GM: ----------------------
The London night outside the narrow townhouse is dark. Rarely, a car will drive by along the street outside the front window, but for the most part, it's quiet. Shanti, dark-skinned and blunt, sprawls on the couch next to Leah, looking at pictures of her redheaded new girlfriend, and both of them look up as Alice returns from her discussion with her distant cousin.
There's so much Alice has yet to learn, so much she has yet to figure out and account for. The safety of the house was once regarded as second nature to her, the place she grew up in and made her home in her second life as an adult woman, but the door and the glass seem flimsy protections against the sorts of things she knows stalk the night out there.
GM: Or what lies beneath - in a sealed-off basement marked with magical signs, where at least one branch of her family chose to hide away part of their background. Even there, she has but scratched the surface.
GM: "Hey, Alice - any word?"
Alice: "Oh, a few things," Alice says, frowning somewhat.
GM: "Sounds grand."
Alice: "There was a younger sibling, and then there wasn't," Alice says heavily, "The shadow you saw was likely him."
Alice: "And that if the man behind the door isn't completely dead, he doesn't seem like a bad chap, but that you can never really tell."
Leah "Oh." Leah frowns. "...that's... ominous."
Alice: "Somewhat," Alice concurs.
Leah "So our guess at a vampire isn't far off base."
Alice: "And that there's numerous unfortunate memories of that time that pertain to him not at all."
Alice: "So really, it couldn't have been much more ominous unless blood started dripping from my phone."
GM: Shanti shares a look with Leah and glances to Alice.
"How certain can we be nothing is going to get out of there?"
Alice: "Well, the patch job looked poor enough that I could potentially kick it open myself."
GM: "I have chemicals that can be set on fire very quickly. I also brought an appropriate fire extinguisher."
Alice: "They don't create a poisonous gas, do they?"
GM: "No, we should be fine so long as we don't get set on fire."
GM: "That plus the magnesium torches is probably as good as we're going to get right now."
Leah "I can control temperature and eventually do some damage, but it's a much slower process than just shoving a magnesium torch into his face."
Leah "Though I can throw one at him from a distance without burning myself."
GM: "Alice's call, then," Shanti says, getting to her feet. She ties her short hair back
Alice: Alice sighs, shaking her head.
Alice: "This is entirely stupid. I'll get the shotgun."
GM: "Duly noted," Shanti says, and makes her way into the work room to gather her tings. A white plastic bottle covered in warning labels, and three magnesium torches. She brings one to Leah while Alice goes and gets her shotgun and pops a box of ammunition, miming how to tear it open.
Leah Leah holds it, reading the labels on it to make sure she figures how she'll do this. Rip open, then float it over after splashing some of Shanti's burny accelerant. Simple enough.
GM: "So. I wonder if you're going to come out with new powers," Shanti says thoughtfully, looking at Leah. Leah hasn't been looked at like a science project before, so that's a new experience.
Leah "So, what, you think I'm pulling a blue mage thing?"
GM: "Oh man, nice reference. Maybe? How'd your heat powers manifest?"
Leah "Uhhh... not by being exposed to them, unless it came as a package deal with the TK. I was teaching and I only realized I was making the classroom cold when someone complained that the AC was going into overdrive."
GM: "Just don't go Elfen Lied on me."
Alice: "We could zap you with electricity and see what happens."
GM: She grins at that
Leah "...wouldn't be against it, so long as I'm well grounded."
GM: There are only a few things her father taught Alice that she holds near and dear to her heart. Close to the top of the list is to respect a gun. Make sure it's clean, make sure it's not pointed at anything you're not prepared to lose.
GM: "Let's electrocute Leah later," Shanti says, and heads for the basement door.
GM: "Tempting as it sounds!"
Alice: "It does sound entertaining."
Leah "You make it sound almost like a fetish." She follows along.
Alice: "Shanti has a certain thing to her."
GM: "I've never used a battery in sex! Yet, anyway," she says.
The bunker spreads out before them. Signs mark the walls - Alice hasn't read enough yet to know if the magic in them is still good, assuming they ever worked at all. They probably did, knowing her family.
They reach the door, and Shanti pulls out a crowbar. She looks over to Leah. "Be my guest?"
Alice: Perhaps she should take a photograph of them, for later analysis?
Ah, right. Eyes on what's in front of her.
GM: Probably a good idea, when it comes to it.
"I mean, maybe we should try the lock first, but you know."
Leah Leah takes the crowbar and wanders on over to the door. She tries the doorknob, just in case.
Leah Then, failing that, she begins to jimmy the metal bar between lock and doorframe. "Alright, then..."
GM: Shanti examines it.
"Nailed into place. All yours, then."
Leah She spends a couple moments cooling the doorframe down in preparation. Then she sets herself, squares her stance, and begins to push with both weight and mind muscles.
GM: The others keep clear, and with her enhanced strength the bar snaps open violently. A couple seventy year old nails clatter to the ground.
Leah Then comes the tugging the door open - from a safe distance, with magic mind tricks, of course.
Alice: Alice raises the shotgun, peering over it into the darkened room.
GM: Once freed it opens surprisingly easily, but what really hits them is the smell. A heavy, musty scent waves out of the room, combined with a bit of a chemical smell. Whatever it was volatized over the decades and leaked into the surrounding atmosphere. Shanti orders them to step back a bit, seeing what's going on, and after a moment allows them to enter and aim their flashlights. Torches would be the operative word, but they have very different ones and it's best not to confuse things.
Nothing is moving, thankfully. Not yet.
Taking the room in with the initial search, it's honestly not that big, taking up only the remaining floorspace of the cellar level. In one corner are stacked various boxes, while along one wall is a shelving unit, with books and boxes of papers.
Along the back wall, bizarrely enough, there's another door.
On the floor are bodies. Three of them, all reduced to skeletons by the actions of insects, with dark stains surrounding them, and one coffin, within rests a shriveled up mummy. A stake has been planted in his heart.
To Leah, the room is packed with shadows, clustered about the far door. Signs are marked across it, circles and triangles.
GM: "Well, shit," Shanti murmurs.
Leah "Whoa..!" She shines the light down on the bodies. Then up towards the opposite door, blinking. "...there's a whole lot of lost souls here, especially around the opposite door." Then back down at the bodies. "...ugh..."
Alice: Alice pinches her nose with one hand, lowering the shotgun.
Alice: "What the fucking fuck ," she chimes in, clearly somewhat off-balance.
Leah "Looks like whoever sealed the door also did our vampire in or... something. Jesus."
GM: Shanti looks over at Alice sympathetically, the awareness that she'd been living over this most of her life clear.
"There's some clothes. Might be some identification on the bodies," she says quietly.
GM: "Can at least arrange a decent buriel - and no, look at the arrangement."
GM: "They were dragged in here and laid out."
GM: "Almost peaceful."
Leah She looks down again, then makes a face. "Ahh... so... so they were..."
GM: "It's just damp enough in here that the bodies weren't well-preserved - except for him, anyway."
GM: "Bones show signs of decay, probably won't last."
Leah "I'm glad I have TK, cause I don't want to touch them.."
GM: She steps up, covering her mouth with her shirt to peek.
"Bullet hole in one, temporal lobe. Powder marks, so close range."
Leah "..executed, then?"
GM: "This one was, anyway."
Leah Leah heads over to the boxes to check for labeling.
Leah Keeping as clear of the bodies as she can, anyway.
GM: The ones on the shelves are arranged by date and year, while the ones in the corner have labels like "Paraphenalia" "Cloaks" and "Weapons"
Leah "Cloaks, weapons? What the hell was this room?"
Alice: Alice leans down to inspect the the staked corpse, shining her torch directly on it. She doesn't touch it, of course.
GM: Male, trimmed beard, somewhat ragged in its current condition.
He's wearing sensible men's attire from the period. Upper class, cut reminisicent of a German businessman. Gold ring on left ring finger.
And more than a bit of the Greystock look.
Alice: Concerning.
Is the ring distinguishing, at all?
GM: Gold band, no distinguishing characteristics.
Leah Leah skirts around the edge and stops not too far from the shadows, giving them a general overview to see what sort of ... posture they might have opted for as... ghosts?.. since they seem relatively static.
GM: They're pressed in together, packed tight, at the door
Leah "It's like they're all huddled in wanting at whatever's on the other side."
GM: "So what's his deal," Shanti says, a rhetorical question. "Fled the Nazis?"
Alice: "Perhaps. German cut suit, looks like family, few distinguishing marks - but, vampiric. He could potentially be older."
Leah "I'm not sure what I expected. Wasn't quite a body dump though.."
GM: "Only three."
GM: "That's good right?"
Alice: "Unless there's a pile of bodies through the other door."
Alice: Alice pauses.
Leah "I think it's a ritual chamber or something. Human sacrifice grade."
GM: "If that's an actual door, it would lead into the public sewers."
Alice: "I suppose," she says ruefully, looking down at the staked corpse, "That 'bodies' are high on the list of what you'd expect to find in a sealed basement."
GM: "Which some worker would have noticed before."
GM: Shanti puts a hand on her shoulder
GM: "You all right?" she murmurs
Alice: "I'm not sure, honestly."
Alice: Alice looks between the bodies, her face expressionless.
Alice: "I wonder if we should move them, and then I keep circling back to the thought that interfering with a corpse is a crime."
Leah "Not sure if involving the coppers on this is super wise, that said."
GM: "We could move the vampire, first."
Alice: "He's presumably an expert at disposing of bodies," Alice notes.
Leah "He's also got a big wooden stick in his heart."
Leah "Don't think he's going to be helping us dispose of any body."
Alice: "I think that asking might not be wise," Alice agrees.
GM: "If we are going to wake him up, we probably need to provide blood."
GM: "Like, from blood bags."
GM: "Since I don't fancy waking up a hungry vampire otherwise."
Leah "There's that. I don't think I fancy waking up a vampire at all, though."
Leah "But, I mean... I'm kind of at a loss of what to do about this, too."
Alice: "This . . . is a tricky one," Alice admits, somewhat at a loss.
Alice: "I mean . . ."
Alice: "At least the vampire is clearly not a problem right now?"
GM: "Yeah, seems like he's going to keep, at least."
Shanti glances at Leah and nudges Alice.
"Let's clear out of here. This air doesn't look like it's doing you any favors right now."
Alice: "Should we take some of the papers?"
She looks at the bodies again, then at the shelving units.
Alice: ". . . I suppose we can always come back," she concedes.
Alice: She starts to move, and then stops - the shotgun still pointed at the ground.
Alice: "I should take a photograph of the vampire," she decides out loud, as the idea occurs to her.
GM: "Yeah, I think that's a good idea. On both counts."
GM: "Leah, help me with the papers? We'll want to get an idea of what was going on here."
Leah "Yeah, sure." She starts to gather up what she can into a carryable pile, glancing worriedly at the far door now and then.
GM: Shanti takes a couple boxes with her, checking the titles on the books.
"More magic stuff. Occult stuff - guides to spirits."
GM: (everyone take a gnostic beat by the by)
Leah "Can't say I'm surprised." She tugs out some of the other boxes, too, while she's at it.
Leah "Well, I mean, I am, but it's with the.. theme.
Alice: "I suppose that makes sense."
Alice: "It was more what I expected down here than . . . the scene, anyway."
Alice: What kind of clothing were the bodies wearing, actually?
GM: "We'll have to get a catalog going of these, too."
Leah Leah's glad to be dumping this stuff out of there, using her mind to shimmy them up the stairs.
GM: "I can get some lighting for the camera, too? It's a bit dim here."
Leah "Isn't that what the flash is for?"
Alice: "Not the best for darkened rooms like this, and the shadows will be sketchy. I'll come with you."
Alice: "I don't think staying alone in the horror movie set is wise."
GM: "I kind of agree."
They haul the boxes back up to the second floor, leaving them in the kitchen with the windows open to air it out. Shanti finds a fan and plugs it in, helping it along.
GM: "Well, today was productive."
Alice: (Sorry, need to be a few minutes!)
Leah Leah washes her hands thoroughly, then plops down in a chair to slowly digest what they just witnessed. "It took a dark turn."
Alice: (Sorry all. Ran off, then meeting, then lunch, then phone call)
Alice: "It was . . . enlightening?" Alice hedges, folding her arms.
Alice: "I suppose it roughly met expectations."
Leah "Kinda exceeded them in a bad way. I expected Nosferatu in a coffin, and fair enough, we got that. But then there were executed dead bodies rotting there and stuff."
"... I guess on the bright side we didn't have to set anyone or anything on fire, or shoot it."
Alice: "It could have exceeded them in admittedly worse ways."
GM: Shanti nods thoughtfully, getting orange juice from the fridge and toying with it, frowning.
GM: "Yeah."
GM: "I guess the next step would be - what can we do to protect ourselves?"
GM: "I mean, yeah, I've been studying those books."
GM: "I'm thniking of initiating myself into one of the traditions there."
Alice: "Are you going to learn to start fires in a new way?"
Leah "Could look for people who know about this stuff, maybe."
GM: "I'm actually not sure I can!"
She looks to Leah, and then back to Alice.
"Well, there's Hermine. She's still being cryptic, though, I'd imagine."
Alice: "I'm unclear as to whether she finds it amusing or struck some eldritch pact that necessitates it."
GM: "There's certainly no lack of material for her to draw on in that regard."
GM: She looks at the books she pulled up.
GM: "This one is a guide to spirits, with special attention to those residing in London. There's a publisher listed in the front."
GM: She puts that to the side.
"A grimoire of some sort. I'm reluctant to even open it," she dares peeking at the first page. "Hand-written, or copied more like."
Leah Leah draws her feet up and sits cross legged. "Not long ago, I'd have said those were all hokie bullshit."
GM: She pushes that over with the spirit guide. "Lilith's Children. Maddening Things. Faeries and their Ilk."
Leah "Now it's hard to differentiate between the two."
GM: Shanti finishes her glass, looking to Alice.
Alice: "I honestly," Alice says ruefully, "Don't know what to suggest. Initiating into a magical tradition seems prudent, at this point, and yet . . ."
GM: "'What's the catch?' you're thinking?"
Alice: "Nothing is free."
Leah "I certainly found a few costs with mine, for instance."
Leah "Headaches, hard to control with spectacular failures, shadowy ghosts.."
GM: "We might be able to figure out what the costs would be - or I could go ahead. I'm reckless enough, certainly."
Alice: "I feel as though immediate experimentation is something we should avoid, honestly. We have a significant degree of resources here -"
Alice: "But if it's so easy and simple as that, why isn't it more widespread?"
GM: "That's a pretty good question."
GM: She frowns at her glass.
GM: "We need more information."
Leah "Has to be someone out there who's walked the walk and written about it, online or in a book. In thousands of years of human history, there's bound to have been at least one helpful sort."
GM: "I think we can find those."
Leah "So hit the books and the internet and see about sifting the shlock from the good stuff?"
Leah "Given how well we did in the library the other day, that doesn't seem unfeasible."
GM: "Maybe worth asking your sister, too," she nods.
GM: She checks her phone, frowning.
GM: "Fuck me - it's 2 in the morning."
GM: "And I have an early meeting."
Leah "Wait, what?" She looks out the window.
GM: It's been dark for hours now.
Alice: Alice blinks, looking at Shanti in surprise.
Alice: "Oh, hell," she says suddenly.
Alice: "I'll need to be at work in a few hours as well."
Leah "I only start early afternoon, but still. Guess we should split."
GM: "Okay. Drive safe, yeah?" Shanti gets to her feet, going to embrace Leah.
GM: "I instantly feel less secure without your psychic muscle around."
Alice: "I'll start cataloguing this through the week," Alice says thoughtfully, looking over the scattered materials on the table.
Alice: "And perhaps we'll have something . . . oh."
Leah Leah gives Shanti a squeeze. "It's come in pretty handy. And yeah, I will. If there's anything, don't hesitate to call or text."
Alice: "You know, I still have corpses in my basement?"
GM: "Should probably do something about that," Shanti nods, frowning
Leah "Yeeeaah.... what do you propose we do about that? I could help you move them or something."
GM: "If you want to call the cops, we can move the vampire - I dunno if it'd be a good idea to be caught with one."
Alice: Well."
Alice: Alice purses her lips.
Alice: "This is going to be awkward because it's also going to involve family embarrassment."
GM: "No way you're keeping this out of the papers."
GM: "If you do make it public."
Alice: "Yes. Precisely ."
Leah "Yeah... The alternative is to find some way to dispose of them quietly or something."
Alice: "Hiding corpses is always an excellent plan unless you get caught."
Alice: She sighs.
Alice: "Any chance we can just nail it back up again?"
Leah "It's an option, until we know what to do with it."
Leah "Maybe stick a dehumidifier in there."
GM: "We could - nail it shut, wallpaper back over it."
Alice: Alice pinches the bridge of her nose.
Alice: "Perhaps for now we just close the doors and add a dehumidifier?" she decides.
Alice: "I don't even know where to start with this problem."
Alice: "Shanti, you're the engineer, isn't this your department?"
GM: "I have a distinct lack of corpse-related experience, but yeah, if we dehumidified it it should arrest the current decay. I don't think it'll make it all break down."
Leah "And we can then decide what we do. Since until we pop the lid on the story to someone, then no one else knows about it besides your family member."
GM: "Even then, not most of them."
GM: "...probably. Unless you're being kept in the dark."
Alice: (Fucking skype!)
Alice: (It didn't flash. :/)
Alice: (Android skype is hate and loathing.)
GM: (Yup)
Alice: "Marvellous. Well, I can't believe I'm saying this, but hopefully someone in my family knows how to hide a body."
GM: "Good luck with that," Shanti makes a face. "I know some chemicals, but it's not something we want to do lightly."
GM: She goes to grab her coat and backpack.
Leah "If you do come up with a solution, let us know and we'll help out with it." She grabs her own stuff.
Leah "In the meantime, I guess stop by the hardware store when you get a chance."
GM: "Yeah - we're not going to leave you in the wind here."
Alice: "I feel so much better knowing that I have friends dear enough that they'll help me bury corpses."
Alice: "It's enough to bring a tear to the eye, or would if it wasn't 2AM and time for you all to either take the couch or go home."
Alice: Alice pauses.
Alice: "Wait, is the hardware store for the wall or the corpses?"
GM: "We'll talk if it's one of your corpses~"
GM: "The dehumidifier. I think."
Leah "Yeah."
GM: "And an extension cord, I wouldn't trust any wiring down there."
GM: With that, Shanti says her goodbyes and clears out. She thought about taking the couch, but didn't think to bring spare clothes, and so braves the night.
Leah Leah does the same as well, though glances back to make sure Alice's house doesn't spontaneously catch on fire or get invaded by the souls of the damned the moment they're outside of it.
Alice: Alice says her goodbyes before closing the door, turning to look at the mess strewn across her dining table.
GM: Piles of mid-century papers and older books. Secrets, lain buried.
GM: Rot at the core of the family tree or perhaps something that needed to be dug up.
Alice: Well, the vampire had a certain familial resemblance.
GM: (Any other plans for the evening or shall we FF through your preparations?)
Alice: (FF, I reckon!)
GM: (Lay out what her plans would be for the next 3 days.)
GM: (And Leah's)
Alice: Hmm
Alice: i) Develop the film recipe to the point that it can be used in an instant camera.
Alice: ii) Acquire some vestige of home security.
Alice: iii) Dig up more information on the recent phenomena.
(Also notable, new Aspirations)
Alice: - Alice needs to sort out the basement, photograph the vampire
Leah (Leah will use some of her free time to do some internet research to try and find some relevant information regarding the supernatural, hopefully somewhat meaty. She'll check in with Alice to make sure she's still okay. She'll seek some comfort and some normalcy with Renee. Otherwise, it's going to be work and doing some networking for work and career purposes. Also trim Abigail's claws. They're due.)
GM: (brb)
GM: (I'm going to bed, pardon)
Leah G'nii
Alice: Night!
GM: -----
The next few days are shades of unpleasant for Alice.
That evening, she takes several exposures of her vampiric relative. When she dares to examine his things, she finds the papers identifying him - one Hermann Grau, which is indeed the short-lived German branch of the family that supposedly died out in the 18th century. The pictures are fascinating - the "live" vampire she met had something inside her that reacted violently to being photographed, refusing to be caught cleanly on camera, but with this one paralyzed she sees it - a faint shadow, pinned by the stake, with tendrils lain dormant in every part of its body (1 Gnostic beat, also for Leah when she sees it.) The aura of the room is bleak, centered around the marked door.
Over the remainder of the week, she manages to develop a catalyst to let her apply the combined formula to instant film.
GM: Work hasn't ceased to be grating - if anything, it's become more so since that night in Cambridge. It's hard for her not to watch the clock in the corner of the company-issued laptop, aware that every hour is one less that she's spending figuring out the puzzle in her basement, of her film, of wondering how she'll have any chance of keeping the vampires she pissed off from finding her, and the petty politics of the office have taken on a new level of banality. Worse, they monitor her internet usage pretty tightly, so it's not like she can get away from it all by doing research.
As she was thinking about the logistics of quitting, though, on the second day she got a call from her doctor about her neck.
Stage 1. Manageable, schedule an appointment. Drugs, see a specialist. Her family could support her if it gets bad, but then what? Surrender what she's worked towards?
GM: And then there's the dreams.
She finds herself in her night things, walking down the stairs, every bump and bit of texture on the wall clear. She comes to the door and stares at it. On the second night, she rests her fingers on the handle.
By the morning of the third day, Saturday, she eats a cold breakfast and can't remember the last time she could smile readily.
GM: There's a humidifier plugged in downstairs and two dead bodies, three if you count Hermann.
GM: It's early morning, despite being Saturday. She couldn't really sleep with the dreams, and so spent most of her time studying and cataloguing the papers left behind.
Her grandfather and great-grandfather come up a lot, along with other members of the family and some unknown figures outside it. Times, participants, and aims of various rituals, most of them as logs of scrying, which her great-uncle did with a bowl of water, which range from spying on German military operations to business rivals and ministry officials.
GM: As she finishes her breakfast, gnawing on an apple that tastes like it was freeze dried too long, her phone rings. She half-expected her sister, but the number has no picture, just a name - Amy.
Friend from college, hasn't spoken since, never got around to removing her contact.
Alice: Alice looks at the phone for a long, long moment, before she finally comes ot her decision.
Alice: Reaching over, she keys the phone and holds it to her ear.
"Alice Greystock," she announces herself bluntly.
GM: "Alice?" the woman on the other end asks. Tired, as she should be at this time - it's still dark out, Alice having gotten up very early indeed. "I'm sorry to wake you, but I need help. It's - fuck, you're the only person I could think about. It's a... I'm pretty sure it's a ghost thing."
Alice: "Hello Amy," Alice answers mildly, setting the apple down, "I was awake already, so this is no bother."
"I shan't claim to be an expert on the topic," she continues, flawlessly ignoring the reams of research materials on her dining table, "But nonetheless, what seems to be the problem?"
GM: There's a sound of blinds.
"Hypothetically, if I'm occupying an older home, and there's a history to it, and I sometimes dream of someone, that's the sort of thing you looked for in hauntings, right?" Her breath is tight, like she's been running.
"I know I didn't much believe you, but... can ghosts make you do things, and you aren't even aware of them? But you come to and you realize something's happened?"
Alice: "There are stories, though I won't claim to have observed it. I assume you've just had that experience?"
GM: "Yeah, yeah I have. I'm worried it's going to happen again, too."
GM: She draws a shuddering breath.
GM: "This is real? I'm not just insane? I - maybe you can't tell yet. Are you in the city? I'm in Brent..."
Alice: "Well, I was hardly going to sleep anymore this morning anyway. If you could text me your address, I can drive over and see what I can find. Fair warning, mind, that my practical experience with these matters is quite limited."
GM: "It's better than what I've got. Thank god... okay. I'll see you."
Amy hangs up and texts her the address, using Google Maps to share it directly to SMS.
Alice: Well, this will give her an opportunity to field test the instant film recipe.
But before she leaves, she should have a rummage through the research materials - certainly some of it must have touched on hauntings and possessions.
GM: Yes, definitely. There's her own research material (from a few years back) and her family's material.
GM: The sun is rising as Alice completes her read at the kitchen table. There's a lot about hauntings here, and after some detailed reading she manages to pick out what she's looking for.
So she knows about Resonance - that is to say, a condition of the envionment that predisposes it a certain way. Ghosts have something similar, called an Anchor, which is their sphere of influence. It's the basic thing holding ghosts to this world. In this condition, a ghost can appear if they have that capability, but do little else.
Many ephemeral beings will try to expand on that, either with raw power or through long-term action - specifically for ghosts, by haunting people and places. Once a thing is Open to them, they can influence it more dramatically. They can fully materialize, or 'fetter' themselves (which makes a person 'urged', or begin to possess someone.
A possessed person is in a coma-like state.
There's also something called "Claiming" but she has no strong details on it.
Alice: What does it mean to make a thing 'Open'?
GM: To establish oneself so much that the person is 'open' to influence from the entity.
Alice: Right, but what does it mean to establish oneself in regards to a person?
Do they need to believe in it? Do they need a tangible connection? Do they need an emotional connection of some description?
GM: From the looks of it, they need to establish a presence in their minds, to condition them by acts and deeds, sometimes agreements, sometimes by subtle coercion. They 'groom' their victims, in a sense (they may not even be aware of it), and stronger-willed ones will unconsciously resist better.
GM: So a ghost will turn a place into a thing of terror until it becomes a haunted house, or trouble a person's dreams, until they can slip right in.
Terror isn't the only way. It can be a 'good' influence. Such things are highly subjective.
GM: Apparently, the typical way to dispense with a ghost is to solve whatever bothered them - or destroy their anchor.
GM: Removing the Open state from a person is possible, too, by essentially breaking them of the original conditioning.
Alice: Interesting.
Alice: And likely useful.
Alice: She'll call in sick to work today. With her diagnosis, she has an excuse - and she needs to schedule some appointments in any event.
GM: Her boss expresses the hope that she'll feel better in a somewhat overly sympathetic tone, and then she's free. Friday is hers.
Alice: Alice makes the requisite polite noises. Yes, of course, the cancer is just a passing thing and she'll feel better next week.
Not that she's explaining herself to that degree - he's just being polite, of course.
Ugh.
GM: It's hard not to see it everywhere she looks, a veneer of civility over emptiness and leaden chains.
GM: Shanti buzzes in to see how she's doing while she's getting ready, peeling off her night things and getting decent. She'll have heard that she called in sick by now.
Alice: 'A haunting and a visit to a specialist about her blood tests' is the summation Alice provides her, though with scant detail - Alice is not in much of a mood to talk about either.
GM: The routine of getting dressed, brushing her hair out, earrings in, and then it's back out into the sunlight. Parking in that part of Brent's going to be a bitch, so she takes the tube instead.
Something about the reminder to "mind the gap" always struck her as a little funny. When she was little, it filled her with a deep sort of anxiety that she could never really place.
GM: Like she was afraid of the gap sucking her in, never to be seen again.
Alice: Cracks in the pavement are an old superstition, aren't they? An odd commonality.
GM: Odd people share the tube car with her, but nothing new about that. A sikh man reads a paper. How many are touched by the secret world? All of them, on some level? Every person in the world, probably, has something they've brushed against. It's the ones who are active participants that you've really got to look out for.
It's not the nicest part of Brent, that's for sure. There's parts of it with million-dollar homes and skyrocketing incomes, but she's going for a cheaper part, occupied by students and artists, and actually not that far from Shanti's family. They're muslim, but there's a substantial Hindu population, as evidenced by the Sanskrit and Punjabi signs and the large Hindu temple, seemingly transplanted straight out of India, with its manicured gardens.
The house she's renting is one of several like it, red brick with a double chimney. Late Victorian row houses, lower middle class, with people hanging their clothes out on lines.
Alice: After observing the house from the outside - and snapping a photograph - Alice approaches Amy's front door, rapping her knuckles against it firmly.
GM: It's a bit before anyone appears. Long minutes pass. She hears something above, a shift in the blinds over the street, and then a few seconds later the door opens, showing a harried woman with light brown hair pulled into a ponytail.
"Oh, thank god."
GM: "I'm glad you could make it. Come in."
She shuts the door behind her, admitting her to a disused living room. There's furniture and other things, but she has them under white sheets, the better to keep the dust off.
"I'm renting from a family," she says. "Out of the country for a few months every year."
Alice: "Good morning, Amy. I admit that I might also be out of the country a little if I had this sort of problem."
"Could you explain precisely what has been happening, as you know it? Starting from the beginning."
GM: Amy goes over to start a kettle of tea in the kitchen behind the living room. The older house is very closed off, with doors dividing the different areas, and the tile here is old and maybe a bit grouty in places. She leans back against one countertop, head in her hands.
"...starting from the beginning," she murmurs. "Right. Let me think..."
GM: "I suppose it started a couple weeks ago, maybe a month after I moved in? I always heard strange noises at night - figured they were rats or maybe bats in the attic or something. Maybe some weird plumbing. Then, some nights, I'd hear this... loud, thumping sound, and I'd come look, but there'd be nothing there, but then one time I saw a handprint on the mirror, only when I turned the light on it was gone. Little things kept being wrong, like the lights wouldn't turn on for a while and then suddenly they would."
GM: "I'd wake up with my blankets off, and I figured I'd kicked them off, but I never do that. Then just two nights ago I saw someone, or I thought I did, but they were gone when I looked. I was all prepared to go talk to a shrink or something, but..."
GM: The kettle whistles and she jumps.
GM: Nerves frayed, she pours a couple cups, putting one on the table for Alice while she mixes a bit of honey in with hers.
GM: "...and then there was last night."
Alice: "What happened last night?"
GM: She puts the tea down, too shaky, her hands coming up about herself.
"I blacked out. I don't know... how long exactly. After dark, must have been, maybe around two when I came back around?
"And... fuck me, but... there was blood. A lot of it. Up to my elbows."
GM: Her arms pink where she scrubbed for what must have been a very long time.
Alice: Alice winces, picking up her cup of tea.
"I take it that was not just a dream?"
GM: "No... no it wasn't. I don't... I don't want to know what happened and I don't... it's possible, right? That it's not me? Not my fault? Whatever happened?"
Alice: "Entirely possible," Alice answers, grimacing, holding her still full teacup, "Though needless to say this is not . . . a matter on which the general populace can be convinced."
"I and others have seen things entirely impossible, and then I have watched them decide that clearly no such thing could have happened."
Alice: "Where were you when you came around?"
GM: She shakes her head, listening - not disagreeing, but upset, and justly so.
"Here. I... the kitchen? No, I remember opening the door from the backyard, and only when I got inside did I notice. I thought I'd fallen, or something, but I don't... I don't have any cuts."
GM: "...I haven't checked to see if... if there's been any news."
GM: "I scrubbed the doorknob, too. I know they have ways to see blood, but I didn't dare go looking. Fuck, I'm talking about covering it up - I... I don't know what to do and I'm freaking out."
GM: She takes deep breaths, hand to her head.
"I must have done something. I don't... god, I should turn myself in... Maybe I was attacked."
Alice: "I think," Alice says heavily, "That there is no good answer to this situation. It would reflect better on you if you did turn yourself in, but I also think we should look to a clear understanding as to what has happened."
"So you yourself are uninjured?"
GM: "I don't think so. I'm not bleeding, I don't hurt."
GM: "I lost, what... six hours at least?"
Alice: "I think we'd best look outside and see what we can determine. While I should like to turn the house upside down to find the source of this, it's also not the most pressing problem."
GM: She nods, rubbing her face.
GM: "All right."
GM: ~~~~
It doesn't take them long.
Three blocks down, there's a police cordon blocking off part of the street, blue-striped police tape marking off someone's front door. Amy walks a step behind Alice's side, a sense of palpable dread overcoming her.
GM: "Fuck. Fuck me." She can't make herself go closer from where they stand at the end of the street.
GM: "...what now?" she asks, biting her lip.
Alice: Alice exhales heavily, looking down the street.
"Well - I believe you, Amy, but I somehow cannot see that amounting to anything useful."
GM: "What if I do it again?" She shivers. "Maybe I could get insanity..."
Alice: "I somehow don't think that is a sensible idea," Alice says humourlessly.
"But as a recurrence would be even less ideal than the current situation, I think we should best attend to that before anything else."
GM: "What can we do?" She turns to look at her, hopeful
Alice: "If nothing else we can at least determine the root cause of this mess," Alice answers, "And for that we will need to return to the house."
She shakes her head.
"To be entirely honest, Amy, your best course might just be to speak to the police now. They won't look well upon it, mind, but it's likely an inevitability."
GM: She chews her cheek. "What do I even say? They're going to ask details and I don't remember a thing."
GM: "But someone could have seen me, or the blood..."
GM: She sighs, taking her keys out
GM: "Is there anything you need to know before I...?"
GM: "...you know, turn myself in," she mumbles.
Alice: Alice frowns, pursing her lips as she looks down the street at the police.
"How did this begin, from your perspective? Is there anything specific in the house that catches your attention?"
GM: Amy pulls her hair free of its ponytail, playing with the tie in her hands.
"How it started... I guess I'd say the creepy feelings were always upstairs, at least at first. I remember the bathroom, how I thnik I'd see someone there in the mirror, but maybe all of the mirrors? I'm not sure. I thought about looking into the history of the property, but - well, you're the first person I thought to call once I'd stopped freaking out this morning."
GM: She folds her arms, frowning into the distance as she tries to think of something else.
"I remember they did some cleaning before I moved in for the summer. Attic, no basement."
GM: "I think they moved some stuff from the attic down to the other floors."
Alice: Alice mulls that over, with a frown.
"It shouldn't be too difficult to identify," she says pensively, "What to do once I identify it . . . well, that may be a trickier one."
"It worked you into a state of fear gradually, you said? Is there any other emotional context?"
GM: Amy looks up at the low grey clouds, arms crossed. Neither of them cast a shadow in the diffuse overcast light. "Regret, or loss, sometimes? Like, I'd miss my family up in Yorkshire, just bawling on the bed some nights, and I didn't really do much of that back in Cambridge."
Alice: "Did you feel anything in particular before and after . . . last night's incident?"
GM: "After, I was so fucking scared I don't really remember..." She tries and shakes her head. "Before... before I was getting stressed out. I was cutting up vegetables for dinner..." She looks down at her hand, closing it over an imaginary knife. "...fuck, I couldn't find that knife when I came back. I remember feeling like shit, pissed off at the world."
Alice: "Apparently," Alice says pensively, "The way that sort of thing works is that you are influenced towards an appropriate emotional state they can work with, which makes you then more vulnerable to subsequent influence, and eventually possession and similar. It's not something I've previously observed in person, but the sources were reliable on other matters."
Alice: "Ensuring it doesn't happen again won't be difficult, but dealing with the current state of affairs . . ."
She shakes her head, sounding frustrated.
"You're going to need a lawyer - I don't even know what more I can do on that front."
GM: "My family's Yorkshire trash. I don't have a lawyer, and I'm pretty loaded down in student debt as it is, but... I'll see what I can do. Fuck me... I used to make fun of you, the 'Bloody Alice' shit? Now I'm wrapped up in it and I'm fucked."
She takes a bit to catch her breath, hand to her face.
"All right... just... make sure it doesn't happen to me again? Whatever it takes. I don't... I can't possibly pay you back."
Alice: "I'll do what I can - but speaking of. Ridiculous as this may sound, I need a photograph of you."
Alice: She shakes her head.
"I've been experimenting with an instant film formulation. Ideally . . . what I can see in a photograph of you should be enough to positively identify whatever the origin of this mess was."
GM: "...hey, that's the least ridiculous thing I've heard all day. Probably."
GM: "So go ahead."
Alice: It doesn't take a moment.
Alice fishes her instant camera - a polaroid - out of her satchel, and snaps a quick photograph of Amy.
She shakes it a moment to help it dry, then holds it up in front of her eyes with a frown to examine it.
GM: It's a classic instant camera, she's always liked its saturation. The little black square fades in, and the special formula has given the scene a greyish cast. Amy herself, ragged ponytail and tanktop and all, stands in the center, but there's a haze about her, a faint distortion that follows her aura.
Alice: Anything overt or coherent about it, or is it just an unclear haze?
GM: It's definitely humanoid. A detailed examination suggests a dress, maybe long hair, straight rather than Amy's ponytail.
Alice: "Did you ever see anything specific in the mirror?" Alice asks, looking up at Amy.
GM: "First time it was just a handprint, and I scrubbed and it wouldn't go away until I left the room, but then one time, late, I think I saw a woman. I thought she was me at first, but the hair was straight and mine was a rat's nest at the time."
Alice: Alice proffers the photograph.
GM: Amy takes it, a little more color running from her face. She turns her head, then frowns down at the photo.
"Oh fuck me, she's on me right now."
GM: "I've got a fucking ghost riding my arse, this is real."
GM: "...yeah that's her though."
Alice: "As unhelpful as this advice is . . . the most useful thing you can do right now is to try not to let yourself think in that sort of way - being angry at the world, regret over what is just gives her more of a hold over you - and makes it more likely that this will happen again. Try and focus on the victim, or on proactive planning, or otherwise - but until I get to the bottom of what's happening you cannot afford to dwell."
Alice grimaces, shaking her head.
"Does that make sense to you?"
GM: "You kinda explained it earlier." She offers the photo back, taking a moment to center herself.
"I can't go into custody like this. She could drive me to kill again, and then what?"
Alice: "It may be both the safest place to be and the most proactive place to be. If you insist that you want to come back to the house, I won't force the issue, however . . . you may be best off in several respects if you can manage to speak to a lawyer and tackle the problem head on."
GM: Amy considers that quietly and nods.
"The legal trouble won't go away if we figure this out," she admits. "And if I'm in a cell, at least I can't hurt anyone. All right." She sighs.
GM: "Okay," she adds, as if she's psyching herself up. "Anything else you can do to help?" She's trying to push through the despair she feels, and she's making some progress at least.
Alice: "Not immediately," Alice admits.
"I can't pay a lawyer long term for you, so you will definitely need to go through Legal Aid, but I can certainly pay for an initial consultation and advice. Do not explain yourself to the police past the fact that you had a blackout and don't have memories between those points, on the grounds that you're worried you might be dangerous but need to speak to a lawyer. Seriously consider speaking to a lawyer before you say even that much. Put them in touch with me for payment; I'll likely need to speak to them in any case. If anyone asks why you spoke to a lawyer before you spoke in detail to the police, it's because one of your friends strongly recommended you do so."
"If I knew any with an awareness of this sort of mess, I'd recommend them, but unfortunately I don't."
GM: "All right. I can do that, thank you." She looks at her gratefully and gets her phone out, doing a search. She finds a relevant number.
"I should go," she says, with forced determination. "Can you think of anything else that might help?"
Alice: Were there any obvious ways to deal with a ghost - or lessen it's influence - in her books?
GM: They talk about something called a 'bane' that can wreck them pretty quickly. It's a substance or thing that is essentially a flaw in how they interact with the world. If they're fettered to someone, that person can touch the item and hurt them until released - for the weakest ghosts, these are common substances like salt, but it's likely to be something a bit more specific for a ghost that's running around possessing, which is accounted rare.
They can also be adjured - this tackles the conditions that underpin their presence, like being Open to them or their anchor. Think Exorcism. It's a meditative exercise, and can suppress the connections and makes you kind of like a bane if you really rock it.
Alice: The ghost, though it is possessing Amy to some degree, would likely be fettered elsewhere - correct?
GM: Its original anchor is almost certainly not her. She's merely been opened to it.
GM: If it's strong enough to do that, it could do it to Alice herself if she's not careful.
Alice: Well, yes. But that will still require a certain amount of . . .
Alice: "Nothing else comes to mind," Alice admits regretfully.
"Good luck, Amy. I will be in touch."
GM: The other woman nods, tucking her phone away and making her way over to the house. Alice watches her go and surrender herself. They weren't exactly close friends in college, but it's a deeply unpleasant sign - Amy never really did anything worth this, worth getting ridden by some angry, restless spirit and taken to jail over a crime she was at best a puppet for, assuming that Alice has, indeed, put things together properly.
(Clue, elements 2 - The ghost riding Amy is a woman. She appears to have been driven by anger and frustration - not in itself surprising, but it's something she can use.)
Alice: If this isn't what transpired -
Alice: - then the forensic evidence will exonerate her, at least.
GM: Hopefully there's only so many murders in this area.
Of course, Alice is now painfully aware of the statistics of those who don't show up on proper murder statistics - the disappearences that are swept under the rug.
The world has seen fit to grind her down.
GM: (Is Alice's first stop the house or somewhere else?)
Alice: (The house!)
Alice: (Sorry, I skipped off to drive home.)
GM: (Is okay
)
Alice: (Wasn't feeling well.)
GM: (Ouch :<)
GM: ~~~~~~~~~~
The small house is quiet when Alice shuts the door behind her. Dark, too, with the blinds lowered, casting slats of faint sunlight across the cheap, older furnishings. The keys rattle as she puts them away - now, to figure out how the hell she's going to resolve all this shit.
Alice: She'll open the blinds, for a start.
GM: It's an older design so larger windows are uncommon, but it definitely does improve the lightning a bit, making the interior marginally less creepy, which she frankly can only see as a good thing.
Alice: Well.
Alice: She should start with the attic and move from top to bottom, shouldn't she?
GM: Exactly what is the origin of that phrase, one must wonder.
The stairs lead up to the second floor, and directly above the immediate hallway, there's an attic trap door, the kind that probably extends out into a stairway. Finding a chair, she's able to collect it and pull it down, before advancing up into the loft. It's not a big space, and it's a bit drafty. Old boxes and cases have been stacked up, recently enough that there's almost no dust here.
(Int + Investigation!)
GM: It starts there, but it doesn't end there. She ends up going through most of the house, taking photographs with her little instant camera (a fucking godsend for this work - when you have to work in analog, after all, it's nice to get instant results, and there's a certain hipster charm to it) and studying the artifacts throughout the house.
Clue 2, Elements 2 - Taking photos of the entire house, she fails to catch a glimpse of the ghost again, but she does find a rather disturbing Resonance about the upstairs bathroom - the walls are dripping blood in her photograph. In addition, she finds the knife - it's covered in blood in the bushes in the tiny yard out back, lying on the earth.
Clue 3 - When she's laying out the photographs on the kitchen table, spreading them out by location to get a feel for each room, she finds something interesting - there's a bill of sale for the mirror on the counter. It didn't come from this house. The original owner is listed as James Hadfield of South London.
Alice: When was it bought?
GM: Apparently, the day before Amy moved in.
Alice: . . . son of a bitch.
GM: That seems a good way to sum this up.
Alice: Does it say who bought it?
GM: A Connor Williams. Inspecting the other papers stacked in the corner of the counter reveals most of them are directed at a Connor Williams, by implication the owner of the property.
GM: She also finds that he's only leasing the property, starting about a month ago.
GM: (Oh, before I forget, 1 beat for Alice. Good night!)
GM: (So to recap - Alice found out that there's a fairly good chance the owner of the property deliberately bought a haunted mirror right before he rented it out.)
GM: (Her friend Amy is being held by the police after having admitted that she thinks she might be responsible after blacking out)
GM: The clock on the wall ticks away, a steady heartbeat in this lonely house, and the only sound that breaks the silence, but for the rustle of papers as she puts them down.
There's an injustice to this world - layers of it, really.
GM: And Amy's been caught smack in the middle of it.
Alice: She snaps a photograph of the paper, just in case.
Alice: . . . does she think she can acquire the knife without being observed?
GM: There's only so many windows people could be peeking out of, so she can reasonably establish that she isn't being watched.
Alice: Then.
Alice: Once she's ready to leave - she'll acquire a plastic bag from the kitchen, and use that as a glove to pick it up. Double bag it, put it in her satchel, and be gone from the place.
There's nothing else to see here.
GM: Knife collected, she leaves through the front door - probably locking it on her way out.
Where to from there?
Alice: Well, she's just committed a crime that she best not be caught at.
Alice: What is the time?
GM: Early afternoon.
GM: Standing on a street corner a few blocks down, she feels a bit like the knife is about to burn a hole in her bag. That's entirely her mental state, probably.
Alice: Why is she standing on a street corner? Best get in her car and go for a drive.
Alice: She can think on the move.
GM: That makes a difference. She drives through upper London, following the flow of traffic.
Alice: Might as well call Leah, actually.
Alice: Leaving town would be a good excuse.
GM: The phone rings once or twice, before her friend answers from the juice bar.
Leah "Y'Hello?"
Alice: "Leah, Alice. How is your day going?"
Leah "Hey, Alice. And it's going... rollercoastery."
Alice: "Do tell."
Leah There's a pause as she briefly talks with someone she's with, muffled by the phone held to her shirt.
Leah "Well, I found out that the shadows I've been seeing are pieces of souls. Mostly left overs of dead people's, I imagine. My girlfriend can control hers - an Egyptian magic thing, from the underworld sort of thing. But it has a steep cost, and some ...bad requests in exchange for magic knowledge. I've been brainstorming with her to see about, say... evening the debt out. Make an offering to fix what bad we can, see?
"I thought maybe your basement guest could help, either as an offering or, uh, by asking him, if we get desperate."
GM: ...well, she's had a busy day.
Alice: "That doesn't sounds like the best plan you've ever had."
Alice: "I've had a fairly disturbing day myself, however."
Leah "No, but I figure we put the tokens we do have on the table and figure out which ones we can use. Your turn, then. What's up?"
Alice: "A possession and most likely a murder," Alice answers sourly.
"Are you free this evening?"
Leah "... a ghost murder? That's screwed up. Uhm, quite possibly. Don't think we're ready to step into an Avernian gate empty handed, anyway."
Alice: "I could use some advice, I think. I am somewhat unsure as to what I ought to do about it."
Leah "Then sure. I can stop by. Or we?" she asks aside from the phone.
Alice: "I may actually come your way, if that's acceptable."
GM: "I should probably get back to work for now," Renee says, just audible.
Leah "Okay. Just me and Abby, then. I'll head back at my place and wait for you."
Alice: "Alright. I will see you in a while, then."
Leah "Cheers." She hangs up.
GM: Under a gray, overcast sky, Alice Greystock makes her way north, finding the main road and driving back up towards Cambridge. Every time she drives this way, she remembers the trips her father would take them on back to what had at the time been her grandfather's estate. Glancing back, she can see it like a photograph, even though this isn't remotely the car they took - her in the back seat behind father. Her hair was longer at the time, before she cut it short for her latter years of school and grew it out to its current length after college, but she was distant even then, buried in a Gameboy. Hermine at that age had been into boys, bored out of her mind. They were allies of circumstance, but rivals of necessity.
Funny thing, time.
Speaking of, she has to fight traffic, so it's nearly two hours before she arrives at Leah's place, pulling up just alongside the hedgerow.
GM: Leah greets her at the door, more somber than usual, though still with that bubbly openness.
Alice: (sec sorry)
Leah The curvy greek girl gives Alice a smile, stepping aside to let her in. "Hey, Alice." There's a plastic mouse with feathers floating in random patterns in the back of the apartment entertaining her cat.
Alice: (sorry all. minor emergency here :/ '
Leah (Ouch)
GM: (:<)
GM: (It's okay)
GM: Under a gray, overcast sky, Alice Greystock makes her way north, finding the main road and driving back up towards Cambridge. Every time she drives this way, she remembers the trips her father would take them on back to what had at the time been her grandfather's estate. Glancing back, she can see it like a photograph, even though this isn't remotely the car they took - her in the back seat behind father. Her hair was longer at the time, before she cut it short for her latter years of school and grew it out to its current length after college, but she was distant even then, buried in a Gameboy. Hermine at that age had been into boys, bored out of her mind. They were allies of circumstance, but rivals of necessity.
Funny thing, time.
Speaking of, she has to fight traffic, so it's nearly two hours before she arrives at Leah's place, pulling up just alongside the hedgerow.
Leah greets her at the door, more somber than usual, though still with that bubbly openness.
GM: The curvy greek girl gives Alice a smile, stepping aside to let her in. "Hey, Alice." There's a plastic mouse with feathers floating in random patterns in the back of the apartment entertaining her cat.
GM: (Are we good to continue this by the by? <3)
Alice: (We are, actually!)
GM: (Whoop!)
Alice: "Leah," Alice says, with a nod. She looks rather stressed, today, a tenseness visible in her face.
"I could stand to ask you some advice, I think."
Leah Leah steps aside to let her inside, flinging the mouse down the hall. There's a kettle on the stovetop. "I'll help where I can, of course."
GM: The sun slants in through the windows, making dust dance in the air. Abigail, Leah's kitty, mrowls as she bounds about trying to catch the toy flying, gripped in her power. A casual demonstration of the world's gripping unreality.
Leah She seems to be pretty good at it. ...also worth pointing out that the kettle, despite starting to whistle, isn't on the flame. "Though a murderous ghost is a new one."
Alice: "Do you recall Amy Dempsey, by chance?"
Leah "Kinda, yeah. Bit of a rules lawyer, called you bloody Alice. She hung out at a few parties."
Alice: "Well," Alice says heavily, "She called me this morning asking about possessions, because aside from several other concerning happenings, she apparently lost several hours this morning and found herself in the kitchen with blood all over her arms."
Leah "...oh, wow. Shit."
Alice: Alice opens her hangbag, retrieving a polaroid photo which she proffers to Leah.
It appears to be a bathroom with blood coating the walls.
Leah Leah takes it to give it a look over. "...that's more than the arms." She sets it down and pours a couple cups, sliding one over to Alice.
Alice: "That wasn't visible without the camera."
Leah "..ah, that sort of thing." She blinks down at the picture again.
GM: It's like the walls are bleeding, little lacerations in the surfaces
GM: And she thought that was a fictional exaggeration
Leah "...that's creepy. So she killed someone while possessed? That's fucked up."
Alice: "Quite," Alice says heavily.
"There is a particular mirror in the house that Amy was creeped out by, and rummaging through the documents it appears that a particular man bought it and placed it there a day or two before she moved in."
Alice: "And I may have done something slightly unwise."
Leah "On top of walking into a murder ghost house?"
Alice: "I recommended Amy hand herself in to the police, of course, which she did - and speak to a lawyer."
Alice: "And then I may have located the weapon and removed it."
Leah "...s'gonna be a hard case to prove."
Leah "No murder weapon, then, I suppose."
GM: The tea steams in the little cups, small bowls of sugar and honey sitting nearby.
Alice: "No. Assuming they victim is dead, in any case - I'm unsure. They may well be able to link Amy to the crime scene via blood or otherwise, mind."
Leah "If we could find one of those people with ultimate magic powers, maybe, but short of proving there's a ghost and that it possessed her."
GM: The cat finally manages to catch on while Leah is distracted, holding on as it rises over the floor
Alice: "I don't think there's very much we can do for her, in honesty."
Alice grimaces, looking away from Leah and at the tea for a moment.
Leah Feeling a tug, Leah glances around before realizing she's levitating her cat. She lowers her back down before letting her finally catch it.
"Unless we find a real killer."
Alice: "I do think she was set up, certainly, and I even think I know by whom. But proving that to law enforcement is likely beyond us."
Leah "Hrmph... Feels like we have to talk to someone who knows all about this, and have them be her lawyer, or refer us to one."
Alice: "Shall we consult the phone book, then?"
Leah "Supernatural lawyer? Probably unlikely. Maybe online, but it'd be squirreled away among all the fake stuff."
Leah Leah takes a sip from her tea. "Renee's mentioned gods among men, but finding them would be tricky. Unless she knows a way of finding one."
Alice: Alice shakes her head.
"I suppose I could ask my sister, though she seems disinclined to be helpful at the best of times."
Leah "Do we have any other choice?"
Alice: "I suppose nothing occurs."
Alice: "You wouldn't happen to know a good way to dispose of a murder weapon, by chance?"
Leah "Incineration. With a hot enough flame, no average kitchen knife is going to survive."
Alice: "You wouldn't have a helpful suggestion as to where one might find one?"
GM: (If Raz is doing what I'm doing he's looking up how hot Leah's mind can get)
Alice: (huh?)
Alice: (Oh, how HOT)
Alice: (Right. That took me a moment!)
Leah "There's plenty of workshops at Cambridge. Oooor I could try to melt it. I'm a pretty efficient peltier."
Alice: "That may be worth the attempt," Alice says thoughtfully.
"It didn't occur to me to wonder what I ought to do with it."
Leah "There's bricks on my rooftop. We make a crucible, light it, and I super-heat it. At the very least it'll cook any identifying marks, if not turn into a molten blob."
Alice: "That seems a worthwhile idea. And if it doesn't work, we can always make another attempt."
Alice frowns.
"How high are you able to raise a an object's temperature?"
Leah "Haven't really tried. I haven't gone past boiling water."
GM: They're likely about to find out.
GM: A few minutes later, they've managed to arrange a makeshift kiln out of brick atop the tiny apartment. The roof here is gravel, so it's not likely to burn through anything - hopefully. It's not likely to get past the bricks, hopefully.
The bloodied knife in its cloth goes in the center, along with the highest-temperature flammables that Leah could find in her apartment.
Leah She's got coal for her little balcony grill. It's as good as it'll get, likely. She sets a brick to her side she c an super cool down to build up kinetic energy. Then she lights the coals and begins. One hand hovering over the little knife kiln - easier at close range - and another on the spare brick. Then she begins to leech energy from one to dump into the area.
Alice: (Sorry - b ack in a short while)
Alice: (Sorry, I'm actually feeling really sketchy and am going to go for a lie down )
Alice: ( Apologies :/ )
GM: (It's okay)
GM: Alice watches in the evening sun as the charcoal warms, then ignite, burning for a time. Leah's applied her physics training, layering more bricks on top and leaving only a small aperture to watch through. A bit of fine gravel provides a bed for the knife, absorbing and amplifying the heat further.
It takes a while. Long minutes of the inside of the kiln starting to glow before the knife does, and then, steadily, the carbon steel softens and runs.
Just like that, she's eliminated a murder weapon. It's eight thirty by the time the metal melts entirely, the shadows cast by the sun long.
Good photo op, if she didn't need no evidence of this whatsoever.
Leah "Looks like I can go over a thousand degrees, at least." Leah sits back with a whew, wiping at her forehead. "...and to about absolute zero, by my guess." She kicks the brick she entropied as psychic fuel, which is frozen solid.
Alice: "I think I may be going quite mad," Alive says mildly.
"My first thought isn't strangeness, or impossibility l, or wonder, or even about mechanics."
Alice: "It's whether you can resolve my corpse problem in a similar way."
Leah Leah purses her lips. "I mean, in theory. We'd need a bigger crucible, or willingness to chop up the dead bodies."
Leah "On the bright side, we would only need half the temperature here. Bodies are cremated at 800, steel melts at 1500."
GM: Leah's a little strained, but mostly the pain went into the brick
Leah About what she'd expect to feel jogging for that long despite being fairly sedentary.
GM: The evidence destroyed, she just has to wait for it to cool down before dismantling it.
A ping comes on Alice's phone. {I'm doing the initiation mentioned in the book,} Shanti says. {You in?}
Alice: {Yes, although I am in Cambridge at the moment so I may be some time.}
Alice: "Well, thank you, Leah. I suppose that now I need to look into the man I suspect set Amy up."
GM: {Okay. Let Leah know she has a nice butt.}
Leah "I can help, maybe."
Alice: "And in other news I apparently have early stage lymphoma."
Leah "What??"
Alice: "Mm."
Alice's face doesn't give much away.
"I'll see a specialist next week to determine the appropriate steps."
Leah She stands back up, frowning. "Bollocks... Not anything I'd ever want you to go through."
GM: {I'm off work,} Renee texts Leah. {Kind of want to be on my own for a bit, but thank you for earlier.}
Leah She pulls her own phone, glancing down at it. {of course let me kno, ok?}
GM: {Ok}
GM: (Test)
Leah (ra)
Alice: (Sorry. I fell asleep. >_> and then I wa dealing with kids.)
Alice: (Still am in fact have to run one to the doctor ._.)
Leah This message has been removed.
GM: (Hehehe)
Alice: (You laugh but I don't remember most of the time I was awake during the night.)
Alice: (And this is not unusual. When I'm too tired it's mild hallucinations, loss of vision, lack of subsequent memory)
Leah (Sounds scary!)
Alice: (Basically when I get too tired my brain stops working properly >_>)
GM: (I replace words and don't even notice. My sentences still make sense)
GM: (Just some words have been substituted)
Alice: "Yes, well."
Alice seems uncertain of what else to add to that.
"I'll just have to see what comes of it, I suppose."
Alice: "Thank you for your help, I did not entirely think the process through."
Leah "If you still need help investigating, I'm not doing anything else the rest of the day."
GM: It's a stark sort of realization to be hit with, but then it's a stark sort of day for both of them.
GM: Leah, of course, has to get her things set up for a late night trip back into London. Chances are, she'll need to sleep over and take the train back in the morning - or whenever, it's the weekend. It might be a good idea to find someone to take care of Abigail when she has to make these trips, and then there's the issue of her research, which she's had a lot of trouble concentrating on since that night, for a lot of reasons. She's got a meeting scheduled in a week that she can't afford to be ill-prepared on, not with her academic reputation, and therefore academic livelihood, on the line.
Once that's done, she grabs an overnight bag and makes her way to Alice's car. (Did we ever work out what Alice's car was?)
GM: (I think we did)
Alice: (Yes. But I didn't write it down.)
Alice: (I know exactly where in the log it would be but can't go look on the mobile client)
Alice: (Not that it matters. Call it a Lexus?
(
GM: (Done
)
Leah So much to do these days, and everything has been thrown under the bus by this business of lifting things with her mind, and underworld accessing gates and on and on. How do sorcerers keep track of all of this?
"I'm ready" she chimes with her stuff slung over her shoulders.
GM: Real question is, what's the first stop?
Alice: Food, of course. It's past dinner time and they have an hour's drive back to London.
Alice: But after the basics are taken care of, they ought to see Shanti before she starts skinning neighbourhood cats.
GM: Leah's got a favorite pita place they get to go (their feta fries are to die for) which makes for a quick, filling meal, and then they're off, heading south again. Alice can mark the progress of her life by the M11, up and down this one artery, back and forth.
Shanti meets them back at her place. It'd be impossible to park near her flat, after all, and she has a roommate, so rituals are not exactly ideally performed there. She gets out of her car as they find a spot, and goes to the boot of her tiny car to pull out a couple large bags that she hauls up to the door. The neighbor to the left looks over, squinting confusedly beneath his cap, while they get back inside.
GM: "Wotcher, girls," she calls.
Alice: "I think I'd best dispose of the corpses before someone thinks we're moving corpses," Alice notes, once the door is closed.
Leah "Ay-yup," she greets in turn, still finishing her drink which she is still savoring. "and yeah, probably best to think how to plan that."
GM: Mint iced tea.
GM: "Yeah, probably a good idea."
Shanti lays her bag down on the dining room table.
"Is there a place we can lay down some chalk?"
GM: "And Leah, can you get some bowls from the kitchen?"
Leah "yes ma'am I can, if Alice doesn't mind me foraging in her kitchen."
GM: "Eight of them should do it."
She unzips the bag and starts pulling out ziplocs with all sorts of odd things in them, including some roses.
GM: "Also, you guys should pick a personal item. Something that defines you."
Alice: "The attic has wooden flooring," Alice says thoughtfully, "That might be a sensible place for chalk."
Leah "and is haunted, to boot," she chimes on the way to go grab bowls.
GM: Alice notices something interesting as they head into the kitchen to get ready
GM: Specifically, that it's been tidied up, the finishes polished and all of the dishes she left put away - but the help doesn't come until mondays, and she canceled them anyway so no one would stumble on her little secret.
GM: Shanti, for her part, makes her way up there with her tools. When they find her, she's made a series of circles with the help of a compass. One large one sits at the center, and then 5 small ones stand tangential to it, spaced equidistantly. A larger circle bounds those, and then three more are spaced around it, and then a final, largest circle bounds those. She's wiping the guides with a damp cloth, and marks a different symbol in each one. Alice faintly remembers that they're hermetic in some fashion.
GM: The symbol at the very center, she remembers, is Malkuth, a downward-facing triangle with a horizontal line through it.
Leah "that looks complicated like all hell. You memorized those?" she wonders with a raised brow. She plays the bowls down by the circle for her to do magic with.
Alice: Well.
That isn't just a little ominous.
Alice: Best grab a torch and check the basement.
GM: She points to an open book, one of the grimoires - the foundational text upon which Alice's ancestors did their work. There's the diagram laid out there, along with lines in Latin and English.
Leah "oh... Nice rendition then."
GM: "I'm following the recipe, so to speak."
Checking around downstairs, Alice finds that her household companion is still dessicated in his coffin. The bodies haven't moved, either, and the dehumidifier whirrs softly, keeping the little chamber at a moderate level - not too dry, not too damp.
Alice: If she heads back upstairs, has anywhere else in the house received that treatment?
GM: A quick examination suggests that surfaces have been wiped down in the house where they had been dusty before, and in her room, the clothes she left out have been folded.
Alice: Well this isn't half ominous.
She'll snap an instant photo of the kitchen -
- and then one of the maid's bedroom upstairs, and the cabinet.
GM: In the kitchen, there's a bit more of an aura about the house than there was - sort of a faint background radiation. Heading past Shanti, who is arranging items into the bowls on the little circles (a knife, a skull, an hourglass, a dreamcatcher, a rose, a 10 pence coin, a large crystal, and an empty one for the personal item), she snaps a picture of the maid's bedroom.
After shaking it out, she sees the maid propped her bed, looking plenty solid in the frame, reading a book. She doesn't seem to have noticed her.
Alice: "Apparently," Alice announces, with some mild bemusement as she returns to the attic with the picture, "My house is haunted by a maid."
Alice: "Who appears to have taken it upon herself to tidy the house while I was out."
GM: Shanti blinks from where she's finishing up, looking at the picture.
"...Well that's a thing."
Alice: "I feel as though I ought to be more surprised by this than I am."
GM: "I'm trying not to laugh. Do you think maybe she died here?"
Alice: "A bomb landed in her bedroom during the Blitz, by my recollection."
GM: Shanti winces.
GM: "Jeeze. That'd do it."
GM: "Do you think it'll be a problem?" she asks, carefully stepping out of the rings and going to check the book.
GM: Taking some votive candles, she lights them and melts the bottoms a little to stick them to the floors.
Alice: "Rarely am I accused of optimism."
GM: "All right." She looks up from the book, checking her work. The candles are slow-burning, pale in the light of the lamp.
"So, here's how it works - you and I need to - separately, we don't do this at the same time - set a personal item in the empty bowl and strip naked, sit in the center of the circle, and chant the phrases in the book. Then apparently something will happen and when a bowl is... presented to you? You're supposed to say something about the items, what meaning comes to mind, like for the skull and the knife and so on."
GM: "...care to go first?"
GM: She glances at Leah. "I don't think you can participate, but you can keep an eye on us."
Alice: "You need to strip naked," Alice repeats mildly.
GM: "What, you don't believe me?"
GM: She grins
Alice: "That seems a rather sharp way to phrase my sentiment," Alice says drily.
Alice: "Perhaps more just an expression of mild surprise that the ritual preparation is something you would be so comfortable with."
GM: "If I'm to be entirely honest, I'm more worried than I look. Less so about the ritual itself, more about everything out there. If this gets me a sense of control back? Bloody hell yes am I going to strip naked."
Alice: "At least you didn't have a ghost fold your laundry?" Alice deadpans, "Or spend the day investigating what appears to be a possession-related-murder?"
GM: "Fair point."
GM: "I'll go first, if you'd like me to see if it's safe?" she offers, getting a worn engineering textbook from her bag.
Alice: "Actually," Alice notes, "I think I might be stuck on the 'stripping naked' I mentioned earlier."
Alice: "What do you need from us?"
GM: "Just keep an eye out, make sure nothing comes to grab me I guess."
GM: "I'd normally ask you all to leave the room, but yeah."
Leah "For the record, I can strip naked too if it'll make you feel less self-conscious." She grins.
GM: Shanti laughs
GM: "Oh god, it's like college all over again."
Leah "I mean, offer's on the table, said the lesbian with a quirked brow."
Alice: "This is getting altogether too pagan for my tastes."
Alice: Alice rolls her eyes.
GM: "I assure you, no paeans to lost gods anywhere in this."
GM: She passes over the volume, letting her have a look.
Leah Leah sits down nearby to watch and educate herself. Admitedly, psychic mojo might react badly with, uh, sorcerous whatsits.
GM: Exhaling, Shanti pulls off her shirt and pants. She's on the thin side - put on a bit of weight since college, but she was always a bit on the underfed side.
GM: Her skin is richly dark, and she blushes more so as she folds her things up. She pulls her earrings out for good measure, and goes to sit in the center, pulling the textbook with her.
GM: "I never did ask - are you Christian?" she asks as she readies herself, sitting crosslegged
Leah "Myself, I'm a scientist, though mom's greek, so... y'know, I still heard it all. Alice?"
Alice: "By default, in my case, as opposed to any directed intent."
Alice very deliberately looks at parts of the ritual circle that are not Shanti, considering the overall design and layout.
GM: It's beautiful, in a very mechanical, mathematical way. It's like an attempt to build a microcosm of the universe in some sense
GM: "Leah? Could you hit the lights?"
Leah Leah is quite interested in looking at Shanti, but she doesn't eternalize it or tease. An appreciative look is all that's really needed. "Of course." She opts to go do it manually by standing and walking to the lightswitch - to make sure not to contaminate Shanti's ritual with cross-magic, in case that's a thing.
GM: "Okay," she breathes. "Here goes."
She squints down at the book in her lap.
"They don't tell you how hard it is to read by candlelight. Okay - "
Leah Leah doesn't interrupt to not break Shanti's concentration or make her mess up. She'd prefer not to have some... thing summoned or something because of flubbed words
Leah or for some danger to befall Shanti
GM: With that, she begins to speak, to chant. She picks the English rather than the Latin - perhaps hoping that it doesn't matter, because she knows for sure she can't pronounce it (unlike Alice, not everyone here was drilled in a British boarding school.)
There's a lot about opening the self in there, of abjuring spirits by one's own personal self, of acknowledging their existence and denying dominion, asserting the user's will and force of presence. Her voice takes on a cadence as she goes, and when the end comes, the silence hangs heavy over the room
Leah Leah starts holding her breath in anticipation, glancing around, then at Shanti.
GM: Then, before their eyes, the bowls begin to move.
GM: The circles move, too
GM: The very chalk rotating in the dark
GM: The bowl with the knife is moved before her, and there appear to be no words for this. She considers this for a moment, frowning.
"Sacrifice."
GM: Apparently satisfied at that, the circles begin to rotate again.
Leah Leah is wide-eyed. The bowls moving is one thing - she could do that. The chalk, not so much.
GM: Shanti closes the book - apparently it's no help at this stage, her eyes watching as the circles move, putting the hourglass before her
GM: "Opportunity," she whispers, and whatever forces are listening accept it. They move along, and bring forth the little toy skull she brought.
GM: "Mind."
GM: Then the coin. "Work."
The rose, still in its bowl. "Regret," she murmurs, quieter still.
Then the circles begin to do strange things - they rotate in and out of each other, lines crossing and crisscrossing
GM: Intersecting and parting fluidly
GM: One of the outer circles is brought before her, and she looks at the dreamcatcher.
"Protection."
Another. The crystal. She considers this one for a while.
"Clarity."
GM: Leah has to jump back a little as one of the bowls moves close to her, orbiting far afield
Leah She ducks back with a wince. Has to wonder if it'll start smashing into the walls at this rate.
GM: Finally, the textbook is brought before her, and she exhales.
"I grew up in a poor Pakistani family. I didn't have much - just a whole bunch of siblings. My parents wanted me to be a good Muslim girl, but all I wanted to do was be myself. I didn't want to marry some distant cousin from hte homeland, I didn't want to settle down and have a family. I wanted to define myself, so I took the only acceptable course and applied myself in math and science, somethnig my parents saw as diversions."
GM: "Then I got this textbook, and I met my mentor at Cambridge, and suddenly, I had hope, I had freedom."
GM: "I could change the world by studying and understanding it... and now that that certainty is missing."
GM: "I desperately want it back."
GM: "So... yeah."
GM: With that, the bowls stop, and all is quiet again.
Shanti breathes heavily, looking around, eyes wide
GM: "...wow."
Leah Leah is quiet for a bit, blinking. She looks around to make sure nothing weird is happening somewhere else, then looks back at Shanti. "...uhh, did it work? I mean, it obviously did something, but... you know what I mean."
GM: "...yeah. It worked," she murmurs, rubbing her eyes.
GM: "That was - actually, kind of awesome."
Leah "That looked deep. And freaky, but deep."
Alice: (Sorry.)
Alice: (Got meeting'd. ><)
GM: (It's okay
You good?)
Alice: (Really in and out. :/)
GM: (it's okay)
Alice: "It was interesting to watch, I will concede."
Alice: "Are you sure you're alright?"
GM: Shanti waves a hand in front of her face. "Yeah. Vision was a little weird for a bit. I see more than I used to when I try."
She gets to her feet, trying to be modest as she gets to her panties
GM: Getting dressed while they look away
Alice: Alice's eyes are still entirely averted, inspecting some of the accoutrements of the circle with perhaps slightly too much focus.
GM: "But yeah, I'm fine." She frowns. "In fact, I can tell that you aren't."
Alice: "Ah."
Alice: Alice pauses, then continues after a moment.
"Well, I only found that out yesterday myself."
Alice: "An exciting new counter-tactic against vampires?"
GM: "I'm sorry," she offers quietly. "But - there might actually be a way through that. The reading material mentions that there's ways to tackle disease."
GM: The world, fighting to keep her struggling in the muck.
Alice: "It's early stages in any event, but . . . I'll concede it might be worth the look."
GM: Properly dressed, she puts a hand on her shoulder.
"I know what you're feeling right now. Okay, I don't, not really, but... scary as it is, stepping into that ring did change things for me a bit, and I think for the better. It's going to change you if you do, not going to lie, but I don't think we're okay with the status quo. You kind of made that clear for me - this world hates us on some level."
Alice: Alice nods, slowly, mulling that over.
"And we don't want to be held down by it," she says quietly.
"You're both giving me the room, mind."
GM: "That's fine. Don't think anything will threaten you. Leah? You're stuck imagining her." Shanti guides her out. "Have to rely on memories of college, unless she was a prude and changed solely in the bathroom~"
GM: She pauses at the door. "Good luck."
Alice: "Thank you," Alice answers, looking at Shanti with a grateful nod.
"I'll see you shortly, I suppose."
GM: She nods and shuts the door, leaving Alice alone.
The chalk will need redrawing. The spirits or whatever moved them across the room in flatly impossible ways. Only the central circle remains where it was.
The bowl for the personal object is empty, awaiting her choice.
The candles are votive, designed to burn for several hours with a clean, steady light.
Alice: Well. The personal object choice seems obvious.
She'll take a short while to skim the book - at least understand the symbolism of the items.
GM: Apparently they're meant to represent how you approach the symbolism in each item. It isn't just a personality test, it announces and solidifies who you are - an anchor against a chaotic world. These bits of identity are something to hold onto.
Alice: Curious.
And something to think about as she cleans away the distorted chalk and starts redrawing.
GM: Using Shanti's compass and a straight edge, she marks up the open room - once a staging area for servants, with more furniture and tools - and recreates the eleven circles. Another piece of family history come to life.
Alice: Somewhat more literally than usual, given how animated the chalk circles were.
Alice: But the object of significance would have to be her SLR, realistically.
GM: It makes sense, and it fits nicely into the large, decorative bowl Shanti picked for that slot. The candlelight makes the chalk seem to glow flourescent white.
Alice: It had best be returned in working order.
GM: Well, Shanti's book looked intact. Seems to be okay. All that's left now is to strip down, settle in with the book, and make it happen.
Alice: And lock the attic.
Alice: . . .
And lock the maid's door.
GM: Good precaution.
Alice: All precautions are good precautions.
GM: Her clothes go in a neat pile on one of the old wooden chairs (dusted this morning). According to the book, you should be free of anything external to yourself - she's not sure if that counts earrings or the like, but it's probably best to be sure.
Sitting down, with the book on her lap, she finds her first line.
I, (name), name myself before the immortal, before the first, sublime Life, the Ineffable unbegotten unity, the Godhead, the Monad and root of all things. Let my sacred spirit arise within me; for although born in a world of darkness, I am the unique offspring of the light of heaven, at once mortal and immortal, matter and Spirit, darkness and light.
Alice: Well.
This does sound moderately pretentious.
Alice: And Alice ought to know.
Alice: She takes a moment to look over the circle and all the preparations once again before she begins.
And then she's out of excuses.
"I, Alice Margaret Clemence Greystock, name myself before the immortal," she recites, tone even, "Before the first, sublime Life, the ineffable unbetotten unity, the Godhead, the Monad and the root of all things."
Alice: "Let my sacred spirit arise within me; for although born in a," her tone hardens slightly, " world of darkness "
Alice: "I am the unique offspring of the light of heaven, at once mortal and immortal, matter and Spirit, darkness and light."
GM: This is definitely not the magic of the working man.
A world of darkness, a world of shadows and veils and lies. It's a declaration of gnosticism, of asserting truth in defiance of a world of lies.
The rest of the chant goes down like that, and, absurd as it is, it sort of flows into a rhythm for Alice as she goes, a river of words that touch lightly upon her awareness as she slowly enters a trance-like state by the repetition and poetic cadence.
GM: When she reaches the end, the room is dark around her. Not merely dark as in the lights are out - dark as in that she seems to sit at the edge of a void.
The lines of chalk stand in the darkness, outside the circle of light of her candles, and they begin to turn. The bowl with her camera rotates away from her, and down, through where the floor should have been, as the bowl with the knife is pulled before her.
GM: There's a tension here, like a catch waiting to be released.
Alice: Alice's eyes rest in the knife for a long time.
"Precision," she decides eventually.
GM: That seems to have satisfied the... whatever. It slides away, the circles rotating one through the other. Alice can feel it, too, as it goes off - not the knife itself, but a little tweak within her.
Now, the hourglass is moved before her. Sand runs through it, an endless current.
Alice: "Limits," Alice answers calmly.
GM: Another tweak, another bound, another law set within her, defined against the darkness.
In life, the skull was a toy, made out of ceramic, but here it looks real, like bleached bone grinning up at her.
Alice: That takes some thought.
And eventually, Alice smiles crookedly at it in return.
"Legacy."
GM: That's an amusing little tweak, one that settles in very nicely. She can feel it beyond herself, too, a sort of interest.
Now the coin. It's a 10 pence, still, but from an earlier era.
Alice: Alice purses her lips a moment.
"Necessity."
GM: The rose, its petals smoldering, a curl of smoke rising above, and yet it never seems to burn.
Alice: "Blood," Alice answers flatly, without a hint of hesitation.
GM: A thorn, pricked and red. It slides away, and now she has no idea where she is - everything's far away, orbiting continuously, its relationship to her unclear. After a few passes, the dreamcaster moves before her, its wheel spinning. Such a curious choice, a thing from the Americas, but this grimoire was written in the 19th century after all.
Alice: Alice considers it thoughtfully.
"Freedom."
GM: She feels tight - like part of her is ready to burst, but it's almost over.
Crystal. Why is a set of quartz crystal included in this?
In the spinning void, it comes before her, casting a prism in the light of her shelter, constellations against the darkness. Men and women on horseback, ships crashing against the waves, monsters slain on lance tips and pyramids unearthed from the dunes. She sees Hermine there, standing before a door that dwarfs her into obscurity.
Alice: "History," Alice says thoughtfully.
GM: The orbits are wild not, lines running one into the other. Some circles are no longer that at all, but lines, racing out across the darkness. The lines converge on the large bowl that holds her camera.
In the midst of all this weirdness, her SLR looks comfortably normal, familiar - her.
GM: The tension here is almost unbearable.
Alice: "That's rather simple, isn't it?"
"What's the point in history if it's forgotten, or never understood?"
GM: Her heart pounds as the spinning stops, her head feels like it's spinning on its own for a moment. Through the starlight projected by the crystal, a figure emerges, a young woman limned in it, raven-black hair tied back in a long braid, a fur about her shoulders. She picks up the camera, considering it for a moment, and smiles as she hands it back to Alice.
When the camera enters her hands, she is suddenly aware of the fact that the room is back to normal - well, as normal as it can be with chalk lines everywhere. Some of them have climbed up the walls, their contents spilled, and in general there's more disorder here, but more important is Alice's vision.
She can see things she couldn't before - lines, connecting things together. She can see threads running off into the distance, through space and dimensions she couldn't perceive before. It takes genuine effort to drag her awareness back, to avoid getting lost in seeing things no one else can, and for a hot moment she's terrified that she'll never be able to perceive the mundane world again, but as she gets her breathing under control she finds herself back.
There's an awareness that never was there before. She can feel the death lurking in her nodes, nascent and quiet, and something else, something laid over her that, now that she thinks of it, smells like that pomegranate conditioner her sister uses in her hair.
GM: (Alice gains: Hermetic Magician minor template (seen here:
docs.google.com/document/d/1ptnn64dnNGG5NcmjTZxahHj8sppGgaQukQIzsKygCwQ/edit)Wheel of Fortune ritual (4 dot merit) and Unseen Sense (Supernal Magic) (2 dot merit) for free as part of it. She may spend regular and Gnostic Experiences on supernatural merits, all of which will be refunded if she gains a major template.)
Alice: (Oooh.)
GM: (Ya)
Alice: She takes a deep breath as she calms down, and then another, and another.
. . .
And then she can put her godforsaken clothes back on.
GM: (And take 2 gnostic beats while you're at it)
The lines that run through anything are interesting. There's faint ones involving her clothes, too, ones that tie back to her. She can sort of reach out and pluck them with her thoughts and will, tying them together.
And then, as she picks up her pants, a box falls out, thudding on the floor, nearly making her jump out of her skin.
Looking at it, it's a bit of fine, pale wood, with a design carved into the back. She doesn't recognize it, but she recognizes the type - it's a deck box, sized for a set of tarot cards.
GM: (also takes a regular beat)
Alice: Well. That certainly wasn't in there before.
If nothing else it would have made it rather hard to sit down.
It can also wait until she's done getting dresses. One has priorities, after all.
GM: Pants and shirt and socks and house shoes back on, hair pulled from shirt. Earrings, maybe. Smart watch, also maybe.
The set of cards is beautiful, and the art used unusual. Some curious signs involved, but it seems congruent with the common sets. No names, no numerals, either - you either know what you're looking at or you don't.
GM: High quality gloss. The cards appear not to be made of cardboard - she's actually unsure what. It's flexible, light to the touch.
Alice: Well, well, well.
Alice: Best unlock the doors, then, and get this mess tidied up.
GM: "...so you're telling me I could learn to do your psychic stuff? Or at least, maybe. If your friend can make her shadow into a magical psychokinetic construct or the like."
It's hard to pull back her vision. Shanti, in Alice's sight, has an expanded awareness similar to hers, the flows of lines curving around her in ways that suggest she's aware of them, and her awareness affects them by default.
Leah, meanwhile, is a dynamo, energy turning within her restlessly, eager to find an outlet when she slips.
Even the tarot deck in her hand feels strange, tingly and expansive in a way she can't comprehend without further study.
She has to force herself to relax, to not follow the lines too far. She calls up the memory of the things she named, the ideas she set herself, and that steadies her and brings her back to herself.
Leah "I mean, in theory. I don't know how I learned it, but she implied that there's more than underworld beings who would be willing to make a deal, if you can just find them and have something to offer. Then you end up with, like her, a sheut, or you could end up with psychic stuff, or... I don't even know. But it's the sort of deal you should take some care in making." Leah, sitting with legs folded, interrupts herself, glancing up when Alice re-emerges. "Uhh... Did it work? You look a little haunted."
GM: "Takes a bit to get used to," Shanti says. They sit in chairs in what was her grandmother's sitting room before her father had it remodeled into a small library, with a balcony looking out over the public park behind the houses.
Alice: "I was haunted already," Alice notes, "But yes, I am quite alright. It is . . . perhaps somewhat disorienting."
Leah "Shanti's tried to explain it to me, and I still can't even. It's probably what it sounds like when I try to explain how I feel objects."
GM: "What's so complicated about peering into another dimension?" Shanti smirks. "Where space and time don't work the same way it does here?"
Leah "My eyes, Shanti. My eyes, they do not see as you do."
GM: Shanti gestures to a cardboard box filled with old books.
"I brought all the hermetic grimoires I could find and then some. There's one here that kind of blew my mind."
GM: "It was downstairs."
She pulls it out. The spine is set with silver symbols, beautiful in an alien fashion.
She also just witnessed those on her new cards.
GM: "...so. Would you say that you've stepped through the looking glass, Alice?"
Alice: "Shanti, dear, have you seen the kind of tea party Leah throws these days?"
Leah "I tell ya, I melt the best murder weapons."
Alice: "Oh. Yes, Leah helped me dispose of a murder weapon."
Alice: "No, I did not use the weapon. An interesting day."
She nods to the book.
"I found a deck of tarot cards very similar."
Alice: "Was there anything about such items in the book?"
GM: "...now that's a story." She taps the book. "This one, I can't read, which is interesting because it's written in English. In the other books, though, I saw references. The symbols are a sort of ancient tradition - they represent fundamental forces."
Leah "What do you mean you can't read it?" She pulls the book over to have a look.
GM: "Like, not just the elements, not even silly things like earth water fire - stuff like time and space, energy, even thought."
Half-expecting code or a cipher, Leah opens the book to find English words - that she feels like she should know how to read but can't. The letters and the sounds are weirdly incomplete when she tries.
GM: It's maddening
Leah She blinks. "Y-... no, it's w.. wu... I don't... What is this??"
GM: "I know right?"
Alice: Alice, looks at the book from a safe distance, considering it.
Alice: "Well, I feel as though we've all learned a valuable lesson here this evening."
Leah She agonizes it for a bit longer before literally feeling like she has to close it and push it away from herself lest she gets physically ill.
Then she leans back and drapes an arm over her eyes. "...okay, can I confess something? For the last couple weeks, I've been becoming increasingly afraid that I've been studying nothing but bologna everyone believes cause they can't see the real thing, and that my accomplishments in that field have meant nothing."
"It's been making it hard to crack open a text book or work on my research and... anything of the sort."
Alice: "I lost interest in work entirely some time ago."
Alice smiles thinly.
"Who wouls have thought a diagnosis like that would have an upside?"
Alice: "It all feels . . . terribly pointless, to be blunt."
GM: "I kind of feel the same way," Shanti admits. "And there were a lot of times where I just wanted to go home and forget what I was seeing here."
GM: "It took a whole fucking lot of effort to push through it."
Leah "Damned if I don't - I'll never forget about all of this, and I'll second guess everything about reality anyway. Damned if I do, because then I'm just proving that my intended career is meaningless."
She grimaces.
Leah "So, there was this giant pit beneath all three of us and we fell in and now we have no idea where to go."
GM: "My goal right now is to master this stuff. I'm going to take a leave of absence from work - that'll keep me for a few months at least."
GM: "And maybe try to get a handle on what's really going on."
Leah "Don't think I can do the same."
GM: Not that Leah's powers seem content to let her be.
Leah They seem happiest when in use, but she can't just go around levitating stuff all the time.
Alice: "I have a relatively ironclad excuse, as it turns out. They really have no option but to let me take a leave of absence."
Leah "...man, everything sucks now."
GM: Shanti lays a hand on Leah's shoulder. A lame sort of sympathy, but an attempt.
Leah "There's silver linings, but it's like buying a nice toaster for your life savings."
Leah "..I do hope we figure this shit out, though. Cause then, maybe we can grab the reins again."
GM: "Right? We don't really get to go back to how we were."
GM: "And maybe that's how it should be, because the world's fucked if we know it or not."
Alice: "I honestly feel as though I prefer it this way," Alice admits.
GM: "Oh yeah? I admit, I'm genuinely curious to hear your throughts."
Alice: "It may more just be symptomatic of dislike of my career path, or a rather early mid-life crisis, mind. From my side, I didn't feel as though there was any particular value to what I had been doing lately. Verbally sparring with people who put their own interests above the job they're paid to do, or trying to corral different priorities into a coherent whole, to the aim of . . ."
Alice: Alice trails off.
Alice: "Nothing of particular interest, in the end," she concludes.
Alice: "It eventually became hard to pretend at pride in what I was doing."
GM: "You've always kind of pushed that boundary more than the rest of us," Shanti says thoughtfully. "You had no tolerance for bullshit from day one that I knew you."
Alice: "Well, eventually I gave up on it, assuming that might lead me where I ought to be."
Leah "I'm in the opposite boat. I've been striving for my dream job and am part-way there, but I'm finding out my dream job is studying bullshit."
GM: She flops into one of the comfy chairs.
"Might not be. I never saw anything to suggest the wider universe isn't out there."
Leah "Yeah, but you said it yourself, that things are connected even when they're not. In one blink of an eye you've invalided at least 80 of the research papers I've read."
Leah "So anything I'd find out, I'd have to put next to my convenient pile of salt."
Alice: "Says the woman who expresses telekinesis and thermokinesis?" Alice asks skeptically.
Leah "I've also invalided a number of research papers by doing stuff like this." She levitates one of the bowls.
GM: That is so cool.
...Shanti's mouth wasn't moving.
Leah "I mean, yeah, on the surface, but in the grand scheme of things it's--... uh..." She looks back at Shanti.
GM: Oh great. Did I get sauce on my cheek or something?
She rubs her face slightly.
"It's yeah?"
Leah Leah slowly sets the bowl down before she drops it. "Are you doing that, or is it me?"
Alice: Alice arches an eyebrow.
GM: Alice, peeking at her, sees Leah's - aura? - pulse faintly to some unseen signal.
Leah "I think my psychic thing mutated again, because I am literally hearing you say things you aren't saying with your mouth. And no, you don't have sauce on your cheek."
Leah She rubs at her temples.
Alice: Alice turns her head towards Shanti, a quizzical look on her face.
GM: "..." She blinks. "Holy shit."
GM: "I mean, I shouldn't be surprised anymore."
GM: "But you just keep popping up.'
Alice: "Well. That is a new and disturbing development."
Alice: "I certainly didn't see anything change, though, Leah."
Leah Leah purses her lips. "I didn't feel anything different until Shanti complimented my bowl lifting skill. In fact, I don't really feel any different."
GM: "Wish I knew what was going on with you. I mean, Alice and I had to like, define ourselves to the universe."
Leah "The sick thing is that I think my sperm donor also got powers like these."
Leah "Or had them all along."
Leah "But the greek news report implied he melted his bars."
Alice: "I'm sorry, what new report when ?"
Leah "Well, the guy who impregnated my mother with me escaped from jail, I told you that, right? Well, this morning, I read some news from Greece to see if they'd caught him - they haven't - and they mentioned he melted his prison bars somehow, and at this point, I'm pretty sure it was with his mind."
GM: "...shit, him?" Shanti murmurs
Leah "Yeah, him."
GM: "You inherited psychic powers from your rapist sire."
Leah "Or when I developed mine, he got his through a kick-me-while-down universe moment."
GM: She frowns, and looks serious.
"Maybe it'd be worth doing a bit of research on your family line."
Alice: "I think that might be wise."
Alice: Alice grimaces.
"Occam's razor is fairly clear."
Leah "I... probably should. I avoided it, cause I got anxious whenever I read his name, and my therapist agreed, but at this point..."
Alice: "You hardly need to - his name would be enough for us to investigate without you, after all."
Leah "I should probably be involved in this too. But if you'll help, which I'm grateful for, he's Marcario Maniatis."
GM: "You can count on us."
GM: She offers a slight smile.
GM: "So - what's this about a murder weapon?"
Leah "Well, Alice has the details, but Amy Dempsey apparently got possessed by a ghost who might have caused her to murder someone with a knife - or stab someone, anyway - and Alice wanted to be rid of it, so I melted it in a little makeshift crucicle."
Alice: (Thank you I was trying to look up the surname.)
Alice: "One imagines there's plenty of other forensic evidence, so I doubt it will make much of a difference. I am moderately certain that she was set up for exactly this, however."
GM: "That's some shit. Someone like us - a magician of some sort?"
Leah "Someone bought a haunted mirror and put it in the home Amy rented 2 days before she moved in."
Leah "Which is sketchy as hell."
Alice: "I have his name, mind; there was a bill of sale for the mirror in the house. Why there was a bill of sale for it in the house is another question."
Leah "Maybe he wants to be found?"
GM: "Carelessness? Might be he never anticipated someone of our persuasion would get involved."
Alice: "There was certainly no reason to think that we would have. Had Amy called perhaps a month earlier I would have had very little to say about the matter."
Leah "Or that she'd call anyone, for that matter."
GM: "Especially if it is actually this person's house."
GM: "Which would be bad form."
GM: "But isn't that the thing with criminals?"
GM: "They make stupid mistakes."
Leah "Legally, they aren't a criminal because all they did was buy a mirror from a shady place and rented a house out. That's what's fucked."
GM: "Can we deal with the ghost?" Shanti asks Alice. "And should we, before seeing this guy?"
Alice: "I'm uncertain," Alice answers with a frown, "On both counts. Presumably he saw some gain to this aside from mayhem, which suggests a transaction of some type."
Alice: "But I'd not like Amy in the grip of it for longer than she already has been."
GM: "I liked Amy, and I don't like that either," Shanti admits. "I will admit, though, it seems possible that if we fuck with this guy's plans he might take revenge. I'm divided - Leah?"
Alice: "This why we may need to deal with him first. I'm uncertain."
Alice looks at Leah expectantly.
Leah "Uhh..." She mulls over it. "I think we lack information. Who the ghost is, who the victim was and what relation they might have with the guy who got the mirror, where the mirror came from... Then we can make a more informed decision.
"My gut says we ought to do after the ghost first, because she's the murder weapon, and she, uh... might have information, or lead to information as we figure her out. I'm not sure how ghosts work."
Leah "It'll help us figure out the guy, because all in all, he's the more dangerous one."
Leah "He has enough cash to finance homes to rent, and he knows about supernatural and has access to a source of at least one haunted paraphernalia."
Alice: "Yes. The concern is that if we deal with the ghost first - which we're unclear of how to do - he'll know we're investigating him."
Leah "We could arrange it so we deal with both. Research the ghost and be ready to exorcise her, but don't deal the final blow, assuming there's a final blow to deal. If we need to exorcise her in a hurry or emergency, then we'll be able to do that."
Leah "We go after him and find out what we can, and plan from there."
GM: "Well, it is bloody late, so not much we're doing tonight."
Leah "It is. We should tackle it soon, but yeah, wandering a haunted house in the middle of the night.. not my idea of a good idea."
Leah "...said she, in the haunted house, at night."
Leah "But yours hasn't committed homicides."
Alice: "Yet."
Alice: Alice sounds faintly amused at the idea.
Leah "So long as it doesn't come into the guest room while I'm sleeping."
Alice: "Lock the door," Alice says drily.
Leah "That works?"
Alice: "No maid that my family would deem acceptable would even consider ignoring a locked door."
Leah "...well, okay."
Alice: "Also, the medical benefits of the placebo effect are well documented."
Leah "I'll take it."
GM: Shanti giggles helplessly
GM: "Oh man, it makes too much sense."
Leah "What does?"
Alice: "The mechanics behind the placebo effect."
Alice: "Clap your hands if you believe, Leah."
Leah "Don't make me read your mind to look for embarrassing things."
Alice: "Oh, Leah. Haven't you answered yet the question of what lies underneath my guise of propriety and poise?"
Leah "..now I'm kind of afraid to look."
Alice: "More of it, of course. Underneath every layer of an onion is more onion, and exploring it just hurts your eyes."
Alice: "Best not."
Leah "One day I'll peek. I'll let you know if I regret it."
GM: "If you don't mind the company, I wouldn't mind sticking around. I want to read about more rituals."
Leah "I won't complain if you're around."
Alice: " Do make sure the door is locked," Alice says blandly.
Leah "Yes ma'am."
GM: Shanti starts sorting the books into an unoccupied shelf.
"I've only skimmed, but there's some interesting stuff in here."
GM: "Apparently, the majority of it has to do with playing with those lines."
GM: "Like - you kind of tug on them with your mind and you can make things happen."
Leah "Sounds familiar, minus the lines."
GM: "It's like - luck manipulation."
Leah "I feel I'm going to get left behind in the dust at some point, knowledge-wise."
Alice: "You could always take up astrology," Alice drawls, "You're already halfway there."
Leah "Ugh.. if it's actually more accurate than astronomy, I'll be pissed."
GM: "There's nothing in here that lets us throw shit with our minds."
GM: "Much more subtle."
Alice: "Divinations?" Alice asks thoughtfully.
Leah "It's nice when I want to use it. It's less nice when it just tries to get out on its own and I have to boil some water or spin my cup just to keep myself from getting a headache.
"Also I see sheuts, which is unnerving. I skipped taking a shower at my mom's cause one is squatting in there."
GM: "Yes, in fact."
GM: "There's a whole section in this one about tarot divination," she taps one of the books. "And water scrying."
Alice: " Really ."
GM: She pulls it out, flipping through it. If Shanti had a gift in school, it was a good memory for where and how to find things. There are, in fact, several pages of hand-written and -illustrated tarot symbolism and divination.
Alice: "I suppose," Alice says, retrieving the box from the rear pocket of her slacks, "That I should look at that."
GM: At least an entire substantial chapter.
GM: "Have at it. I'm looking into - " she pulls out a list she made. "Wards and rites of desire."
GM: "The latter, apparently, can do far-reaching manipulations to get things that you need."
Leah "..wow, that's pretty mind boggling."
GM: "Like - are you stuck on the roadside? You can manipulate the lines to bring a friendly person in a car."
GM: "Or find a twenty pound note."
GM: "Sort of little cascades of fate."
Alice: Alice opens the box and removes the tarot cards, tapping them on the table before sitting down with the book.
GM: Leah gets a good look at them. They're beautiful models - they look like they're painted, but the shine is wrong. Like the color is imprinted into the material... which appears to be some lightweight, flexible metal.
Leah That's cool. She wouldn't mind having a notebook with that kind of thing on the outside!
GM: Settling down, they start getting to work reading, with Leah joining in for interest's sake - though it's not impossible that she could perform these herself.
Even thinking about that is exhausting, though - her mind is already working pretty hard on what it's doing. It would take discipline and effort.
Alice, for her part, sees that the deck she has is directly referenced as a family heirloom lost sometime in the 16th century along with Cecily Greystock, mentioned as one of their family's best diviners. The deck is reputed to have various powers, acting as a very potent aid.
Leah Just keeping herself from flinging stuff around the room has been difficult enough. To then pick up divining and scrying and stuff seems like a dangerous combination that would stretch her to some breaking point. Maybe later, once she knows what she's doing.
Still, she'd like to know about this stuff to at least keep apace.
GM: There's a weird possibility that starts worming in the back of her head. Could she use these other dimensions in some way - maybe to do a sort of wormhole thing?
Leah ...she can feel objects from pretty far away if she can see them. Maybe she can borrow Shanti and Alice's eyes to do some experiments at some point.
GM: Physics and astronomy! Not so useless after all.
Leah She just has to figure out how those dimensional ... things work with real physics. Then maybe she can make provable breakthroughs in research.
Leah That'd give her some pep in her step back at work.
GM: They don't actually get much sleep that night. Alice hasn't felt this genuinely excited to learn something in a while, not since she got back into her photography, and Shanti and Leah get to talking for a fair portion of it, sitting out on the balcony.
"Wanna bet we'll see a vampire if we watch this way long enough?" Shanti asks, though she watches the moon rather than the park, feet against the painted white cast iron rail.
Leah "No bets. It'd be a poor vampire to swoop in where everyone can see them, but the moment I wager some money on it is the night one shows up."
Leah Leah is sitting with her legs folded underneath herself. She's changed into her nightwear - oversized shirt and some loose boxers, hair still a bit damp and flattened from her earlier shower.
GM: "Your idea about the wormholes might be good," she observes. "These higher dimensions I'm observing could reduce the energy requirements for that down to far more trivial levels."
Leah "The issue is me accessing that fold in spacetime. It's not trivial since I can't see or understand them yet. ...though, maybe if I read your mind while you observe and focus describe one such connection between two points in space you can see, it might give me some ideas."
GM: "I think it's worth experimenting on, if you're interested."
Leah "If you don't mind me peering in."
GM: "Just mind where you rummage."
Leah "Not a lot of practice, so pardon any stumbles. I'll try to put any drawers I open back in its place." She scoots her chair a bit closer and reaches out to touch her shoulder, concentrating to look for the girl's mind.
GM: (Rolls! Willing target)
GM: Shanti's mind isn't exactly a closed book, but there's so much activity going on right now that it's hard to get a handle on her - still, after a bit, Leah manages it.
She's got a lot of thoughts going on - thinking about her ritual, about the stuff she's read, but she's deliberately bringing the other dimensions to fore.
GM: Ideas and thoughts - it's a bit mind-boggling. She's worked with dimensional math before, though.
GM: It's just another thing to directly perceive them.
Leah She removes her hand and closes her eyes to block out anything else and just.. concentrate on what Shanti's mind is saying - seeing if she can't filter out the non-relevant. Dimensional folds, connections between objects, and seeing if she can't apply them to Kip Thorne's theories. Just... more magickey.
GM: Sort of punch a three-dimensional hole through space?
It's easily the hardest thing she's ever attempted. She feels like she's trying to lift a tanker ship - no, this isn't working. She'll need to maths it out later.
Leah "Oof... Gonna need to hash out the theory on paper. Just doing it in my head is burning a hole in my brain."
Leah "Though I have a starting point. Thanks."
GM: "Let me know if you need any help. I don't know much of that kind of maths, though."
Leah "You'll come in handy when it's time to experiment, to see what you see and tell me if what I'm trying is having effects. ...once I know what those experiments will be."
GM: "Gladly~"
Inside the house, Alice's phone buzzes - Hermine's face and number.
Alice: Hrn. She's definitely under some surveillance, isn't she?
Alice: Alice picks the phone up, keying the answer button.
"Good morning," the woman answers, in a dry tone.
GM: "Morning, Sister," a tired Hermine says. "These 2am GMT calls are becoming a bit of a thing, aren't they?"
There's a rustling sound as she settles back.
"I had a hell of an evening and haven't got a wink of sleep."
Alice: "And yet I do seem to be awake for them. What has been costing you sleep, Hermine?"
GM: "An ancient ruin out of time and space."
Alice: "I suppose that's as good a reason as any."
GM: "Particularly vexing because there are guardians that will follow you to the ends of the Earth."
GM: "So best to break them then and there."
Alice: "Very practical, sister."
Alice: "I have some practical advice to ask you, mind, but you may as well say your piece first."
GM: "I'm not feeling like dancing right now, though I know it's the better course - yeah, I'm aware in a passing way of what you did. I think you're on the right course, I just wanted to emphasize that what you read in those books isn't the be-all end-all. The story is always deeper, but I think you're doing the right thing."
She sighs.
"I'm sorry for making this obtuse. I know we were hellions to one another as girls, but I promise you, this is me trying to put my best foot forward. Ask away - I can't promise I'll tell you everything, but I'll do my best to advise you."
Alice: "I appreciate that," Alice says, after a long moment.
"I suppose my most immediate question is whether you could recommend an open-minded lawyer."
GM: "That's a definite yes. What level of trouble are we talking?"
Alice: "A contemporary of mind may have committed a murder while possessed."
GM: "Ah, I see. That's a hard one, but not impossible. Depending on the level of evidence, I might have to call in a favor, but I'll get someone on it."
Alice: "Yet more concerningly I strongly suspect she was set up by one particular individual."
GM: "Mm. That is concerning. What was the method, if you know?"
Alice: "An antique mirror bought and placed the day before she took possession of the house, it seems, but I'll re-examine it tomorrow."
GM: "That's probably not anyone I know. I suggest approaching with caution, though that sort of behavior is truly unacceptable in almost any quarter."
GM: "But you didn't need me to say that - if you don't know about banes, you should find out, and quick. There's some books I can recommend. Salt's always a basic useful one."
Alice: "I had read that, and I will do some further reading. The man's name was James Hadfield, as I recall. It may be merely an alias, mind."
Alice: "This all occurred today so I haven't yet made in depth enquiries."
GM: "That - is in fact an alias. I don't know his real name, but I know he's a magician operating in South London. Reputation is moderately dangerous as far as they go."
Alice: "I suppose that answers that, then."
Alice: "In unrelated news I find the need to dispose of some corpses."
GM: "This ought to be interesting. Corpses?"
Alice: "Did you know that we have a basement in the townhouse?"
GM: "Bloody hell what?"
Alice: "Sealed up since the blitz, it appears; our great uncle Christopher involved himself in matters and decided it best forgotten."
Alice: "There's two corpses and a staked vampire downstairs. I'm not entirely certain as to what to do with them."
Alice: "He does have the family look, interestingly enough."
GM: "Christ, I lived over that.' She shifts position again. "Okay, well, good job, you've manged to surprise me. So, deal with staked vampires, the stake keeps them in a state of hibernation until it's removed - if he's dehydrated, he'd need blood, too, and you wouldn't want to be near until he's had a few bags - and that's assuming you want to have a chat, which can be risky. Otherwise, I'd just light him up. Vampires burn like no one's business."
She considers.
"The corpses - if they're that old, it's beyond the point where they matter to anyone."
Alice: "Except father and the media."
GM: "Yes, rather."
Alice: "And interfering remains a crime."
GM: "To the families, to be more precise - unlikely, anyway."
GM: "The media attention could lead to other things, if that basement is anything like our family history in general."
Alice: "It certainly is."
GM: "I'm not saying you should get rid of them, but if you do, there's some commercially available chemicals and an appropriate receptable that can get the job done. I think your judgement here is somewhat important."
Alice: "I'd considered that, I had just hoped for a less messy solution."
Alice: "Ah well."
GM: "Sometimes the simple methods are the best. I find that overcomplicating offers too many details to get wrong, but, then, I get to walk into certain kinds of situations and walk out again where others wouldn't."
GM: More shifting, getting comfortable.
"Hey, Sis? I'm heading to bed in a moment. Plan to sleep the day away - but sometimes, you have to do stupid things to get ahead in this world. It tricks you into thinking 'reasonable' is the only acceptable things to do, but sometimes you gotta break patterns."
GM: "Pardon. Exhausted."
GM: "Was anything else on your mind?"
Alice: "Plenty, but nothing I think I need to concern you about."
She pauses.
"Oh. I was diagnosed with early stage lymphoma the day before yesterday."
GM: "Good Lord, it's the full press, isn't it?" she murmurs. "I'm sorry, Alice. That must have been quite a scare for you. I want you to know that it's a problem we can deal with - you aren't alone, are you? I realize you're going through some manner of hell, and you've been in that house by yourself with a bloody vampire for a while now."
Alice: "Oh, hardly. I enlisted some friends."
Alice: "Really, who investigates an obvious horror movie premise alone ?"
GM: Momentary silence.
"Well. It worked for me, but, then, that's my nature."
GM: "I think that's good, though, that you have people. I had my husband to turn to, though really, that's a complicated subject."
Alice: "I'm almost afraid to ask why."
Alice: "But I do appreciate the call, Hermine, and the encouragement."
GM: "Oh, it's actually surprisingly simple. We're each others' beards."
GM: "And - you're welcome."
GM: "I've been reassessing things since my own change."
GM: "And I've decided - there's a few relationships that are deserving of a second look. So - good morrow, then, and good luck. I'll probably see you in a couple weeks."
GM: This message has been removed.
Alice: "Well, while that may be nice, I will try to avoid hastening your schedule. I think such things disagree with me."
GM: "I hope so, but I don't fully believe it. Ta, sister~"
And with Alice's exchange, she hangs up.
GM: ---
GM: Saturday, June 24, 2017
The weather's been wild lately. Earlier in the week, London had been baked in unabated sunshine for most of the month, raising temperatures to a sweltering 32 degrees, while today the sky is hazy and cloudy and the weather report promises buckets of rain tomorrow. Leah hears all about her mother's complaints about it on the phone that morning, her rapid Greek in one ear while she makes a Greek breakfast on the stove. There was a little Lebanese grocer a couple blocks away which was almost good enough for what she needed.
Alice sits at the table with her morning tea. Having people in her house who aren't dead is a novel experience, having some of Leah's cooking for the first time since college is a welcome thing after a night spent in bleak, haunted dreams of a dead landscape strewn with people's discarded material possessions.
GM: That last night featured her first truly civil, even human, discussion with her sister in decades makes her question momentarily how real her memories are.
Leah "I woke up sodden, so I know how you feel. I'm baking here too. The stovetop is not helping, either." she agrees in greek on the phone. It's on the kitchen counter while she cooks, and she has her Bluetooth earpiece in the ear to keep on working without having to keep her head cocked into her shoulder. Koulouri (bought, not homemade, sadly, though she boosted them with a bit of cheese) next to some eggs on prosciutto with a little warm sauce alongside it.
GM: "That smells amazing," Shanti calls as she makes her way into the kitchen, washed and brushed. She takes some tea and joins Alice at the table.
"I heard from the police again. They asked if he had contacted me."
GM: "I've been up all night practicing."
Shanti hooks her fingers. To Leah, she might as well be doing nothing, but Alice watches her manipulate the threads they can both see.
Leah She gives Shanti a smile. "Koulouri and mozzarella always smells amazing," she agrees, then turns back to her work. "Ti skata," she curses. "He couldn't possibly dare."
GM: "He hasn't. They told me that he had been taken to the hospital earlier that night. Screaming and clawing at his head, shouting about shadows."
Leah ...so hey, good news, she didn't inherit her powers from him.
They just got them at the exact same time. Because of course they'd share a bond like that.
"Hopefully he gets so scared of his own shadow that he stays in whatever dark pit he dug." Not that she expects it, but...
Alice: Alice looks between the two of them quizzically.
GM: Still worth digging up family history.
Leah Yeah, to figure out why they'd get powers like that at the same time...
)
(