"Hating one another doesn't mean we can't be civil, lovely. It's a dangerous world out there - funny to think that the Inferno isn't the only other world adjacent in some Tartarian sense, is it not? Well, I'll leave you to your mystery, then. Ta."

No wonder psychic vampires would come here looking for ritual tomes. Even if it took some digging, it still felt 'easy' to pull it free. Alice's family name popping up is not surprising either. That this confirms that Renée is a magical girl isn't as surprising as she imagined it would... That she did it with some ritual of Egyptian descent and turned part of her soul is a little bit more surprising.

This is deeply involved stuff, and impressive translation and re-contextualizing work. For a psych major, especially.

Melissa Smith's checkout history is more what she'd expect, certainly nothing occult. So... was it a coincidence, then? The 'hungry ghost' vibe of Renee's sheut kind of... looked spooky but then something else happened to her when they left for yoghurt? It's not like she was gone long fetching her stuff, after all. Would have had to, like... hide the evidence, especially in the middle of the afternoon next to the library? Seems unlikely, but, then again, she doesn't know what a sheut can do.

Sure looks useful, though Leah can work from visual range already.

Question is what now? ...well, pretending they're both in the dark probably won't help, and she obviously knows something and she'll need to get it out of her if this is to work at all. She produces her phone and sends Renee a text asking to have a chat when she's next available.

Until she gets a response, she'll set up some research notes on this sheut ritual business, just in case she gets interested in extending her range a little bit further (though involving the underworld and ghosts and shit is a bit less appetizing. Then again, that she can see them seems like some sort of hint that she should capitalize on it...)

She plops the lot of the resources on a USB stick for later further perusal as needed and sets up a meeting with Renee at the local university coffee shop. She picks up a couple small coffees and a couple small water bottles for the two of them and gets settled at one of the back tables to wait her out.

Likely that this will get a bit awkward... She likes this girl, and hopefully it's her paranoia and over-assumption playing tricks. ...and if she's knowledgeable about this stuff, maybe she can help her with the whole seeing-souls and moving-things-with-your-mind thing.

Compared to 'be a normal person,' being able to send out bird scouts and have her very shadow wander around and do tasks, 'reasonably competent sorceress' feels like an understatement. This is like... maybe a few notches below Harry Potter, but it'd fit right at home. That she can do this stuff does much the opposite of reducing how attractive Renée is. Please don't be a weirdo because magic.

"Hey, babe." She squeezes her and has a seat with her, taking a sip of coffee to steel herself and gather her thoughts. "No one thing happened persay," she admits. "Just... Since last week, with the football field thing, my life's kind of flipped itself around and I've been trying to adjust. That you showed up is a blessing, cause you're smart and cute, and sexy, and warm, and I'd really like to keep you around and see how far this can get." She smiles at her. As she speaks, she lets a bit of cold slip into her water bottle, to build a bit of energy and reveal some shadows.

"Had we gotten together before, maybe, but, now, the whole... secret thing isn't feeling good, so I think we should be showing our hands and talking openly if this is going to work. Namely, about magic stuff. The fact your shadow can wander on its own, and I'm reasonably sure that bird was yours too. In exchange, I'll reveal I can see your shadow - and other shadows - and that I can manipulate things with my mind since recently."

"If it's any consolation, I never noticed other people were magic until I was tossed on my arse by someone waving a hand at me from a distance, and someone got dragged into a portal to hell." She takes a sip of coffee and smiles. "The hospital trip after was where it sort of ... all showed up. When you first approached me, I noticed your shadow, yeah, but I didn't think too much of it. I later learned they might be related to ghosts or something, so I figured, maybe you had an unfortunate past too? Kinda like me.

"Though now I know a bit more, cause I did some research. But... yeah, it is." She begins to slowly rotate the water in her bottle around, to dissipate the energy. "It sort of .. hovered over her creepily, then you slip away and she's reported missing the next day.

"I'll go ahead and say right away, I don't get a terrorize-some-girl vibe from you at the worse of times, but I've seen dead bodies, a staked vampire, my sire apparently escaped from jail by melting the bars of his cell, and there's these leftover shadow-sheut beings everywhere I look from my mom's shower to them just standing there in the streets, and I only have a peripheral control over my power build up.

"And then stress builds up, and when I get stressed, I start running these questions in my mind. It's clear you know something about what happened then, enough to not be concerned. So... I do want to hear it from you."

Leah follows along, coffee in one hand, water in the other. She sips at her own, trying to look calm as well, though she can't help but feel some trepidation about what will come out of this discussion.

"There's a lot I've seen that I wouldn't mind forgetting I did," she admits. "But I can't, not without going crazy. So... no, sorry. I can't just forget it happened," she explains. "We do have a nice thing going, and I'd love to keep it. ...but if you vampire'd her or something, or made her a victim in the name of .. I dunno, power, then that would sour things significantly.

"If it's something else, benign or actually-necessary..." She trails off, glancing at her as a cue.

On the one hand, it's hard to swallow that there's people with that much power at their fingertip, let alone at the snap of a finger. The rituals in the books, the sheer amount of concentration and mental exhaustion it causes Leah to use her powers, having to go into the bleeding underworld and fight and haggle with who knows what... and some people can just wink things into existence? That's fucked.

Leah can sympathize, she supposes. There's freedom to be had in being, what, a god on earth (crazy?) And Leah wouldn't really lie and say she isn't appreciative of her new ability and would be interested in honing it further.

...but she hates the idea of hurting people who don't deserve it, and from what Renee is telling her, Melissa Smith was just some victim to be sent to the underworld for whatever entity's whim as a price. The idea makes Leah kind of queasy and she tosses what's left of her coffee into the trash bin.

"I've had a time in my life where I did something bad with the intention of stepping over someone else, and I still regret it to this day. It was minor, but still. Especially since I've been taken advantage of by someone with power over me. If the cost of power is to take someone and throw them into the literal city of the dead and their only related crime is to have been the convenient target, that's not power worth having."

"If I were faced with the tough choice of pulling a lever to save my family knowing that someone else's dies, then... I probably would. I'd hate myself for the rest of my life, but I would. But I'm not going to go out and find a family and end them because there might come a time where having ended a family counts."

She takes a deep breath and lets it out shakily. "I don't know what's out there, I can admit that much. Of what I do know, I don't even know their basic capabilities. But I can't help but feel how I feel: I'll defend myself, and I'll defend the ones I love, with violence. I'll boil their blood and frostbite their nads off if they threaten who I love, but wilfully going out of my way to hurt someone who's not involved at all makes my stomach clench. Let alone throw them to an eternity in the fucking underworld."

She sighs again, leaning back against the trashbin, and she has to reach up to rub away tears in her eyes. "It's just... not right. I can see where you're coming from, I really do: you want the liberation that the power comes with, I get that. I feel that with my psychic stuff. But ...it's just not right.

"People aren't tokens to spend. Melissa Smith had a family, career prospects, co-workers, lovers, friends, and now what, she's just... gone? Their sadness, their loss, the cessation of all impacts Melissa Smith has on them - after however many days, weeks, months, years they keep searching for her - is supposed to be okay because it gives a bit more substance to your shadow?

"Where does that slope end, Renee? At what point does it stop being for the greater good? Is there a number? You can say that it costs a few for the many's benefit, but how long before the few become several, then many, then you're the same as what you're fighting, innit?

"Then what if the grouping narrows? What if your patron thing points at someone you care about? It's just one loved one out of all the other loved ones, after all, right? Save your whole family at the cost of your friend, brother or sister, dad, or, for kicks, girlfriend? When do you say 'no'? Can you even afford to say 'no'?"

She stops there for now, taking a few moments to breath and again dab at her eyes. "I can't accept hurting innocents, because that's the sort of justification you end up with."

Leah is silent for a time, watching Renee walk through tear-blurred eyes. Fuck... Fuck, is that it? She's the bad guy and she just lets her walk? Leah doesn't feel guilty for keeping to her guns, but... God damn it, no. Renee's not the bad guy, she's misguided, scared, and latched on to a solution, and, maybe...

"Renée, wait!" She jogs after her to catch up, even reaching out with her mind to take her shoulder and halt her advance before her hand can do the same and turn her. "Wait, just..." She takes a breath. "Look, you, you want to be a god on earth, then be a god people would follow, you know? This..." She pauses. She kind of rushed in without a concrete plan, just an idea, but...

"You made shitty choices. We all have. Even in the name of good intentions. But, the thing with bad choices is that so long as the consequences don't kill you, you can maybe fix them? Like... is this fixable? Because if you're willing to put in the work to, I dunno, clear your debt, maybe we can even get Smith back, I don't even know what's what.

"But point is, if there's a way to use those powers right, without having to damn a bunch of people, or ensure the people being damned are the monsters you want to fight, then I'd be right by you to make that happen. Cause I do like you a lot, and I know you're better than this, and I wanna see you glow, not linger in your own shadow's authority."

"Then let's find it. I've been working with a couple friends on this whole thing, and we have a bunch of resources we managed to find. If we pool up what we have and what you have, I'm sure we can find something way better than this. And, and fix some of this stuff that's happened."

"No, maybe not, but... We can do what we can, can't we? And there's a lot of good that can be done with stuff like ours. From there, we'll... have to see." She gives the shadow a glare back.

"Besides, if we do find out how to reach that god-tier stuff, or find one who feels like helping, then undoing the bad stuff would be a cinch, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, well... I haven't gotten where I am by giving up on myself, and I've had plenty of opportunities to look myself in the mirror and ask if it's worth continuing, living with the stuff that still weighs me down today. Giving up on you when your weight is worse..."

She puts an arm about her and drags her into her ample chest. "It'd make me a twat. And I can't just let you walk away a villain, cause who knows what'll happen next. And I'd prefer to be there to be able to grab your hand."

"Think we can start with some juice. Then we can go over the issues with the more immediate ones on top, and see where we can make something happen. Specifically, what happened to Melissa Smith, if it's possible to get her back, and what consequences there would be and how to deal with that.

"We can move on from there until we can't unravel it anymore and nothing else can be done. Then we turn to the future. I also introduce you to my friends and we pool our mutual knowledge."