[nightmares]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Kalen Holliday[Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )
-forgotten-Das Rulez!
I'm sure I had a few of these, but I don't remember so let's go with:
- Timeliness! Please post within a timely fashion. 10 minutes (between each post) for regular posting times, 3 minutes or less if/when we get to rolls. These are not hard and fast time limits, however I am going to aim to post once every thirty minutes or less. If you don't post by then you will get skipped.
- Post order! There isn't one! However, please only post once for each post of mine unless I tell you to skip me.
- I notice the Nightmares have already been rolled, excellent. Please PM me any other flaws/merits you think I should know about. If none, no need to tell me none.
- You're all pretty crazy people that not much shocks, but even so, please PM me any triggers or themes you'd like me to stay away from. I doubt anything terrible will happen, but it's good to know regardless. If none, no need to tell me none.
- Have fun! Danger level should be pretty low today.
Intro post coming in 5...4...3...
Elijah Poirot[Elijah has a 2 point phobia of water!]
-forgotten-It's Sunday, in that magical summer time when afternoon has not quite melted into evening. The sun is out, turning the pavement burning hot everywhere the light touches. Where it relfects it blinds the eye, but the shade is pleasant. And there's a lot of shade to be found in the downtown area, particularly this time of day and around Union Station.
There are people milling about. After the bustle and noise of the 4th the city seems quieter than it really is. Voices seem lower. The crowd seems thinner. But truth is there are tourists in nearly every corner, tasting of Denver's eateries and trying on clothes and examining potential souvenirs.
There are plenty of places for our intrepid heroes to begin their journey. Coffee shops and restaurants, a few bookstores, an office supply store, and not to mention a number of bars. Plenty of places to get in from the heat and from the searing touch of the sun's light.
Elijah PoirotIt was hot.
It was hot, and when it i shot, it's not actually an enjoyable experience for your primary means of conveyance to be a motorcycle, so Elijah- darling dear- was walking. Which made him aware that maybe he should have explored a third option which was to borrow the Civic and drive… where? He didn't know where he was going to drive, but he knew he wanted food. Food that was probably going to give him diabetes, or gall stones, so the type of place that would offer either of those things was a coffee shop. he wandered out of a book store, arranging something in his messenger bag to accommodate his recently acquired goods.
Where the Wild Things Are.
he had things to make up to Alicia for, and he wasn't sure if she would take flowers, but she might take books, and besides he'd intended on getting it for her anyway and why was he thinking about getting her things when she might potentially be mad at him and- ugh, this was frustrating. Elijah needed cupcakes. And coffee. Or rice crispy treats and coffee. But coffee seemed to be the prevailing thought at that juncture.
-forgotten-Elijah is downtown on the hunt for sugary goods, perhaps moving from shadow to shadow to avoid the heat.
But he steps into one shadow and, somehow, the heat seems all the hotter for a moment. Even in the shade it feels like the sun is bearing down atop his head.
Alyssa SolomonAlyssa isn't a fan of the summer months. One might assume that it's because of the longer days and shorter nights, and there's some small truth in that. Not because the dark is better, but she does most of her work by night...at least the kind she enjoys more. That's when the supernatural comes out to play, and even her more mundane private investigator work is often better performed after the sun has set.
But the real reason that she dislikes the middle of the year is the heat. She's someone who, as much as her emotions may run hot sometimes, prefers the cooler months of fall and winter. She burns in the summer, her makeup is more uncomfortable...it's just all around a dreary time for her. However, she doesn't let that weigh her down so much that she holes up and she determines to make the best of nature's little joke to the fair-skinned.
That brings her out here to Union Station where she's appreciating a more relaxed day after the festivities of the Fourth. She's dressed down from her usual style, in an old Dark Shadows T-shirt and jeans with a lighter jacket over to conceal her ever-present firearm. She's underneath an awning near the station, people-watching as she flicks the ash from a cigarette to the pavement with a bit of curiosity to her eyes. That's where she sees Elijah and, her head cocking to the side, she flicks the smoke away as she starts walking over in his direction.
"Look what the cat dragged out for the day," she says with a grin as she draws close. "How's it?"
Kalen HollidayLife and unexpected house guests are a thing, regardless of how tired you are, so Kalen is out picking up some things for a girl he barely knows. It doesn't matter really, because she is about to be a different girl. Opening flowers. Emerging butterflies. If he didn't already have a Butterfly, he would call her that. She picked her own Name though, and that may be for the best. There is power in Names, and in this case...perhaps better she took that into her hands.
He as well is interested in coffee, and look, there is Elijah and there is Alyssa. Kalen does not hurry to catch up. That is for people who have not already spotted where their targets are going. He just follows them toward the coffee shop. The last time he was in a coffee shop things got pretty crazy, but probably today will be fine. Probably. Hopefully. If Ian hears about another gun getting pointed at him, he might kill him. Indeed, likely best to avoid also knives and wrathful spirits.
For a few days. Just that.
Alyssa Solomon[[Per+Aware]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Alyssa Solomon[[Per+Alert]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah Poirot[Per+awareness, I'm meeeltiiiiing, oh what a world, what a world!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )
-forgotten-There is something to this strange heat, or rather something along with it. This is not the feeling of a passing resonance, this does not belong to a rogue Mage passing through the area, casting magic wherever she goes.
It moves, this heat, and when it moves into the sunlight and back to shadow again it seems to bring a little of that light with it, if only for a moment. Then it fades.
Elijah PoirotElijah stood in a shadow, finding that it was not even respite from the sun and he shuddered. Or he would have shuddered had he been the type to shudder when it was hot- but he wasn't. That required too much energy. It was, however, not a humid hot so the Louisiana boy could deal with this. He wasn't choking on the air yet, and for that he was thankful.
Until he stepped into a particular shadow. It made Elijah pause, Take a step out and take a step in, "hotter'n Hell, but fine," he said with a grin. The south crept into his voice without any apology. There was a curious look in his eyes, though, and soon enough the blond man- clad in a tee shirt, jeans and a vest (and a pocket watch, because pocket watch) was digging through his bag to find a pack of cigarettes. He retrieved one, and then cast Alyssa a look. "You have a light I can borrow?"
He hadn't noticed Kalen yet, but once he does the other man gets a wave. Elijah? Very clearly distracted.
Alyssa SolomonYou ever come across rotten eggs and you get a goof whiff of it right up your nostrils? You know that expression you make...nose wrinkled, the corners of your lips twisted down into a grimace, eyelids half-closing to a squint? Imagine what it would look like of those eggs got put right under your nose after being out in the sun for two weeks and that's the expression that Alyssa makes suddenly as she steps into the patch of shade and things get hot.
"Oh, what the fuck," she half-mutters, half-hisses before she intellectually steps back, out of the shade. This is before the Resonance even consciously registers to her. Then she's looking at the patch of shadow with renewed interest. She reaches into her pocket for her lighter and passes it over to Elijah while the other hand comes out with a liquid eyeliner pen. The thing's been tampered with...opened and had a little special ingredient mixed in so she can use it as a tool for her Arts.
"Let's see what this is," she says quietly as she pops the top and takes a moment to apply it, focusing and saying a couple words quietly. Revealing the unseen is her Will.
[[Forces 1/Spirit 1: Infrared Vision and Spirit Sight.]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 6) ( success x 1 )
Kalen HollidayThey stop when they meet, and so Kalen catches up to them just after they meet instead of just inside a coffee shop. He notes Elijah's odd in and out dance with a shadow. Knows the circumstances under which he might suddenly decide to stop walking and have a cigarette. Alyssa is looking at the shadow, too.
Great.
But he still closes the last few steps and rests a hand on Elijah's side, much the way he once kept running his fingers through Elijah's hair. He doesn't look at either of them though. Not yet. First he looks toward the shadow they are looking at.
Elijah Poirot[Per+alert]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Kalen Holliday[Perception+Alertness]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
-forgotten-Kalen looks at the shadow where he found Elijah and Alyssa, but what they saw has already moved on. If he continues to follow their gaze he'll see the people in the crowd of humanity moving between where the three Awakened cluster and the road. Some of them pause, let out a sudden sharp breath and fan their faces, so hot so hot. Someone remarks about it, that the wind must have picked up and brought with it only more heat. It is an old and familiar complaint in Denver.
But in the street where the cars are moving, he notices - because his perceptions are quick and sharp today - just before a truck passes that the driver lets out a breath before rolling up their window with one hand and reaching, presumably to adjust their a/c unit. They're not the only one to make this sudden change.
And poor Elijah. Pulling out his pack of cigarettes with no one offering him a light just yet. Kalen and Alyssa's attention is elsewhere for the moment. It is perhaps something the apprentice will learn to recognize in time.
Elijah PoirotIt was solid in his mind, that there was something different here. Something was up, the people around him could tell, even the normal people here could tell and the apprentice knew something was up. The motion of lighting his cigarette was purposeful, because it wasn't about the cigarette in hand, it was about what it produced once it was lit. It oculd have been incense, it could have been pot, it could have been a piece of wood that he'd just lit up for all it mattered to Elijah. His free hand laid on top of Kalen's.
Inhale.
He had to at least keep his brain from trying to go in fourteen different directions and, instead, go in the one he wanted it to go in. Took smoke and death and sensation into his lungs and held for a moment before finally, finally exhaling a little cloud and repeating the process. Once. Twice. A third time for good measure with his eyes closed. When he opened them, Elijah expected the world to be different- more itself. His hand stayed on top of Kalen's, a reminder of where he really was instead of what he was seeing. A reminder not to get lost.
[Spirit Sight! Spirit 1, diff 3 +1= 4]
Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Alyssa SolomonHer vision attuned to new spectrums, Alyssa starts looking around. Passing from person to person in the crowd with a frown, waiting to find something that--
There.
"Got 'em. Hey Kalen. Teenager up ahead, tall and skinny with a T-Shirt and shorts." She starts to make her way across the street, trying to avoid getting hit but not waiting for traffic to stop for an intersection light. She has her sights on someone, and she's not about to let them go. If he can cross traffic, so can she.
-forgotten-A small-ish crowd of people out on a too-hot summer day, looking for food or sights or whatever, except.
There is a person. With their back to him it's impossible to make out details. He can see their head and shoulders as they move not around the crowd, but through it. And then across the street and through the vehicles. As the cars pass he sees a t-shirt, shorts, sneakers, all hanging strangely on the too tall, too skinny, too bony figure of someone in their mid-teens.
Kalen HollidayKalen's eyes narrow, tracking the unknown thing through the crowd.
He cannot see whatever it is directly. It might be invisible. It might be a spirit. It might be the manifestation of some spell. There are two spirit Mages with him, so he does not worry about how to figure out what it is. Odds are one of his companions is already doing that. Instead, he focuses on where it is going.
Elijah already has smoke. Alyssa has a target. This is what cabals are for. He lets his eyes drift to the cigarette smoke and alters his plan just slightly.
[Time/Entropy: Where are you going, there? - Make most likely path more difficult for one teenager so Alyssa can catch up. Like a jerk. | D= 4 (2(highest Sphere)+3(standard)-1(Q) - expecting to need to extend]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 5) ( success x 2 )
-forgotten-Alyssa can move through traffic, but she can't move through traffic the way the teenager can. She is solid still. Corporeal. So are the vehicles. If they hit her they will hit her.
Whereas instead they pass harmlessly - albeit leaving behind a residue of strange and sudden intense heat - through Alyssa's target as they make their way to the other side.
Kalen manipulates the Fate around him, hoping to hinder the unseen one's progress to no avail. The traffic light up the way changes from green to yellow and the vehicles begin to slow accordingly, so at the very least he may help his cabalmate's sudden desire to play live-action Frogger. But the cluster of twenty somethings on the other side who alter their path slightly pauses. Two young women let go each other's hands so that they can use those hands to fan their faces.
As an aside, there is a storm front moving in. Not a very big one. Just a single large grey-ish cloud making its way to obscure the light over the river.
Elijah Poirot[this could horrible... >_>]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )
Alyssa SolomonAlyssa's overconfidence can certainly be a detriment to her health, and it's gotten her in trouble a lot of times in the past. She wasn't counting on Kalen to do something to make it safer for her to run through the street, but that's the thing about cabals...whether you expect it or not, they'll come through for you. And so she weaves her way through the cars, cursing at the fact that she can't just ghost her way through.
"Excuse me, sorry," she says as she hits the sidewalk on the other side, without a hint of apology in her tone. She's on the trail and she's not letting go. The storm cloud is noted aurally, but doesn't give her pause just yet.
-forgotten-Elijah comes from the south, and in particular a part of the south where ghosts seem to be more populous. There are more ghost "experts" in Louisiana than most other parts of the country and so it's possible that he's picked up a thing or two from them, or from the media, or from particular websites on the internet. Who knows.
Elijah probably.
What he knows about ghosts, though, is that it is believed that what ties them to this plane is a purpose, a task, or some strong passion connected to certain places.
Kalen HollidayThe cosmos has nothing to throw in the path of Kalen's target. And that seems less than auspicious, but there is a storm coming and Kalen Holliday understands storms. Their wildness. Their fury. The way they drench everything, toss branches about with no regard for what fruit they might grow or what they might hit. If this storm is coming for him, because the cosmos loves him; excellent. If this storm is coming because of a creature who is fucking up the weather patterns; also excellent.
Whatever the reason for that single storm cloud, it will give Kalen something. Luck. Knowledge.
"Look both ways before crossing the street," he murmurs to Elijah. And then he bolts across the street, taking advantage of the light that just changed after Alyssa.
[Int+Occult]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elijah Poirot"Someone's on a mission," Elijah has picked up quite a few things about the dead, and he's heard that some of them are chatty, chatty creatures. He spent a good chunk of his formative years with imaginary friends, the likes of which his parents hadn't thought twice about. Little old women asking about their grandchildren and what-have-you. Things changed after Katrina, and he was more than happy to move to Baton Rouge because New Orleans was just… too much. His parents blamed his nerves on the hurricane; he was a young kid, though. they bounce back.
but, as he got older, he seems to have picked up a few things. Elijah knows a few things about ghosts, because sometimes they're chatty. Sometimes, they want to tell people things, and he's caught one thing- they have a purpose. Something keeps them here, passion keeps them here. Elijah did what he was told, looked both ways (not that it did him much good) and once he felt Kalen moved, Elijah hauled ass across the street.
-forgotten-The mages make their way across the street, taking advantage of Kalen's effect to give them space and keep them safe. They dart through stopped cars and win through to the other side.
Where Alyssa has already landed and taken off again.
Ahead of her, the lanky figure continues relentlessly on. Kalen will see a place where the edge of a shadow seems to lighten a moment before fading back to normalcy. Elijah and Alyssa see the figure pass through that space, is the cause of it before nature covers its tracks again.
The light grows a little dimmer as the stormcloud continues over the city, casting shadows and bringing with it a slight and very much welcome breeze. Locals know to keep an eye on it and keep an eye on the closest shopfronts in which to duck when the brief spate of rain eventually hits.
The figure continues, disappearing through the front corner of Union Station before showing up again on the other side. It seems to be walking, but no matter how fast Alyssa runs it always seems to stay the same distance ahead of her.
Elijah PoirotNow, let's recap.
Elijah Poirot has a history of talking to things that aren't actually there. This isn't out of character for him in the slightest, and he knows what his reputation says, even if the people on the street don't have any idea that the handsome blond man happens to be sporting an undeserved diagnosis for a rather debilitating mental illness, but Elijah is more than content to use this to his advantage.
"Hey, where are you going?! Stop."
He can't very well command the dead, but he sure as Hell can yell in their general direction.
Alyssa SolomonShe frowns and her teeth grit; she is realizing that this is useless. And whatever the flaws of Alyssa's stubbornness and impetuousness, she is smart enough to know when she's fighting a losing battle. She'll tire and slow down, while it won't. Eventually she's going to lose it, and this storm...
Well, like almost all Awakened she doesn't believe in coincidence.
So she changes tactics. She's still walking but she slows a little so she can focus on what she's doing. "I'm gonna try to drain off some of that heat," she says to her comrades, her cabalmate and the still-new friend. As she's saying it, the eyeliner comes back out and she starts to paint a Gnostic seal on her wrist with blood-enriched ink. "I'm open to other suggestions, too."
Here goes nothing.
[[Forces 2/Corr 2; suck the heat out of that figure in order to hopefully weaken it. Diff 5, 1 Quint to lower diff to 4, WP for a success. Will extend.]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Kalen HollidayKalen slows to a stop as he reaches Alyssa, then frowns.
They are tracking something he can't really see. He's not got ways to see a spirit.
Or, not directly. He starts to murmur softly.
[Prime 1/Forces 1 - track changes in temperature and hopefully therefore this thing. D=4]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 8) ( success x 2 )
-forgotten-Three things happen at once.
Elijah calls out to the person no one but he and one other in the vicinity can see. Asks where it's going, tells it to stop. It does not tell him, and it does not stop. It continues on its path to the hill behind the train station, toward the park that overlooks the river.
Kalen calls upon his Forces sight and for one glorious moment he can see it. A patch in the air ahead of them, moving independently of the thinning crowd. It is the yellow-orange-red light of heat, and then it fades.
Alyssa tries to syphon off that very heat which lets her cabalmate see what she and Elijah alone have been able to see. She pulls it off, but though the aura of warmth and sunlight around it dissipates the figure continues on.
Alyssa SolomonShe imagined that the entity drew strength from the heat, and that dissipating it would weaken it. Clearly, she was wrong and she curses under her breath when it keeps going.
"Motherfucker." Okay, over her breath, too. She keeps after it, to keep it in sight. She knows Kalen doesn't have Ars Manes, so instead of leaving him guessing she reaches over and grabs his hand to lead him on.
"Well, I'm out of ideas. Any other guesses?"
Elijah PoirotHe has a thought- why heat? HWy is it putting off heat? Why is it so warm? He tries to think of something. He thought of passion, of how it burns hot, but Elijah does what he had been doing and he followed along. It didn't turn, it didn't stop, so he sighed and continued on along doing as he had. They were headed to the park. The park that overlooked the river, and it was enough to give him pause.
But he followed along anyway, like rats to the pied piper.
"I'll bet that park was significant to this guy," he says, "maybe somewhere he played, a first kiss, somewhere he died..?"
Kalen HollidayKalen nods, not fighting at all with Alyssa's hold on his hand. Trying to ind alternate spirit tracking methods is getting old.
"We may just need to follow until we get to its objective. Once we see what that is, we may have a better idea what to do. Or what it does when it gets there."
-forgotten-The Spirit Mage, the Time Mage, and the apprentice of both spheres are at a loss, and so they continue to follow the figure, with Alyssa guiding her cabalmate by the hand. Kalen cannot see the young person, cannot see the wait their shirt drags down over their broad, bony shoulders. He cannot see how dark it is now that the heat and light it brings with it have been drained away.
But Alyssa and Elijah can. It does not stop to question this change, does not even appear to notice it. It just walks and walks and walks, cutting a path through the park.
Meanwhile the rain cloud passes, shadowing the sky naturally. There is a rumble of thunder but the lightning is pale and goes almost unnoticed. From a distance they would be able to see its virga, the precipitation which falls from its grey but evaporates long before it touches the tops of nearby buildings.
It's objective, as Kalen put it, is the Highland Bridge, a pedestrian bridge which connects downtown with Highland. The bridge is nearly empty now, most people on foot have gone on to find shelter from a rain that might not even touch them. The bridge is a sort of suspension bridge, but unlike most the two pillars in the center from which the cables stretch are slanted. Their points hang out over small lookouts, triangle shapes that jut out over the water which even after all this rain is not terribly deep.
But there are rocks. There are rapids. Thunder rumbles and the figure walks to the point of one of those lookouts to look out. Down the river in the direction of Elitch Gardens. Then down to the water rushing beneath the bridge.
Elijah PoirotHe knows there are rocks and there are rapids and he knows better than to trust some man made structure. The sound he makes once they approach the bridge is one of utter apprehension. something that goes high to low, something more animalistic than distinctly human. They were at a bridge, and there may be rain washing down and he looks out over the rushing water and Elijah wonders, briefly, how long it would take before a flash flood turns that into a disaster, until the ground beneath them is swept out from under their feet and it didn't matter if there was no ice and no snow and that somehow made it worse because ice gave warning that it was going to crack.
A flash flood. A torrential downpour. It gave no warning. Elijah could empathize with a hurricane because a hurricane was manageable, mother nature's fury she gave you plenty of warning for out in the gulf.
but at the same time, amidst his apprehension there was wonder, because there was always wonder. "It's not light or warm anymore," he said, "why would it change like that?"
Elijah doesn't get any closer to the bridge than he absolutely must.
Kalen Holliday[Do you have enough sanity to spare some for Elijah?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Kalen HollidayThe water is not terribly deep but Kalen still shoots it a wary glance. There was worse than this in the zombie horror world. Water with no rails to separate him from it. A raging storm that was washing the dead and the risen and re-stilled dead down what had been roads. Rushing water that had forced him and Ian up to pick their way over higher ground. Those rapids are not going to get him.
It somehow seems colder anyway. His hand tightens, very slightly, on Alyssa's. And he tries to pretend that it is only colder because of the oncoming storm.
Still, Kalen reaches out with the hand Alyssa isn't holding toward Elijah and smiles. He hardly needs his hands free to deal with spirits. He can hardly deal with spirits at all. Still, they are coming up on a bridge in a storm to deal with a spirit he can't see, and Kalen is hardly going to abandon them to deal with it alone. What the Hell he thinks he'll accomplish is anyone's guess, but he stays with them all the same.
Elijah gets a slightly strained smile. Because...rapids. Water. At least there is no ice. No glossy, illusory surface to betray them.
Alyssa Solomon"Yeah, pretty sure that was my fault," she says in response to Elijah's question. "I thought draining the heat off would weaken it or slow it down. Pretty sure it didn't do either." She doesn't sound self-recriminating over it. She made a call based on information she had, it didn't work. Time to move on.
She frowns. This is probably going to take more than a little blood laced into cosmetics. "Here goes Plan B: time to make contact." She turns away for a moment, toward Kalen, and a pocket knife comes out. She doesn't hesitate, just jams the blade into the right palm with a muffled, gritted sound. She barely gives time for the pain to set in before she's switched the little knife to her other hand, and repeats the process for her left.
The little pen knife is dropped and she turns back to the entity, reaching out to take both Elijah and Kalen's hands. Her blood pressed against their palms. "Start talking to it. I'll keep us able to." She doesn't talk to spirits very well much, herself. She tends to be...a bit brusque in such situations.
The words coming out are Enochian. Connecting her to the spiritual realm to make contact, and flowing through her into them.
[[Spirit 2! Thinking this one's vulgar, since y'know, talking directly to spirit. Diff 5, spending 2 more Quint to lower diff to 3. WP, will extend to grant access to both Kalen & Elijah]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 4) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
-forgotten-The sky is grey overhead but light and bright at the edges of that cloud. It is only a single rain cloud, not even a proper storm cloud, and it is still moving. Slowly and inexorably it heads east to cast its shade on other parts of the city.
The person Alyssa and Elijah have been following stands at the point of the lookout, continuing to look to the west.
Elijah PoirotHe smiled, though the look didn't quite reach his eyes. His hand went to Kalen's, and for a second he was content to hold onto it, content to have contact because contact was grounding and he needed this. If only for a moment, but Elijah's thoughts wandered...
His attention went back to the figure, back to the bridge. He had a thought, he had an inkling of what may be going on, or what might be happening next. What if this person was reenacting a moment of death? What if-
What if he jumped?
"Hey… how're you doing?"
Because that seemed like a reasonable thing to ask things that may or may not be ghosts. Ask them how they're doing, aside from the obvious I'm dead, how're you?. He tried to continue on with the conversation. He squeezed Kalen's hand and drew inward a shaky breath, soon enough Elijah started cautiously for the bridge. His heart was pounding, the idea of risking a plunge scared the Hell out of him, but if this figure was going to jump… maybe it would be different this time.
-forgotten-While Alyssa gathers together her magic, bleeding into the palms of her companions and hoping to share with them her ability to interact with the dead, Elijah gathers up something else.
His courage. His empathy is already right there.
He asks the person on the bridge how they're doing but they don't yet respond. They're still looking to the west.
Somehow, it seems the light around them grows just a little. They're too far away yet to tell if the air around them is beginning to warm up again.
Alyssa SolomonShe's intent on the Effect, building and drawing it. The Will is sometimes a thing that you must be patient with, and patience is something Alyssa doesn't generally do well. It's different when it comes to magic though...different when it comes to the job. And whether she's getting paid by a client for it or not, this sort of thing? This is her job.
So she focuses her Will, sharpens it. She is a master of reality. They all are. And it will bow to her.
(Side note: this is why she doesn't do well conversing with spirits. That attitude.)
[[Same, but +1 diff. Will release this round because I should have enough.]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Kalen HollidayKalen watches Elijah approach the spirit, but he keeps in contact with Alyssa in case she needs sustained contact to focus her Will.
And then there is the spirit. Kalen's eyes trail over him, looking for clues. Wounds or other signs to indicate manner of death. Slogans or pictures on clothing to indicate interests. The manner in which it responds to Elijah. Anything that might give him a place to start talking.
He, Kalen reminds himself. Start with remembering it was a person. It probably still thinks like a person, at least mostly. Maybe even thinks it still is a person. He. He probably thinks like a person. He might still think he is a person.
He moves closer now, circling, automatically, to approach the spirit from the opposite side of Elijah.
[Awarepathy]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Elijah Poirot"Are you okay?"
He has to ask. He has to ask because he knows how important it is to ask. He knows because he knows people who have tried and failed to kill themselves. He knows because there's a camaraderie in illness. He met a few people in the sate hospital, some he wished he'd kept in contact with. Someone who wasn't much older than him. Someone who slit her wrists at an angle, was alive by the grace of the gods alone. She'd told Elijah that the first thing someone said to her was what is wrong with you while she was bleeding out and not are you okay?
Elijah was never really sure if Miranda Uselton was alive or dead. Nobody else seemed to talk to her. But Miranda taught him to ask.
Elijah approached the bridge, showed his hands like he had with Sid- showed he wasn't armed and he wasn't intending on doing anything harmful.
-forgotten-Alyssa releases her effect and for Kalen, there is the person that they've been following up to this point. The person is tall and lanky, with wide bony shoulders. It is the physical structure of someone in their teens, someone who has yet to fill out, not just in terms of physical fitness but fill out. They are dressed as Alyssa described, plain t-shirt and ordinary shorts and sneakers. Those clothes hang like gravity or something else is pulling them down. Their hair is long and plastered down around their ears.
He, he tries to remind himself that he was alive once, he was a person. Perhaps that's why he can't get a good read on the ghost.
It's Elijah who sees, because Elijah comes up close enough to speak to the spirit, that the profile has a more feminine cast. The shape of the lips, the fall of the lashes. Plain. She looks very plain, and very tall for her fifteen years, with the promise of a few more inches yet to go.
She looks at Elijah because Elijah is the one who asks, are you okay? Elijah who looks fucking terrified but who came all the way over here, anyway. The corner of her mouth lifts in an ironic sort of smile.
"Not really. My parents dragged me out here for some lame vacation. I wanted to go to Disneyland."
Alyssa SolomonHer hands are throbbing and trickling life fluid, her mental fortitude has been expended to make the magical effect work, she has a headache and she's tired. But she accomplished what she needed to do and now it's their turn to do their part. She rips at the bottom of her shirt (it's vintage, but it's just a shirt) to get some strips to wrap her hands with, watching Kalen and Elijah to see how they deal with the spirit.
Her own demeanor is calm enough, but a little distant.
Elijah Poirot[I'm not scared!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elijah Poirot[manip+subterfuge- totally not afraid of being on this bridge!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 4, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
-forgotten-[awarepathy on Elijah]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Elijah Poirot"It is pretty lame," he admitted, "I mean, compared to Disneyland, anyway. And you're not old enough to smoke pot or get drunk, so a lot of the cool stuff if kind of wasted and everything is lame compared to Disneyland from what I hear. I've never really been."
He smiles. He's scared but he smiles anyway, and God if he isn't trying to be scared, but the water underneath him and the fact that his heart is pounding in his ears is making things worse. He offers her a hand, may as well, "I'm Elijah."
Kalen HollidayKalen stops circling the spirit when it turns. He listens.
Parents. Its parents. Vacation. Disney World. Kalen listens to these things and tries to understand what that would be like. Did he ever want to go to Disney World? Melody wanted to be a princess. She must have wanted to go, must have, at some point he cannot remember convinced him to help her plead. They could never have afforded it, had never gone on even one vacation.
Not even a lame one.
His eyes stay on the spirit. They do not stray toward the river. Do not even risk straying toward Elijah for fear they will catch on the river. Rapids. It is bad enough on the bridge with the dead.
Did her parents go mad? Did her mother fall into some drug haze? Or was different with someone else? Was it different because there was another person? What if he had been older?
Focus.
He steadies his attention on the ghost again.
[Awarepathy]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
-forgotten-The ghost does not appear to be angry or malevolent. She looks a little bored and a lot disappointed. This was not her idea of an ideal family vacation. She wanted to ride the Matterhorn (and maybe, secretly, shh don't tell anyone, meet Cinderella and Mulan). She did not want to come to Denver in the middle of the summer, where it's hot and there isn't an ocean or even a decent lake.
Elijah talks to her, tries to hide his fear behind his friendliness, and that makes her curious. Cute boys never want to talk to her.
-forgotten-She wrinkles her nose at mention of drugs and drink. "I'm on the basketball team," she says, because of course she is, look at her. At fifteen she's already a hair taller than Elijah.
He has her attention, is that what the others want? Alyssa taking a breather, Kalen observing, Elijah engaging. Does this remind them of another Spirit apprentice? Another young man with an easy(ier) smile who had a habit of walking right up to the things no one else could see. Would he walk right up to the ghost on the bridge?
It's Elijah who's there, who's talking to her.
"Drugs are stupid," she says with a roll of her eyes and in a tone that says she might like to try them, though, but she has priorities. Even at fifteen she has dreams and goals and things she wants to accomplish, and they do drug tests on athletes.
"I'm Sally." She looks at Alyssa and she glances at Kalen, frowning at these other strangers who are circling her and looking at her weird. With a whatever shake of her head, Sally looks at Elijah. In the distance, something rumbles. She looks off in that direction and appears to sigh deeply.
"I think I need to go soon."
Elijah Poirot[and the thunder roooooolls, and the lightning striiiiiiikes, another love grows coooooold]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
-forgotten-The rumbling sounds a bit like thunder, but it lasts and last and lasts, and sounds like it's getting closer.
Elijah PoirotI'm on the basketball team, she says.
"And I'm jealous, because I suck at sports," he replies, unashamed. Completely unashamed, in fact, "my friend Jenn was in track, she was a pole vaulter? So, she was this tiny artistic human projectile. I got dragged to a lot of track meets..." he caught her frown and he looked back at his friends. He shrugged, and gestured to people, "those are my friend Kalen and Alyssa,
She thinks she needs to go soon, something rumbles in the distance and she looks off in that direction. Elijah, too, looks in that direction and peers carefully there. There is a growing concern in his voice, "hey, look, Sally? I promise I am totally not being creepy, but are you sure you should, like, be walking around alone and stuff? I... don't think that's a storm."
Kalen Holliday"I'm Kalen." His voice is quiet, remarkably gentle.
And then for the first, and perhaps only time, Kalen Holliday extends his hand to the echo of a girl.
She has to go soon. His eyes widen, just a touch. He could try to show her the past, confront her with the truth about the way her clothes hang so heavily off her and the way her hair is plastered down. He's pretty sure he knows. She must be a ghost. She lived and she died and she was a person, but now she is just an echo.
But that shake of her head. The way she rolls her eyes. Those things say she is still very human. If he thinks about them, those things will break his heart. When. Because there will come a moment when his guard slips down enough to remember those things.
And if she were Melody? A few years younger with blue lips and wide blue eyes?
A boy who had roasted marshmallows with him and tried to pretend that the bite from the zombie hurt less than it did?
"Why'd you come out here?" He asks. "Onto the bridge?"
[Perception+Alertness]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Alyssa Solomon"We all have to go home some time," she says with a little shrug. She's still hanging back, the Hollower...not getting into her space. She's got enough strange people pressing in against her with two, and Alyssa has no desire to make it any worse. When ghosts get upset or angry, things can turn nasty quickly.
She's also not leaving, though. Because if it does go wrong, someone's gotta be there to put the ghost down and she has the ability to do so.
Alyssa Solomon[[Ugh, take out the "home" from Alyssa's comment. My brain loves adding extra words into what people said lately. *HeadDesk*]]
-forgotten-Her smile widens a little at the anecdote of Elijah's youth. He got dragged to a lot of track meets, maybe that resonates with her. Maybe someone she knows got dragged to a lot of basketball games. He could ask, but there's no time. The light around her is getting brighter. The air around her is growing warmer.
It was a bright, sunny, hot day when she died, after all.
That rumble is coming closer. They can hear it, all of them, because they have a connection to this ghost, this spirit, this echo of a human life. It sounds like a distant rumble until it gets closer and starts to sound like a rushing roar.
"I kind of ran away," she says in answer to Kalen. "The vacation part's pretty bullshit, my dad's here on business. When he's done we're supposed to go to dinner but I wanna go to Elitch Gardens." A nod of her head off to the west, in the direction she'd been staring at only a little while ago. She looks that way now, and she sighs all wistful soft. "If we can't go to Disneyland I at least wanted to go there."
There are ghosts who don't know that they're dead. They wander around lost, trying to do the things they did in life and not understanding why they can't. Sometimes it makes them angry, and they turn into something else. Sometimes they start as something else.
And sometimes they're fifteen year old girls visiting from somewhere else, dragged along on Dad's business trip with a promise of a touch of vacation. Lame. But they remember. They remember what they were here for and why they where in this spot, and they remember that they never got to ride the Ferris Wheel or eat cotton candy or or or.
We all have to go some time, says Alyssa. Sally looks at her, straight, thick blonde brows lifted. The corner of her mouth quirks up and she nods. Looks at Elijah and gives him this look like, That one gets it.
And Elijah. Lovely, handsome, kind Elijah. Sally starts to move away, her sneakers do not squeak on the painted concrete, but she pauses, considering. Then she rushes forward, arms lifting like she's going to maybe wrap him up in a hug but then she thinks better of it. Remembers that she's not just a ghost but a fifteen year old girl who's not too sure about physical displays of affection just yet. She reaches for his hands instead.
They are cold, and they are wet, just like all of her is cold and wet. "Thanks for talking to me. Nobody ever talks to me. Can you, um. Can you go away, though? I don't think you should see this." Because Elijah is scared, though of what she doesn't know. All she knows, all that she understands, is that she's done this before. She is an echo, and the moment of her death echoes and echoes and echoes in this place. Elijah is scared of being on this bridge and Something is about to happen that will probably upset him more. He's too nice to be upset on her account, she thinks.
Elijah Poirot"If you're going to jump, then so am I."
... oh god, why did he say that?
Alyssa Solomon"The hell you are."
She doesn't say it angrily, or even in a I forbid it kind of way. It's a calm, matter of fact statement. He's not diving off of this bridge and risking his life right now, because she'll stop it.
Kalen Holliday"Fae," Kalen says. Exasperated. Just a little hint of something warm underneath that though. "What the hell will that even accomplish? No. That is not why we are here." His tone stays gentle. His eyes stay on Sally.
"Do you know what is coming?" He asks. There is only the briefest of glances toward that sound. "Do you know you can walk off this bridge with us? Right now. Just because you came here, you don't have to stay here. You are not trapped here. Come with us."
Can they do they do that? The Hell if he knows how. But if she so much as tries to take the first step he will try to drag that echo of a girl off that bridge if he has to. If she decides to just die again...then he doesn't know. He thinks, probably, she has to chose.
Elijah Poirot[OMG Don't panic]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (5, 5, 6, 6) ( fail )
Kalen Holliday[WP]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 2, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
-forgotten-Elijah says that he's going to jump and Sally laughs and shakes her head. Before she can say it, his friends beat her to it. No, he's not going to jump off that bridge.
"Nobody's jumping anywhere."
The cloud overhead with its rain that doesn't touch the ground continues to move. The light around Sally becomes less a thing that seems to be and more a thing that is. The sun is really out. The temperature is really warming with its light.
Does she know what's coming. She shrugs her shoulders, not because she doesn't know, but because it is inevitable. "It's what happened. It's what always happens."
There's more. She opens her mouth to say more, but then her expression changes suddenly. She looks upset, annoyed rather than angry as she whips around to face the railing. Sally approaches it, but she does not climb it. She stands there a moment, looking out over the distance toward an amusement park she'll never get to see. Behind her, that roar grows louder. Around a bend comes a rush of water. Not the largest of waves, not something that will splash on the bridge or even spray the faces of the mages. But the water was high the day that Sally died and for this echo of a memory the water rises all in a rush to match that day.
Everything in place, Sally climbs onto the bottom rung of the rail and no higher. She didn't jump then, after all. She was not an overwhelmingly unhappy child, she was not bullied, she was not otherwise suicidal. She just wanted to get a little higher to see if she could see a little farther.
Then she slips.
Kalen Holliday[Dammit, girl! I wanted to use my words for this. Dex ath; -1 die because coma]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Kalen Holliday[Dex+Ath; WP this time because Kalen really does not need to watch a girl drown]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Kalen Holliday[Dex+Ath; WP because he really has enough nightmares]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Kalen Holliday[And, because the Flambeau are all or nothing, grab. One WP. (Also - 1 die for coma)]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Elijah PoirotHe'd judged wrong, and for a second he is horribly relieved that he isn't going to have to jump off a bridge to prove a point, thus proving his parents correct in saying if his friends told him not to jump off a bridge, he would probably do it anyway because that child- ohhhh that child. But he watches, and remembers the cold wetness of her hands. His eyes widen, though, and water splashes against his face and-
And he watches. He watches and his throat seizes and his lungs refuse to give him air and he watches as she slips. His knees give and Elijah tries to remember to breathe, but he can't breathe, he can't think and he watches, just watches as she seems like she will fall, and she knew what would happen, and he is terrified, stuck at a point where he can't even move, can't think and oh god this is going to happen again
And again
And again
Like it does in his dreams, on the nights that he's lucky and doesn't dream of an all encompassing void. And here is this girl, sweet and trapped and she's trapped and the cycle keeps going and she's trapped and she's never going to get out, she slips, she slipped it was an accident and the thoughts keep going and he doesn't move. Elijah just sits motionless on his knees with tears in his eyes and horror written across his handsome features. He doesn't scream, doesn't make a sound, is just overwhelmed by possibility after possibility and he feels so very, very cold on this blisteringly hot day. He doesn't scream, doesn't make a sound, because it would have to require breathing and Elijah has to force himself to breathe and it's like there's a weight on his chest and the world is drawing small and all he can hear is possibility slipping. Potential fading. screaming, screaming, god please, please breathe- goddamnit just take my hand please-
All he can do is watch.
-forgotten-Sally warned Elijah. She didn't know what it was that made him so afraid, but she had a sense that a rush of water and the sight of a teenaged girl falling to her death would not help matters even a little.
Little do any of them know, they won't get to see what's meant to come anyway. Sally slips on that railing and the moment she does Kalen is off like a shot. Isn't it lucky his legs function again? He can run after girls who might be falling to (the memory of) their death. But the universe does not want this girl's echo stopped. Is that how one deals with ghosts? Stop their death and pull them back, trapping them in this world? Perhaps it's a method, but it's, well, you'll see.
The universe wants this girl's death memory to play out. As Kalen runs it seems the very air grows thicker and thicker, until it feels like he's trying to push his way through an invisible quagmire. In the end he goes for one last heroic leap through the air and he does it! Hip hip hooray, he does it! Reaching out, his fingers wrap around one slender wrist and he yanks. Sally's eyes go wide as she finds herself not submerged but being hauled back over that railing. These are not the blank, staring eyes of a shadow lost in the memory of their life's end, she looks frantic. Wild with terror.
Kalen pulls her to safety and that should be the end of it, except-
Trembling violently, she looks at Kalen, eyes so wide and pupils so blown they look black. "What have you do-"
That's when the wind picks up. It whips at them, tugging at hair, bringing with it a spray of water from the river and the grit of the dirt that is everywhere in this arid climate. It blows so hard they have to close their eyes against its sting. They have to throw up their hands, their arms to protect their faces from what feels like a million tiny rocks raking across their skin, again again again.
After a minute (more?) the wind dies down, and when the dust has settled they notice.
Sally is gone.
The bridge is clear.
The sun is shining and the water level is low as it should be low.
Three mages are alone on a bridge and everything is as it should be.
Isn't it?
Alyssa SolomonShe was intending to reach out and grab Elijah, stop him. And that's why she started forward, reached out. But Elijah doesn't move, yet Alyssa doesn't stop. Because she sees that expression and his stance and she realizes (without knowing why) that Elijah is panicked right now. Maybe it's because of the girl's fate and that he can't stop it. Maybe it's something deep seeded. Maybe he's in a Paradox Backlash he hasn't picked up on, or hit with a psychic wave of trauma.
She doesn't know why and she doesn't care. Instead of pulling him back from the ledge that he's not jumping toward, she just reaches out and grabs him from behind and wraps her arms around him, holding him.
Yeah. It surprises her, too.
Kalen HollidayKalen runs a hand through his hair, dislodging little bits of sand particles.
"Fuck," he says softly. "Are you not supposed to save ghosts? You guys okay?"
Elijah PoirotBreathe.
He tries to remind himself to breathe, and he covers his face to shield himself from whatever trouble was coming, but it wasn't helping him remember to breathe and it finally comes in a gasp. It registers that Alyssa is holding him, and for a second he is surprised before he puts his hands over hers.
Is everyone okay?
Elijah doesn't say anything, and it takes a second before he nods. the color refuses to come back to his cheeks.
Alyssa Solomon"You don't save the dead," she says quietly, shaking her head. She hasn't let go of Ellijah. "You let them find peace. Big potential difference there."
Kalen has a question, and Alyssa waits until Elijah has answered before she nods herself. "I'm good. C'mon, let's get out of here. Nothing we can do right now."
Kalen Holliday"She didn't seem peaceful. Just trapped. But yeah, I guess." He sighs and brushes more grit from his hair.
Elijah PoirotAlyssa hasn't let go of Elijah and, for his part, he seems very content to just let that be as it is. They need to leave, though, and that is the impetus he news to finally pull himself to his feet, a gritty, dirty mess. He checks his pocket watch, confirming that it was in the condition he would like for it to continue being in before slipping it back into his pocket with trembling hand.
"So... what… just happened? I-I've never seen that before."
Alyssa Solomon"No, that definitely wasn't peace," she says. She lets go of Elijah but only with one hand, the other staying around him so she can maneuver him around to lean sideways into her so they can start leaving. "But saving her from the storm wasn't peace either, I don't think. It gets tricky with the dead, finding them their rest."
There's a little shake of her head to Elijah's question. "I don't know what happened, really. It could have been her last moments being repeated, complete with a storm. That would be my best guess. Or it could have been something else. The underworld has a lot of secrets, and I'd be lying if I said I know even a large minority of them. We can try to find out though. See if there was a storm on the day she died, whenever that was. News searches and the like."
Time to go. "C'mon, my car's not so far from here. I can give you both a ride wherever."
Elijah PoirotHe does lean into her, and does seem to most assuredly need the support. He craves contact, per haps isn't quite registering all of his sensations and trying, desperately, to process what he'd just seen and to come back to his senses. Things felt… unfinished. He put an arm over Alyssa's shoulders and was silent for a good moment.
His reactions delayed.
"Let's find out what happened," because that would be what would help, "can you take me home?"
Yes, Elijah, home constitutes as wherever. She just said.
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