Breathe

Elijah

[how did last night go?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )

Elijah

What does Elijah Poirot dream of?

What keeps him awake, struggling and burning bright well in to the hours when he has no business to be trying so desperately to stay awake.

What is it that he dreams of? What is it that puts him on rooftops with his eyes careening over the edge and wondering, briefly, how high up they really were. The bass beneath him thumped and some pop up DJ event kept thrumming beneath him. This was a one night event. This was a warehouse, just a standard warehouse with standard warehouse amenities and the industrial feel was part of its charm. The street below was cast in glowing swirling rainbow lights and the world was thumping and humming.

It didn't matter how much he took, or what pills came from where, Elijah was looking to escape something that he couldn't get away from. That he couldn't avoid and the shadows felt too thick and too real and something hungered. he could feel it in the pit of his stomach and playing on his mind. He savored that sound, that loud thumping wonderful sound of people and bass and hearts beating in time to the music because he knew that something would happen.

That the world would fade out and it would all begin again.

His eyes stayed over the edge, and he was miles and miles away.

What does Elijah Poirot dream about? What has him cradling that wrist close to his abdomen like he may not be certain how to reset it?

What has him losing that struggle on various nights when he can't be sure if he's awake or asleep?

Ian

[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday

[How awake are we?

Also - my internet does die for like twenty minutes at a time. If that happens I will try to text one of you. But...yes. *sigh*]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday

[How distracted by Resonance are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ian

Ian showed up at the warehouse with three people, all of whom had the same lithe and athletic physique that he did. The older of the two women (she might have been forty, but if so she looked young for it,) had a section of her blond hair plaited into a braid that wound back over the side of her head. She had on a pair of jeans, a black silk halter top and calf-length boots, and her arm draped loosely around the shoulders of a younger blond man next to her. Ahead of them, an Indian woman in a deep red dress and high heels stood beside Ian. She laughed at something he said, then turned around to tap the blond man in the arm playfully as the four of them made their way past the doorman into the warehouse.

They'd come here for the same reasons everyone else had come here. To dance. To get drunk, or high, or otherwise act a bit less like responsible adults for the evening. But once onside, Ian didn't stay with them for long. He could feel Elijah's resonance filtering down from atop the roof, so he said something to the older woman that made her grin and roll her eyes, then he slid through the packed, tumultuous crowd until he found the stairs.

The air on the roof was noticeably less thick and humid than it had been inside, and when Ian opened the door and felt the cool night breeze on his skin, he breathed it in gratefully. The city skyline was lit up with warm, bright colors, and Ian glanced at it a moment as he made his way across the roof to where Elijah stood.

There was a pause. A brief moment of consideration as Ian eyed the set of Elijah's shoulders - the way he stood gazing out over the edge like he was lost. Then Ian fell in at his side.

"Everything okay?" he asked quietly.

Because truthfully, Elijah did not precisely look okay at that particular moment.

Elijah

[do I have the presence of mind to lie? manip+sub]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Ian

[Empathy?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Kalen Holliday

It is not traditional for the esteemed Magi of the Order of Hermes to attend events of this manner unless they are hunting. And if Kalen Michael Holliday had come here hunting in the fashion of his training...well...this would be a different kind of exciting. But Kalen Michael Holliday is not hunting here.

It is not that kind of night. He is not, tonight, that kind of knight.

He has had so many Names. He has been so many things. Because he had to be. Because he was expected to be. Because he was trained to be. All of those things are true. Have been true. Will be true. But there are nights, even now, when he lets all of that go. Falls and let the drifting currents of fate that catch leaves and glitter and clouds catch him and move him and he does not question where he finds himself or what he finds himself doing anymore on these nights of surrender than he questions the currents of fate as they move anything else.

Fate has its own Will. Its own patterns. And while one day he might understand them, for now Kalen is content to leave them like as some people are content to leave oceans. Mysterious, ancient, mythic things - unknowable and vast. Beautiful, deadly, mercurial things.

Tonight he ends up, of all places, on a roof. There is music underneath them, pulsing, reaching up like the waters of some underground spring. An underground spring with a pulse? Perhaps it pulses to the beat of a sylph? A freshwater mermaid? Its own secret and Slumbering heart? None of these things seems impossible tonight. Nothing seems impossible tonight.

And so he drifts toward his apprentice and his whatever-the-hell-you-call-someone-who-can-barely-stand-you-but-might-be-about-to-teach-you-magic. There are lights and there are stars hidden by clouds of lights and there might be clouds and there are-

He forces his attention to the people he is joining on the roof.

"Hey," he says, quietly.

Elijah

He didn't reach for him. He didn't turn around to look at Ian; he didn't turn around and look at Kalen. He just waited and pinned some point with unfocused eyes off in the distance

(And this is how it starts. At first the lights seem to go out for him, only for him, one by one. That one reminder that the world was slowly, slowly becoming less and less and devoured whole by something with an all-encompassing hunger. Something that would take, because it was in tis nature to take and give nothing in return. That was the nature of the Void. Something deep and black and the majesty of the city was quietly swallowed whole and oh god, oh god come back-)

Everything okay? Ian asked.

Hey, Kalen said. Both quietly, both enough that his mind strained harder than his ears over the heartbeat beneath them.

"Bad trip," he said. It's all he said, so effortless and easy that it must have been the truth, so easily that it came from a solid six months of continual, habitual lying. Something that could have been bought, were it not for the fact that Elijah wouldn't look at either of them and he could feel his mind drifting and there was no point in breathing because the lights were leaving one by one and he was holding his breath.

Ian

Hey, Kalen said, and Ian glanced back and regarded him quietly. It had been almost two weeks since the last time they'd seen each other, and nothing in Ian's body language suggested that Kalen's presence here was an unwelcome thing. Ian didn't smile or try to touch Kalen, but he did tip his head and give a light nod.

"Hey." He didn't realize yet that Kalen and Elijah knew each other.

Elijah gave an easy lie, and Ian, sharp as he was, could not quite see his way past it. He put a hand out to touch Elijah's shoulder, a grounding kind of gesture, letting the weight of it tether him more securely to the rooftop.

"Maybe you should sit down."

[Life 1 - bad trip?]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen barely seems to respond to any of that, particularly in regard to the kinds of responses that either of them is used to seeing. He takes the 'bad trip' and the nod by way of greeting in, the same way he is drinking everything in. These are the things that are here. That are real.

Fate is real too. It is wrapping around them it has wrapped around them it will-

He kneels and touches the weather-roughened roof of the warehouse. It is humming with the music and the dancing below them. For a few seconds his eyes close. He doesn't need to see them. He can sense them both, can feel them, can breathe in their presence that way he can breathe oxygen and light and smoke.

Ian is already touching Elijah. And Kalen...well...isn't exactly even Kalen right now. There are gritty grains in the little gap of the roof that remind him of sand. That remind him, distantly and faintly, of sand mixed with bits of shattered stone and glass. But the air on his tongue isn't like the air there. Not the night everything burned and not the night he went back.

"It isn't the worst idea, Fae," he says. "And I find his advice is generally worth listening to."

Elijah

[do I move?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah

Maybe he should sit down.

Maybe he should sit down, he says it again in his head and there is a hand on his shoulder and tension rides through him and at first it doesn't register as being human , as though Elijah Poirot had encountered anything in this lifetime that was beyond humanity in its most basic form- nothing outside of his dreams, perhaps, but that was the truth of the matter. That was the heart of it, and he took a step back. He'd been too close to the edge, too distant and too detached, but his eyes wouldn't stay focused and he held himself smaller, protective of whatever he might have needed to protect himself from.

Elijah was tense, though the hand on his shoulder brought a shuddering breath, an exhalation from his lungs.

"It will all come back, it always does," he says, more to itself than anything and he takes a second step away from the edge. Elijah took a seat a few steps away from a region on the rooftop that would seem dangerous, that would seem like he might just jump.

If he was sitting, he wouldn't jump. Wouldn't lose himself and run from something that wasn't there… not that he would have far to run. the world was feeling small and closing in and Elijah closed his eyes tightly, brought his right hand to his eyes but kept the left one precisely where it had been- close and protective. he wasn't injured, it wasn't dislocated again or broken or anything of the sort, just… a memory.

"Am I awake?" he asks.

Lie to me if you have to, he says without saying.

Ian

Maybe there was a moment there, when Ian glanced between Kalen and Elijah, where a part of him considered walking back down to rejoin his co-workers. Ian looked as though he'd come here to dance. He had on expensive jeans and a black tank top and a bands of braided leather looped around his neck and wrists. His hair was perfect. He smelled nice (really nice, actually - hints of citrus and sandalwood.) He could have been doing any number of other things at a pop-up rave besides standing on the roof with a couple of other mages who seemed more than a little lost in their own heads.

A moment, yes. And he considered it. But he didn't go.

Kalen called Elijah Fae. Elijah, whose heart was beating very quickly. Whose nerves were alight with anxiety. Whose pheromones were steeped in this animal scent: locked in fight or flight. Tripping, maybe. But this wasn't just a chemical reaction. Elijah reacted to Ian's touch with a coil of tension, and Ian lifted his hand just enough so that it hovered out of contact. Close enough still that he could catch Elijah if Elijah started to fall or step off the roof or otherwise need... something.

But Elijah did not step off the roof. Instead he pulled back and sat down, and Ian lowered himself into a crouch, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet.

"You're awake." (Barely.)

Ian glanced back at Kalen again. Watching the way Kalen ran his fingers over the roof's masonry. It was only for a moment, then his focus was back on Elijah.

"Hey." He pitched his voice into a calming register. "You're okay. Look at me."

Kalen Holliday

Is Elijah awake?

There are so many answers to that question. They swim through his eyes, all infinite and wondrous possibility. He tries to find, in all of that possibility an answer that seems most right right now.

"Stars only live in constellations because people Named them," he says softly. "They're always just stars. Consciousness is just perception."

Elijah's demons call him back, or call back the version of him they know better, more than the feeling of the roof or the grit under his fingertips. Remind him that he isn't just there to drink in the whole of the cosmos until the day or the night that it swallows him instead. Vows. Oaths. Improvised swords on fire escapes. Blood that swelled, just as the music does now, to a pulse. Impact. Flesh on flesh. Bullets tearing into his skin. The feeling of a knife sinking into something long dead. Not like cutting into the living. The sharp, overwhelming sensation of a brand on his skin. Kharisma screaming. Ice cutting his skin as he falls through it.

"That isn't what matters. What matters is that what you're afraid of isn't here. And I wouldn't let it have you if it was." He looks away from them, out over the city. He lets all the weight of that memory stay long enough to say that for Elijah, and then he lets it fall away again. Like rain. Like waves. Like falling leaves. Cherry blossoms.

Ian's voice too, he lets fall away. Whatever Ian is on this roof for, it isn't him. He lets that go too.

Elijah

[this is willpower, I totally have it]

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

Elijah

The lights went out and the sky was black and the world was getting smaller, so much smaller and it was getting quieter, so much quieter and the only thing he could hold onto was sensation, and he held it so tightly. So fervently. He closed his eyes, kept them closed and he remembered look at me and he had to. He had to look. Not because of anything except the fact that he wanted to find comfort there.

When he opened his eyes, the city was gone to him, the lights dimmed and matte across the sky. If gave him other things to focus on, other people to hold onto, like the sound of Kalen's voice nearby and the sound of Ian telling him that he was okay.

When Elijah looked back, his eyes weren't clear, but they were still that brilliant green-and-amber brightness. There was more disaster in his countenance. He was not the calm in the storm, but the disaster itself, and that was as beautiful as it was terrible. Elijah looked from Ian to Kalen and back. He inhaled sharply, blinking hard away whatever terrified moisture may have come to his gaze.

You're okay.

What matters is that what you're afraid of isn't here. And I wouldn't let it have you if it was.

Ian

"Elijah, I need you to do something for me, okay?" Ian kept his eyes focused on Elijah's. He rested an arm on his knee and turned it so his hand stretched out palm-up, but did not move to touch Elijah again. The hand was there, close enough for Elijah to take if he wanted it.

"Try to count in your head when you breath. Inhale for four, hold it for four, then exhale for four. Can you do that?"

Whatever Ian had come up to the roof for, it didn't really matter anymore. Elijah wasn't in a state where it was safe for him to be left alone, and Ian seemed to care enough at least to be here with him and to try to help in whatever ways he knew how. He wasn't as good as Kalen at weaving words of hope or comfort. But he understood things about stress and human physiology.

"Like this..." Ian pulled in a slow breath, counting out four beats. Another four, and he held the air in his lungs. Calm. Quiet. Around him, there was the sensation of a hurricane. Kalen's storm and Elijah's tumultuous anxiety. But right now, Ian let it slide off his skin (much the same way that Kalen had done with the sound of his voice.)

He exhaled. Four beats. His eyes were focused and present. Maybe it would help. Maybe it wouldn't. He tried anyway.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen can say things that sound pretty. And he can make promises, though those don't come as easily to him as one might think. Tonight though, he doesn't really have words. He came here to get lost in sensations. Not conversation. He wanted something very different from this place in this moment.

But here they are. In a moment.

He is exhausted and he is not really ready for this and so he tries to help Ian the only way he can think of. He closes the distance between himself and Elijah, leans into Elijah enough that Elijah can feel him breathing, and follows Ian's instructions. Well, about the breathing. He does not look at Ian, does not watch his fingers move. Instead he closes his eyes and listens. Not just to Ian, but to everything. Cars and music and voices and laughter and distant planes.

But Ian too. Very definitely Ian too.

Elijah

Breathe.

Breathing was hard to remember. He remembered this, laying with his head in Kalen's lap and inhaling deep and exhaling and letting those moments of panic wash over him before letting them fade away. Elijah reached tentatively for Ian's hand, craving some moment of physical contact, leans into Kalen because that touch was enough for him at that juncture.

He inhaled, nodded because he followed and he understood and the young man breathed. And breathed. And breathed into the world went right again. Breathed until the stars came back- twinkling pushpins of light against the sky and cityscape. He breathed as force of will and strength of purpose alone managed to stave off what could have been a complete disaster.

There was dread in his countenance, yes, but Elijah was no longer at risk of doing something incredibly, incredibly stupid on accident. ''

After a good, long while, he finally asks no one in particular, "wanna dance?"

Ian

The three of them breathed together, and there was something almost ritualistic about it. The way their patterns gradually took on the same rhythm. Elijah took Ian's hand, and Ian let his fingers wrap around Elijah's to seal the contact between them. Ian only rarely held people's hands this way, but Elijah didn't need to know that. It was likely a thing he would discover on another day - when he was present enough not to need the stability.

Elijah asked if someone wanted to dance.

"Tempting," Ian replied with a slow smile. "How about once, and then I take you home?"

He looked at Kalen as though to include him in the offer, but there was more of a question in his gaze. Kalen wasn't presently in danger of hurting himself - at least not that Ian could immediately tell. But there was something off-kilter about him tonight.

"You okay?"

Perhaps, were it not for the need to focus on Elijah, Ian would have asked Kalen this earlier. He rose up and helped Elijah to his feet, leaving their hands entwined for the moment.

Kalen Holliday

"I'm okay. I'm just not ignoring staggering portions of the universe." He rises on his own and smiles, and it is a real smile for all it isn't overly bright. "Or, at least, trying. But time is fluid and almost everything is fluid and even Names in mundane languages...it's imperfect and gorgeous and messy.

"I'm going to go back to the people I'll probably not really see again in any meaningful way. I'm not in a place for this tonight. Some other time, maybe." He frowns a little. There are things he wants to tell Ian, but not with Elijah there. And he isn't exactly in a place for a discussion, at least not about any of those things. He could totally talk about reality with Serafine. Until sunrise. Or until he passed the fuck out.

It...is almost an answer to Elijah's question. In an attempt to not be the worst mentor ever he gives Elijah a little smile. "Call if you need me." And then he's wandering back toward the stairs downward. There are people arranging and rearranging themselves into constellations that will not be mapped out or named. Interplays of colored light and shadow that will change everything and nothing about everything that comes after them in the cosmos. Because perception. Because interdependence. Because fate.

And it will be imperfect and transcendent and beautiful because there has never been anything else it could be.

Stuck in a tree

Elijah

Elijah Poriot didn't climb trees often, or at all really, but when he called he had a proposition for Dan.

You see, he had enjoyed hiking. You see, he had enjoyed the out of doors, and being a child who had been so lovingly, achingly deprived of trees he had one simple request.

Hey, Dan, you wanna climb a tree with me?

"Do you wanna build a snooooowmaaaaaaaan," Elijah crooned.

That's how this problem started, really, because it was too hot and Elijah Poirot, darling Elijah Poirot, was not actually qualified to climb trees. How someone is qualified to climb trees is beyond all reason and comprehension, but Elijah Poirot was not qualified to climb trees for one simple reason: going down. He had no problems going down all sorts of things. Hills, stairs, people- these were all acceptable places to go down on but a tree was something different. There wasn't a gradual Oh yes! when you went down. THere was usually just a crash, thud and then nothing.

But he had decided, since Dan said something about rock climbing, that tree climbing was obviously the appropriate middle ground for this.

Elijah

Five minutes later, Dan gets another text.

Dan, I made a terrible mistake. Trees are dangerous. SOS

---

Elijah peered awkwardly out of the branches, perhaps a tad too high or drunk or whatever to really justify being in a tree right now.

"Weeeeell fuck."

Dan

Dan is just old enough that he does not necessarily live by or with or for his phone. It's a tool, not an appendage, and he doesn't feel lost or strangely at sea when it isn't right in his hand, and he doesn't feel unmoored when he puts it down in the kitchen and forgets about it until tea-time, but to be fair he keeps it reasonably close, especially when Serafíne is outside of view and/or shouting distance, as she has been for some weeks.

Still, he gets Elijah's texts at the same time. Picks up the phone from wherever he laid it in the music room and scrolls through and glances at the first with a hushed sort of smirking laugh, then reads the second one and,

well,

shakes his head and rubs his beard and slides the headphones off his head, ruffling his close-cropped blond hair with one hand as he hits save with the other and then returns to the phone

Where are you?

- is what Elijah gets back, across the ether.

Elijah

Where was he?

Hmmn. That was an interesting question. And an entirely appropriate question if eh was going to invite Dan to come visit him in sprucely solitary confinement. He had to think of what kind of tree he was in, what was where, how he was going to describe this and it was all incredibly complicated. One has to wonder sometimes if Jenn feels like Dan feels some days.

Admittedly, Jenn was about the same age as Elijah, he may have even been little older, but she kept enough of an eye on him that the age difference has negligible at best. In that hazy, not-on-the-groundly state, Elijah had time to stop and reflect and think. Yes, think, because when his mind wasn't trying to revolt against him thinking was a wonderful past time.

Where was he?

Washington Park, Elijah replied. Soon enough Elijah was sending his GPS coordinates, because he had no idea what he was doing in a tree, but he did know how to use his phone.

Dan

K. comes the reply. See you in 15.

--

Dan is tempted - tempted, mind you - to tell Elijah that he should magick himself out of the tree. Dan tells him no such thing. Also, he refrains from telling Elijah not to fall out of the tree, and keeps any other advice he might have to himself. There's no stay put and no don't worry, none of that. Elijah's an adult, even if he is barely an adult by human standards and barely Awake by the standards of the Traditions. He is still both things: Awake and adult and, well, Dan understands and respects both.

-

So. Fifteen minutes or so pass before Elijah gets another text -

Closer to Smith or Grasmere Lake?

Then -

NM. Got it.

A handful of minutes later, the tall, tattooed, bearded blond man is strolling up the nearest jogging path, looking up more than down.

Elijah

There is a tree, a very tall tree. A very tall tree that has yet to have the weight and strength that it should because of its nature. A tree with leaves as big as dinner plates and like some strange arboreal creature, there was the younger man sitting as high as a house in more than one sense of the word. He doesn't seem so much afraid as he seems… inconvenienced. Being in the tree seems to have given him time to think, yes, but it has also given him time to contemplate.

Contemplation was different than thinking, you see, because contemplation was somewhat more spiritual in nature and at that juncture, at the moment when he could have sworn that the leaves were talking to him and there was music in the subtle creak of the branches and there was a second where it was all making sense and it was all beautiful and he looked down at his phone and very, very carefully, he leaned forward and-

Oh, look, there was Dan!

"So I was thinking," he starts, "about distance… and how, if we're all connected, is distance really that much of a factor in stopping people from doing what it is they need to do?"

Dan

"Some of that might depend on your definition of need," Dan responds, peering up at Elijah stuck-in-the-tree, shading his eyes a bit against the sun with the flat of his left hand. The right is tucked quite neatly into the right front pocket of his skinny jeans. Dan is squinting a bit, his mouth closed, one of his rather quiet smirks adorning his long face.

"Why?" He asks, as he starts examining the tree for options beyond the obvious, the suggestive span of THIS ROUTE DOWN. On ski slopes sometimes it is called the easiest way down.

So. Easiest way down?

"Is there something that you need to do, someplace far away?"

Then, a second later.

"And, do you think you can get down? Or do I need to call the fire department."

Elijah

Does he need to call the fire department?

"I'm not a cat," he lamented.

Elijah contemplates this for a moment, really thinks and puts his hands on a branch. Dan had told him down was easier than up, and the young man- clearly just a tad altered in that tree, peered out over a branch and tentatively reached for something that wasn't quite there, only to realize he was grasping at the air. Elijah made a little sound of displeasure.

There was a way down, he wasn't that high up and he could jump with minimal injury, though there were an abundance f branches, just not all of them looked like they could easily support Elijah's weight. The fact that he had gotten into the tree at all and hadn't gone toppling out of it yet was rather impressive.

Did he need to do something far away? "Not yet… I was just thinking about it… every time I try something, I touch it, literally touch it, taste it feel it and it's all right there, but there's a whole world out there, and it's astounding to think that there are parts of it I won't be able to see… and I wondered why I would have to actually be there in order to experience them. I could take a trip halfway across the galaxy if I got good enough and never leave my couch… not that I much care for the idea of having my brain floating off into the cold black void of space, but y'know."

He'd done that before, but it wasn't space he was drifting off through. nothing so grand and magnificent in its coldness.

Dan

If you go up there has to be a way back down. Isn't that some sort of principle of the universe. Doesn't that go right alongside the conservation of matter and the fact that an unlabeled tuna fish sandwich left in the company fridge will stay in place until the day you were planning to eat it and then disappear unaccountably into someone else's stomach.

"Believe it or not," Dan informs Elijah, "cats are more likely to be able to get out a tree when they want to than people." He unearths his hands from the pockets of his jeans and circles beneath Elijah's perch, studying the branches and identifying the sturdiest one with the best connection to the main trunk - as best he can - from down below. Identifies it with a flick of his left hand. "That one - " A huff of a breath. Then, " - no, the other that one." And so on, until Elijah gets it right.

--

"If everything's connected - " this is not precisely idle, just considered, contemplative. The consor allows the thoughts to linger and then bifurcate. "What makes you think that your brain would be floating off in the cold black void of space. Doesn't that just mean that distance, like separation, is just another fucking myth that we share. Couldn't it really mean that everywhere and everywhen is contained in the exact same point of singularity that you occupy at any given moment.

"So there's no fucking void. Just the realization that there never was any distance between you at all."

Elijah

[can I climb trees? Dex+athletics (seriously, how did you get up here?)]

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

Elijah

Eventually, he does seem to figure out how to get himself onto a low enough branch that the prospect of jumping down or getting down seemed like a less than unpleasant factor. The lower branches, unsurprisingly, were better at holding weight. They were better at supporting one hundred forty pounds of teenaged magus. From there, he was content to just sit there.

he smiled, perhaps serene, and perhaps pleased. Dan was a familiar face, and a face that he didn't mind seeing from the new angle.

"If everywhere and every when is connected… Doesn't it reduce everything to here and now. Everywhere is here, every time is now?"

Elijah leaned forward, and ungracefully hopped himself out of the tree. He even landed on his feet, too... perhaps it wasn't so ungraceful afterall.

Dan

"Depends on what you believe, doesn't it?"

Elijah makes his way down. Dan does not put out both arms to brace him or make a gesture like he might consider catching the younger man. He might've done that if Sera were involved: told her, perhaps, simply to let go and trust that she'd be caught. Or perhaps he would've coaxed her down from the treetops until she was within arm's reach, and then held out his arms to pluck her thoughtfully out of the tree.

With Elijah, well. Dan gives him a quiet smirk of approval when Elijah finds that branch - lower than the rest, solid right? - on which he can park himself. Steps back out of the way, stowing his phone in the front pocket of his jeans.

"I mean, you can say reduce and if you think that that makes the world smaller, more mean, grimier and all the rest, then it fucking will be. Or, you can say reduce and if you think that means something beautiful and essentialist about the space we occupy - something oblong and perfect and contained, like an egg, everything necessary for life wrapped up in one smoothly fertilized shell, then that's what it means.

"Or you could say that it instead multiplies the here and now into the infinite."

When you make the world conform to your will, words matter, right?

Then: "Look at that. You made it out without assistance from the fire department. No broken bones or anything."

Elijah

"I think of it more… like when you're cooking. When you cook something down to the point where what you have is the core, concentrated, flavor. When you boil off all the unnecessary stuff and you have that essence of what it all is," he replied. feeling the ground beneath him and hearing the tree creak beside him and he wanted, more at that moment, to feel that free falling moment, the milliseconds that could pull out into something longer and more full so it felt like the time that he went skydiving right after he'd turned eighteen. So he could feel that moment of soaring free fall tick by before his feet hit the ground. Even if it was short, because it didn't have to be short.

It could be as long as he damned well pleased so long as he could will it to be so.

"Words always matter."

Like an absolute truth.

"… wanna find another tree?"

Dan

Dan is standing not precisely beneath the spread of the tree's branches, but a few steps away now. They're on the grass made sparse by drought and the heat of the summer, looking out over the guttering glimmer of one of Washington Park's captive, well-groomed lakes, and Dan has both the lake in view and the young mage in view and he is listening and he is captured in an aspect of listening, you understand. There is a way in which he stands and a way in which he cants his head both toward / away from Elijah Poirot, a way he nods slowly while Elijah explains What It All Means to Him, at least Right Now, if not both Yesterday and Tomorrow, and within that aspect of listening a kind of deep and quiet respect for both Elijah's beliefs specifically, and the idea of belief as a Thing Itself.

So many goddamned threads.

"That's where we're different, I suppose." Dan murmured, thoughtfully, blue eyes flickering upward to catch the edge of Elijah's profile in the evening light. He is both quiet and quietly serious. "I don't think any of it is superfluous. Hell, I don't feel like that either."

Then again: look who's awake, and look who is here, still, sleeping with his eyes wide open.

A short bark of laughter follows.

"Depends on what sort of tree you're looking for. And what you intend to do with it."

Elijah

In all truth, if Elijah had never died there is a good chance he would have never awakened. That his life would have never been seen as anything potentially remarkable, and he never would have been standing here in Denver talking with people whose minds and capacities for thought were extraordinary. People who dreamed. People who were still asleep but understood the world so much better than he did.

"What if it's not superfluous? What if I'm wrong? I just… if the world is infinite and here and now can be anywhere and and when and I'm John Wilkes Boothe and Lincoln and… how do you not just sit back in horror of it all? How do you not sit back in wonder? If there are layers and layers and one truth at the center, one universal experience… it feels like it comes to the same place. How can something be everything?" his voice is small at that moment, seeking genuine and open for Dan's opinion because Elijah looks at him like Dan knows.

Look which of them is awake. Look at which of them is aware. The answers are different.

And Elijah grins, "well Dan, fuck if I know what to do with a tree, we've already proven that."

Dan

"Whoa," Dan to Elijah, and Dan's grinning now. This open expression framed by his blond beard, the genuine good humor crinkling the corners of his blue eyes and the whoa comes out of his mouth on another breath that feels like this exhaled cloud of laughter but returns itself to itself in something else: like-minded and like-made, but not precisely aligned.

And Dan slings an arm, companionable, around Elijah's shoulders, claps him on the right shoulder.

"Technically," Dan informs Elijah, "when you're a willworker, I don't think you can be wrong. Or at least, when you decide you were wrong you start looking for the next frame of meaning. Right? You get to frame it all your way, and I get to frame it mine.

"How can something be everything? That's the mystery, isn't it? How the fuck can anything exist? How could the universe have a goddamned beginning, right? What came before all this shit? How can something begin without something preceding it? Mystery. You have to allow space for it, because without it you start looking for answers everywhere and a helluva lot of those answers are absolute bullshit.

"But I don't think you're in danger of that.

"And, there's a helluva lot you can do with a tree. Ever read that children's book - the Giving Tree?"

Elijah

"Actually? No. I've never read the Giving Tree."

Dan

"You should," Dan says with a sideglance. "Read it sometime."

Elijah

"Is this going to help me with my something can be everything problem or my tree problem?"

Dan

"Both, I think."

Then, wry:

"Well, I don't actually think that either one is a problem. Do you?"

Elijah

"Not a problem... more of a jumping off point," he replied. "You rescued me, I owe you a beer, c'mon."

Paused STed scene

Lost

Rules!

1: Tell me if you have any trigger warnings, or themes you do not want to explore.

2: Tell me if you have any good merits/flaws you need me to be aware of

3: No posting order, but try and keep it 1 post per 1 me post. . Lemme know if your post is gonna take more than 15 minutes.

4: This scene happens when it happens, so assume you're full up on WP and stuff

Lucy

Merits!: Natural Channel, Twin Souls (but her sister's not around so eh)

Flaws!: Touch of Frost

YAY FULL WP *wipes off Lucy's sheet*

Kalen Holliday

I think you may know these, but in case:

Oracular Ability

Phobia: Drowning

Nightmares (which I am about to roll)

Kalen Holliday

[How awake are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (4, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Lost

It's a lovely day for a picnic when you picnic in the shade of an abandoned mine shaft.

They weren't terribly hard to find, really. Some place off the beaten path, off some road, off some quiet place where the entrance has long since been boarded up and fallen away. The birds did not chirp and the grass was green, then brown, then dirt and gravel. The paths were miners once walked were overcome with brush and the years where disuse made them harder to find. There was a clearing, though, and underground there would no doubt be a vast difference in temperature.

If one looked carefully, you could still see the paths were a little mine cart followed, though the tracks have long since been pried up, as if to say this place shall never be used again. Odd, because when one boards up a dead mine, one would think they wouldn't spend so much time making sure the place stayed closed.

The wood had since rotted away, the boards loosened at the entrance of the mine and a gentle breeze played through the nearby grass and trees.

Lucy

[awareness!]

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

Kalen Holliday

[And how distracted by Resonance are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 2

Kalen Holliday

[WP]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lost

KalenWhen Kalen approaches the mine shaft, he feels something move, though it isn't a real thing. Not really, more like an echo of something that once was, or more accurately, something that never wished to be again. A reminder of something that was here, that still dwelled deep beneath the surface and ate away at the boards like so much devouring, consuming hunger. There is a lack of animal prints there. A lack of birds, a deadening of the grass.

There was something here. No, no strike that- there was Nothing here. Something that felt all consuming and cold. A feeling that washed over the area and spoke of planes otherworldly and vast. Something beyond the comprehension of sleepers. He can feel that memory, that echo pass across and over his face, across his shoulders, over to Lucy and then away, as though that Once Was happened to be searching over the mages.

Beyond that, he can feel the lingering effects of magic. He can feel the threads of fate twist, he can feel the tapestry solidified like a barrier.

A fading barrier.

Lost

Lucy:When Lucy approaches the mine shaft, she feels something cold across her collarbone. No, not so much cold as it was an absence of heat. An absence of light. An absence of something. It nags at her, just like the lack of birds and the lack of animal prints and the strange state of the boards across the entrance seems to nag at her. It was unnerving, yes, and the feeling just carefully grazed her flesh before passing along.

Make no mistake, though, nothing touched her. (Nothing touched her?)

Lucy

What does one wear when one goes on a picnic into an abandoned mine shaft? Well, when one's touch causes the living things around them to blister and blacken with gelicide, one does what they can to cover up. Never mind that the heat of summer greatly disagrees with Lucy, making her feel like she is literally melting away even though she clearly isn't. The frost-touched Dreamspeaker is not some moving sculpture of ice, after all. She is flesh and blood and bone. But she was touched by a winter guardian. Summer is not her season.

But she is wearing clothes that will protect the area around her. Sneakers and a pair of pink plaid drawstring pajama pants, a black tank top that reads FORTES FORTUNA JUVAT, and a long-sleeved t-shirt tied around her waist for when they actually get inside. Her hair is pulled to the sides in a pair of loose pigtails and she has her bag on the floor between her feet as Kalen drives, and her lantern resting in her lap. She has had a lot to do with the dead lately, and one can never be too careful about what one might find within an abaondoned mine shaft. There could be the ghosts of miners or canaries or of bodies stashed where no one would supposedly ever find them.

Soon as she steps out from the vehicle, she roots around in that bag of hers until she finds her lipstick case of a silver lighter and puts fire to the wick within her swan-encrusted silver lantern. Just to be on the safe side. And perhaps it is a good thing, too. She feels that absence of heat acutely - it makes her feel a brush of normalcy right across her exposed collar bones.

[Spirit 1: Spirit Sense, coincidental, diff mods = practiced, specialty focus, diff can't go lower than 3 tho]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Lost

•¶¶¶¶cv78 g

Kalen Holliday

Kalen had mentioned to Lucy that they should do this some time ago.

And then, as Kalen is wont to do with anything that is not directly involved in saving the world, he just kept finding other things to do first. Collecting books and learning how to work Ginger and being caught up in armed robberies on the days he was trying to take off while recovering from being dragged into a Mindscape. Kalen would tell you that his life is the best of all possible lives, but Kalen may also possess a shocking ability to reframe the fuck out of everything.

Of course, he's also developed a fondness for someone who doesn't let him do that. And so, contrary to his usual patterns Kalen has gone to visit Flagstaff and remembered that the reason he is terrible at being friends is that he almost never deliberately sets out to do anything that isn't saving the world.

So he calls Lucy and he packs up the kind of picnic basket you take to an abandoned mine shaft. Chocolate-dipped strawberries. Champagne. Long-stemmed roses tied with white ribbon. Rope. Chalk. A first aid kit. A pistol. You know, the kinds of things you would expect to need in an abandoned mine shaft.

Lucy gets custody of the flowers immediately. Most of the supplies are in a backpack. It seems inadvisable to keep your rope where it would become soaked with champagne. So the picnic basket is champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries and truffles and looks like the kind of thing one might actually bring on a proper date. Everything a proper Flambeau brings to an abandoned mine shaft is tucked out of sight in a pack.

And the mine shaft...well...seems to be exceeding his expectations. He smiles a little as he steps out of the car.

"Of course," he says softly. It is more anticipation than apprehension. But he does pause, setting one hand to Lucy's arm to warn her not to step into the mine just yet. Skin to skin. He is not afraid to touch Lucy at all.

[Perception/Alertness]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Lost

Kalen definitely notices the lack of bird sounds, the lack of bird calls, and when he squints he can almost see what looks like… what was written on those boards? The symbols and sigils seemed familiar, but it didn't appear to be in any human language.

No, no that's a language Kalen Holliday knows quite well, or at least found himself striving to find a more perfect understanding. Those weren't letters written on those boards, they were sigils, and a closer inspection would no doubt give him a better idea of which sigils were methodically drawn out on those boards so long ago.

He swears he can hear something groan and grumble from deep within the cave. Not an echo, but a true sound of something that seemed to lie behind the mouth.

Lost

The world fades and sharpens around Lucy and, at that juncture, she sees a world that is at once dead and trying to bloom again. The plants were fledgling and small; the mouth of the mineshaft all but seems to glow with warnings. there is something scrawled across the front, across the wood in a language she isn't entirely familiar with. Something that shone bright and tingled with the lingering effects of magic.

She can all but see the breeze, just like she can almost see that the gauntlet around them is slowly but surely degrading as sure as the wood around the opening of the mine shaft was doing.

Lucy

Lucy was given custody of the flowers and so Kalen is witness to a fit of a sudden tizzy. Not because she thinks they are for her - her brain doesn't even get that far in considering the roses.

"Ah!" she said when offered, eyes the bright green of spring grass widened suddenly and for a brief moment she flailed. Actually flailed. One hand flapping as she lifted up to the balls of her feet. A little too extreme to be the response of someone unused to being given flowers. She remembered that she carries a handkerchief - white with a small black swan embroidered into one corner - for things like that, though. Finding it in her bag, she shook it out, and then carefully wrapped the cloth around a section of the long stems. She could have told Kalen to set them somewhere, but that thought didn't occur to her, either. Instead she smiled at him, and handled the cut and slowly dying things as though they were made of glass.

She keeps them with her now, too. Once the lantern is lit, she holds that in one hand and wraps her free hand around the handkerchief-wrapped section of the stems.

Of course, says Kalen as she adjusts her sight to see beyond. Of course, because for him it is of course. Of course he can't go to an abandoned mine shaft without something strange happening. When she feels his hand on her arm, warmth against the pale, corpse-like chill of her, she offers him a much warmer smile.

"Did you pick this place because of its magical warnings, or...?" she asks, grinning.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen's eyes trace from the sigils on the boards to the gaps through which he can see the darkness beyond.

"This," he says quietly, "is why I'm not sure I could ever date a normal person." There is a soft little huff of breath. "And I know. I'm not sure I could actually date anyone in any conventional sense." And right now, more intent on whatever is in that mine shaft than what he's saying to Lucy, there is a sense that he regrets that, in some part of his psyche he makes no effort to visit regularly.

"I did not know anything beyond that it was an abandoned mine shaft, but I am, before anything else, a Fate mage. This is what happens to anyone around me." And to him, but he doesn't find things that happen to him particularly alarming. "I recognize those sigils, though I need to get closer to read whatever parts of them I can. That may give us some idea of what is here. Beyond that...all I know is that I can sense it like some consuming shadow. And I hear something. Something in worlds I can touch, though that shadow...I am not certain I can."

He moves closer to the cave, cautiously, intent on reading the sigils but not moving beyond them.

Lost

There are sigils there, some of which he does not recognize. Some that are complex and crafted by a hand that no doubt knew precisely what they were doing there and knew precisely how to handle what was beneath the surface of this mine… but whosoever drew those sigils has no doubt long since passed along into the next incarnation. There are some that stick out- warning, slumber, hunger- and one that appears again and again whose meaning is entirely lost on Kalen.

the more he looks, the more he seems to see evidence that those sigils bound something here, because even the mage who drew them was not enough to banish that which lived here entirely.

Lost

The wind groans and one of the boards subtly creaks before it, too, falls away as though the breeze from inside of the mine shaft.

Something makes a sound from inside, sleepy. Something else seems to ping on. It sounds almost like there are people… arguing?

Lucy

[awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

[Awareness]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Lost

The board falls and there is a burst of a feeling, something short and sweet like sugar and honey. Beyond that, there is the feeling of absolute, methodical precision. There is the feeling of insistent determination. This is the feeling of the awakened, the feeling of True Magic and not some illusion. Something tells them that the feeling that came, though, came from someone who cast their weaving long, long ago.

Lucy

Lucy tsks. "You say that like weird is a singularly Kalen area effect." She pauses thoughtfully and that grin widens, "Besides. Normal is boring." She should have worn that shirt today, she thinks. "Everything about us is extraordinary. Why would you settle for anyone who couldn't share in that?"

Says the woman so difficult to touch the thought of dating anyone went out the window years ago. Weird has been happening since long before she met Kalen Holliday, and will continue to happen to her long after their paths diverge. She is pleased to be around people who aren't afraid to make contact with her cold clammy skin, and that her internal It Has Been __ Days Since Someone Kissed Me counter gets reset to zero with some frequency. But these are fleeting things. Lucy knows that everything ends.

She is a speaker for and shepherd of the dead. And Kalen isn't the only student of Fate in the house.

She senses that burst. Rather than frowning with worry, she tips her head curiously. A glance is cast Kalen's way, a glance that flicks toward the vehicle as she reaches for one of the handles. It is not a suggestion that they pack up and leave, giving up on adventure, but a hope that he'll unlock it so that she can put the flowers on her seat. As she does, she asks, "I don't suppose you're one of those people who can see when someone's done something, are you? If not, I can look back, see if I can See what happened here. And when."

Kalen Holliday

"The sigils would seem to indicate that something very powerful was bound here. From what I can read, and more importantly from what I can't, whatever it was was more than the one of us who did the Working could banish.

"Considering that, I doubt that we can banish this thing. It may be that we can rebind it, or, as we did with the Umbrood that tried to come here we can destroy the tethers binding it here.

"I could look at the Working, but I think I will learn nothing I have not learned from the sigils. This place was warded against something that hungered, something which was asleep but is now waking.

"I think we might learn more by looking back to see what happened here than by examining the Working itself." He unlocks the car for her so she can set the flowers down. He sets the picnic basket inside the car as well. They can have victory champagne later.

"And then we can decide whether we think we can handle this alone, or should possibly call in some help."

Lucy

"Ah," Lucy says with a hint of hope and disappointment. Disappointment because, as she'll say, she's not able to bind anything (as she proved the other night when she had to literally hurl a prone spirit across the Gauntlet), but hope too because maybe someday...

"Binding will definitely be a problem because I definitely can't do that." More spirit matters rather than ghostly. Lucy definitely needs to start looking into that aspect of being a Spirit oracle. Perhaps she can be a guardian of them as well.

The picnic put on hold for the moment, she continues. "As for banishing...the best I can do is lower the gateway and hope we can push it back across."

She finds herself a patch of shade in which to settle herself while she looks around within her bag for, "Aha," the velvet bag of her runestones. There is a cloth inside, as well, one she hasn't had to use in front of other mages yet. Lately when she scries she is not looking at a localized patch of history. Today is an exception. Making sure the cloth is as straight as she can make it on uneven earth, she pours the collection of blue stones onto it, closes her eyes...

Dusk handmaiden, show me the past...

...and begins the ritual.

[Time 2/Spirit 1: Divination, let's try going back twenty years and work our way forward?, diff 5, -1 (specialty foci), -1 (practiced), diff can't go lower than 3, tho]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 5) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday

"You may have to help me figure out how to push it across. So far my only thought is holy fire." Yes. Holy. Because to Kalen flames coaxed into bloom with the langauge of Creation are holy. Not, perhaps, in the way they must be to burn spirits, but...perhaps. "If that isn't going to work, I may be out of ideas. I'm pretty sure my usual fallback of, 'shoot it in its face until it stops moving' is actually not helpful here."

Kalen watches the spill of blue stones, the way they fall and the sound they make. The runes themselves tell him nothing, the only magical language Kalen knows is Enochian. His eyes trace over their pattern, clusters and outliers, the suggestion of shapes and lines.

Lucy

Lucy takes in a slow, deep breath, holds it a moment, and lets it out again. When she opens her eyes again they seem darker, more distant. She does not speak, does not break her concentration. Kalen can feel a creeping touch of winter's breath whisper over his senses and he knows that Lucy is including him in this divination into the past. He is free to resist, of course, but two sets of eyes looking back might be more helpful than one.

She starts turning the stones over, making sure that they are all face down.

[I see the dice are like THAT today. Extending, dropping WP like Tic Tacs]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday

Kalen does not resist. There are people who do not want to feel magic come shuddering over their skin, awareness of other magics to come creeping into their senses. People who love boundaries they set.

But Kalen learned magic from people he shared everything with. Thoughts. Homes. Beds. He's been the focus for their magic when they've painted sigils over his skin. On one memorable occasion carved them into it. He's been drawn into Workings with kisses and shared breaths of smoke. Blood spilling into blood.

And to Kalen, the very best magic is the kind of magic that reaches that sort of communion. Shared. This may not quite be a shared Working in the sense he gets to do more than experience it, but those he loves almost as much.

So his eyes trace what Lucy is doing, the way her fingers move to grasp the stones, the order in which she chooses to flip them over until all are face down and he lets her bring him into the Working. Because magic. Who wouldn't want to be part of this?

Lost

It starts with hunger.

Something Lucy can feel in the pit of her stomach and a darkness. something all encompassing and spreading, growing, consuming because the darkness consumes what it will. Because it was in its nature. From her vision, she can hear the echoes of what came tot he real world. She can see a light that burns bright and determined, signatures of what a human being looks like across the worlds-

There is a man. There is a woman. She is small and slender and powerful and certain. There is a man who was strong, but not nearly as bright. not nearly as light or bright or certain but there was an aura about him that was not quite like the woman. Something almost like her but not quite. Something almost twisted.

For all her light, she had no idea.

"Wait here, tell Kansas City I might not be back," the bright one tells the twisted one.

The light goes into the shadows and illuminates her path with sigils with signs. There are words that make no sense, something deep and rumbling and terrible. the speech of something dark and impossible and the light piece stops once she is deep within the caverns. They follow along and they can see it- a pit. A deep, dark hole cracked in the center of the earth beneath them and the light stops there. Something slithers out with shadowy hand, dares to touch the light before pulling back with a hiss.

"Child, what do you fear? The darkness? The pit? The void? What do you fear, for I am All. I am nothing, and you will bow down."

The light woman says something in a language Lucy doesn't understand. A reply, it seems like.

Heavens, if the words don't sound beautiful.

Lost

"I am afraid of many things, but I am not afraid of you," the woman says, "Silence, you shall go no further."

Lucy

Lucy does not use runes in the way that ordinary hedge witches use runes. When she lines stones in three rows of three, when she turns them over and sees the sigils carved, understanding sparks in her mind. Fragments of the decades piece themselves together and when the image is complete? When she Sees?

The Working of her Avatar spreads like a net over Kalen, giving him the same vision.

What they see makes Lucy's stomach twist and curl. From fear? From empathy with that hunger? She doesn't know. She just watches as two figures, shadow and light (dusk and dawn? should she have brought Delilah?), interat.

She watches as the sigils begin to light a path.

"Do you know what she's saying?" Lucy asks, her voice a quiet whisper, as though she fears detection by this formless hunger even so many years into this moment's future.

Kalen Holliday

"She tells it she does not fear it, though she does fear of other things. She says, 'Silence, you shall go no further.' I am entirely sure if she Names it Silence, or bids it to be be silent, or if that is, in some way, both." Kalen's voice is very quiet. Less because he fears that shadow and more because he expects that that woman and her light are gone from the world he knows.

Because the Order is missing so much light.

Because she was so beautiful. So powerful. So sure.

She is not the first of the Awakened he has mourned like this. She will likely not be last. But he does not discuss that here and now. There are shadows that would devour everything. They are the things that need attention now. Not the echo of a woman long gone from here.

Lost

The moment pushes onward, and there is struggle. It doesn't show in full pictures, but rather in the way that the spirit world would have seen it. The woman is no flesh and blood woman, even though both mages know well enough precisely what her true nature was. They see her as light, as glowing and resolute, and the darkness around her as an extension of the pit she stood before. Minor spirits shied away, and the world around them was eerily quiet. The woman withdrew a pouch of some kind. Something full of some substance- perhaps chalk.

A ritual starts, and the words of the shadows become something incomprehensible even for Kalen to understand. Each motion practiced, each motion measured, each breath exactly way the woman had wanted and there was interplay. There were threats, there were menacing moments and one where she stops.

"You're inside of the circle," the shadow proclaims, Silence proclaims."That makes both of us," the woman replies.

It continues with a flare, something bright, something contained only in the circle. something that came with the sounds of violence and ended with a bright, almost blinding flash. With that, the light was gone. There was the sound of something chirping outside, likely a bird or a cricket- the first sound of nature to be heard in quite some time, and the area was not bathed in light or darkness but a twilight. But there was sound. Sound and sensation and the feeling of displeasure from the twisted one outside.

It starts with hunger, and it continues with jealousy. With rage. The sigils on the wood are scratched, some altered, a plank or so torn away. Broken so the message was no longer clear. The wind howled in protest, but died down soon enough. Whatever magic was woven there was damaged, yes, but not undone. Whatever sacrifice had been made was diminished, but not rendered useless.

A bird stops chirping.

The twisted figure walks away humming the tune of Henry Lee.

"And that place you love, oh that merry green land- will wait forever for you to come home..."

Lucy

Lucy watches as the light woman performs her ritual. A shiver passes through her when she realizes just as the shadow proclaims.

"You're inside of the circle."

"She sacrificed herself," she says quietly, voice trembling with awe and respect. "If she trapped herself inside with that...thing, and if her Working's unraveling now, we might be able to talk to her."

Maybe. Possibly. She was a mage who trapped herself with dark silence for years.

Kalen Holliday

There are so many places this story might begin. Where the shadow creature was born. Where the two who came here met. Where the Order that trained the woman was forged and the ways it grew until it made her. It is none of those. And all of them.

For Kalen everything begins with Words.

"Most of us do, in the end. It is, for whatever reason, one of the things about the Order those outside of it tend to forget. Though, it seems not to be an uncommon end for the Enlightened in general.

"Kansas City, or anyone we can reach from Kansas City may be able to tell us more. Alyssa might understand better what happened here. She has some knowledge of the sigils used here and practices the Ars Manes. I could see the Working, but I don't knave the capability to-"

"She does. If we can talk to her, perhaps she can recreate the Working. She may not have the strength left now, but perhaps we could give her that. With two of us, it likely would not require the same level of sacrifice. Three, if Alyssa can come to help her.

"Or we can look to see what woke it in the first place and then try to lull it back to sleep until we can do something more permanent."

Lucy

They could Look some more. Lucy could pull out her mirror and extend her vision, going back and out and looking out to Kansas City. If she had the understanding of such things, maybe she could tag the twisted one and follow his path through Time to where he eventually wound up.

But where everything for Kalen begins with Words, for Lucy they begin with the dead. Or the somewhat dead. There is a woman inside of that mine shaft who could have all of the answers that they need.

Lucy lets the vision of the past fall from their eyes. If they want to see back further, to when the thing was wakened, she will need to cast again. She is seated just as straight and poised as she was when it all began, with no signs of fatigue or strain or impending weariness. She begins gathering up her rune stones in one hand.

"If she's weak, I can let her into me to give her strength. Inviting a possession can be dangerous without the right precautions, but if Alyssa's around even if something goes wrong I should be okay."

Fortes Fortuna Juvat and all of that.

Lucy looks up at Kalen, brow furrowed a moment as she looks away to the entrance to the abandoned mine. "I thought I heard voices, though. While you call Alyssa, I can try to see if there are people in there now? Could be what's weakening the working is time, but could be someone's trying to tamper with it."

Kalen Holliday

"I'm not entirely sure you going in there alone is the best of plans. Regardless, I can't just call Kansas City. I can let someone know I need the number, but...we may not even get it.

"If there are people in there now and this thing could possess them, we may want to just call Alyssa, tell her to get here, and then go into the mine."

He pulls out his phone, and without looking up from finding Alyssa's number, says. "No. I lied. We might want to do whatever spirit wards we can do to prevent either of us becoming involuntarily possessed by that shadow, and then get the hell in there."

And then he hits the send key. Cue Alyssa's phone ringing.

Alyssa Solomon

Two rings. That's all it takes for Alyssa to answer the phone. Mostly that's because it's a Sunday, and the Hollow One doesn't work on a lot of Sundays. Not by choice, but because there's less opportunity. (It does happens, but not as commonly as the rest of the week.) And that's why she picks up the phone quickly, sounding as if she's in a good mood.

"City morgue. You stab 'em, we slab 'em. S'up, Kalen?"

Lucy

Lucy pours her stones back into their bag and and gives Kalen a lopsided smirk.

"Who said anything about going inside?"

Setting up a ward against involuntary possession by rogue spirits is noted, and set aside for the moment. Lucy pulls her bag toward her and roots through its contents until a silent aha moment. Reaching in, she retrieves a fist-sized silver lotus and a stand. Is it any wonder that bag of hers is so lumpy all the time?

While Kalen calls up his cabalmate, Lucy once again retrieves her lighter and a small cone of incense. Setting the cone into the center of the lotus blossom, she centers herself, and makes another request of her Avatar.

[Mind 1: Anybody in there? coincidental, diff -1 (taking time)]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (5, 7) ( success x 2 )

Lost

Lucy reaches out and she feels a consciousness. Four, to be precise, though only two of them are precisely human in nature. Only two of those minds that she reaches out and touches feels like that of the living, the third is… odd. But familiar.

The fourth is incomprehensible.(willpower, please)

Kalen Holliday

"Point. We are magical."

"Hello, Angel. Lucy and I are out trying to go the things that people do like have picnics, and we found some mutual friends like you and she would have and one that speaks our language. On a scale of one to Kalen if you call me one more time right before I have sex with someone I will never call back I will kill you, how busy are you right now?"

Lucy

o_o WP

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Alyssa Solomon

"Two things. First off, call me right before I have sex with someone I'm never going to call back whenever you want, doesn't bother me one bit. It's not like I'm gonna have something to explain to them, what with the not calling back and all.

"Second, I'd say about a one-point-five. So not very busy at all, and you're giving me an excuse not to sort my Gnostic texts. You need me there, or you need something else?"

Kalen Holliday

There is a soft huff at Alyssa's response, but he doesn't play any more than he already has. "Here, I think. You ready for an address?" His attention shifts from Lucy to the mine shaft.

After only a second's consideration he starts to walk toward where the board are. Close enough to touch them. Possibly close enough to see footprints.

Lucy

Lucy breathes in deep the scented smoke of the incense. She won't let it burn for too long. If there are people inside and those people are tampering with wards there is a chance she'll be noticed by her resonance and her workings already, but she's not going to add fuel to the fire, as it were. Once she has a number of minds located within the caverns she thanks her Avatar and rolls into the next spell. This one requires the light of her lantern and finally the emergence of her silver mirror.

"Tell her to come guarded against unwanted intruders to the temple of her body or something," she says. She has caught just enough of Kalen's side of the conversation to know that he's speaking in codes, so she offers a suggestion.

"I'll see what I can do for us."

Holding it in the palms of both hands, she closes her eyes a moment before opening them again.

[First, wardings for two people: Corr 2/Spirit 1: diff 5 -1 (specialized focus) -1 (taking time), need enough suxx to cover two people for one scene so that's 4?]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (5, 10) ( success x 2 )

Alyssa Solomon

"I'm ready, hit me."

Kalen Holliday

Kalen makes another sound that might, under other circumstances, have been a proper laugh. "Lucy says to come guarded to against unwanted intruders to the temple of your body. So...yeah. Whatever you need to do to do that, you should do on the way here." And then he gives her the address.

Lucy

[extentification! this is usually where Lucy botches but I am HOARDING HER WP THIS TIME]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 3) ( fail )

Lost

Kalen notices that there are two sets of footprints that seem most decent. One of the boards seems broken a little more recently than some of the other ones. It doesn't look like it had been altered, not like he had seen in the vision. No, this was just broken, like someone had full intention of going into the mine shaft.

Lucy

[Lucy c'mon center your chi, Lucy's Avatar c'mon don't be such a jerk, extending again at +1 diff]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (1, 1) ( fail )

Alyssa Solomon

"Can and will do. See you in a bit." *Click*

And so she takes out her blade from her little hole in the wall and pricks her skin, uses the blood to anoint her chakras. Protection of Mind and Soul. And once that's done she is heading out to the location, driving along to make quick work of it.

[[Spirit 2/Mind 1: Shield Mind and Spirit. Crucial Component used, specialty focus & Practiced. WP]]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Lost

(paradox for Lucy. Highest level of sphere used (2- Spirit))

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

Lost

Lucy reaches out and tries, really, genuinely tries to keep those with her safe. She reaches out and pulls and tugs and the smoke starts to burn a sickly black color, then green, and then it finally ceases to burn. Whatever incense she had been lighting seemed… off. Something wasn't right here

The air felt cold and the grass seemed to wither and the sound of argument that Kalen heard seemed to stop. Sound hitched for a second, just a second before it went back to its resting place.

Time ticked on.

Lost

Oh, hello, she hears, quiet and nagging in her head. Something presses against her mind, somethings suddenly wakeful. What are you afraid of, child? It's been so long since we had visitors, Dilana and I.

(Congratulations Lucy! Your botch has now given you a mental link to the Thing on the cave. Handy, yes, but now there is something terribly, terribly evil in your head)

Alyssa Solomon

[[Extending! Diff 4 now, spending WP again]]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Lost

(and more)

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 5) ( fail )

Lucy

[soak dat paradox, gurl!]

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

Lucy

"Shit."

If Kalen hadn't noticed the shifting of Lucy's incense smoke, then this is his first sign that something's gone wrong.

Gathering up her silver lotus, she tamps out the incense cone's remains onto the ground beside her. "There are four minds," she says. The tone of her voice has gone from light, almost playful to decidedly more serious. She does not know why her Avatar keeps withdrawing her support and her power and her blessings. Perhaps when this is over she will try to find out.

"Two living, two...not. I think the not-living ones are the bound spirit and the woman who bound it." Thinking is not being sure, but she has something else she needs to do, and she needs to do it quickly.

She gives Kalen a wry smile that is far from defeated. "I tried to protect us but, uh. It seems to've had the opposite effect. If we have questions, it looks like I'm the link for now. It's too late for me, but I'm still going to protect you," she promises. Lucy is a sentinel, a watcher in the dark. As such it is perhaps fitting that she's the one whose mind has been intruded upon. If it's focused on her, maybe it'll leave Kalen alone.

Never mind how fucking dangerous that is. Jesus, Delilah is going to kill her when she gets home.

She finds her spare incense, sets everything in place once more, and tries again.

Dusk handmaiden, please. Whatever I've done, I'll make my amends, but please protect this man.

Deep breath in, slow breath out. As much as she wants to rush things, she can't afford to.

[Corr 2/Spirit 1/Mind 1 warding, just Kalen this time so just three successes. Dropping WP like it's hot!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Lucy

When the working is complete, she replies wryly, "A few things. Is that what you're hungry for? Fear? And how is Dilana?"

Lost

I want what you all want- secrets, it hisses in her mind, and in return I pay with my silence... your world is nothing but noise and bluster, covering up truth and what your kind truly fear. I merely crave your honesty.

Lucy

This thing should have met the dawn sister instead. Delilah almost literally cannot be dishonest to save her life. Lucy, on the other hand. She can lie when she wants to. She can be mysterious.

"Oh. What is it you think my kind truly fears? I can tell you if I'm afraid of it or not. I'm Lucy, by the way. What should I call you?"

Kalen Holliday

"Well then," he says quietly. "I suppose we should hope any possessions which may happen are the kind you mentioned inviting. And Alyssa will be here. There is little enough I can do, but it is very different for her, I think." He does not tell her not to try to protect him and he does not really comment further on what she just said. He is familiar enough with protecting people even when that means less protection for yourself. In another world, he would have died for that.

They escaped first. Because whatever else happens to him and around him, Kalen tends to walk away. Sure, sometimes that's more like being dragged unconscious away. But thus far, fate seems to have plans for him that involve not killing him. Yet.

He can hope that will, in some form, spill over to protect Lucy. Possessed Lucy might kill him, after all. And Alyssa will be there.

"There are footprints. One of the boards was broken recently. Considering what we know so far, the two reasonable assumptions would be that the man came back or that the shadow called out to others once it woke somehow. I suppose it is possible they just wanted a picnic as well, but considering the feel of this place...even Sleepers know something is wrong in places the birds are silent. At least, most of them."

Lucy

For a moment, Lucy's bright green eyes unfocus and she becomes distracted. Something else has her attention. She could perhaps extend her Mind so that Kalen can hear the internal dialogue, but well. She's not going to risk it. Hopefully, if the creature inside the min decides to slip a little further into her head she can do something about it.

Which is why she does not put out the incense now, or her lantern. or stow her other items. Could be she'll need them to quickly channel her Avatar's grace.

Her attention refocuses on her surroundings. It takes a moment for her to realize what Kalen said.

She shakes her head. "It's also possible someone heard about this place. The internet has whole archives of places with weird histories and supernatural rumors, and there are any number of mundane ghost chasers who want to come see the place for themselves."

Lost

There are two mages standing outside of the mine. It was a lovely enough place, peaceful if it weren't for the fact that it was tense and it was tied up and eerily silent. The mine shaft was just off the beaten path, nice enough for an abandoned mine shaft but something felt wrong about the whole set up. The mine was old and forgettable. Eerie, though. Unsettling.

Alyssa Solomon

She drives with a certain amount of speed; let's just say that Alyssa isn't acting like she's out on a nice, meandering Sunday drive. But she's not racing because as far as she knows, lives are not imminently in peril. She knows Kalen well enough that if they were, he would have impressed that getting here fast was essential.

So she doesn't run stop lights or exceed the speed limit too badly (not enough for a reckless driving charge, at least.) And it isn't long before the red Acura Legend pulls up to the area. Alyssa's rocking purple hair today, her ritual blade slipped into a belt sheath that she rarely wears as she steps out of the car. She has a leather jacket on over an old tank top with a good pair of heavy boots and old, worn black jeans with some tears and frayings at various spots in the legs. A pair of fingerless leather gloves protect her palms. She's mostly makeup free, as she didn't give herself time to apply it before heading out. Just the heavy eyeliner and dark lipstick that she wears even when she's lounging around the house alone.

Those feather wings of Resonance beat as she comes up to the two mages, flicking the memory of blood around as they do.

"You pick the weirdest places to have a lazy Sunday get-together," she says to the both of them with a grin. "I approve."

Lost

She hears a sound that makes her shudder and makes her stomach seize for a moment.

You should be more careful with your names, little one.

Kalen Holliday

"I would expect them to have figured out this place was a terrible idea and left. Perhaps I give them too much credit. They are out chasing hauntings they cannot hope to truly understand or affect."

He smiles as Alyssa approaches. "I even brought champagne. I'd say you could join us, but you never calling again might fuck with our cabal just a little. And Alexander's disappointed face...we really shouldn't do that to him.

"Anyway, can you unpossess people? Just in case that becomes a thing for later? There are people in that mine. They are presumably hostile. Or intellectually challenged. Or both." And there is Lucy, but Kalen doesn't broach that subject quite yet.

Lucy

The air feels cold, particularly around the Dreamspeaker seated in the shade. Frosted and a bit like needle-and-thread wending its way through their fates. If this lazy Sunday get together had been intended as a date, Lucy didn't make the connection. She is young yet, and sometimes not terribly perceptive. And besides, when one has spent years faced with the weirdness of their physical condition, a weirdness that always drove off the decent folks and attracted owners of strange curiosities and fetishes, it is amazing what lengths their mind will go to in order to disprove what's right in front of their face.

Which is all to say that Lucy is dressed just about as casually as one can get. There is a black tank top beneath a black long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of pink plaid pajama bottoms. Her hair has been pulled into a pair of loose pigtails that trail down over her shoulders. And she is seated surrounded by the instruments of her rituals.

"Two people," she corrects. "And two not-people. We think it's a bound spirit and the woman who bound it here. And possibly two morons trying to satisfy their curiosity. Or two people looking to unlock the door."

Only after that does she smile to the Hollow One. "Hi."

Lucy

"What makes you think I'm not?" she asks. "You haven't answered my questions."

Lucy

[everybody BE COOL: manip+subt]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Lost

What have you to offer for such a thing... Dilana called me Silence, your human tongues say it so well..

Lucy

[alart! show them how unperceptive you can be, Luce!]

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

Kalen Holliday

[Per+Alert]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Alyssa Solomon

[[Per+Alert]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lost

There is the sound of something crackle and then pop. Something that feels like sunlight against their skin and something that flares inside of the mine shaft. There is cursing, an indistinct sound, but a sound none the less. The conversation continues onward, but the sound is frustrated. The sound is irate. The people in tho conversation were clearly looking for something… else. Something easier, something that wasn't so creepy and wasn't so eerily quiet.

Lost

There is the sound of something crackle and then pop. Something that feels like sunlight against their skin and something that flares inside of the mine shaft. There is cursing, an indistinct sound, but a sound none the less. The conversation continues onward, but the sound is frustrated. The sound is irate. The people in tho conversation were clearly looking for something… else. Something easier, something that wasn't so creepy and wasn't so eerily quiet. Kalen can hear the conversation inside, and he can pick out the details of what is being said

"Oh fuck what was that thing?"

"Daniel didn't tell us about this…"

"I can't believe she's still here."

"Hss-shit!"

"Don't fucking touch that, it's still active!"

Lucy

Has Lucy given her real name? Maybe. I she nervous? It's hard to say.

"I can give you secrets," she replies. "I have a lot of them. I can give you some if you tell me what you think my kind is so afraid of. I can tell you if it's true anymore or not. You've been locked awa"

Alyssa Solomon

She frowns a little, thoughtfully as she takes in the information from Lucy and Kalen both. Kalen asks if she can unpossess people, and the Hollower raises an eyebrow. "Mmmm, exorcism? That's some Adept-level spirit work, m'friend. And I mean what normal people consider an Adept, not wacky Hermetic Adept." She shakes her head.

"Doesn't mean that I don't have some tricks up my sleeve. Hey there, Lucy." She gives the Dreamspeaker a smile. They haven't talked a lot, but enough that they're acquainted, at least.

And then she snaps her attention to the mine entrance, the frown returning and deepening. "Jesus Christ spread on a cracker, I hate stupid people. All right, so step one: stop the morons? And then step two, deal with whatever comes up next; step three, profit?"

Lost

Your kind are afraid of that which you can not control, that which you can not contain. Your kind are afraid of that which is unfathomable, that is beyond your comprehension. You fear stillness. You truly... truly fear silence. It is why your world has noise, even in the places where you perceive none.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen blinks at the sensation of sunlight on his skin, then frowns as he listens. "Ah. They know she's still there. And that something is active. I'm not sure what side they're on, but someone sent them here.

"Regardless, we should go deal with them or help them, as appropriate, I should think. I don't know what else we'd be waiting for, unless you wanted to look at the sigils out here and see if you could bolster the Working before we went in. If the Hermetic who bound the spirit is here, and it sounds as though she may be, it could be possible she will help us, if we can reach her."

Lucy

Lucy has something inside her head. From time to time, her gaze unfocuses as something catches her attention. Sort of like when Spirit mages see things that no one else can see. In fact, it's exactly like that, only replace 'seeing' with 'hearing.' Lucy hears things that the others can't. Does this make her nervous? Hard to say when she plays it so cool.

"Correction," she says. "It is the bound thing. The woman who bound it's name is Dilana. She called it Silence." Another moment of quiet. When it passes, Lucy has a bemused smile on her face. "It wants secrets, and it wants honesty. It says the noise that people make is to cover up their fear of the things they can't control or contain, and the things that're unfathomable. We fear stillness, and we fear silence."

Lucy shakes her head, but it's not for them. She can't speak for Alyssa or Kalen or the whole of the world, but she can speak for herself.

Lucy

"Maybe most people are afraid of those things," she says. "I accept that there are unlimited and fathomless things. Things like you. Is that why Dilana sealed you up in here?

"No wait. I owe you a secret. I'll tell you a real fear. I don't know who's in there with you, but I'm afraid for them. I'm afraid they're dealing with things they can't possibly comprehend and that it'll get them, us, lots of people hurt. I fear that I won't be able to protect them."

Alyssa Solomon

Dilena. Silence. She takes in these details, stores them away. They may be useful. But first things first; they're not going to solve anything by standing up here.

"I can take a look, at least. No guarantee I can strengthen what's been done, or that I should. But there's no harm in figuring that outDilena. Silence. She takes in these details, stores them away. They may be useful. But first things first; they're not going to solve anything by standing up here.

"Lemme take a look first. No guarantee I can strengthen what's been done, or that I should. I'm guessing it's the binding? But there could be something else tied in. You never know, some people who do Wards are tricky that way."

She steps forward, turning her attention to the sigils themselves as she tries to determine what the nature of the Effect woven into the markings is. She takes out a vial of her blood, uncaps it and dabs a bit on her finger, so she can press it against each eye. A little Weaving-Watching for to add to her occult knowledge to figure out what the Effect is.

[[Prime 1, Watch the Weaving. Practiced]]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

The last time Kalen was presented with something he could not control or contain it was a flood of nothingness that was going to swallow the reality he was in. And while he was certainly awed, he was not afraid.

No. That is a lie. The last thing he could not control or contain was not that devouring emptiness. It was something warmer. Devouring only in the way that passions are. And he might have been a little afraid of it, he might still be, but however terrifying it might be you do not just walk away from being in love.

And however fascinating and admirable devotion to complete and silent and honest communion might be....

"It may be right on those counts, but...I'm guessing it wants to enforce honesty and silence and stillness by forcing those things throughout as many planes of existence as it can manage? Because if it just wants to start a very quiet and nonviolent and totally non-coercive cult up here I am shockingly okay with that. I just know my luck with big scary spirits doesn't run to encountering the ones that would like to sit with some followers that found it and stayed with it of their own entirely unclouded judgment and have silent and remarkably deep communion with them."

He nods to Alyssa. "It's simply the only other thing I think we'd possibly want to do first."

Lost

There are several effects running around, but the most prevalent and the most notable was the effect that had been poured into the boards and the walls and presumably the inside of the mine shaft. There was a feeling there, a hardening and stifling feeling. Something that made the world around here more solid and more pristine. In effect, there were no spirits coming or going… or at least there shouldn't be. (Affix Gauntlet in effect and breaking down)

Beyond that, it would seem there were a few more physically protective rotes in action on the inside of the mine shaft. (In essence, think of it as a prime-fueled version of an electric fence.)

Lucy

Alyssa looks to see what exactly working was done here. Kalen speaks.

Lucy listens to something else entirely as she focuses her attention on the smoke of her incense. If she's going to have something else inside her head talking to her, she should request the aid of her Avatar so that she can listen and still work her will at the same time.

[Mind 1: Multi-tasking! Coincidental. Dropping a quint to lower the diff and a WP to not make things worse for herself]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Lucy

[oh! i meant to say +1 diff for probably being distracted, so 2 suxx!]

Lost

It laughs again, a terrible cold sound. Something that wraps around the base of her spine and refuses to let go before it settles again into its comfortable silence.

Lucy

[manip+subt: What's cooler than being cool? ICE COLD. -OR- Don't let your friends see you sweat.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Lost

At about that juncture, there was the sound of footfalls coming loud and heavy and nervous down the mine shaft and towards the mouth of the man made cavern. There was heavy breathing, the feeling of concern and panic in the air and once it felt as though it would be more than enough, there was the sight of them.

They weren't big by any means, or particularly imposing. No, one could easily place them as teenagers at best. one was tall and lanky while the other one was shorter and generally unremarkable. He had a forgettable face, which seemed to do well for him, while the other would no doubt grow into his own sense of unremarkableness.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern seemed more than happy to be getting out of this place.

Alyssa Solomon

She shakes her head, stepping back from the boards, and looks at the other two. "That's holding fine on its own. It doesn't look like it's even really degraded; I don't know how the thing is getting through."

She pauses, realizes she didn't explain. "It's thickening the wall between worlds, is all. The more I strengthen it, the harder it will for us to make contact ourselves. There's something else inside though, more focused on this world..."

And then there are two morons trying to get out. She steps back once more, just to put some distance, and looks over to the others. She's following their lead on dealing with the kids. Her instinct in dealing with someone in thus sort of situation is usually to do the kinds of things that you can't take back.

Kalen Holliday

[Prime Scan!

D=4 (Prime 1 + 3); extend if needed for suxx x 2]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 10) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen's eyes track to where he hears the footsteps, murmuring softly as he focuses his attention on any mystical presence or energy that may be lingering on the teens. Whatever he's looking for, he keeps up the murmuring and doesn't give Alyssa or Lucy any indication yet what he might think they should do about them. Just watches them through eyes that seem not entirely focused.

Lucy

Alyssa doesn't know how it's getting through. Lucy's smile is wry.

"I'm a natural gateway," she says. "So for one thing, if you want to thicken the walls further I literally need to take a hike." She does not look like she welcomes that option, but she'll do it if necessary. "That also means things on the other side sometimes take a little more notice of me. I was trying to raise a barrier but...well," no point in explaining to ordinary Traditionalists, "it made it through instead." Was probably drawn to her like a magnet.

Then the boys climb out. Lucy would rather not face strangers sitting down. Collecting her things (and putting out the incense) and pouring them into her bag, she finishes by gathering up her lantern and then rising.

"Hey guys," she says, friendly like because Lucy is friendly. And she is a pretty girl in her pajamas, holding a lantern yes, and feeling like a winter frost yes. But talking to them, those two ordinary and average looking boys. "We were just on our way for some sightseeing." Which is the truth for her and Kalen at least. Lucy can lie, but she prefers to skirt along the edge of the truth. Adjusting her hold on her lantern, she asks with a grin, "Did you find any gold?"

[Spirit 1: Or did you find something that decided to hitch a ride? Detect Possession. Diff -1 (specialty focus) Dropping WP because what else is it good for?]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Lucy

"What's so funny?" she asks after she scouts for rogue spirits or vengeful spirits. "Did you send these boys to see me"

Me, she says. Not we.

Lost

"We didn't touch anything!"

My, that was certainly an intense reaction, wasn't it? The boys answered in unison, then stammered and they tried to take a position that was… well… strangely protective of the front of the cavern. The taller, thinner one looked at Lucy and tried to put on his best charming teenage smile… which was sadly sorely lacking in charm and ramped up incredibly with the awkward. the boys stood in the opening like they knew something was down there. Like they knew that they needed to keep people out, even if they didn't really understand the specifics as to why.

"Oh, uh, nah… just looking for uh… a football..? Yeah, we didn't find it, anyway, it's all good… I wouldn't go down there."

"There's spiders," said the shorter, rounder boy.

Lost

they are most assuredly not possessed.

Lost

Lucy receives no reply from the voice, only silence. True silence.

Lost

It's strange. There is a feeling that comes from one, one that is not quite the feeling of innate magic, but certainly of having been exposed to the... less than normal. The shorter boy in particular seems odd in that regard. With regard to any additional passengers or "hangers on" as it were, it would seem to be that the boy is fine and clean. Kalen can not yet tell about the other.

Alyssa Solomon

As soon as Lucy gets the words natural gateway out, Alyssa's nodding. She's known people like that before and the rest of the explanation is unnecessary. "Ah, gotcha." She looks away from the Dreamspeaker when Lucy's done speaking, her attention on the two teenagers.

There's something about how vehement the kids are about their not touching anything that makes the woman give an amused snort. "The kiddies doth protest too much, methinks." She's a cynic, our Miss Solomon. "Spiders, eh? That all?"

She gives them a more intense look now, eyes furrowing. "Anything else down there? You know, besides the spiders." She'd rather have some intel before they go in, should they have to.

Kalen Holliday

[Prime scans continued....]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (2, 7) ( success x 1 )

Lost

Kalen continues his work and finds the other boy to be just the same as his companion. Clean, but odd. Like he's seen a little too much of the world and is sleep walking. Day dreaming. Something to that effect.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is still distracted by paying attention to the Words (and the energies that that spill from the Words) that serve as the foundation for all of Creation. It is probably the only reason he does not laugh at their attempts to explain what they were doing in a mine shaft or why the three Mages should stay the hell out of it.

His attention catches on the two boys, first the shorter boy then the taller, and those pale eyes of his narrow. Alyssa is already distracting them, and Kalen meets her eyes for a second and smiles.

"I think they very definitely saw things more interesting than spiders down there...."

Lost

(can we lie?)

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5) ( fail )

Lucy

The boys didn't touch anything. Alyssa claims they protest too much and Lucy shrugs.

"No one suggested you did. I'm sorry about your football." She is aware of the protective stance they try to take up, and she smiles her amusement.

"Yes, Kalen, I think we all know that." Between Alyssa and Kalen there's no reason to feign ignorance.

Alyssa wants more intel. Lucy wants to see if there's any saving the woman who locked herself up with the Silence. Drawing herself up to her full height, she adjusts the fall of her bag and levels a stern look on the boys. "Step aside," she says to them, stepping forward herself as she does.

[manip + intim]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lost

[WP- Thin kid]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Lost

[WP round kid[

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Lost

They had to think of something and think of it quickly but they were too young and too inexperienced to really keep up under pressure. They kept their posture straight and upright. They stood their ground like they were the authority on the area and were very clearly protecting these poor people from… what? disappointment? The fact that they said there was nothing down there.

"Unless you like staring at gigantic holes, it's pretty boring," the thinner boy said.

"Yeah, you … uh… probably don't wanna mess with a gigantic hole. It's probably dangerous."

"And… uh… we… we kind of probably should call someone. I think there's a dead body down there," the thinner boy said.

The round one looked at him in amazement and shock. He elbowed his friend harshly, when then swatted him back, "what, dude? That chick looks dead, we should probably just call the cops or Daniel or someone. This is heavy stuff."

His round friend glowered at his thin compadre.

Both, however, seemed content to step aside. The stern look was more than enough to get them out of the way.

Lucy

Lucy stares at the both of them, to the taller one and to the shorter one. She looks at Kalen and Alyssa, because she has already determined that they aren't possessed, but that doesn't mean something else hasn't been done to them.

They step aside at Lucy's look and she says to them in a decidedly more comforting tone, "We'll check it out. If she's really dead, we'll contact the authorities." Another look to Kalen. "If it's okay to send them home, send them home," she says. Then she offers the Hermetic a warm, slightly apologetic smile before heading down into the tunnel. He didn't like the idea of her going in there alone, but she's not alone, is she?

What's down there already has a link to her mind. And there is a possibly dead woman and Lucy is a speaker for the dead. It could be Dilana, or it could be some other person stuck down here. She intends to find out.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen nods to Lucy with a brief return smile and then glances to Alyssa. "I think," he says quietly, "that I have this conversation. If you wouldn't mind...?" He waves at where Lucy is running. "I expect she may need you more. Please?"

When his attention shifts to the boys, there is not really any of that warmth left. "Daniel sent you here. You weren't expecting to find a body, apparently. At least, you have the decency to try to warn us away. But...those instincts, while admirable, aren't so much of use here. Regardless...do you know why you came here at all?"

Alyssa Solomon

Kalen doesn't need to worry about Lucy going in there alone, because she's not going in alone. Alyssa frowns when the Dreamspeaker just heads on in but doesn't argue, moving to follow her before Kalen even says anything.

"Careful," she says to Lucy. "There's protective magick of a much more corporeal nature, too."

Once they're inside, she's got her blade out of her sheath. It's not for physical protection; rather, it's to make sure that she has it ready for when it's time for some ritual work.

Lost

Kalen"We were just supposed to look at some pictures, that's all. Copy them down and bring them back. Daniel said there was some stuff he thought we should see, so… uh… road trip?" replied the skinny, tall one to Kalen.

There wasn't any warmth there from Kalen and while the boy tried to be

"Who are you?" the rounder one asked Kalen incredulously. He seemed more than content to keep his mouth shut.

Lost

Lucy & Alyssa

The girls head downward and inward into the mine shaft. The further they go, the more of the natural light that fails to come through and, instead, a strange, faint glow from the walls seems to light their path. Alyssa would know what the symbols were, yes, but a good third of them were hard to decipher and some of the signs were utterly incomprehensible. they continued onwardd, down still until the feeling of dark and cold and quiet became almost overwhelming.

Until they came upon chalk circle with a bright white glow to it. In the center of the circle there was a pit, something that tried to consume all the light and beside it was a woman. Her hair was blonde and her eyes nearly the same color as the glowing chalk circle on the ground. Were it not for the ever so faint rise of her chest, one would think she were dead. Perhaps she was. perhaps she was something else entirely now, but the chalk circle seemed to hold true.

There is a voice, feminine and distinct. Familiar to some ears, but the language is nothing of this world.

Lost

"Come no closer." the voice says.

Lucy

Lucy does not mind the company, nor did she really think she'd be going in here ultimately without one or the other of the other oracles. When she speaks back over her shoulder, Alyssa can hear dry amusement in her voice.

"Then I guess you should tell me where it is instead of vaguely mentioning that it's here."

No, Lucy doesn't mind working with other oracles, but they do need to actually work with her.

She pauses in the tunnel and looks back at the Hollower. "Unless you'd prefer to take the lead?" The question is a genuine offer. If Alyssa would prefer to walk ahead of them Lucy isn't going to stop her. She is on a mission for a person, someone who may have been trapped in here for decades and needs to move on. She is not interested in contesting who's on point.

Whoever takes the lead, Lucy or Alyssa, they continue downward. There is a faint glow on the walls to light their path. There is also Lucy's lantern, which she has not blown out yet. She continues to channel her Avatar's ability to detect spirits and the dead. When the darkness and the cold and the quiet intensify, they really don't bother Lucy. However sociable she appears to be, it took years to get to that point. At her core she prefers quiet. She is the Sister Who Farewells the Day. Night and pitch blackness do not frighten her.

In fact. "Hold on," she says to Alyssa. "I'm going to turn out the light."

At the bottom of the shaft, Lucy steps a little away from Alyssa. Just enough to give the pair of them space. For a moment she observes the darkness of the hole - this is what she Saw when she looked back, more or less. Only not this. She saw this place as spirits see it. Her attention isn't held by the darkness for long. There is the woman.

"Dilana?" she asks, not really expecting an answer, but hoping for one. "May we speak to you?"

Alyssa Solomon

"Hold up," she says, reaching out to put a hand on Lucy's shoulder after the voice speaks. She isn't yanking the other back, just conveying her meaning with contact as much as with the words. "We were just told not to come any closer."

She looks up and around, frowning. "I'm guessing here, but I think you'll agree it's an educated guess. The Silence is trapped in the body, or in the circle with her."

She looks around once more, daubs out a bit more blood. Seals and symbols, quickly traced over her eyelids to grant her sight across worlds.

[Spirit 1: Spirit Sight. WP and Quint]]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday

"Concerned about who would send you into the middle of something like this so obviously unprepared," Kalen says with a sigh. "This is not, as you both clearly gathered, the safest of places to be." His attention settles most heavily on the slimmer boy. The one that seems more inclined to talk to him. "It seems to indicate a a certain lack of regard for you two, at the very least. You may want to consider that before you go back."

"Anyway, I suppose that is something for the two of you to decide. It hardly concerns me unless you want to stay here. Anyway, what kind of pictures? The kind on the boards there by the entrance? Or another kind?"

[And Awarepathy on the slimmer boy now.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lost

Kalen

"It's not just him, we have stuff we have to do-"

"You're not supposed to tell people that!" the small, round one said, "Grant, this is serious!"

Grant, the thin and tall one, seems to be bothered by the fact that they had been sent out somewhere. He wants to talk to Kalen, because he wants to talk to someone who may be on the outside of whatever he was on the inside of, but at the same time he was… nervous. He didn't know what to say, what he was and wasn't allowed to say and was well aware that what he wasn't allowed to say? Happened to be volumes upon volumes of information.

"Yeah, he just wanted us to draw what was on the boards, me an' Phil are good at this stuff."

Alyssa Solomon

"I would tell you where it is if I knew where it is," she says with a frown. "I don't play coy when I'm at work and people's lives are at stake. I'll probably pick it up when I'm actually in sight of it."

When Lucy offers to let Alyssa lead the way, she nods and does that. It's not to take over, though; it's more a matter of being willing to be the person who takes the hit if they do encounter any traps. Lucy's got the direct channel, her role is more important here right now.

"Hold up," she says, reaching out to put a hand on Lucy's shoulder after the voice speaks. She isn't yanking the other back, just conveying her meaning with contact as much as with the words. "We were just told not to come any closer."

She looks up and around, frowning. "I'm guessing here, but I think you'll agree it's an educated guess. The Silence is trapped in the body, or in the circle with her."

She looks around once more, daubs out a bit more blood. Seals and symbols, quickly traced over her eyelids to grant her sight across worlds.

Lost

It was unexpected, because those eyes blinked, and the glow faded and there was a very human feeling coming from what seemed to be a very otherworldly creature. She was sure, consistent, radiant, but there was only so much this body could handle, only so much it could take…

"Are you from sacred heart?" she asked, in a voice that was human, so very human. These were words meant for anyone's ears, "you wasted a trip…"

Lost

Alyssa attunes her sight to a way that she can see the other side, and that is when she sees it, a bright, white light where a person should be, as though the person was herself held together and held alive only by quintessence and will alone, wrapt so closely and intimately by darkness. the pit dared to consume whatever light she released.

That light was fading.

Kalen Holliday

"Grant, is it?" Kalen asks. "Your friend here, demonstrates admirable loyalty. Much less of a good instinct for self preservation, and quite possibly less an idea who to trust with his loyalty considering where you both are right now and what that thing down there might have been able to do to you. I mean, you night have some idea what it was, although I think if you really knew you'd have been running much faster on your way out of there.

"Still, you must know at least that there are unseen things that pose serious threats to you. Or to anyone. I assume that's why you meant to keep us out of the mine. I suppose there are a host of other reasons, but for now let's assume the one that most endears me to you and work from there."

Lucy

"She sealed herself into the circle with it," Lucy says, expounding on what she'd said earlier about a bound spirit and the woman who did the binding. It is not an explanation or even a suggestion of what is happening now, but what happened at the beginning. "Maybe over time it possessed her, or maybe she's still herself."

"I'm not," she says to the woman. "Is that what's in Kansas City?"

Alyssa Solomon

She nods a little, her eyes unfocused and bleary as her vision extends to the other side. "Yeah, it's wrapped around her. I don't know...I think she's still powering it. The seal holding it in, I mean." She's guessing; this is an interpretive art after all, figuring out what you're seeing in the spirit world. But she has good reason for taking that guess.

"And I don't know if she can hold it for all that much longer."