longer here and that smell was not a natural one. The rotten eggs, the scent of something else rotting and that sound, oh god that sound.
Whatever was in there was large. Whatever was in there was vicious and whatever was going on, the woman who was in that room was very, very clearly in danger.
Did he have a way of defending himself?
"Uh-"
thump.
"I've got a cell phone?"
thump.
"IthinkI'mjustgonnastickwithyouguys."
Because being outside might not be much better than being inside.
Alyssa Solomon
[[Edit: Down the hall and up the stairs]]
Eleanor Yates
"The chapel-cult was near here, at least," she specifies, because she's unsure if it was this building or not. She is frowning, taking the key and fitting it to the lock. It won't do for them to stand out here all afternoon, catching glances. It's not like they are easy to overlook: let's blame Richard for that, in part. But even if he weren't so tall, they all feel strange to people. They're freaks. Weirdos. Probably witches.
Eleanor is almost certain she was burnt at the stake in a past life. One of the lives when the third one got to her; one of the lives when she wasn't saved.
"Kids missing, shootout, members released, pastor in prison for forty years. He's served eight or nine by now, I think." She turns the key. "Neighborhood's been going to hell since then, they say." She says this with a touch of wryness in her tone.
Richard tells Elijah he doesn't have to. He can leave. Or he can stay: but he should stay with them. And Eleanor adds nothing to this, because it's the truth.
She goes inside, and when the door shuts behind them, she reaches under her blazer, unclips a snap-button, but does not draw yet. "Miss," she calls, because she's not going to pretend she didn't see Alyssa go inside, "if you're here because Mr. Suarez sent you, I have reason to believe you may be in danger." And then she waits for a response.
thump
Another lifting and falling from the room above the dining room and kitchen. Loud as it was before and insistent. As if the thing grows impatient at their dawdling. The heft of the object shakes the foundation of the aging house and it shakes one two three times as the trio outside enter the hall. Stops as Eleanor calls out to Alyssa.
If Alyssa turns to speak to Eleanor she will miss what is going on behind her. The other three are looking right at her. They can see the ceiling as it darkens and the darkness spreads and starts to seep down the wall.
Alyssa Solomon
She's halfway down the hallway when the door knob starts turning and she whirls. She also doesn't draw her gun, but she frees it up as the door opens and three people walk inside. It would be an amusing mirror to Eleanor if not for the entirely unamusing setting. Of course, she's already armed as it is, with that blood-anointed blade in her hand. She isn't holding it up in a threatening manner, though it does occur to her for a second that a goth girl with a bloody knife in the creepy ghost house probably isn't the best first impression.
And yet, that doesn't stop her from grinning a little. "Yeah, I kind of had the idea this was dangerous when I took the job, but this kind of thing is my special..."
And then she sees Elijah come in and her brow immediately furrows. "Elijah?" They've only met once, and briefly. She doesn't forget a Resonance, though. That's when she relaxes a little and the hand holding the blade goes relaxed.
"Friends of ours?" She asks it of the newly-Awakened one she knows. "The city just keeps getting bigger and bigger."
And of course now she's distracted from the darkness creeping down. That's just her luck.
Richard Levasseur
Richard is far from a killing machine himself, but it occurs to him that Elijah is very nearly helpless in comparison. No gun. Little to no knowledge of the Spheres, he suspects -- and without even Richard's well-honed physicality to boot. Before they go in, Richard glances around the porch. Picks up some detritus -- some broken-off bar from the rail, maybe, or a fallen tree-branch, or a broomstick. Something. Anything that might, in a pinch, be used as a club, a bat, something to whack something else over the head with.
"Here," he says, and hands the makeshift weapon to Elijah. "Sorry; best I can do for now."
Elijah Poirot
Elijah accepted the cut up tree branch and held onto it like this was the one thing that was going to keep him from dying horribly the minute they walked in the door. "Iiiii will stay out of the way," because even he knows that he is no good in a fight.
"If they ever found any bodies… were… any of them cut-"
the place felt like it was shaking, the house shuddered and his body tensed. He knew he should be more nervous but his heart was pounding and he needed to stay with the group and it didn't matter how scary all of this was because it was amazing that something could make him so acutely aware of his senses. How his nerve endings felt like they were on fire.
He peered down the way, "Alyssa?"
He was good with names, and the young man put his hands up quickly, "they're cool, they're cool… but this… this is bad. We need to not be here because whatever that smell is, it doesn't mean good things."
Elijah Poirot
(Edit: fuck the tree branch, it's a broom stick)
Elijah Poirot
[Int+occult, -1 because nightmares, +WP]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (9, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Eleanor Yates
The woman down the hall has a bloody knife in her hand. Eleanor doesn't draw the firearm yet, to see that. She and two other mages are here; she's already pretty sure that the woman down the hall is one, too. And many mages use an athame in ritual. Many more use blood.
Or she'll rush them with intent to stab and get shot in the head. Either way, it's nothing to get twitchy about.
Eleanor, good day or not, doesn't do much when it comes to quips. She glances up from Alyssa at the creeping darkness. "Finish your question, Elijah. What about bodies?" Before he can answer, she also says: "Richard, please stay close to him."
Elijah Poirot
[Why yes, yes this does warrant a willpower check)
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Richard Levasseur
Richard doesn't draw the same connotations from a woman and a bloody knife. Richard assumes, as most people might, that someone just got cut. His hand goes to his back: to the gun holstered uncomfortably at his back, to be precise.
"Absolutely," he says to Eleanor, and then to Alyssa: "Are you injured?"
thump
The stain spreads. Slinks down down down the wall until the ceiling above grows pregnant with the stuff and small droplets of crimson start to drip onto the floor behind Alyssa. One droplet at first and maybe she doesn't hear it but the droplets fall one after the other.
Alyssa Solomon
"It's not good things," she says with a nod. She may be all jokes and quips usually, but not right now. This is a more serious situation, and she is responding in kind. "Which is why I'm not leaving, Elijah. Shit like this is what we have to protect others from. Being Awakened isn't a gift; it comes with strings attached. Those strings are that we're responsible for handling this kind of stuff, because no one else can."
"I'm Alyssa," she says to the other two. She smells like blood not just by virtue of the liquid on the blade, but she feels like it. She's the taste of copperiness on the back of your tongue, and the flutter of feathered wings. "Bani Hollow One. There's nothing ghostly here, but there is definitely something. Some kind of entity. I'm guessing taking the form of something demonic."
And that's when she looks to Elijah, to see what he has to say about the bodies.
Alyssa Solomon
"Nah, I'm fine," she adds in an aside to Richard. "I came prepared, is all."
Elijah Poirot
"The people who lived here were committed to the state hospital. Louis was carved up and the police thought he did it to himself, and the mother may have cut up one of her children in the same fashion. If they found bodies of the missing kids, were any of them cut up?"
He had a question to finish, and Elijah wasn't terribly concerned with the answer before he inhaled deep and took that sulphur smell into his lungs. It burned there and Elijah found a place to fix his gaze while he thought. His grip tightened on the broom and there was a slow blooming realization that crossed his features, something that made his skin go pale and jaw slack for a second.
A terrible epiphany.
"What we are dealing with here goes beyond a Faustian bargain, what is here right now is immortal, is timeless. That smell belongs to something we are not adequately equipped to deal with."
Richard Levasseur
"Whose blood is that?" -- a follow-up. "Yours? A ritual? Or is there someone we should be looking for right now?"
A flick of a glance toward Elijah.
"Who's Louis?"
Eleanor Yates
"Eleanor," she says, watching the spreading stain. "It has a mind," she adds. Of a sort.
Without looking away from the stain, the swelling droplets, she listens to Elijah. Her stomach turns. "The autopsy didn't reveal anything. But some said the autopsy wasn't official." A pause. "I don't know."
Elijah knows something, though. She glances at him, and her question comes on the heels of Richard's. "How do you know that?" she says, a bit sharply.
thump
All of the windows are covered in curtains to keep out the eyes of the world but the world has come inside now and the windows serve no purpose.
As the blood drips down the four can hear the rattling of an old single-pane window in its frame. Like something is trying to get in or something is trying to get out. Hard to tell until the scratching starts. Fingernails against glass. It's not right above their heads but it is coming from inside.
Elijah Poirot
"Louis and his wife Laura, the Marconi's. they were the most recent family to live here, before I showed up here, I asked Jenn to look into what happened here because it seemed off," he answers, but there was the bigger question.
How did Elijah know what they were dealing with?
"Because of that smell… you know, the sulphur, the rotting- I've heard stories about this, ghosts are chatty when they think someone can finally hear them, and noteveryone dies a nice, happy death and not everyone dies a in a normal fashion. Men sell their souls for power for fame- but what happens when you ask to cheat death?" He's calm, he's scared but he's not fleeing and he's not hiding and he's trying his damnedest to stay on track, "letter of the law versus spirit of the law. Sulphur. Rotting flesh. What is here is not human anymore."
Alyssa Solomon
"Jesus," she says with a little wrinkle of her nose at Elijah's explanation of what happened to the previous owners. "Fucking people."
Richard asks who's blood it is, and she shakes her head. "It's fine, it's for a ritual. No one stabbed here, at least by me..."
The window rattles and fingernails start scratching, and Alyssa looks around. That's when she notices the blood going down the walls and creeping up behind her. "Fuck me," she says, spinning and backing up. "Thanks for warning me." She frowns, running a hand through her hair and thinking.
Elijah explains what's going on, and she nods. She trusts his word on this kind of thing, because...well, because she does. "Well, as much as we might be wise to skedaddle, we can't just let this sit here. If we're not prepped to stop it, then who the hell is?"
Richard Levasseur
"So what you're saying is," Richard is looking right at Elijah, "whatever lives here struck a deal. Cheating death in return for something else. Is that right?"
He has not released his gun. If anything, he grips it tighter. Has a glimmer of understanding, for the first time, of why people own guns, carry guns, fetishize guns. Understands, too, why some Euthanatos come to view their guns as extensions of themselves; an expression of their will made physical.
Such power in the palm of the hand. Such hard, cold finality. And with the right knowledge, the right rotes, the right working of the will: so much more than a weapon.
He glances at Eleanor: "I don't know that we can just walk away from this. it doesn't seem right."
Eleanor Yates
Elijah has the sight. Eleanor knows this. Some form of it, at least. She watches droplets fall. "Alyssa," she mentions, but Alyssa is noticing, and turning away from the dripping, the seeping.
What Elijah tells them does not, to Eleanor, mean that they are not equipped to deal with this. Elijah may know and hear and see things that the others cannot or do not, but he does not know the half of what Eleanor is equipped to deal with.
"It's been sitting here for almost half a century," she points out. And glancing at Elijah, she thinks of talking about deaths. Normal deaths. What exactly does he think is happening, if he thinks he needs to say that not everyone dies a nice, happy death? But now really isn't the time to discuss the nature of endings. She looks at Richard. "If you want to get Elijah out of here, I'll look at this place with Alyssa," she tells him. "But if you want to stay, I still need you to stay close to him."
thump
None of the other windows in the house shudder like this. The blood drips behind Alyssa and the thumping has stopped but the one window continues its shaking. Its keening let-me-in screech. They cannot blame it on the wind when the other windows don't move and it's a beautiful day without a breeze or a cloud in the sky anyway.
Richard Levasseur
"I'd love to see Elijah home safe," Richard replies evenly, "but I think my place is here with you."
A beat. His eyes flick in the direction of that one rattling, keening, shrieking window.
"Should we open it?"
Eleanor Yates
He's breakin' her heart. But she doesn't argue. Eleanor doesn't argue when she hears truth. It's like there's been a geas placed on her against it. The smell and the noise must be getting to her. She looks at the glass, taking the -- surprisingly large, for such a small-framed person -- firearm from her holster and removing the safety. "Let's."
Then she breathes in deep, smell or no smell. A count of six. Then an exhale, count of six. An inhale, count of six, and out. She focuses on her breathing. She focuses on the bullets in the chamber, the bullets in the clip. The room around her begins to feel like December.
Eleanor Yates
[enchanting bullets. prime 2. coincidental. specialized focus: pranayama. spending WP.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Eleanor Yates
[and richard's.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Richard Levasseur
[Turning on WTF senses! Corr 1/Entropy 1/Forces 1/Matter 1/Prime 1/Time 1! HERE ARE MY TWOOOOO DICE!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 2) ( fail )
Alyssa Solomon
"All right, folks." She wraps her fingers around the handle of her dagger, looks to the stairs. "If anything goes wrong, tell Kalen I'll be haunting his ass soon enough." She manages a small smile, and then starts to lead the way to get upstairs. After all, she has the melee weapon so she shouldn't be behind the shooters.
Eleanor Yates
"Duck if I tell you," she says to Alyssa, walking up after her, leaving Richard and Elijah to bring up the rear. After all, that's another place you don't want to be: infront of a shooter.
Richard Levasseur
Richard is a scarce half-step behind Eleanor. Elijah, just behind him. As they climb he unsnaps his holster and,
for the first time in his life,
draws his gun in self-defense. Or possibly offense.
Elijah Poirot
"I hate my landlord."
And it was up the stairs with him.
thump
Past the living room entryway with the ordinary accoutrement and the assortment of crosses and Roman Catholic imagery. Past the puddle of blood pooled on the floor and the threshold to the kitchen with the door lain across it. If they glance at the kitchen as they pass the four of them can see the counters are empty and the floor is covered in chewed-up cardboard and rat droppings.
The door to the basement has a lock and three bolts. It sits silent to their right as they mount the stairs to ascend to the first floor single file the Hollower on point and the others in descending rank behind her.
At the head of the stairs they pass a bathroom with a sink and tub and water closet inside. The smell of brackish water climbs out of the room and they can hear the open faucet dripping into the pool at the bottom of the basin. Nothing inside of note to them.
All of the windows on the north side of the corridor are covered in curtains. A hammer sits beneath the furthest sill. Someone has nailed shut the frames.
The rattling comes from the first bedroom on the left. Those of them with their senses open felt the psychic impression of the entity down the street and it only grew stronger the nearer they came. This room is the center of it and from the hall Alyssa can see a bed frame with its springs bare. A dresser with the drawers all spat out onto the hardwood floor. Evil oozes from the room but no source of it.
That smell squats here. It threatens to overpower them as they stand in witness of its emptiness.
The window like all of the other windows is covered by a curtain. They can hear it rattling behind the occlusion but they cannot see a shape upon which to blame the sound. Maybe their senses are tricking them. Maybe whatever is scratching is outside.
let me in the scratching says.
Alyssa Solomon
"You won't have to say it twice," she says with a nod. "I don't do piercings above the neck."
Richard Levasseur
The gun feels heavy in his hands. Heavier than it did at the range. All those afternoons learning how to shoot, and then how to shoot straight. He's still not an expert marksman, or even a particularly proficient one. An amateur at best. His palms feel clammy, but if there's one thing to be said for Richard, it's that he knows pressure. He understands it. He understands how to use it, how to turn it in your favor, how to perform with the weight of the world, or at least a nation, on your shoulders.
Deep breath in. Slow exhale. His heart beats slow and hard. He moves carefully and quietly, putting his hand on Eleanor's back as he comes up behind her. Just so she knows where he is. Just so he -- by pure proprioception, while his eyes are trained straight ahead -- knows where she is.
He doesn't know if the gun will do any good. He doesn't know if anything he can do will do any good. But it is as he said:
his place is here.
Alyssa Solomon
"You know," she says with a frown as they get ever closer to that smell, the source of that power. "It's a good thing I'm used to this kind of shit. Or the worst thing ever."
She steps into the room, draws close to the window. She is, in no way shape or form, letting it in. Of course, she believes that's not the case. "It wants out, I'm figuring." It's a leap of logic, but not an altogether out-there one. "And the window's perhaps a portal to do so.."
She steps to the window and looks out of it. There are curtains, sure, but perhaps it shows something different than just the outside of the house.
Eleanor Yates
Eleanor is an expert. Anything with a trigger, in her hands -- it's like watching an artist at a canvas, at a block of marble, a master at their instrument. But that's not really what anyone is thinking of when it comes to a gun being fired. Your ears ring if you aren't wearing plugs. Your nose breathes in an acrid, sharp smell. The sound lingers in your head for hours, sometimes days. You remember the hole in the forehead, the explosion over the heart, the arterial blood, the limb hanging. You remember these things and you do not think about it like art, like music. Eleanor is a master of the instrument, but let's be honest: it's a grotesque instrument. Its effects are not the lifting of the human spirit or the invocation of emotion. Everything it does is short, and loud, and brutal.
She shakes her head when Richard touches her back. She knows where he is, but he cannot touch her right now. It is a brief and silent communication, the way she steps forward and shakes her head without looking at him. An iron focus is settling around her, a cold clarity.
Her lips move to say something after Alyssa speaks, but it isn't aloud. And more than likely, Richard and Elijah can't read lips.
Elijah Poirot
He couldn't leave them. He couldn't do anything, but he knew that being apart from these people was not something he wanted to do. He understood that, perhaps, all he could do is bear witness to what was going to happen here. All he could do is survive if he was lucky, but the smell was coming upon them. strong and oppressive and dread sunk into his stomach and he let the whole of the feeling wash over him. This was different. This was beyond the feeling of bad dreams. This was something that Elijah's avatar had not prepared for, had not conceived.
And that was beyond horrifying.
thump
[bed frame attack!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
thump
[knockdown check]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Alyssa Solomon
[[Dex+Athletics]]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
thump
[and damage] [B]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Alyssa Solomon
[[Soak]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah Poirot
[Per+aware, -1)
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Eleanor Yates
[perception (details) + awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1
Richard Levasseur
[percep + aware!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Eleanor Yates
[perception (details) + investigation]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Richard Levasseur
[percep + investigation!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
thump
[doo de doo]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Eleanor Yates
[dex (smooth) + athletics]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Richard Levasseur
[I BELIIIIEEEEVE]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (4, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Eleanor Yates
[dex + firearms (handguns)]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 2
Eleanor Yates
[damage. +4] [A]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elijah Poirot
Per+alert, diff 8, -1
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )
Eleanor Yates
[shoot it again!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )
Eleanor Yates
[damage + 5] [A]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Richard Levasseur
[percep + investigation!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
