Outings with Ned

William
[Quick check, how coherent are we? Willpower!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Ned
The Evening is approaching.

It might seem ominous in a lot of circumstances but for these two, there is a pleasant level of calm about it all. Wide open spaces were something that made the world less claustrophobic and despite how comforting the House could be, it was also home to no few potential threats and dangers. Ned had needed to get out and away from the books and the studying for a while. He had also needed to test the boundaries of Will's recent return to their landscape of reality. Or version of it, anyway.

So he had donned a long jacket, the sort you might find on a captain sailing out to sea in search of a Kraken to kill. Or at least, drunk in some tavern bragging about how he was going to do it. His pants are tight, khakis rolled to the mid-shin with tall argyle socks and a pair of new black converse. He sports a hoodie beneath it all. Simply black, nothing extravagant. The chill in the air has abated some, allowing for something more casual.

They had opted to make their way into town, a simple half hour drive by way of a county bus that took an hour or so getting to their stop, which was a solid 20 minutes out from the house itself by way of foot, making the total travel time somewhere in excess of an hour and a half. The whole way, Ned was pondering. A mouthful of words at best shared with the mostly Lucid Hermetic.

It's only as they step into the quaint, settling down dimensions of Aurora, blending in with the societal norms as best they can, that Ned seems to animate a bit. His eyes take in the sights and the sounds of civilization and he sucks in a deeper breath than his lungs would normally reach for. A faint smile touches his lips, hands tucked into his jacket pockets and he sweeps out onto a sidewalk lined with stores that are closed, closing or in their 'midnight' hours with the approach of prime time television viewing.

"So how was that?" Ned would turn to glance at his cabalmate, hands still in pockets. "The trip here, that is. Perceptions ok? Any detachment occur? Hallucinations?"

William
Everywhere that William went in the house, lucid or not, he kept the lights on right now. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, dining room- you could tell what his thought process was should someone follow behind and turn off the trail of wasted electricity in his wake. Sometimes, he’d share a few words here and there. They were usually in English, but one could easily get the impression that it was a bit of a task to parse through information and pull up the right words in the right language for the person (or not person) he was talking to.

William had wanted to go out. He’d asked for some kind of chaperone and needed no real explanation of being stir crazy and eager to get out of the house- though occasionally one could swear that he wasn’t the only one hearing something in the walls there.

Clothing was comfortable and presentable and geared towards weathering the cold. He dressed warmer than a native of the area. But, true to form, he dressed like a damned hipster complete with button up shirt and vest (because, seriously, you need a place to put a pocketwatch and he had just managed to clean most of the blood off the important parts.)

“Written things aren’t happening,” he told Ned, “but that… I don’t think that’s all Quiet. I can’t tell what sounds are normal and what sounds aren’t. The bus ride was loud- everyone was talking on top of each other, I don’t know what’s dead and what isn’t but that’s pretty normal, though.”

He shrugged his shoulders and kept his hands in his pockets as he strolled along, “the bus driver’s shadow moved… but it was still kind of light at that point so it makes sense that things wouldn’t be as bad. We’ll be able to tell more if the stars come out.”

If. Not when, like he wasn’t completely convinced they would come back at all. “I lost track of where we were after the sixth pickup. Overall, I’d say it wasn’t too bad though? Can you verify any of that stuff?”

Did that really happen?

Ned
Verification:

"Written things are still just that. Sounds are going to be a hard one without something visible to attribute it too so I'd not bother too much with that. Or get some headphones to block out everything so you can record what you are still hearing over the music to identify what isn't actually real. Buses are loud. People weren't talking, though. Except Mable and Marcy up front, gabbing about the winter fair coming up in a few weeks and their christmas decorations. And Janice. That bitch. Not sure why she was a bitch but they hate her guts."

Ned weaves around a mailbox. Not that it was in his way, but he seems to not want to travel a simple path. Or maybe give William' brain something to focus on that wasn't just a steady rhythm of his footsteps. Re-orienting through sudden movement, so that Ned remains a lodestone and not a background object.

"Wasn't long after sunset when we were coming in off the bus. Might be you caught a stray sunbeam fluttering over the driver's shadow. Or your senses aren't fully up to trustworthy yet. The fact you can identify shadows on objects and peoples is a good sign though. At least identifying markers between things you see and your brain's ability to identify them is solid."

Because looking at something and not being able to tell what it is, sounded absolutely terrifying.

"You hungry? Thirsty? Any pains or aches? Nausea? Pins and needles? Unknown pressures?"

William
And Janice. That bitch. Not sure why she was a bitch but they hate her guts.
“Janices are always a bitch, it’s the name. Names are a thing,” says the Hermetic.

He was on auto pilot, it would seem. Or at least he was at first. William booped along until he realized he was about to run into a mailbox and he stopped. Full stop, took a left, and went back to following where Ned was going. Weave through things, focus on what was there. It does take him a little bit, though. At one point William’s eyes narrowed and he took a slightly wider arc around an obstacle than Ned had.

William looked back at a place on the sidewalk, shook his head and moved on. A non issue for a different day.

“I could use some water, but I don’t need to puke or anything. I feel like something’s dragging on my coat and-“ he caught up to Ned and motioned for him to stop. If he did, he’d demonstrate placement on Ned. If not, he’d do so on himself. “Here?” he points to a space at the back of his skull, aimed upward  “Hurts. I know I don’t have a hole in the back of my head, but it still feels like someone pulled a bullet out of my skull.”

A pause.

"Did I eat today?" No, Will, you did not eat today.


Ned
"No, Will, you didn't eat today." The echo of his own thoughts, reinforced by an external presence.

Ned stopped to regard Will's jacket, stopped to manage each little indicator that Will took in regard to whatever the Hermetic's perceptions were showing him. It wasn't good humoured, but calculated inspection. Ned was actively probing and sorting out the details of William's condition as much as he could from the outside. Analysis made for better understanding and understanding made for better recovery.

"Nothing there, mate. Could be a vertigo symptom kicking in. Equilibrium adjustment and weight distribution being off, making you put more head or shoulder weight further back then necessary. Body is compensating for what the senses are trying to actualize." Or something to that extent. Ned weaves back into the sidewalk after having danced around several other objects in their path; a young couple wandering home. A potter for a city tree, sparse and housing only a few leaves left, the broken down patio of a coffee house yet to put all of it's chairs and tables away.

"Here." Ned plucks a bottle from inside of his jacket. A nalgene effort with a litre's worth of space, it is half full, bright pink and clear through. Ned unscrews it, lifts it to his own lips and takes a sip before passing it to William. Affirmation that anything inside of the nalgene visible to the Hermetic is obviously not real.

"Brain's been through some trauma. Physical, that is. Hit your head pretty hard a few times during that tussle so it could just be residual...or you could be sporting an electromagnetic migraine. Or just a clapback from reality. Can get you some advil if we find an open store."

Ned is inspecting the distance, scanning for an open sign that might lead to a diner or some food of some sort.

"You tried doing any work since?

William
“That makes sense,” he says, “I haven’t been out in awhile. It’s not like I really move much.” Which was true. For the most part he didn’t flutter around or cause too many problems (though at one point he did follow a sound through the house, marked on the wall where it was and went to go retrieve something, only to either get distracted or dissociate and stop doing whatever it was that he was doing in the first place.

He takes the bottle and inspects it briefly before taking a pull. The taste is exactly what he was expecting, which seems to be something that wasn’t obviously vile or unpalatable, so he does take a few solid pulls before handing the bottle back.

“I have had a lot of concussions,” don’t sound like you’re bragging, dumbass, “so I must’ve really bounced around. At one point- anyway, it’s good to know that my brain tried to normalize what shit shape we must’ve been in.”

Has he done any work recently?
“Fuck no! My brain is a fucking Hellscape.”
William almost laughed, but the sound was less laughter and more a sudden knee jerk fear reaction that he’d tried to cover otherwise



Ned
"Huh. Suppose that makes sense." Ned sounded a little disappointed and didn't choose to cover that up with any attempted appeasement of morality. He simply put his hands deeper into his pockets and continued the pace down the street. He pauses once at a small coffee shop that had it's chairs up on table tops and a pretty young teenager for a waitress dusting down the counter top. She and Ned shared a pantomime conversation about whether they were already closed. Her response was a nervous smile and a head shake that he waved off with one hand and then motioned for Will to follow.

The Hermetic's behaviour might well have prompted a bit of an aura of avoidance. Either drug users on the lookout for a late night snack or potential troublemakers angling for a bit of fun at someone else's expense. Hipster gangsters or what?

"Well a lot of concussions does make for easier damage over time so we'll call that one part of the physical trauma for now. In the meantime, you should probably be practicing at least some sensory input if you're not gonna do any work. Resonance dives to pick up on the subtle and the nuance dividing the presence of something versus he actual object or person itself. It should help to re-orient your senses. Kind of like looking off an object that's unfocused for a second, to help your eyes adjust."

Ned had been careful not to work much since the incident. At least, not around his cabalmates. He didn't want to send either of them into flashback territory and had seemed a bit more protective than usual of their states of mind. Margot was an easy one to read but Will was new. Thus the walk tonight and analysis involved.

"We can do some exercises out in the fields beyond the house when we get back. That place still has a lot of conflicting presence to it that might be fucking with your senses and your ability to recover."

William
He’s had bad trips and been better behaved, if only because you know all the things you see in a trip will eventually go away. The assumption when you’re in William’s position is to not assume anything; don’t fall too far or else it will be registered as a solid shove in some direction or another. “Gah, I-“ he stops, starts, “I wish… there are ways that you can show people your memories, like actually show them, not just passing around surface thoughts. If I could do that and you were amenable, I would totally show you what happened.”

A quick stop because he seems to have realized what he was offering and how much of a Very Bad Idea it was.

“Actually, no. Nevermind. But! It is a thing that’s possible. Just FYI.”

It was off to the coffee shop area and he shot the waitress a grateful smile and a bit of a nod- friendly, yes, but he’s not quite all there. That much is obvious, and not in the sense that your drunk friend isn’t all there most of the time.

“It’s never been like this before. It’s- I’ve never just gone completely offline and had to be fished out of wherever I was. I figure though if we’re out in a field if shit hits the fan you can drag my ass back inside and throw me on the couch. It could be fun to try and perceive things when your perceptions already-“ he waves something off.

“Did you guys find anything else out since I’ve been gone?”

Ned
"Nope. I don't think anyone's done much trying of anything but isolation. Margot's got her own issues piling up and the Doc's still elsewhere. I'm not terribly well versed on the mysteries of the Universe and don't want to go poking about in the attic, figuratively speaking. Next thing you know-"

He explodes something in front of his chest, using his hands as a visual aid, crimping fingers and expanding them slowly outward in digit-inspired devastation.

"Right now the concept is to get back to normal so we can start working on being secure. I want to be secure and that means establishing some baseline for Wards and/or at least alarms against possible tampering with the house. We've had Spiritual Visitors, Marauder visitors and Nephandi fuck-with-us rituals hovering around and all our responses have been keyed to reaction. Prediction should be on the table-"

Ned pauses, eyes gliding to one side to take in William. He is just now remembering the state of the Hermetic and where his mind was. This particular road was probably not the most productive to be on.

"Have you experienced any improvements since you woke up? Beyond, you know, waking up to begin with."

William
There is a sound that one makes when they are trying to pick the right language. It is a mixture of vowels followed by frustration followed by something that only really can be described by people whose first language was not English- a category of people that William (surprisingly) fell into. After going through the catalogue of options, he settles with.

“Faaaaaaaaahk,” and a groan. They weren’t working on anything, hadn’t looked through anything, “we do not have the luxury of acting like things are, or will ever be, normal. We need to respond, not react. There is a difference.” Leave it to a Hermetic to do something that sounds like arguing semantics but, given the tone, seemed to mean any number of things. His attention fell outside at the window and attention looked to pin something out there.

“I talked to Margot about wards… I think. I don’t remember, I was out of it, but… I can show you how to do that if you don’t already know and we can find something we can all do that works.”

It would seem he tried to avoid the question of whether or not he was seeing any improvements beyond just waking up, or if there was any large difference in what was going on around him. William ran a hand through his hair before pushing it back into place. He’s lost some weight he probably couldn’t have afforded to lose; Mr. Holmes is more concerned with the fact that he needs a pony tail holder at the current juncture.

“Improvements?” You’re stalling (shut up, I know) “I know that this is real, and that some of the things I’m experiencing aren’t real. I know that the sun will come up, and despite the fact that I don’t see them, there are stars outside.”

“There’s something in the walls at home. I don’t know about that.”

Ned
"That might not be you."

Ned doesn't mince words. When he said he hadn't done anything to poke in the attic-

"I took some glances around the House, mostly around the Study itself. I don't have access to Spirit, which I think may have been the big one, but Mind and Forces both brought back something like ripples. Electromagnetic or Radio or something. The Thought-wave was alive with harmonies but nothing distinctively thought like. Kind of like echoes left behind. Might be an after-effect from the actual failure of the Ritual though. Would explain why I wasn't picking up anything prior to Halloween."

Ned doesn't seem phased or even worried that William is stalling, wandering on tangents or simply lost in thought. He seems focused on establishing something more concrete then just futzing around at home trying to learn better Work.

"We'll all need to sit down and discuss Wards. I'd like all the entry points on the House secured at least. If we can score some sort of renewable effort it'll get us all practice on a regular basis. It all also give us all a chance to actually start investigating how well we can work together." Because so far, the Cabal wan't very synchronized magically. Just traumatically.

William
[Manip+ sub: try not to sound like you're concerned as fuck]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

William
“Entry points are different on a spiritual level. Doors and windows, yeah, but you have to look at things as a whole. Someone does not need to come in the front door to make their presence known,” he tells Ned, “your first, and biggest concern is making sure that the house is warded against remote access and entry. I don’t know how to set up contingencies from a magickal standpoint; it would be the equivalent of adding an exception to the firewall.

“That’s your big entry/exit point. That’s just warding against meat coming in. Spirits are a different matter entirely, I talked to Margot about it- do you have any intention on learning anything about spirits? Ghosts? Extra planar beings?”  sometimes he can seem very, very coherent. Sometimes it can be forgotten that William Holmes is actually fairly intelligent until moments like these pop up and he seems (is) thoroughly in an element in which he is comfortable.

“What I was trying to get at earlier is do it now and discuss permanent solutions to the ward problem later. Who was handling your security before?”

He paused.

“Did the ritual actually fail? Ulrich is back where he was supposed to be, right?” Conversational, cool, comfortable.

Ned
"Not much at the moment. There are other sections of the Puzzle that demand more attention right now." Ned's indicator of his Avatar is probably something he doesn't talk about often. He hasn't mentioned it much outside of the Cabal and anyone within the Cabal would probably only have heard about it through the secondary descriptions he often uses in jigsawing various Works together.

"We didn't have security before because we weren't doing much to warrant it." That sounded like a weak argument and Ned knew it. He pulled a face. "We weren't. Which explains a lot, really. I'm not as worried about Spiritual stuff as I am about the physical. If something gets through on a spiritual level that's a step above what half of us in this damn Cabal are capable of doing anything about. Shoring up our weak points, the ones we can allinteract with, minimizes the ingress' associated on our home. That gives us time and freedom to approach a more real solution to the Spiritual than just invisibility...which is likely our best response for the time being."

"Ulric...Dread-bringer...He's secure. The Ritual is..." Ned's trying to remember through a haze of bad memories. Like picking through a garden of thorns. "It's like a timer. The energies associated with it seemed to form not just a prison but a tampering effect. He pushes back and gets a dose of something distracting. Coupled with the actual prison restraints and it's going to take him a while to be cohesive enough to break it all down again. Margot suggested Halloween...and every one after that until we sort out what to do about him permanently."

Ned snaps his fingers gently. The sidewalk thumps under his heels. They'd passed mostly closed shops now and he seems to be angling them toward one of the main streets south, back the way they had first arrived.

"I've been digging around in the library's more mundane areas, trying to find some sources but nothing's really come up. I get the feeling that whatever they were doing, it couldn't have just been about getting rid of him or...they would have just gotten rid of him, yeah? Who the hell wants to trap and secure a Marauder? More importantly, why>?"

William
“Dealing with potentially very angry dead people has been a function of my life long enough that I kind of forget that it isn’t a part of everyone else’s,” he tells Ned, “so I will try not to give you too much shit about not understanding spirits and alternate planes and shit. Keep working on your corners and edges, it’ll all meet up in the end.”The indication that, yes, he could follow and understand and, yes, he was actually going to try and be good on his attempts to not give Ned shit about having other shit to do.

“I will totally talk to you about Manes et Spirituum  if you’re ever interested, but I’ve got some very strong opinions and they will bog down conversation if we get into it. Your concern was wards, and doing something we can all do.” All the while William is counting footsteps. One, two, three, five, eight, thirteen and so on. “But yeah, I’m all about throwing something up briefly. Correspondence for teleportation. Matter for actual physical sturdiness so nothing breaks a window down, Ars Virium to make sure the house isn’t a goddamned inescapable tinderbox death trap. If we can’t nail down correspondence at least nail down Forces. That I know at least three of us can do, sure Sepúlveda can too… but I kind of wonder if the house is actually his problem anymore.”

The rest of the content had him thinking. It made the Hermetic fall quiet. Silent. It didn’t seem right and he didn’t seem interested in filling the silence with anything. For a moment William looked at something on the ground and attempted to grab Ned’s coat to steer him around it.

“We’ll understand the why better if we understand who he was and what made him into who he became. Infernalists love their rituals, and working in concert lets you take some of the load off and do something bigger than one or two people could dream. Halloween is a duh date for them… I tried to strip out whatever we could to not perpetuate some kind of ritual that is going to leave us scarred.

“What if we looked back across the timeline to see what was there?”

Ned
"Well let's put a stall on that until you're in a state of mind that's capable of...well surviving on your own outside of four very familiar walls."

Ned's attention drifts across the landscape of the small county. Aurora had it's charms but small town living was not something Ned was comfortable with. At least as far as Aurora could be identified as a small town. He strays to the curb side for the novelty of a lack of traffic and drifts under street lamps knowing there isn't a policeman waiting nearby to scope him out. At least not regularly.

"The Doc is on his own budget and time. He's around when we call but not necessarily all the time. People that old tend to want to avoid people our age. It makes them wish for the good ole days of nostalgia, 8 tracks and casual sex without the STIs."

Ned slows his walking a bit, consideration a heavy thing in his knit brow.

"Wards are a good first step. Figuring out how to defend ourselves should have been priority ages ago but...well so was keeping sane and put together and look how well that turned out. We're going to be a constant work in progress but that doesn't mean we can't accomplish some things. Forces and Matter should be easy. Mind is a different story. Spirit you two can handle but ultimately I'd like some level of 'off the radar' that I doubt we're going to get from anything but Prime. Not appearing as anything more than a run down home or house to the Aware, should be a first line of defense really."

William
"Do you guys call Sepúlveda for things that aren't I'm in horrific trouble? He's right there, and he actually shows up when you ask him to; you've got a sweet mentor gig."

He continued along his way, content to meander and kept his gait even. He was avoiding looking at the sky of the stars (or lack thereof, oh god they're supposed to be back now, right?) This left William with the option of either looking at the ground or looking at Ned- the latter being what he finally decided on instead of being concerned about what was in front of him.

"Self-defense isn't something you need to just think magick about. You've been doing that- you are constantly learning and trying to expand what you see in front of you and around you. You're chipping away at the whole unknown category. If you want, we can get up and you can give me supervised yard time," with a grin, "I need a running partner and you look like you don't tire out."

"Also? Eeryone and everything is a constant work in progress. Anyone who says otherwise is a fucking idiot... you can make the house literally invisible, or you can make it beneath someone's notice. One is done with Forces and the other can be done with Mind. Your best bet is to do both... and there is no way in Hell I am living in a place that is run down and abandoned-looking. No no no, I come from contractors, we don't do that."

Ned
"I've got the physical element down for the most part. At least as far as non-military discipline levels of physicality go anyway. But when you've got opponents who can warp reality, seal you in a carbonite chamber or petrify you with a glance there's on so far your physical self will go. Supplementing combative efforts with Work-" Because Ned was in a similar boat as Andres, when it comes to referring to anything they did as 'Magic(k)'. "-was the obvious next step. Beyond that though, we're into Wizarding 101 levels of stuff and that's about where I want off the ride. Mostly because I've seen what it's done to you lot and the the Doc on several occasions."

So far, Ned's been the only one in the Cabal to have avoided any heavy backlashes. He's stable and he's safe in a lot of his practices. Which of course, might be part of the issue but then Ned probably also knows that already.

"For the most part, securing ourselves is the best option. Until we're done with that, there's not really going to be any chance to gain ground elsewhere because we'll be constantly looking over our shoulders."

Ned snaps his fingers and adjusts his jacket right afterward.

"Veto on the contracting deal though. We're not altering or touching or changing anything in that damned house until we're sure it won't set off the Marauder hiding in the fucking walls. It's gotta stay as is for the moment. I really don't want to discover Baba Yaga in the water closet on the second floor or the pop hole in the basement is a growing vat for the Golgathan or something."

Ned shrugs and grins.

"But yeah. We can knock you into shape while you're recovering. That and planning out what to do seems like the best road right now."

William
"We all know the risks of Working, and we do it anyway because the potential for doing good outweighs the consequence. I will end up in Quiet again, hopefully not worse than this but I know it's going to happen. I'm going to keep doing this shit anyway."

But, he is content to bop along and listen to Ned, going through his spiels and his references and William, for his part, only offers this:

"Wuuuuuuuusssssss," with a grin, obviously playful, "c'mon, let's bail. I need to go home- your shadow is starting to kinda freak me out."