Starlight (ongoing)

Margot
It wasn't often that Margot had to step out into a public library to hunt for books these days; there were more than enough of them left behind in the house she and her Cabal had come to inheret (that's what she called it, at least), and they tended to be more blatently magickal, useful, or outright mystifying in how little sense they made.  She could get (has been) lost in them for hours, easily, before she realized that her eyes ached from the losing the light of day to read in and had to eat some food.

Today, though, she needed chemistry books.  Something specific to do with density, and while she didn't know what book exactly she was hunting for, she had a feeling she'd find what she was looking for when her finger was trailing the spines along the shelves.

That's precisely what she was up to in this moment: trailing along the deserted non-fiction section dedicated to sciences less popular than animal studies and care.  She wore a yellow-check tank top that was loose on her frame, slipping often down one narrow shoulder, with a pair of white denim shorts that rode high on her legs.  Her hair was left down, a mass of dark brown that fell to touch her shoulders these days, tucked back behind her ears and pinned from her face with the help of the sunglasses she'd pushed up onto her crown.  Flip-flops smacked the bottoms of her feet quietly when she stepped away from one shelf and moved on to the other, head tipped to the side while she read along the spines in hunt of something that may be worthwhile.

starlight
Margot Travers's phone doesn't ring Amy Winehouse tunes. Or maybe it does; we don't know her choices, we don't know her life or the things that she likes or dislikes. She might have been a huge fan of the beehive-wearing singer- accursed member of the twenty-seven club. It comes across the nearest piece of audio equipment, started over the PA system. A solid baseline moving to something you could swing your hips to.

Meet you downstairs in the bar and heard
Your rolled up sleeves and your skull t-shirt-

The sound cut off from the PA immediately, but it kept playing on whatever digital device Margot might have had nearby. It was a crackling int he way that second-hand audio always did, sounded like someone had it playing over speaker in whatever end they were playing from.

You say why did you do it with him today?
And sniff me out like I was Tanqueray?

"Aurora, do you copy?" a female voice came from over the music, but the signal was bad. The library was practically dead today, but one had to won der how many people were getting this kind of weird feedback,



starlight


starlight
(test)

Margot
It was around the time that the little witch was contemplating how curious a choice of music Amy Winehouse was for a public library that the sound cut and switched.  First it was over the PA, and next it seemed as though someone had stashed an old two-way someplace nearby, or perhaps even a police scanner.

"Well that's curious...," she murmered to herself, head turned and big hazel-colored eyes searching for wherever the sound was coming from-- skimming along shelves for interruptions in the neat lines where something might be hidden.

Aurora, do you copy?

Margot's spine stiffened with surprise, and wherever her eyes had been at the time they stayed put.  Her ear was sharp on the crackling, straining to find the source.

[Perception 3 + Alertness 2]

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

starlight
The source, it would appear, was coming from several different places. It died out though as, slowly, wherever the sound was coming from was either shut off or ignored or closed out and considered a fluke.

The source, the nearest and most easily recognizable source, seemed to be with her things.

Margot
After spending a few moments turning her head this way and that in search of a sound that seemed to be coming from more places than one, she finally settled for reaching down to rifle through the dark brown bag she was carrying at her hip, slung across her chest and one shoulder by a thin leather strap.

Her hands searched rather than her eyes, fingers hunting for something unfamiliar in a bag that was (in a surprise to no one) meticulously organized.

Where are you?

starlight
"Repeat, do you copy?

It is, at that moment, that she realizes there isn't a foreign body in her bag. The sound was coming from her phone, and the static on the other end seemed to be coming in more heavily.

"Aurora-" there is a sigh, and the sudden skipping of the Amy Winehouse track.

Margot
Her fingers closed around her phone, feeling the very faint vibration of sound eminating from the speaker in their tips.  It was in that moment that she realized the sound was transmitting from her phone.  She paused for a moment, holding it firmly within her bag, and glanced up and down the library aisle for any company.

Assured there was none, she pulled the phone from her bag and looked upon it with bewieldered eyes.

She checked the screen, of course-- took a screenshot just in case something odd might be detected in the background later, then brought it to her ear to listen more closely, with a hello? hanging just inside her lips, wanting but afraid to come forth.

starlight
"Maybe this is the wrong frequency," the voice half-grumbled. The song in the background changed from whatever was playing before to Back to Black. Again, more Amy Winehouse. The voice was female, but not necessarily feminine. There was no discernable accent or markable features.

"Aurora, this is the LWV Polaris Two, vector seventeen J-Q, requesting permission to breach, do you copy?"

Margot
With the phone held to her ear, Margot blinked.

"Copy."  Her voice was flat and quiet.  She cleared her throat and continued in a low tone, trying to avoid drawing too much attention to her conversation amongst the books.

"Permission granted, go ahead."

starlight
"Good!"

Oh, that person sounded so happy on the other end. There was flipping of switches and the sound of something starting up in the background, "the crew of Polaris Two has taken on heavy casualties post-storm and has merged with the crew of the Voidship Eleanor. This is acting captain Ezra Tate."

"Who should we expect to rendezvous with upon reentry?"

starlight


Margot
"I--.... I, uh..."

Margot blinked and looked around, then promptly untucked the book that she'd been toting about with her from under her armpit and set it back upon the shelf.  Up on top of the other books so that it could be replaced later.  With a quick adjustment of the strap across her chest she turned and started a quick-stepping stride out into the main aisle and toward the front door.

"Re-entry?  Wait, where are you re-entering from?  In what?"

And with a brisk hurry that nobody felt it necessary to interrupt, Margot shoved her way out the heavy sets of doors entering the library and out into the dusk.  The air was still warm from the blazing hot day, but relief came with the shade when the sun tucked behind the jagged mountains.  Her eyes were scanning the parking lot and sidewalks as she listened for the answer.

starlight
"Sending you coordinates now of our current location-"

The sending of the coordinates made Margot's phone make a god awful noise. What precisely got send to that phone is hard to tell, but once it was done making the dying harpy sound, the voice came back on and she had a text message in her inbox (which, if checked, gave coordinates that looked like a GPS location with about seven too many categories of reference in it)

"I don't know if the Polaris Two would hold up to reentry into Earth's atmosphere unless dimensional travel is readily acceptable."

A beat.

"Are you with Control?"

Margot
"Damnit!"  Margot yelped and jerked the phone away from her ear when it started to screech, cringing and twisting her head so her ear tucked close to her shoulder, like that would somehow chase the ache and the ringing away from it.  In a mild panic she stuffed the phone under her armpit to try and stifle the sound it was making, and gave an apologetic and nervous smile to a mother who was walking her young son out of the library and back out to their car.

When the sound stopped, she looked down to her phone screen and checked the text to pull up the coordinates on the map.  After investigating them (and determining whether she should walk or drive to reach them), she started a hesitant plotted path toward the apparent distress call's intended destination.

"Am I with--...," she had brought the phone back up to her ear in time to hear --reentry into Earth's atmosphere, and scowled hard enough that one would get the impression she'd end up with age lines between her heavy eyebrows before anyplace else on her face at this rate.  "Look, Cap'n , I'm not in control of very much down here.  Did you say you're coming back in through the atmosphere?"  That, followed by her craning her neck and twisting about to scan the skies.

starlight
"Oh..."

There's a light in the sky that isn't supposed to be there. Margot knows it's not supposed to be there and it's a tiny, tiny pin of a figure but it is posed over the mountains and the coordinates she could largely suss out seemed to be located somewhere inside of a mountainside.

"... this is going to hurt, isn't it?"

There's a hiss.

"Can we keep this channel open for further communication?"

Margot
The quiet question of impact tugged some kind of a cord in Margot's chest, and she paused in her trek out into the trees.  The library hugged up against a park property whose edge was lined with trees and the gradual slope up a mountain slide.  The witch's flip-flips slipped around under her feet on patches of loose dry dirt and shady grass when she passed beneath trees, but she didn't seem too terribly deterred.

The search of the skies yielded her sight of a pinprick of light that wasn't quite a star, certainly wasn't a plane.  She hissed along with the sound on the phone.

"Yeah," with a hesitant but bracing tone.  "Yeah, it probably will."

Could the channel stay open?  Margot flexed her brow briefly again, then started forward once more by pushing a hand off the trunk of a young tree to get herself in motion.  "Yeah, I... I suppose so."  She didn't figure that this Captain of the Starship Eleanor would have an easy time reconnecting with anything after her impossible (this was a dream right?  was this reality reminding her what the ridiculous was while she slept?) craft endured its apparent collision course with the side of a mountain.

Margot
[TO THE FORUMS]

Vriqiohr

Samir
[aw shit what is going down today]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

William
They made a pretty decent team when it came to Overwatch. William kept his damned mouth shut unless he needed an assist, he was a good listener, and he followed directions pretty damned well. Honestly, if he could be the kind of person he is when he's playing video games he would probably be an adept by now. But he is not, and he is not.

He is, however, very persuasive. This is how Samir usually ends up in trouble when he hangs out with William. William is like a goddamned duck when it comes to both paradox and trouble, and someday it's going to catch up with him but one could hope that, for once, the fact that all of his friends are Right And Proper Fucked won't catch up with them today.

The blond had conned Samir into coming out because William had requested assistance upgrading the hardware on his PC. Not his laptop, mind you. William had actually broken down and acquired a desktop and had been doing to awkward task of trying to get better at figuring out WTF is going on with it. He hadn't done a terrible job, but he had promised food and the opportunity to mock him mercilessly to Samir if he would help with this one thing.

They were going to meet at Union station and take the same train off to whatever store they were headed to. Save on parking and save on time. Also, William wouldn't have to rive or ride in a car.

Because fuck cars.

Samir
So much time has passed between the last time Sam saw Will and today that he had almost forgotten why he was mad at him in the first place. It isn't as if he has a physical scar, Kiara having healed him beyond what any mundane practitioner of medicine could have done for him. What he does have is the memory of losing yet another huge chunk of time to Quiet. Disappearing into the woods, staying disappeared thanks to Reality's poor job of solidifying him as a person in the world.

But he is a person, and as a person he had grown beyond tired of Will and his thoughtlessness and his appetite for danger. The ease with which he and danger found each other. It was better that the two of them only encountered each other in multiplayer game lounges, only heard from each other when one was giving instructions over the head set or cracking a joke.

He had very much not wanted to answer Will's invitation to meet him downtown and help with his computer ineptitude. He had asked him if Hermetics weren't supposed to be able to learn things in a hurry, why the fuck don't you use your Mind Sphere, dude you're fucking hopeless. But he came. He's here.

Sam steps off the train as one in a sea of dozens, easy to overlook because it is as if he is not there in the first place. It's a million fucking degrees and he's wearing a zip-up sweatshirt, unzipped, over a faded band t-shirt and jeans. Aside from having cut his hair and kept it trimmed, little has changed about him physically. Maybe he's a little taller. His voice sounds the same as he comes up behind Will.

"What's up, Asshole?"

William
"Phfft-fuck!"

He had been drinking a Sprite when Samir came up, didn't notice him when he came up because Samir is forgettable and the next thing he knew there was Sprite coming out of his nose and he was covering his mouth and turning around- "Don't touch me I'm disgusting."

Grant you, there was precisely fuck all of a chance of Samir touching him but it was warning enough that, yes, he was gross and probably didn't need to be touched because, y'know, Sprite and the fact that he was kind of sweaty and wearing shorts. He still looked the same, but maybe a little more tan.

To his credit, though, he felt different. Fearless, dauntless, unafraid to do what he needed to do even if it was terrifying.

Denver
The train station has the standard amount of people. There are couples coming to and fro. Commuters trying to hop back on the train to catch it in time to get back to the office before the boss eats their ass for being late from lunch for the third time in two weeks. You can tell who those people are by the look on their faces.

Oh, and Mormons.

There were a group of Mormons standing about ten yards away from William and Samir. They had pamphlets. Two men and two women.

Samir
That he feels different is not a startling development for Sam. He had progressed a few winters ago, and was happy to stay in his trailer with everything he needed to survive, peeling himself out of his chair a few times a day to inhale the air outside and walk around the warded bit of land he kept up with River. There is nothing he needs from the city or the people in the city, and yet he keeps making exceptions.

Never mind exceptions have almost gotten him killed before. More than once. The young man in front of him now the correlating variable in the two most recent incidents.

"Yes," he says, his hands still in his pockets. "You are."

He spares a glance for the Mormons, if only because holy shit there's like four of them since when do they let the women out of the compound.

Denver
[Mormon 1: Do I notice Sam? -4]

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

Denver
[Mormon 2: Do I notice Sam? -4]

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

Denver
[Lady Mormon 1: What about me? -4]

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

Denver
[Lady Mormon 2: I have to notice something. (Awareness) -4]

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

Denver
[And alertness]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Denver
[aaaand awareness again]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Denver
The first of them- a tall, lanky man with dark hair and the perpetual five o'clock shadow- pointed at the pair of mages standing nearby. There was the subtle nudge to the short redhead next to him but almost in unison the entire group of modestly dressed people swung their attention in their direction.

They were staring, whispered amongst themselves and wore expressions of almost awe before one of them- the small redheaded man, got nudged forward. He started his approach.

"Sir?" he said, quickened his approach and looked at Samir with a look that paralleled hero worship, "oh it is such a blessing to meet you."

Samir
Sam does not even hesitate before taking a deep breath and taking a long-legged step back to come as close to hiding behind Will as he can, considering the fact that Will could hide behind a fucking fence post. There is no hiding behind Will.

"I--heh!" Jesus what is going on. "Why's that?"

William
William has, during the course of their not-meeting-in-person, not puyt on any weight. He's tall, but he's never been a particularly physically imposing guy, but he was more than willing to put himself as far between Samir and Creepy Mormon Dude as he possibly could.

"Heyyy look, this is great and all, but we've already been to the motherland. Read the book, we're good," now please go away, the rest of that statement went.

Denver
The man didn't seem deterred by the fact that there was now a person between him and Samir, and he continued his approach only to stop right before he ran into William.

"You're him, He Who Speaks Midnight. The Scion of Beyond- Vriqiohr," he whispered, and the name coated with honey and all the flies trapped within it.

Samir
[int + occult: that's a mouthful. keen-edged mind spec GO.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 3, 3, 5) ( botch x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]

William
[Int+occult: go go gadget Hermeticism?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

William
Dude, Samir. He totally thinks you're the actor from that new web series... something about people acting out a dorky tabletop group's game? Something like that. Felt a little too much like Harmon Quest without the charm]

William
Be flattered, if you roll with this you might be able to get some free shit.

Samir
"... oh."

Given Sam has never heard of either the Scion of Beyond or whatever that new Youtube series that was like Drunk History if the History were Dorky TT Groups' Sessions and also not funny, he doesn't feel the acute need to get them the fuck away from him. They're just overenthusiastic fans dealing with a case of mistaken identity. That happens to people sometimes.

Not to him necessarily, but he's heard of it happening.

"Oh, I... yeah, I get that a lot."

William
William, however, does feel the need to leave right about now. He placed his hands out and began the careful extrication of himself from the man who was literally an inch away from being pressed against his chest. Hands out and caaaarefully moving him away from them.

"We've really got to be going, Mister Midnight talker has... uh... a really busy schedule, don't we?"

Denver
[Redbeard the Mormon: No touchy]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

William
[Maybe dodge?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Denver
[Just making sure we don't pop his shoulder out of place]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

William
[Oww?]

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

Denver
Clearly, the redhaired man was not too keen on being removed from Samir's space via the twiggy meat shield that was standing between them. The movement was efficient and brutal. William put his hands out and the man took a grip on his wrist and soon enough had the taller blond turned around his his left arm hiked up somewhere between his shoulder blades in a position that made the would-be bodyguard infinitely more manageable.

"So you've met the others?"


Samir
It isn't the efficiency with which the ginger puts Will into a secure hold that has Sam flinching but the speed. Now that his meat shield is gone Sam starts to step back, not attempting to be polite anymore. If he has to unleash something nasty to resolve this - aka, if he ends up in Quiet because of the idiot who doesn't know self defense or reverse holds even though he loves trouble so much - he doesn't want to be close enough for chunks of viscera to hit him.

"Hey, man," Sam says, his palms out of his pockets and presented to show he's unarmed, "it's cool, we're all cool, I... if you say I'm Vrikor, I'm Vrikor. But I'm not answering any more questions until you let him go."

William
That could have hurt a lot worse than it did, and he inhaled some sharp breath that broadcast the fact that this hurt.

"I got this," but with the sort of forcefulness that says fucking run without coming out and saying it. William knows something, he knows something that he can't come out and say because he's stuck in the kind of hold that would make Israeli special forces golf clap at its execution.



Denver
The grip didn't falter just yet, he didn't seem keen on letting go and at that juncture the rest of his creepy crew was headed their way. This was starting to look more and more like a problem. As though having someone in a police hold wasn't already a problem.

"And then you will come with us, meet the others, yes?"



Samir
[wp: just leave him there man it's what he wants]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Samir
For the three seconds it takes Samir to make a decision, he has a raging internal debate.

Though all Will can see is empathy and uncertainty, he knows the Virtual Adept. Sam is the sort of player who will allow his character to die if it means the team will gain more points, but has rarely been in that situation. He's an intelligent individual who can predict other people's behavior based on their previous actions. The fact that Will has made it this far behaving the way as he has been behaving ever since Sam first met him is astonishing.

It is not up to Sam to decide whether Will's time is up or not. Some part of him believes that the Hermetic can, in all seriousness, handle four people by himself. That he is in this situation to begin with is fucking bullshit, and plain old-fashioned bad luck. But Will, bless his stupid little heart, is willing to stay behind so Sam can get the hell out of there.

And then you will come with us, meet the others, yes?

"Nah," Sam says. "Fuck that."

And then he turns and books it down the platform.

Denver
[Because I can't find the mechanics of this damned pursuit thing in m20, I think I've figured something out.

Running speed is 5 x Dex = meters traveled on 1 success. You need 1 success to maintain speed and each success thereafter gives you 5 extra meters per turn.

Roll to run is dex+athletics, diff 6 (base, until you hit people and then difficulty will be modified)

example: Nora has Dex 3, so Nora moves 15 meters per round (provided she doesn't fail or botch). Nora rolled 3 successes on her Dex+athletics roll. So, this turn Nora moved 25 meters.

Jake has Dex 4, so he moves 20 meters per success. Jake rolled 3 successes so he moved 30 meters this round and is gaining on Nora.



So, uhhhhh, basically just roll Dex+athletics and I'll do the weird math and shit.



Denver
[Roll initiatives to start the chase!]

Samir
[lol sam is toast +5]

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

Denver
Tall Mormon: 5+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Denver
Red: 6+1d10

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

Denver
Chick: 5+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

Denver
Magical Girl Mormon: 7+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

William
Aaaad will. Dex3+wits3+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

William
Chick: 
The lady, who wasn't terribly close at that moment, looked around awkwardly before kicking off her sensible heels and picking up her skirt and trying her level best to catch up with Samir-

"Wait!"
[action: begin pursuit, dex 2 +athletics 1]

William
"It's fucking stupid to incur Vriqiohr's wrath. Let. Him. Leave." fists clenched around something, something then muttered under his breath and tried to keep his head together.

[Mind 2: Inspire fear for MGM because she a boss-assed bitch who don't feel like everyone else.]

Tall
The taller man looked around confusedly and then started along with his pursuit.

[Pursuit started! Dex 3 + athletics 2]





Samir
[corr 3: Get Me the Fuck Out of Here. may need to extend this if the dice gods aren't pleased.]

William
Red
Quit. Fucking. Moving you goddamned blond.
[Action: apply pressure and reassert grapple?]

MGM
"I just need to talk, stay," she said and continued her calm pursuit.

[Mind 2: Suggestion "Stay"]




Denver
MGM: Arete 3- Stay the fuck put. Diff 3+ 2 (sphere) +1 (fastcast)

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

Denver
Red: strength 3 + brawl 3 = 6, diff 6

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Denver
[Ouchies?]

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

William
[Soak]

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

Samir
[corr 3: nyeeeh. base diff 8, modifiers are a pain in the dick. -1 for Quint, spending WP.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Denver
[Tall guy: Maybe?]

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

William
[Will: fast casting! Mind 2. Diff 3 + sphere 2 + fast 1 - 2 quint= diff 4]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 5, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

William
[Short and Skirty: Dex 2+ athletics 1: Iiiiiii'm running!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

William
"I just need to talk, stay," she insisted, and there was a push against that shield and it was as though it just bounced off of him like a bullet into a brick wall. Not strong enough to break through but certainly enough to put a dint in the side of the foundation. This was, all the while, when Samir was being pursued by several of the modestly-dressed cultists. The taller one started his run, and was gaining on the stationary Virtual Adept while the woman in her bare feet and longer skirt was doing her best there. There was the effort put in, and written clear about her face that she wanted to be there. That she wanted to meet Him. The One. The glorious Vriqiohr.

The other man reaffirmed his grip on the younger man and reapplied pressure there, but not enough that it really seemed to make much of a difference. The other mage was stuck, but not stuck in such a fashion that he wasn't going to be able to really act or function. He didn't necessarily need to move.

"It's fucking stupid to incur Vriqiohr's wrath. Let. Him. Leave," William barked with the sort of firmness that only came when a Hermetic was dressing someone down, and if there was any doubt in his ability to do so, it was dashed when the other woman- with her red hair and soothing voice and serpentine feel about her- stopped and her expression turned to that of pause, then mortification, then fear. She stopped her pursuit, backing away slowly.

"I-" she stammered, shook her head and put her hands up, "oh, great one forgive me-" she told Samir, stopped in her tracks. The people around the scene seemed... mostly weirded out by all of this. The next train was departing already, and the station was clearing out.

William
It was unfortunate, of course, that they just weren't fast enough, because with little fanfare their glorious god-figure disappeared, leaving the cultists in awe and leaving the rest of the people in the station confused.

And then shrugging it off as though the man who disappeared had never even been there.

Samir
[Heather, you are a marvel. Thank you so much! <3]

William
[Thanks for having me! I had a blast, and thank you for playing!]

Fraaaaaaaands

Ned
There's a quaint little mom and pop coffee shop just on the outskirts of Aurora. It's not the sort of place you pass by and consider for longer than a few seconds. Hipsters drift through on a regular basis looking for that constructed sense of nostalgia. That's why there are a couple of students tucked away in a booth, sipping on their third refill of coffee each, bragging, boasting and displaying their overpriced tuition all over one another. Kant, Hemmingway and Lynch have all made appearances in the conversation.

The rest of the cafe is populated by the elderly. Three of them, in separate corners, attempting to fend off the encroaching depression that comes with old age and isolation. In twenty minutes, one of them is going to get the fearless sense of 'wtf, right?' to walk over to another one and ask about the 70's and where they were during that magical time. The third will get invited over with a wave and a brief moment of hope will erupt and fend back the ugliness of reality.

Then, of course, there's Ned.

The Cabal lived on the outer outskirts of this quiet little town. They populated a house that no one talked about and didn't make any noise or waves for the residents. There was just a humming sense of 'new and gentrifying' wherever they went, mostly because two of them were young and their father was a scientist. ("Father? Really?" "Shut up, it's as good a cover as any").

He is wearing a simple gray t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. His converse are new. Black over red in-line. His hair is a mop of top cut, sides shaved relevance and his face decorated by the threat of a beard. He has youth and a sense of careless regard for his surroundings. The sort that might incite fights in the wrong locations or suggest interest for the lingering they do on seemingly random things.

He is waiting for someone, though. His cup of coffee in too small a mug is sipped on. The BLT he ordered sits untouched on the table, alongside the twenty dollar bill that will no doubt be left behind by way of a significant tip, with a small note on the bill that reads 'Sorry about the kids at Table 4'.

He is waiting for someone. That's all he's here for.

William
William and a friend once broke into the library in Aurora. Disabled the alarm systems and messed with the cameras so they could run around and have an entire library to themselves without the rules and regulations that came with being in the library. They still stayed quiet, and likely continued to read books and file things in the appropriate places because those two wound up becoming Hermetics and you develop a very solid appreciation for libraries when you happen to join that particular Tradition.

He was a recent graduate, but still a hipster. Still had that over-priced education and a degree in French and a minor in anthropology to show for it. His parents have yet to ask the dreaded question of what he was going to do next; he'd hit the point where he could probably spin straw into gold if he wanted but it wasn't necessarily taxable income and therein lie the rub. The respect that brings calamity of such long life. You know, that kind of jazz.

The man walked through the front door (no idea where he parked or if he rode the motorcycle or took an Uber or however he gets places). Pants, button up shirt, and a vest. If he wasn't in something comfortable, there was a vest involved because he needed a place to put his pocketwatch. It had a purpose. The half dozen bracelets around his left wrist had a purpose. Colors and textures and shapes and the myriad of other things he carried along with him in the event there was trouble.

He started a lot of trouble by virtue of breathing. That was neither here nor there.

William noticed who he was supposed to be sitting with, and headed his way over to Ned, "you need a refill on anything?"

Ned
"Nope."

Ned sips his coffee again, nodding slightly toward the opposite side of the table as William arrives. The pair are somewhat opposite in demeanour. William's energy is...well, not palpable but substantial. It delivers with a geared up 'Let's go!!' and carries him like a feather from moment to moment. Place to place. Ned is subdued, recalcitrant. Effort is placed in remaining collected, betrayed every so often by a fidgeting pair of fingers around the handle of his mug or the recognition he's been staring a hole into the other man across the table that sends his eyes bouncing back down to his coffee mug.

"So we have this Cabal. We're a bunch of fuck ups. A lot of the time we fuck up a lot but most of the time, it only really gets ourselves hurt or worse. Sometimes we get better because of it. Kinda stupid, really..." Ned frowns. Then quirks a lopsided grin that fails to unfurrow his brow. He's looking into his half-empty coffee. The waitress, a forty something housewife staring daggers at the kids on the other side of the cafe, who were pouring out sugar onto the table between them, in an attempt to 'define infinity' or 'refine senility' or 'decline insanity', is given a glance and Ned's hand rises to try and wave her down. All the while, he's talking.

"Point us, we're fuck-ups. We fuck-up as one an separately and we fix each other's fuck ups as best we can. Mostly that involves keeping a low profile out here with static spikes of 'Oh noez, I broke reality'. Sort of self-policing, prophecy- I'm getting off track."

Ned shakes his head. Murmuring something under his breath. He sucks a deep one into his lungs, even as the Waitress begins making her way over with the coffee pot. Ned is eyeballing her the entire time. Still talking.

"I think you're a fuck-up. Been wandering around being a fuck-up for way too long and that's gotta end. So I'd like to invite you to join the Cabal."

He nudges his coffee cup away from the waitress when she arrives, motioning toward William with a brief cant of his head. She turns to look at the 'Hipster Hermetic' with a perked brow and no small amount of stored up sass.

William
There is a person typing on their laptop and backspacing to oblivion in the corner. They've written the same paragraph the last three times and there is palpable frustration. There's a group of people discussing authors they know precisely nothing about, and they're pouring sugar on the goddamned table and he can tell the waitress is glaring at them and one of them is smacking their damned gum.

The dishes clink somewhere in the back. Someone puts up a new order. He picks up on all the things except for the person he's focusing on, which is Ned. He can't read Ned's expression, but Ned is subdued; William has been described as a sunflower by someone who was at once derisive and attempting to get into his pants. (It worked, but by god that relationship was short lived and unhealthy. We digress.)

He is, however, focusing on what Ned is saying. Nods along and sits comfortably in his seat. It takes everything he has not to bounce a leg or wiggle in his seat, he is a sense of constant movement. Can't stay somewhere for too long.

"So... you're inviting me to come meet my people and join forces with the Justice League of Fuck Ups?" he quirked a brow, then looked back at the waitress once she came by. He smiled and seemed grateful, "I'd love a coffee. Just regular, no sugar no cream no whatevers."

Once some time had passed, "is that an offer born out of a desire for self-preservation or just- what inspired this decision?"

"I'm not saying no, I'm just curious."

Ned
"You've nearly gotten both my cabal mates killed. Sometimes out of curiosity. Others, out of I don't even know."

He shrug-blinks. Head tilts. Face screwing up into something like concentration, constipation and introspection. His hand slides across the table and the butterknife is suddenly bouncing under fidgeting fingertips.

"...I haven't been able to do much about that. Which is concerning. So yeah. I want to know that if you're gonna kill one of them or...us, really, that at least you're going to be responsible enough to recognize it's one of your own."

A pause. The knife slips into his hand. Like magnetism. Fluid and synchronized. It bounces once over his fingers before dipping into his coffee. Stirring with the blade.

"You join the fuck-ups or I look into trying my best to kill you. Potentially fail at that and then Doc and Margot look into killing you too, because I did something stupid and they're bound to want to set that right." The metal of the knife creeps and creaks against the porcelain of the mug. Ned's staring into the coffee again.

William
"..."

He just kind of stared at Ned at that moment. Not even kind of, he seemed to forget that he was sitting there and instead had to internalize that Ned had very calmly informed him that he was willing to kill him should decide that he didn't want to run with them.

"So, basically... I'm a danger to everyone you love and care about... and you're wanting to take care of that in one way or another."

A beat.

"You're a good guy, Ned,"and he didn't even sound sarcastic, "I appreciate that you're willing to go that far to keep people safe."

Ned
"...Yeah. That's nice."

His smile is slight. Simple. Dismissive.

"You're a threat like I'm a threat like the Doc's a threat. Threats need watching. People need...people." Ned's frowning. Empathy was not his greatest measurement. He shakes it off with a wince, eyes dipping into his coffee again.

"We're a collective threat. We make sure people don't get hurt by us and we make sure people get hurt if they fuck with us. All in all, there's a nice ouroborean feel to it all. Neat little circle, about face."

The knife emerges from the coffee. Ned runs it between his lips, removing the caffeine before setting the utensil back on the table. He picks the mug up and begins sipping again.

"Besides...how many bridges you expect to burn before you can't walk away from the fire?" A pause. Ned blinks over the rim of his cup. "Oh that was a good one. I gotta remember that for the doc sometime." Sip.

William
[Per+empathy: are you trying to be nice and failing?]

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

Ned
Ned's sense of nice is probably logical, practical and born out of former traumas. Avoiding one's scars and wounds is easy and can lead to discovering wholly inappropriate options for dealing with future problems. He knows there's no other method or way around this not just because of what he's been through but because of what they are. There were no police. No military. Nothing short of a technocratic lobotomy or something worse in the far cthonic beyond. For an Orphan like Ned, this was the answer. 

...Or he and William were going to shake hands with pistols at dawn. Simple.

William
"I really fucking miss people," he told Ned. It wasn't a big admission, he'd said something similar to Margot once when they'd talked about cabals and being alone. He'd admitted that he didn't like it, that he didn't like the fact that it was, at the end of the day, just him. That the people who cared either left or learned to not care really fast once shit hit the fan.

"Sure Sepúlveda isn't going to castrate me on principle?"

Ned
"Nope. He probably will. Me too for offering because neither he nor Margot know yet."

Ned is nonchalant about that and really, neither he nor William know one another well enough to warrant whether he's winging this and hoping for the best, or whether he's willing to go toe to toe with the Doc about insisting on this matter. Either way, he's sipping his coffee which has got to be down to the dregs by now.

The kids in the corner are being given a stern talking to by the waitress.

"Doesn't change facts though. Doesn't change anything. A fuck up is a fuck up is a cabalmate." Ned drains off the last of the coffee. He makes a face "Bleh, too much sugar" before setting the mug down on top of he twenty dollar bill he's left on the table.

"You drive here? I walked. It was far. "

William
"Where were you when I was new? When I was one of those innocent young maidens you always come to?"

He gets himself a little more comfortable at the table. It didn't change the facts and it didn't change anything- it wasn't a shameful thing and he wasn't being shamed. When Ned talked about fuck up,s he used we as the term of choice.

"Yeah, I drove. I needed a rental for the week," who the fuck doesn't have a real car? Someone who hates driving, that's who. "So, yeah. I will kiss my chances of reproducing goodbye in order to be part of your cabal. That is probably for the best anyway."

Ned
"Well that's step one."

Ned is sliding out of the booth, brow furrowed. He's thinking about step two even as he says it:

"Step two: Convince the other two fuck ups you're not too much of a fuck up to ensure our powers combined don't make a captain end-the-planet." Pause. Face. "That was a bad one. Edit that out of your memory when you get the chance."

Ned waves it off haphazardly, before moving toward the door.

"You're driving." Obviously.

William
"You wanna hear something messed up?"

He was sliding out of the booth, grabbed his things and got ready to make sure he had everything. Keys were there, bag was there, waitress was done with her shit so he was laying a couple bucks on the table too because seriously those kids in the corner were obnoxious.

"This?" he gestured to himself as he made his way to the door, "is an improvement over how I used to be."