Fun with yetis

William
"I swear to fucking god, Sam, if there are yetis in Colorado I am moving."

There was a little trek from the trailer to the tree house, if only because William was fascinated with the tree house that Samir had and, frankly, was pretty sure getting drunk or high or both and staring at the umbra (or, you know, watching stupid youtube videos) was a better idea than anything else he had planned this week.

The flight to Baton Rouge had been cancelled, or at the very least that is what Elijah had told his parents. He was pretty sure it was cancelled at least, if only because it was cold and there was a light snow and he couldn't be fucked to try and get on a plane when it was cold and his father acquiesced and said he couldn't dodge Christmas as a result.

His mother told him that he needed to suck it up about the cold. Madeline was from Quebec; she gave no fucks about nineteen degree temperatures and whatever snowy Hell was unleashed upon Denver.

He came prepared, you see, prepared for a long haul which included wearing a backpack and the clothing he had worn for cold weather camping.

Samir
"Are there not?"

Living out in the middle of nowhere has changed Samir. Or maybe Samir recognized in himself the need for change and took the appropriate steps to facilitate that change and the result shows in his bearing and presence. He is more powerful than he was before Elijah went off and came back as William.

He may never get the hang of calling Elijah William. Names are just names and people are just people. Both can change.

Nineteen degrees with eighty-five percent humidity and seven mile-per-hour wind that gusts at times will change a person too. He's acquired waterproof boots and a Carhartt jacket with a hood. With the facial hair and his rangy build he almost looks like someone who is as one with the earth.

Elijah has seen the inside of his trailer. He's too big of a nerd to ever really be at ease out here but he's sure as fuck trying.

"See, I was going to go back to Canada when I left L.A., but then I was like 'But I heard there were yetis in Colorado, fuck going back to Canada.' If there aren't yetis I'm going to be fucking pissed."

William
"We could go check. I mean, yetis fuckin'... aren't they like snowy Sasquatch?"

a beat.

"We could just say fuck it and go to the nearest forested-ie part and, like, look. If we get drunk and have shitty camera skills that makes us perfect yeti-hunting expedition...ers..."

There are things he's noticed. The fact that Samir feels different is one of them, the fact that he does seem different, and it's a good different. Living out in the middle of nowhere appears to have changed something for him in a better way.

Who is to say yet if going to Boston made an impact on William-or-Elijah. He knows the change is hard, hasn't had a chance to tell Grace that he's a real boy now, and hasn't had a chance to call Kalen. Probably should, but he suspects that the time passed would just be marks against him in Kalen's book. He's decided against it.

Samir
Christ it's cold out here.

Sam is dragging a growler full of pumpkin porter and a couple of juice glasses along with them. That they will probably plow through it in the time they're up in the treehouse occurred to him. The juice glasses have cartoon robots on them. They don't make the wind sting any harder when it hits their bare skin but they'll soon be at the treehouse and then he can execute a space-heater program and then.

But Elijah wants to go yeti hunting.

"That sounds like how Troll Hunter started. 'Hey let's get shitty and use our iPhones to go hunt some mythological creatures.'"

Their journey is not a long one. The treehouse is on the borderlands between river and forest. It's just up ahead.

William
"What I'm not hearing is a No, Will, this is a terrible plan," he announces.

By that point, though, they are at the tree house and he offers to help carry things since, well, he had a free hand and was wearing a backpack and all of that jazz. It's freezing outside and the wind makes his lungs hurt but, goddamnit, that means the beer is going to stay cold so he's pretty content to just deal for now.

It is up the way and up the ladder with him.

Samir
He takes hold of Elijah - Will - by the backpack just before he reaches the ladder and steels himself to unzip the thing and deposit the growler in it. Lord knows who else has touched this thing or what all is in there. So he doesn't look inside before he gives it the gallon of nectar and zips it back up.

"Of course it's a terrible plan," Sam says. "We're men. We roll out of bed and piss terrible plans."

Up the ladder with him. Sam waits until he's all the way inside the treehouse before clambering up after him.

William
The kinds of things Hermetics deign to carry around in backpacks are questionable at times. Given who it is, though, the worst one could find was probably an abundance of sharpies and water from a well that has never seen the eyes of man. Or who knows, Samir didn't look and he does find himself listening to the brief sound of glass-on-glass (which made William wince because it's an awful sound to say the least.)

It was soon enough up the way with him, where he waited about as patiently as the young man could before walking close to the edge and looking out at the treeline. He's got a dumb grin on his face, which isn't much different from an expression he always wears.

"Why piss away all our terrible plans when we can live them, and then exaggerate about them later?"

Samir
The question has Sam stopping on the ladder just before he reaches the point where he has to haul himself over the edge. So he ends up standing with gravity pulling at his coat and his elbows on the floor of the treehouse and staring at Will with an expression both deliberate and disgusted.

"Because we have futures," he says as he wrangles a small brick-shaped hunk of plastic and silicon out of his pocket and flips it over. It's not a proper working device. It just pretends to be one when Sam is executing programs. "And like, hopes and dreams and shit. And also, some of us don't like spending half our lives in Quiet."

Next are the two juice glasses. He rolls them towards Will.

"More beer, less logic."

[forces 2: IT'S TOTALLY NOT BELOW FREEZING OUT HERE. -1 practiced rote, -1 using a 'device' as an instrument.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 6, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

William
"Dude, if we start talking about our hopes and dreams, seriously, we're just gonna have to fuckin' move in together and pick out curtains and shit," he tells Samir, hauling the backpack off his shoulders and setting it down like it has precious cargo inside of it.

And it does have precious cargo. It has their beer. And beer, you see, is integral to being able to survive in the wilderness because it has calories and calories are important if you want to... uh... hibernate or something. Out comes the growler and, like a good host, he pours both glasses pretty damn evenly.

Waits for Samir to finish what he's doing to take his dang beer.

Samir
The effect is not immediate. If it were immediate the two of them would need to contact their friendly neighborhood healer. The gradualness makes it difficult to tell that Sam has even done anything but if he put in a little more effort he could make the space heater a permanent fixture of the treehouse.

Maybe he'll start calling this the portable barrel fire program.

Once the program has taken off he slides the hunk of metal into the middle of the treehouse and hauls himself up. Cold and wind have reddened his cheeks. He doesn't even want to sit on the floor knowing how fucking cold it's going to be but there's beer to be had. He takes it from Will after hauling himself up.

"Is that how it works?" he asks. "Fuck..."

William
"Yeah, no. We either have to move in together or we have to have some horrible schism that then makes us tragic and bitter enemies down the road," he nods, "I don't know if that's a literary thing, but were totally friends and then  this happened makes for a really good hero/villain combo."

He handed off the glass, raises it high as if he is toasting the idea of being friends who live together or bitter rivals or superheroes or whatever because who the fuck knows what he is toasting to sometimes.

He can feel that something happened, can't quite put a finger on what, precisely, it was but he knew that something happened. Wouldn't be surprised if he pieced it together. Might kick himself for taking so long to learn the rudimentary functions of his own tradition.

Samir
Plenty of friends have turned into antagonists in comic books and serial fiction. It means that Sam can take hold of the glass and lift it in a toast without taking the words too hard to heart.

This sort of program is at odds with Sam's resonance. He has a tendency to work magick that punches through other people's defenses or forces incompatible entities to function together. Bringing things into balance or making them more comfortable is not his jam.

Neither was living out in the middle of nowhere but here they are.

"I call dibs on villain," Sam says after his inaugural glug. "You'd suck at it."

William
He was too busy drinking to get to the point where he could call dibs on being a supervillain. He finishes his drink with a sigh and a look of satisfaction-

"No way, dude, you could totally Peter Parker that up- the guy was a genius. The radioactive spider thing was just a little awkward," he tells Samir.

Elijah has always felt like a disaster. Always. A disaster that tries, yes, but it didn't matter whether or not he was Elijah or William or any number of Names and names you could layer over him. There was still that touch that something was going to fall apart, break up, be thrown into unrest and that's how he functions. Lives in a world where he notices everything except what's in front of him and drowns the rest out.

Wants to be exemplary. Wants to be known for more than his vices. took names to reflect as such.

Samir
"Just a little bit. Way more awkward than the nerdy white guy thing."

Truth be told all of them are disasters striving for ascension. To rise above the human need for order and sense and master their own destinies. The closer to mastery they get the less human they become. Sam is already beginning to think of things in a more alien way than he would have if he had never awakened. Mindscapes and Seekings will do that to a person.

They all have their vices. Sam's Internet search history has probably already landed him on every government watch list that exists.

"Besides, if I was Spiderman, that'd make you Doctor Octopus, and you're not a big enough of nerd to be Doc Ock."

William
"... oh fuck, dude, I want to be John Fucking Constantine."

Samir
"You're not enough of a shithead to be Constantine. You're like, Constantine's origin story."

William
"This is why we need to make bad decisions now so our origin stories don't suck," he tells Samir after taking another drink, "also- thank you for thinking I'm not a shithead, that was actually pretty nice."

Samir
By now the temperature in the treehouse has become quite comfortable. Sam doesn't start undoing his bindings but the wind isn't threatening to julienne them anymore. When he scowls he scowls because of what just came out of Will's mouth.

"That doesn't mean we're getting married or anything. I just don't think you're a shithead."

His robot glass is empty. Sam slides it back towards Will for a refill.

William
"You wouldn't tie my tie, by Hermetic standards we can't get married now. I told you, it's a thing."

He's filling up the robot glass while he's talking. Pretty handy as a bartender, this one, that is until he has something that he has to ddo or has been asked to pour anything other than beer. Glass gets handed back over and Will is busy shucking his coat for now. Or at least unzipping the damn thing.

He pours himself another, just to catch up.

A change of pace.

"So, I leave for Boston, come back, and you're a fuckin' badass- what gives?" says fuckin' badass like he means it.

Samir
I told you, it's a thing.

Exaggerated shrug. Shit happens sometimes. As if he's come to terms with the fact that he would not tie Elijah's goddamn tie for him and is prepared to live with the consequences.

Quick slug of beer. He's starting to fill up. Alcohol has never been his vice. Their lot has plenty of vices but Sam prefers to smoke his. It has fewer calories and doesn't leave empty containers everywhere. He has issues with empty containers.

As for the change of pace:

"Shit, you come back with a new name and me being a fuckin' badass is news?"

William
It didn't matter if he went by Elijah or William, he still got a fair number of calories from drinking. There are consequences to one's actions, yes, but he wasn't old enough to be reaping those consequences just yet. He's not full yet, but William's definition of breakfast still consists of things like pop tarts and whatever leftovers are in the fridge. If he hasn't overdosed yet, it's a wonder the food poisoning hasn't gotten to him.

"The name thing is, like, an integral part of the whole TRadition's experience. It's a layers within layers kinda shit. The fact that I got a new name means, like, that I'm no longer at the bottom of the totem pole. I'm now at the top of the bottom of the totem pole. Rank works different, and being an apprentice blew."

Samir
"The fact that you guys even have rank blows. That's medieval as fuck."

It's 2015 Order of Hermes don't act like you guys don't have diviners and mentalists who are keyed into the zeitgeist and know what's going on in the world. Sam belongs to a tradition that realized the error of its ways and left the fucking Technocracy. He can judge in silence.

William
"The structure keeps a lot of people from going batshit?" he shrugs, like eh! Like he could think less about it, like he wasn't worried and, really, why should he worry?

"A lot of people key into the idea that there are fundamental rules and laws and blahblah about the universe so having this whole hyper organized system to train people and keep connected is pretty fuckin' sweet for people who are, like, incapable of using the internet or can't be trusted with it."

Like Elijah. He does not mention his habits on google. Sam would probably make him go home.

Samir
Sam had nothing better to do the night Grace granted him Ginger access so he read through two years' worth of backlogged entries. He is already well aware of Elijah's extracurricular Google activities. Not to say he doesn't trust him but the more he gets to know this kid the less he's surprised by the fact that he would Google the Technocracy as a fledgling reality deviant.

Rank is one thing. Not having a mentor though. You have to be a little bit paranoid to survive out there without one.

"Folks are about as responsible with the Internet as they are with fire or electricity."

William
"And yet I have the internet and fire and electricity. If I could harness the capabilities of all of these things at once, I would be a god," he tried to let forth his own version of maniacal laughter, but he just ends up laughing anyway because the mental image of controlling the primal forces of the universe (fire, electricity, and internet).

He's up on his feet, though. Big and bright and pleased because wh"And yet I have the internet and fire and electricity. If I could harness the capabilities of all of these things at once, I would be a god," he tried to let forth his own version of maniacal laughter, but he just ends up laughing anyway because the mental image of controlling the primal forces of the universe (fire, electricity, and internet).

He's up on his feet, though. Big and bright and pleased because why shouldn't he be? William is cavalier in the worst ways. Takes risks he has no business taking. And now?

"Yetis?"y shouldn't he be? William is cavalier in the worst ways. Takes risks he has no business taking. And now?

"Yetis?"

William
"And yet I have the internet and fire and electricity. If I could harness the capabilities of all of these things at once, I would be a god," he tried to let forth his own version of maniacal laughter, but he just ends up laughing anyway because the mental image of controlling the primal forces of the universe (fire, electricity, and internet).

He's up on his feet, though. Big and bright and pleased because why shouldn't he be? William is cavalier in the worst ways. Takes risks he has no business taking. And now?

"Yetis?"

(aha! Now with 33% less glitch!)

Samir
That makes Sam frown. He could harness the capabilities of all those things at once. This appears to be where his prediction that he would be the villain and Will would be the hero falls short: he does not look comfortable with the thought of referring to himself or anyone else as a god.

Will's attempt at laughing like a despot knocks a crooked smile out of the Virtual Adept anyway. And then he distracts him by mentioning yetis. Sam does not get up to join him yet.

"You can't be drunk already."

Says the guy who has the alcohol tolerance of a freshman college girl.

William
"If we're waiting for me to get drunk, we're going to be here all night," he admits, shrugs it off and dusts off his butt.

this is like watching a golden retriever get excited about a tennis ball.

Pour himself another glass and takes a drink anyway.

Samir
"Just so we're clear..."

Sam is not in a huge hurry to pound down his beer. First of all it's delicious. Second of all it's dense. Third of all it's loaded with alcohol. This is an excellent point but at this point he's arguing for the sake of arguing.

He does slug down his second juice glass of beer as if he's taking a large shot. Points at Will using the hand holding the cup.

"You're proposing going out into the woods to hunt a mythological creature with only your smartphone and my sense of self-preservation to guide us, and you wanna be sober while you do this?" He grabs hold of the growler and refills his own cup. One for the road. "If we almost get eaten again, I'm blaming you, dick."

Onward.

William
"I will totally actively attempt to make sure you don't get eaten. I could even make you bulletproof," he tells Samir. He's pretty serious about that, all things considered. Surely, William could do any number of things if he put his mind to it and, right now, his mind was on finding some mythological creature.

"I try not to do anything too stupid unless the other person is down."

See? he has learned something. Onward!

Samir
If they're going to leave his impromptu space heater in the space they're no longer occupying then Sam is going to kill the program and free some of his RAM.

It's cold as shit compared to the treehouse or even the trailer which he keeps warm using the same program but only as warm as is necessary to ensure he doesn't freeze to death in his sleep. Nineteen degrees is cold regardless of how one would care to define 'cold.'

A long-suffering sigh blown out of his lungs as steam and then Sam is following Will down the ladder. Off into the woods they go. Like a couple of fairytale fuckheads who hadn't learned anything at all.

William
And it is down the ladder with him and he waits, patient with his backpack on his shoulders while he zips up his coat and looks at the tree line. His hands go to his back pocket, and out comes his cell phone. He flicks a few buttons, takes a second to pan on the distance ahead of them.

"So, here we are, hunting for yetis and... I don't know... making peace with their people or some shit. Onward, to diplomacy!"

He looked up at the treehouse again, shrugs and tromps along. Looks back at Samir for a minute.

"Hey, lemme know if you get cold?"

Samir
Back down on the ground Sam puts up his hood and turns his fingerless gloves into mittens. It's still fucking cold. Maybe not cold enough to instantly freeze the insides of his nostrils but it feels like it. He doesn't want to breathe through his nose to find out.

If the phone is still aimed at Sam he doesn't appear to exhibit any anxiety over having his image committed to data.

"Motherfucker, I'm freezing."

He glugs down his third juice glass of beer before pocketing it. It's too cold for liquids.

William
[Forces 2- it's freaking cold. diff 3+2=5]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (5, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

William
[And a little more]

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

William
He turns the camera around, has done a good job of keeping Samir's visage off the camera because... well... the guy doesn't even use an icon of himself on Skype. Of course he isn't going to end up on camera. He does not, however, turn the camera off in time to not catch the statement that Samir is freezing.

Back in the pocket.

"If you are a dreamer, come in," he announces,
"if you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
a hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
for we have some flax-golden tales to spin."

Consecrated words, brief. Words, none the less. Pats him on the arm and continues along the way. As though the words made the cold stop, as though the recitation and the fact that they are going off on an adventure was enough to tell the weather to politely fuck off.

They have flaw-golden tales to spin.





Samir
Watching his friends Work is strange when they don't share his paradigm. It's a combination of their magick not having any logical basis and seeming to come from within the caster themselves and not coming about because of the execution of an instrument. Even the space heater he slapped together had to take commands from his deck.

At least Will has the sense to turn off his recorder before reciting a spell and making the world around him a little less unbearable.

"So what now? Should we start yelling 'Here Yeti Yeti Yeti'?"

William
"We scan for localized life forms and their general location and hope that yetis are friendly?" he smiles big and bright.

His work is strange, and the preparations don't seem to make sense. Why saying a few words and waving his hand or speaking like he is a herald of some forgotten celestine has little basis for most people. But it comes down to a simple fact- it came about because He Said So. Because his word can become law if he asserted the truth well and hard enough.

"Aaaaand I can make sure our most probable future doesn't end with us getting eaten by wolves."

Samir
This is all Will's show. He's chosen a skeptic as his traveling companion for this venture. As far as Will can tell Sam is just doing this to indulge something stupid that he'd said earlier and he's banking on the fact that Will is going to realize with a quickness how unfruitful this venture is and they can go back inside the trailer and play Fallout 4 or something the rest of the night.

This is gearing up to be the longest he's been outside since he bought the Airstream. Figures it's nearing winter and he's with someone who may be more insane than he is.

"I don't know shit about localized life forms. This is all you, champ."

William
"You're going to be Sancho to my Quixote?"

Oh no. It's a challenge now. Now they have to find something because there is his weird pride as an awkward adventurer and he's still relatively sober so he doesn't have anything to really blame this on. this is William's natural state- ready to do something incredibly stupid at a moment's notice.

Exhales and bites his tongue. Waits for blood and the connections that come with it.

[Life 1- scanning for life forms? Let's just keep this up and trek out into the wilderness]

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

William
[for reals, though]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Samir
"Why do I have to be an illiterate squire?"

Because Sancho Panza was the precursor to the sidekick and he was the everyman of that particular story if you ignore the fact that at the end of the story he tries to convince Quijote that the two of them should become pastoral shepherds when Quijote is on his deathbed. Duh Samir. That's the joke.

Sounds like a rhetorical question. Will is doing his filthy pagan nonsense over there and Sam is debating whether he wants to brave lighting a cigarette.

William
He eventually proclaims triumph, throws his hands into the air and continues on along into the wilderness with little more than his desire to go wander into the unknown and hasn't quite gotten the urge to pull out his camera yet.

"So, seriously, I come back with a new name and you are all shiny and cool and shit, what gives?" whilst continuing along for the tree line and chasing what are the first signs of actual life he can detect.