[Ashley McGowen] Ashley and Wharil set out after Dylan in the morning, during the time when Ashley would normally be at work. It seems, she reasons, to be the best time to do any potential investigation: most Sleepers aren't likely to be around this time of day to interfere.
She has the location of the place where Dylan is being held firmly in mind, and is happy to relay instructions to either Jacques or Wharil, whichever of them happens to be driving.
[Jacques-Marcel] Being that his car has only two seats and there isn't room to cram in a third person in the front, Jacques may have surprised them by hopping into the backseat of Wharils car, providing the other is driving. He's quiet for the most part, listening to Ashley as she gives directions while watching out the window. He really doesn't know what to expect, but it's probably the first time either of them have seen him in seemingly casual (you can bet they're label) jeans and a sweater, which makes him look younger and more approachable.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil was whistling. One had to wonder whether or not he was actually serious about much of this. He'd been nonchalant for the most part of Ashley's scrying. And though darkly, he'd joked about Dylan's apparent predicament. And now? Now he was whistling, as if out on a Sunday drive, following Ashley's instructions as she gave them. He glanced at Jacques in the rearview Mirror.
"Hey, Jacques, I was thinking. Since you know Dylan's dad and everything, if we find him in good shape, you wanna talk to him? Maybe try and convince him to call his dad at least?"
[Dylan Willis] There's a mist coating the streets and sidewalks of north Chicago, a dreary gray cast to the afternoon's sky and a sense of tense anticipation in the air. It's supposed to dump more snow tonight. It's supposed to get colder.
In her reaching, Ashley had come up with a sense of where it was their target is. He had not been dead and decaying in some forgotten corner of the world, in a grave without a marker or a hole in the woods or the boot of an abandoned car. He's alive, even if the sensory input that the Hermetic had received was somewhat boggling: he was trapped, wherever he was he could not get out, and he appeared to be in someone's apartment. He also appeared to be unharmed, yet one has to imagine that if he were wherever he is by choice he would have said something, he would have his cell phone and would have given the people in his life some sort of indication where he was going and when he would be back, if he would be back.
He was aware of his surroundings and still in concert with his Avatar, it would appear, if his ability to initiate countermagic were any indication. That had to be somewhat promising. They have no idea what it is they're going into, yet that isn't stopping the three of them from traversing the city in search of a particular apartment building in a particular section of town.
The daylight is still holding, and there is little sense that they need to hurry. All they really have to do is find a place to park.
[Ashley McGowen] Wharil has been whistling for the duration of the drive, and, coincidence or not, for that entire duration Ashley has seemed rather uncomfortable. Her expression carries a faint grimace from time to time, she looks a bit stiff in the seat. But perhaps that isn't so unusual. The Hermetic doesn't bother to speak up, though, a bit too focused on watching out the window and trying to find directions to the place.
When Wharil speaks up she looks back over her shoulder at Jacques too, not necessarily curious about the answer, but wanting to understand what is expected here.
"This is the neighborhood," she says, gaze locking on the building once they pass it, feeling a pull in her stomach as she recognizes the place. "That apartment."
[K. R. Jakes] .
to†K. R. Jakes
[Jacques-Marcel] His gaze flickers forward, glancing over the edge of Wharils shoulder before lifting up and meeting his gaze in the review mirror. "That's why I'm here for, " he answered quietly, smoothly.
He looked to Ashley when she took a moment to look over at him as well, before shifting his gaze back out the window.
Jacques was ready for an emotional shit-storm, at the very least.
[Wharil Choc] "Great!" He exclaimed after both revelations. And yet, he kept driving. He eyed the apartment, and whoever he might have seen coming in or out of it. He paid keen attention to the type of people on the sidewalk. And then, he rounded the corner, and watched in his rearview as if to see who would make the turn with him. These were the habits of a nosy man who had stumbled into a few too many ambushes.
Wharil circled the block once before finally parking. The apartment Ashley pointed out would be just around the corner. In the meantime, checked his gone with a quick, practiced once over. Working the parts he could quickly manipulate with an obsessive sort of repetition.
"Alright." He said cheerfully once he was finally ready and had placed the weapon out of sight. "Lets get going."
[Ashley McGowen] "Before we get out of the car, give me a moment," Ashley tells the two of them. It's perhaps something that should have been done prior to coming out here, but better late than never. She recalls that trapped feeling of Dylan's despite the fact that his body was whole, and that leaves a limited number of things that could be keeping him there.
So, to be on the safe side, Ash locks her forefinger and thumb around the link of iron normally hidden beneath her shirt, strengthening the barriers of her own Mind and Will and extending the protections to the other two. They have not felt this before, but it is a distinctly uncomfortable presence: the feel of having invited a predator into your house while you sleep, something that watches and lurks and has chosen for whatever reason to sit off to the side.
[Mind 2 rote. Using a focus, spending WP.]
[Ashley McGowen] This accomplished successfully, she opens the door of the car.
[Jacques-Marcel] When the car finally came to a halt, he clipped himself out of his seat-belt, and was about to get out when things became a little uncomfortable in the car. He glances to the spare seats in the back then out the window, his gut tightening into a knot.
"Wait, Ashley..." his voice trails after Ashley as she gets out of the car, disturbed, obviously, by the sudden feeling of something nasty lurking around the edges. Something that he can't see but can certainly feel.
Pushing open his own door, he gets his tall self out and closes it after him, throwing another wary glance around. "I think there's something hanging around." He knows it sounds crazy. But Magi are a world of crazy.
[Wharil Choc] "Could you be a bit more vague, Jacques?"
He gets out of the car after them, locking it up and sliding the keys into his pockets. He felt something 'hanging around' himself. But that, he assumed, was only Ashley.
Creepy little one-eyed thing that she was.
Nevertheless, he waited by the car, arms resting on the hood as he regarded each in turn. And then, he closed his eyes and tried to feel for this extra 'hanging around' himself.
[Wharil Choc] [Perc+Awareness] Perc Specialty: Hidden (Not sure if it applies)
[Ashley McGowen] "That's just me, Jacques," Ashley says, confirming Wharil's suspicions as she steps out onto the curb. "I thought it probably wouldn't hurt to put a mental barrier up for everyone. Sorry to freak you out."
The apology doesn't really carry the air of an apology at all. It's pur(noely reflexive.
Once she's outside she looks up toward the apartment, a slight frown on her face. "Well, what's the plan, gentlemen? I can Stride in there if need be but I'd advise against it."
[Wharil Choc] Re-roll!
[Jacques-Marcel] "If you'll forgive me," he says, dry and rather sharply to Wharil, "I'm no fucking voodoo priest."
Smoothing a hand down his stomach is a rare nervous gesture, covered by the fact that Jacques always presented himself in that precise, pristine attire. He feels a little more out of place today. There's no doubts as to why.
When Ashley offers her explanation he nods once, feeling not as secure as he should. Magi throwing around magics is something he never got used to, no matter how often they did it around him. At least it wasn't someone else trying to mind-fuck them. A small blessing, he supposes.
"I'll go," he offered Ashley, looking towards the building. "I have reason to be here."
[Wharil Choc] "Mm." Came Wharil's unhappy sounding reply. He opened his eyes again and studied Jacques for a minute or two, rubbing at the space between his eyes.
"Listen, other than 'he's not dead' we haven't ruled anything out here. Meaning we still don't know what risks might be involved. We'll all go. Together. When we find Dylan, you can take over. Until then..."
Finally he comes around the car and stands on the sidewalk with them. Wharil Points to himself, then to Jacques, then to Ashley, announces positions for each as he does.
"Front. Middle. Rear." He says. "And yeah. We go in through the front door. Ring the buzzer. Whatever. Just...stay sharp."
And with that, he headed for the apartment building.
[Ashley McGowen] For once, the Hermetic is happy to defer to someone else: she is not a people person, and as such, is uncertain of how to handle an investigation. Better to leave that to a journalist. Ashley nods toward Wharil and falls into step behind him.
[Jacques-Marcel] If it were other times, there might have been some more colourful remarks and sarcasm, but that none spurt out of Jacques mouth is a clear sign that he's taking this more seriously then he does most things.
A hand in his jean pocket fumbles out his cell phone and checks the coverage as he follows behind Wharil for the apartment doors.
[K. R. Jakes] And just what sort've apartment building are the magi (plus sidekick) approaching?
The apartment building is one of the older buildings in Chicago. It was a house once, perhaps, for the very affluent. There are two towers. There is a weather vane. There is no lobby, but instead, outside, some cold copper mailboxes, an old (circa 1982?) buzzer system that someone's tried to polish up at some point. The front door to the apartment building, however, is ajar: it is not locked. There is a very teensy bit of yard, frosted over, sleeping until spring. There are signs of people walking their dogs, and being not very polite at all. Bad, bad Mrs. Thomas.
Inside, there's a short hall. And a stairway, up. Up is the way that Ashley knows they should go.
[Ashley McGowen] As the magi plus consor step into the hallway, Ashley gestures toward the hallway. "He's up that way." The place seems, in a way, a bit similar to Ashley's - minus the fact that it's a house and not a small brick apartment - and she absorbs the look of it as best she can.
She guides Wharil as they go up the stairs to the front door of the apartment.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil guides them, but pauses briefly at the entrance. He's scanning the mailboxes. More accurately, he's scanning the names. He points to them briefly.
"Any of those familiar to any of you? Ashley, you know which apartment we're going to?"
[Jacques-Marcel] He, of course, does a quick glance over the names that Wharil points out. "No, none of them." He's never been here before or even driven past the place, that he's noticed. Since they're all going together, he waits on them and heads up the stairs towards whatever apartment they're heading to.
Dylan is here somewhere, behind closed doors, refusing to answer anyone's calls and perfectly healthy (apparently). Jacques is a little mad. He keeps telling himself its for Michael that he's upset for. But he's more selfish then that. Soon enough, they'll have some answers.
[K. R. Jakes] The names are: A. Hawthorne, Janet Thomas, K. Jakes, Tam McDermott, Joseph Collins, III, Valentine Sepulveda and -- two nameless little mailboxes, whose owners either just don't care, peeled off their names for privacy, or don't actually have owners at all.
to†Wharil Choc
[Ashley McGowen] "I don't know the name of the person who owns the place," Ashley says, shaking her head. "Just where it is."
She casts a glance over the listed names. "Don't recognize any of them, either."
[Ashley McGowen] ((Sorry that took so long, had to AFK briefly.))
[Wharil Choc] Wharil's eyes narrowed slightly at one of those names. But neither of the other two recognized it, and so he didn't spend too much time considering it. Onward and upward, he seemed to decide. And onward and upward they went, following Ashley's instruction.
[K. R. Jakes] And the front door of the apartment? Just what you'd expect, but without the holiday trappings a couple of the other apartments have. The owner either doesn't celebrate Christmas, the way everybody else seems to (at least commercially), or hasn't had time yet to indulge.
[Jacques-Marcel] After a glance to Wharil, Jacques reached out and knocked on the apartment door.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil gives Jacques a nod and stands behind him, clearly visible from the peephole in the door, assuming there is one. To Ashley, however, he holds up a single hand as she approaches the side of the door. A silent signal encouraging her to stay out of sight for now.
[Ashley McGowen] At Wharil's signal, Ashley steps aside out of view of the peephole. It's lucky that they did pick earlier in the day to come and investigate: to anyone passing by through the apartment, it would look suspicious at the very least to see two people lurking out of sight while a third knocks at the door.
Ash leans back against the wall, leaving the door on her right so she can at least hear and see what is going on.
[K. R. Jakes] [Manip + Subt: This Is The Best Day Ever.]
[K. R. Jakes] They have to wait for a little longer than might seem necessary. The owner of the apartment -- maybe she's in the back. Maybe she's doing horrible, horrible things to Dylan. Maybe -- well, the door opens, eventually. Before Jacques can become impatient enough to knock again, or glance at his companions to see whether or not he should knock again. The door was not unlocked before it was opened: they would've heard that.
The woman who opens the door is pale, and not just because her skin naturally inclines toward that hue. Her eyes are dark, and full of worry, brimming with it: worry, tension [coil], fear, fear, curiousity, wariness, weariness, resignation and -- hark? -- determination. Fatalist's eyes, maybe, although -- no. That's not quite right: a fatalist wouldn't have opened the door in the first place. A fatalist wouldn't look at Jacques, at the do-I-know-you-man behind Jacques, the way she does. She looks like she's having a bad day. She makes a game attempt at ... Something else. Kage is a poised woman, and confident. But she just ... can't quite manage it.
Kage clears her throat, and her palm is resting on the doorframe. She did not open the door all the way. "Hello there. Now's not a good time. You two should go. Leave a message if you'd like! There's some floor, find a pencil -- whatever you want."
Go away, go away!
[Jacques-Marcel] A woman.
Telling him to go away at that.
He smiles at her and it's a schooled expression, one that's reserved for photographs and no less pretty for it. Jacques is a handsome man, even if his disposition was not.
"Ma'am," says the educated (re: snottish) southern, "I'm here to see Dylan."
His gray-blue eyes catch hers directly, unless she's avoiding them, and hold it steadily.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, where she is positioned against the wall, glances sidelong at the door and quirks a brow, though she does not move into Kage's line of sight. The voice sounds familiar, though it's a familiarity she can't place quickly or easily: with all the people Ashley has run into in her life, it would take someone with her exceptional memory to remember it at all.
But for all she knows, really, it could just be someone she ran into at the coffee shop or knows from work or class or God knows where.
As it is, she flattens herself against the plaster, letting Jacques and Wharil do the talking. They're better at it.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil stirs slightly, seeing the face he barely recognized. The last time he'd seen her she was so bright he barely could stand to really look. The last time she'd been smooth. Cordial. Amorous. Now she seemed in a rush to get rid of them.
Jacques started the talking, just as they'd planned for him to do. Wharil, doesn't speak. And he doesn't glance at Ashley either. His eyes settle on Kage and stay there, a bit of concern on his face. Peculiarly, his lips move. Ever so slightly, but they are moving, quickly and rapidly as he focuses on his mantra. As he clears his mind. As he asserts himself.
And as he prepares to swallow up whatever louder thoughts might be out there.
[Read Surface Thoughts: Mind 2 Rote, -1 with Focus]
[Dylan Willis] [Awareness+Perception]
[K. R. Jakes] Percept + Awareness: Waaaaait somethin' going on?
[Dylan Willis] [I saaaid...]
[Dylan Willis] It's warm up here.
They wouldn't have noticed it on the lower floors, the warmth that is pervasive this high up. Heat rises, the highest floors tend to have the greatest disparity in temperature, but this is a different sort of warmth. This isn't the warmth that they felt in the stairwell, that they could feel down the hall: this is heat, as though there's a fire lurking within the apartment that the worn-thin redhead won't open up enough to let them see.
It was heat that Ashley first felt when she began her scrying ritual. It was heat that accompanied that sense of being trapped. She hadn't been able to make sense of it then, and she may very well not even notice just how warm it is up here, but she can feel it through the plaster as she ducks against the wall, can feel that terrible punishing climate as it presses back.
A name is given, a name that should mean something to the woman at the door and should mean something to the man Ashley saw on the couch but there is no sign of him yet. If he's within the apartment, he is not responding to the presence of his former lover, of the Tradition Mages he has had limited dealings with yet been given no reason to distrust. If he's not here then he's not here, but if he isn't here then the redhead has nothing to hide.
do
[K. R. Jakes] "Oh really. I'm sorry," and she means it. She does, she is even fervent with it; how sorry she is. "But that's not possible right now." Not: he's not here right now. Not: too bad, bitch. Not: get the hell out of here, you nosy bastard, you're ruining my hot (simmering, in fact) date. Just: not possible. Right now. Maybe later, then. "You two should really leave."
And Kage is going to close the door.
[K. R. Jakes] She doesn't notice (no tickle of awareness, no gleam of intuition) that Wharil is looking underneath the surface. She doesn't feel the rise of his particular brand of magick: the jittery anticipation before a storm, the moment before something hits, the -- none of that. Her thoughts are a mess, right now: she's thinking in terms of regret, and she's wondering which one of them has one eye open, which one of them is a demon; she's wondering whether the nameless man is going to come padding over to the door, see these people, and what he's going to do, if, if, if he's going to break further open, and -- she's thinking that they should go if they know what's good for them.
That maybe she should step back and let them take each other out. That maybe -- surface thoughts!
to†Dylan Willis, Wharil Choc
[Jacques-Marcel] He sticks his few hundred dollar shoe in the door to prevent it from closing as the same time his hand darts out and places a palm to the door, pushing at it. Apparently he doesn't like doors closing in his face and would rather it open.
"I said I'm here to see Dylan." The first crackle of anger begins to bubble under his usually passive expression.
[Wharil Choc] Still, he remains silent, with only that soft, concerned look to speak for him. Wharil probably wasn't aware of his affect on other people. He didn't consider how a dark man with dark eyes and a dark coat who just stood there made people somewhat...nervous. Jittery. And he can't possibly know how close to the edge this woman already was. Otherwise he wouldn't have even risked lending a hand in her ultimate mental unraveling. And he damn sure wouldn't be staring at her like that.
Even as Kage slowly disappears from vision, replaced by a closing door, Wharil just stares as if looking at a wounded puppy.
You poor, suffering thing.
"Kage, wait!" He finally says, pleading. And he's pushed his way past Jacques this time, laying a palm against the door and lending a gentle press to slow it from slamming shut.
"Listen. Let us help. We only want to help."
That wasn't the voice of someone who wished anyone ill. That was the concerned voice of a caregiver. Someone who honestly wanted to help. Whether or not he thinks he can, is another matter.
[Ashley McGowen] Kage, Kage. Where has she...?
Well, Wharil knows the woman, at least, that's clear. It could be someone with Wharil's tendency to slip to the edges of memory, someone who she met once but has forgotten. As both of the two men attempt to block the door and force it open, Ashley reaches up to close her fingers around the link of iron.
She looks sidelong at the door, at what she can see from her angle, watching and waiting.
[Dylan Willis] [Life 3: DUN DUN DUN.
Coincidental. Base Diff: 7, -1 (spec. focus), +1 (hidden subject).]
[K. R. Jakes] Wharil and Jacques surge forward almost as one. Kage's mouth quirks, amused, and she shakes her head -- but she isn't backing away from the door yet. Wharil may've read a thought, gliding on the surface of her mind, firefly reflection of leave this, let them sort it out; come back later, once the dust has settled. He may've read distrust. But that person -- that person who can just leave -- is not the person Kage is.
So her mouth quirks, amused, and she says, with emphasis, "There is no one who answers to that name here. Why don't you guys answer a riddle? Pass the riddle, and you get a prize; fail it, and oh so sad."
[Jacques-Marcel] "DYLAN! Open this FUCKING door!" Jacques isn't playing games. The redness that has began to creep up his neck is a clear indication how he's feeling about this whole situation. What he'd like to do is rip the smirk off Kage's face and do far more unspeakable things afterward.
He shoves at the door anew, leaving Wharil to try and woo his way in. Jacques isn't the sort, at least not where women are concerned.
"It's JACQUES!" Rare few with that name. He doesn't know what the hell is going on, but his voice carries, hoping it hits target and is recognized.
Fuck the neighbours.
[Ashley McGowen] [Alertness + Intelligence: Possibly saving your ass, Kage.]
[Wharil Choc] There was something there. A pit in his stomach. A pit in which fear pools like liquid and burns its way through to his spine. Wharil knows what comes next. He knows that if this goes on the way its going, he'll be forced to act out of desperation. He'll be forced to work quick. Unplanned. He'll make a mistake, the balance will tip, and he will be waiting just on the other side.
"Enough!" He says, but he doesn't slam his shoulder into the door and force his way inside. Instead, he's grabbing a hold of Jacques, folding both arms around the man and pulling him back away from the door.
"We're done here. We're done!"
[Ashley McGowen] Jacques is screaming, she can almost -hear- the smirk in the woman's voice that stirs an anger in the pit of her stomach that makes her want to Will her way inside, and Wharil is trying to pull Jacques back. Were it not for so many of the scattered oddities that have taken place during this conversation (Wharil knows her, that nagging sense of recognition), Ashley simply -would- force Kage to let them in.
But she just remains silent there by the door, waiting so that they can reconvene with a better plan and willing herself to remain calm despite everything going on around them. If Jacques continues to push, well, she'll act then.
[Dylan Willis] [Life 3, Prime 2: Yeah. You're Done.
Vulgar, no Witnesses. Base Diff: 7, -1 (spec. focus), -2 (quintessence), +1 (hidden subject), +1 (fast casting).]
[Wharil Choc] [Perc+Awareness]
HAIL KAHSEENO!
[Ashley McGowen] [Perception + Awareness]
[K. R. Jakes] OH NOES. What's happening?!?
[Dylan Willis] [DICE]
[Jacques-Marcel] [am I suppose to be rolling something? LOL.]
[Dylan Willis] [No, you're good. *LOL* Poor Consor.]
[Jacques-Marcel] [waah. *grin*]
[Dylan Willis] [Actually, wait, yes, you do have something to roll *LOL* Soak this:]
[Jacques-Marcel] [Ha! Soak that! LOL]
[Dylan Willis] [Hahahaha! Is anyone countering?]
[Ashley McGowen] From somewhere in the back of the house, she can sense the tang of magic, that heat that she could feel when she scried out Dylan. That same heat she felt when the two of them were delivering Marla's package in Grant Park. And even someone without Ashley's considerable intelligence could figure out that the effect isn't friendly.
Her response is to tighten her hand around the gold link, the other around Dylan's dog tags in her pocket, and a surge of raw Will to counter Dylan's effect. She is the center of her own reality, her Mind is the superior presence, and it's her Will that will be done here.
[Prime 1 countermagic. Using a focus, using a sympathetic link, spending WP.]
[Jacques-Marcel] "We are fucking not!" Jacques practically spits as Wharil grabs him from behind and starts hauling him back from the door. "I am NOT leaving him there. Are you fucking crazy?" He practically boggles at the idea of leaving Dylan with this smirking bitch, and the fact that the people that came to help him get Dylan are now forcefully removing him from the door. There's a great many scenarios of what will happen to Dylan if he was left here. Jacques cannot willingly walk out of this hallway in good conscience. Wharil has the right idea, if he wants Jacques out of here, he's going to have to drag his ass out.
He's blissfully unaware of anything other afoot.
[Dylan Willis] Everyone but Jacques can feel it.
Warping. Twisting. Burning. That powerful heat dwelling within the confines of K.R. Jakes' apartment amplifies, rears its head and strikes out at the man who is attempting to diffuse the situation, who is grabbing at Jacques and informing the rest of them that they're done here, they're done. The demon. That has to be who he was referring to when he told Kage that the demons were coming but she didn't believe him, she didn't believe that the people coming for him were not Good People, were not On His Side.
Jacques cannot feel anything but the intense heat; everyone else, Kage and Ashley and Wharil, especially Wharil, can feel the malcontent and the malignancy in the attack that comes from the back of the apartment. It seeks to attack the very Pattern that keeps Wharil in one piece and healthy, to rend that Pattern until he is wracked with pain and unable to do much more than cling to life.
That was the intent, anyway. Everyone can feel it, and the only one who can even think about doing anything about it is the Hermetic holding onto the Orphan's dog tags. She has to think quickly, act even more so, but she does it: she does not have the knowledge of the Spheres that older Disciple has, but she has a connection to the Tellurian that enables her to directly affect the magics that are seeking to fell Wharil.
It weakens. Considerably. What would have burst internal organs and ruptured blood vessels does little more than bruise the Euthanatos: it hits him like a fiery punch to the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him but not stunning him into inactivity, and they can all feel it when reality cocks back its hammer and fires. The Paradox does not go to Dylan. It doesn't hit any of them, but they can tell that it was aiming for one among them, and it wasn't the guilty party.
There's movement inside the apartment. Loud, rapid movement.
[Wharil Choc] "I said we're DO--"
The air left his lungs quite suddenly and he takes a step back, grimacing from the sudden and unexpected pain. He's got no time left to protest. He just glares at Kage. A trickle of blood leaks from his left nostril, dripping down to his shirt.
Wharil stands upright, turning the unhappy, angry look to Jacques.
"You stay here..." He said with a voice that suddenly sounded like he had a bad chest cold. "...And I can't guarantee your safe--" His speech is cut off by a sudden coughing. Wharil covers his face with his hand as the coughing fit runs through him. There's blood at the corner of his mouth when he takes the hand away.
"Your safety." He concludes, and he heads back down the hall, back the way they'd come.
[K. R. Jakes] "This is why," she says, fervent (passion, kept low) again. Why now is not a good time, presumably. But Kage doesn't know that Jacques, Ashley (in the hall, still a concealed weapon -- except Kage felt that unyielding fizzle, un-braiding the punishment Dylan just served), and Wharil truly have nothing to do with Dylan's state of mind. Jacques pushed against the door, and Kage isn't strong enough to slam it shut on a fullgrown man -- even if that fullgrown man is a prettyboy model. The redhead had stepped away from the door,
and she'd given Wharil and Jacques a wideeyed look, and then she'd turned -- the door was swinging open, inward -- toward the apartment, and her houseguest. The nameless crow, is what she called him. Now he has a name. (He has a name, anyway. And a family. He always did, and she knew it. She probably knew it.)
But she'd also backed against the wall, right next to the door, right inside. "What are you trying to do? Please, wait."
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: and uh, in case who that last sentence is directed to, it's totally to Dylan (grin)
[Ashley McGowen] There's that presence, that heat, and a sense of relief as Ashley recognizes the successful counter. She feels the Quintessence draining from her own pattern, sucked out of her with that same hungry force she turns on everything else. And behind it there's that sense of Something Else, something she can't place that might very well be Dylan.
Somehow, though, she doubts that.
A furious Ashley is a sight to behold. It is not simple blind anger; there is a sense of indignance, of hubris. Something is fighting her here, something is contesting her Will and she doesn't know what it is yet, but she won't stand for it.
And she might have forced her way inside, but for the fact that Wharil runs. She's left then with only Jacques, and any true student of House Tytalus knows that sometimes in order to overcome a challenge, a tactical retreat is necessary. "You're coming with me," she tells Jacques, quivering with tiny person fury, and that same force of Will that bludgeoned against Dylan's attack is now bearing down on him instead.
[Spending a WP to act against her Nature. Mind 2, Suggestion on Jacques. Using a focus.]
[Jacques-Marcel] Holy...
The hell is that?
He felt heat around Dylan before, it's always been associated with him - that and some suede gloves. But that's another story, and a very brief passing memory as he's scalded with heat and let go by Wharil.
There's no doubt that Jacques believes it came from Dylan, whatever had just happened, that had left a man bleeding and coughing and scurrying down the hall. He doesn't wait, or watch, he doesn't stand there all mute, but turns back for the door.
Clearly he's not going away.
"Your FATHER, Michael, needs you!" He raises his voice to follow Dylan's quick movements, associated with probably trying to flee. When Kage has opened the door to him, he walked in and immediately scanned around for the one he came here to see.
"I only want to talk, Dylan. You can tell me to fuck off yourself, and you know I will." That was the truth of it. He's sounding more calmer, though not by much, now that he's inside the apartment and Kage isn't trying to stop them.
But Ashley has other plans, and uses her magic against him (something he's not going to be happy about), to go against his own will to stay and sort this out now. The small, firey woman grabs his attention and somehow manages to get the determined consor to turn tail from the apartment and walk back towards the door. "I really don't think we should leave him here," but he's coming with her...
[Wharil Choc] He stops outside the building, Pausing at the bottom of the steps to catch his breath. The blood from his nose and mouth have been wiped off on the cuff of his shirt sleeve, and Wharil pulls his coat around him a lot closer. It was colder out here. Much colder than it had been upstairs.
He turns to Ashley, visibly unhappy with the outcome of that exchange. "You saw that? Did you feel it? That wasn't Kage. That's gotta be Dylan in there."
[Dylan Willis] That ominous pounding of a man who doesn't know how to walk quietly, who doesn't care about walking quietly, comes to an abrupt and terrible halt mere feet from the open front door of the apartment. The group out in the hallway cannot see who it is, but by now, between the heat and the hostility and the sheer amount of power that was behind the attack that came from within the apartment there can be little doubt in anyone's mind that Dylan is, in fact, here.
So why isn't he answering Jacques' angry hollering? Why is he attacking Wharil? Why isn't he coming to the door and talking like a... well, like a normal person?
There are not a plentiful number of reasons why Paradox will strike out at the people around a Working Mage rather than at the caster himself. There are words for the sorts of Awakened beings who will inflict that sort of danger upon the universe. The only real conclusion that could be drawn this evening is that what Kage said is true: no one goes by the name 'Dylan' in this apartment.
He comes to stand within Kage's personal space, just inside of arm's reach, and as Jacques barrels into the apartment he can see what exactly they're dealing with. Dylan is just as tall as he's ever been, just as muscular as he's ever been, but he's got a lean, hungry look to him, as though he's strapped with fever. It's in his eyes, that feverishness, that fire, and something ought to dawn on Jacques mighty quickly: Dylan isn't hearing him. He isn't acknowledging him. He isn't looking towards him or speaking louder to try and be heard over him. He speaks to Kage as though they are the only two in the room.
"Do you believe me now?" he asks, his voice low.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, sucking in deep, hungry breaths to calm herself down, meets Wharil's eyes as they reach the bottom of the steps. She hopes Jacques is behind her. She doesn't hope Jacques is behind her hard enough to turn around; if she does, she somewhat doubts her ability to restrain herself from confronting Dylan.
"Felt like Dylan," the Hermetic says, with another hasty glance back up the stairs. "He either -really- wants to be left alone or there's something different about him."
There's a moment while she stews in silence, her anger visibly dissipating as her spine relaxes. "If we want to go back in for him, I can try to figure out his True Name. It'll give us a good hold over him if we come back."
[K. R. Jakes] (can't decide - uses WP to decide for her!)
[Wharil Choc] "How long is that gonna take?"
The conversation was with Ashley now. Purely so. There was no more joking on the side with Jacques. But more noticeably, and possibly most frightening of all, there was no sign of pity left in his voice. Not for the man who'd just tried to kill him, at least.
[Jacques-Marcel] There's only one reason why Jacques is leaving that hungry looking Dylan behind, and that would be Ashley's control over his mind. He's going to be asking questions later. He's going to be very, very angry later. But for the moment he's behind Ashley when she looks back, but he's gaze had to be torn from the door. The raw hurt and worry is a very real thing, splashed across his lean face as it's decided for him, to leave Dylan -- in clearly an altered state, behind.
"Of course there's something different about him," he snaps at Ashley, "he's mentally fucked up and he needs our help. He didn't even look at us."
[Ashley McGowen] "Fuck him, Jacques," Ashley snaps, turning so she can face the Consor and look at him with her good eye. "You can't -possibly- still worry about him with as much as you've told me he jerks you around. He attacked us, that's it."
Were Dylan a Tradition member, she might be giving it a second thought. But orphans? Well, they pull this kind of shit. It's why they should be persuaded to join a Tradition.
Then, with another drawn in breath, she turns to regard Wharil. "It's generally done in ritual, since it can be dangerous to try to do and I'd prefer to take my time. If you want to do it now, though, I can attempt it. I have his dog tags here."
[K. R. Jakes] Dylan comes to stand within Kage's personal space, just inside of arm's reach, and this is not comfortable. At all. This is, in fact, almost punishment in and of itself; she can still taste, like a bloodblister on her tongue, the aftereffects of his lashing out. "I don't know," Kage says, after a second. This is Kage: big, dark eyes and pale, pale features and somehow the red of her hair just underlines this. But this is also Kage: an exercise in composure, an element of (inner) grace, an innamorata.
Her heart is racing so, so quickly. Does she think they're gone? Just like that? No, they never leave. Not just like that. They'll be back, whether 'they' really are the 'they' who warped Dylan's mind, who touched his Magick -- what remains is this: 'they' didn't help. At all. This is worse.
This is why Kage says, I'm with myself. Why she hasn't used the word 'we' with Dylan, not once, not on purpose. "Maybe. I do think that you're probably in danger now. And that you're dangerous -- why did you do that? I ... Don't think you should stay here any longer." This isn't Kage kicking Dylan to the kerb -- that would be the wise thing to do, perhaps, the non-meddling thing, the leave-it-as-is thing, which she likes to pretend she is capable of. This is Kage thinking that, really, her apartment is compromised, and she's going to have to move too, and he just can't stay here. He can't.
[Wharil Choc] "Lets get to the car." He says, right on the heals of the bickering between the two. And again he just walks away, heading away from the apartment and back to the place where they parked.
On the way though, he talks addresses Ashley quietly.
"Let me ask you this: If we go back there, can you disable him? I think I felt you at work up there. Can you make it so he can't hurt that girl? Or anyone else? Can you do it without killing him?"
[Ashley McGowen] [Intelligence + Alertness, now that she has seen Kage's face.]
[Jacques-Marcel] "Fuck him? Really? And you're still going to go through with some fucking ritual?" He draws in a breath through his nose, trying to calm himself down. This is bullshit. The lot of it.Why the hell can't he walk away? It would be nice to blame some magick, some work over his own will that had changed him in such a way, but the truth of it was far more disturbing. "You know it's not him that attacked you." Not Dylan in his right mind anyway.
The two Magi make plans, excluding him, and he casts a look back to the apartment.
He stands there as they walk off, debating whether he's going back up there himself.
[Dylan Willis] One of the first things K.R. Jakes told the nameless man on the path was that she hadn't been sent, that she wasn't with anyone, that she was with herself and that was it. No one ever sends her anywhere, she had told him. On some level this had mattered, this had made sense, this had enabled him to walk out of the cemetery with her and take up residence on her couch for over a week, to eat her food and use her bathroom and wear her clothes, because he didn't expect that she was with Them.
Them. It has to make more sense now. They aren't demons. Not really. Not in the world of you and I, not in the world of sane men and sane choices. Maybe in his world, wherever his world is, hot and punitive, but not here. They're not demons. They're not here to punish him, they're not here to keep him wherever it is that he is, but if they were here to help--and he can't possibly believe that they were, why would he attack them if he thought they were here to help?--they won't be back.
Or they will be back, but with more people. With more magic. With more bloodshed. Kage is right. He can't stay here. She probably can't stay here, either. So far as the Tradition Mages are concerned, she is an Orphan and Dylan is an Orphan and they're just as well as lumped in with each other until such a time as they come up with another name for what he is right now.
"Give me back my gun, and I'll keep going," he says, just as low as before. It's acquiescence in a manner rather demented.
[Ashley McGowen] "He attacked me, why wouldn't I?" she asks Jacques, pausing to watch him before they go back to the car. Jacques lingers behind, though, looking as though he might go back in, and Ash just frowns at him in a manner that is something more than disapproving - disappointed, perhaps? - before she follows Wharil.
"If I have his True Name, I'll be more likely to be able to disable him with the Ars Mentis, but there aren't any guarantees. I don't see why it would hurt Kage, though." There's a short pause as though she's debating whether to give up the information before she adds, "I know her. She used to run around with someone who mentored an old cabalmate of mine, so I will try to avoid harming her if possible."
[K. R. Jakes] Percept + Awareness (as Empathy) - 'sides crazy, just what's your mental state, nameless-man-actually-Dylan?
to†Dylan Willis
[K. R. Jakes] Kage looks Dylan over, carefully, quietly. But she can't read him, not without reaching out; not without touching him and trying to look inside. She does not want to do that right now, so soon on the heels of -- no.
K. R. Jakes looks Dylan over carefully, quietly, a contemplative creature. Still, heart. Be still. Although she takes a moment, although she really searches his face, she fails to read him. She could reach out, she could delve underneath; skim the foam of his thoughts and drink them down, look inside. But she doesn't want to do that right now, so soon on the heels of --
Who knows how he'd react?
"But ..." Kage trails away, swallows. "Where are you going? Why did you do that?"
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: bah! (swipes away first paragraph)
[Jacques-Marcel] He doesn't follow Wharil and Ashley in the end, but lights up a cigarette and stays outside the apartment. He doesn't know what the hell he's going to do, but needs five minutes to get himself together before he decides to do anything more rash. He contemplates calling Michael. He contemplates going back up the stairs. He even contemplates just walking away, again. All while the cigarette burns in his hand, frequently puffed upon.
[Wharil Choc] "We don't know what Dylan's capable of right now, to be honest. Lets take some time to prepare ourselves, and then we go back."
He had his keys out, and the automatic alarm on the car chirps as the doors unlock. Wharil gets in, sitting behind the steering wheel, but he doesn't start the car. Instead he unlocks the glove compartment with the keys (Legal note: Random police searches are limited to what's readily visible or accessible. Locked items require permission...or a warrant) and takes out a knife in a leather sheath. The handle looked like dear horn. The blade, as he slides it out slowly, is yellowed bone.
Knives cut. Knives stab. But the knife is only a tool. And like most tools it had several uses. A knife that cut also cut out disease. A knife that stabbed also lanced boils before they became infected. Life and death existed side by side on the same wheel of fate. A weapon like this was just as useful as a tool for healing. And this one was his tool.
Wharil breathed slowly, steadily, as he turned the knife on himself, looming over his chest, and exerted his will. His voice mumbled softly in a language most of the world considered to be dead, as he focused his mind and body to work in concert, and make himself immune to pain.
[Dylan Willis] Why did he do that.
"They're crafty," he says, "they'll say anything to get you to let them in. You're not strong enough to keep them out. Your will, maybe, but your body... you're so small. I don't know how you've made it this long without them coming in after you, maybe you're stronger than... than I thought, but that's why. They have to be. They have to be smart to be stronger than you but they'll come back. I did it to scare them off but it wasn't enough. Maybe if I leave this place they'll leave, too. Give me back my gun."
[Dylan Willis] [Hey y'all, Dre's got to go, so we're pausing! YAY PAUSES!]
[Wharil Choc] [YAY TO NO ONE DYING JUST YET! Sorry to have to drop out. Pray that I have a connection at home and maybe we can continue if everyone's up for it.]
[Wharil Choc] [Battery's at critical. GOTTA GO! Thanks again guys!]
[Jacques-Marcel] [I'm around on AIM. Grab me when we continue. Thanks for the play!]
[K. R. Jakes] (sad) I don't know your AIM! Do I? (languish)
to†Jacques-Marcel
[Ashley McGowen] She doesn't have her circle here, doesn't have her sanctum; Wharil's car is not the sort of place she would hope to be in for taking the time to discern someone's True Name. But it's what she has on hand, and fortune does not always favor the Willworker.
She climbs into the car after Wharil, taking a seat in the passenger side. She pulls Dylan's dog tags out of her pocket and lets them drop in metallic coils into her lap: this link to the man, something he wore as part of his daily attire, perhaps something he regarded with a certain weight when they were first embossed and he took up his new role as a soldier, an object that was there with him through some of the most important memories of his life. The tags are part of what make Dylan who he is.
It's these that she calls upon, trying to piece all of the fragments of Dylan's being together into a whole, trying to understand his essence and the Word that frames his True Name.
[Mind 3. Taking time, using a focus, spending one Quintessence, spending WP.]
[Ashley McGowen] [Thanks for the RP, all. Jamie, thank you for running!]
[K. R. Jakes] Give me back my gun.
It was a mistake not to leave the apartment with Dylan when he first walked over to her, fixed his burning [brand] eyes on her and said that They were coming. They were coming right now, so they (we) had to leave. It may have been a mistake not to seek out what members of the Enlightened community she knew, was familiar with, and ask for their help right after Dylan fell asleep, did not wake up for days, in her study. It was a mistake, but she's not yet certain what she's supposed to learn from them. She's not even thinking, not really, about them. She's wondering: would it be a mistake to give him back his gun. Would it even matter. She felt what he did. He didn't need a gun, then. And that man, there was blood on his mouth.
"When you scare something, it attacks," Kage says, and it's low-voiced, smoke. "I'll give you back part of your gun, but after you leave, I'm not going to stop trying to find a way to get you out -- okay? Do you believe me?"
She has the location of the place where Dylan is being held firmly in mind, and is happy to relay instructions to either Jacques or Wharil, whichever of them happens to be driving.
[Jacques-Marcel] Being that his car has only two seats and there isn't room to cram in a third person in the front, Jacques may have surprised them by hopping into the backseat of Wharils car, providing the other is driving. He's quiet for the most part, listening to Ashley as she gives directions while watching out the window. He really doesn't know what to expect, but it's probably the first time either of them have seen him in seemingly casual (you can bet they're label) jeans and a sweater, which makes him look younger and more approachable.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil was whistling. One had to wonder whether or not he was actually serious about much of this. He'd been nonchalant for the most part of Ashley's scrying. And though darkly, he'd joked about Dylan's apparent predicament. And now? Now he was whistling, as if out on a Sunday drive, following Ashley's instructions as she gave them. He glanced at Jacques in the rearview Mirror.
"Hey, Jacques, I was thinking. Since you know Dylan's dad and everything, if we find him in good shape, you wanna talk to him? Maybe try and convince him to call his dad at least?"
[Dylan Willis] There's a mist coating the streets and sidewalks of north Chicago, a dreary gray cast to the afternoon's sky and a sense of tense anticipation in the air. It's supposed to dump more snow tonight. It's supposed to get colder.
In her reaching, Ashley had come up with a sense of where it was their target is. He had not been dead and decaying in some forgotten corner of the world, in a grave without a marker or a hole in the woods or the boot of an abandoned car. He's alive, even if the sensory input that the Hermetic had received was somewhat boggling: he was trapped, wherever he was he could not get out, and he appeared to be in someone's apartment. He also appeared to be unharmed, yet one has to imagine that if he were wherever he is by choice he would have said something, he would have his cell phone and would have given the people in his life some sort of indication where he was going and when he would be back, if he would be back.
He was aware of his surroundings and still in concert with his Avatar, it would appear, if his ability to initiate countermagic were any indication. That had to be somewhat promising. They have no idea what it is they're going into, yet that isn't stopping the three of them from traversing the city in search of a particular apartment building in a particular section of town.
The daylight is still holding, and there is little sense that they need to hurry. All they really have to do is find a place to park.
[Ashley McGowen] Wharil has been whistling for the duration of the drive, and, coincidence or not, for that entire duration Ashley has seemed rather uncomfortable. Her expression carries a faint grimace from time to time, she looks a bit stiff in the seat. But perhaps that isn't so unusual. The Hermetic doesn't bother to speak up, though, a bit too focused on watching out the window and trying to find directions to the place.
When Wharil speaks up she looks back over her shoulder at Jacques too, not necessarily curious about the answer, but wanting to understand what is expected here.
"This is the neighborhood," she says, gaze locking on the building once they pass it, feeling a pull in her stomach as she recognizes the place. "That apartment."
[K. R. Jakes] .
to†K. R. Jakes
[Jacques-Marcel] His gaze flickers forward, glancing over the edge of Wharils shoulder before lifting up and meeting his gaze in the review mirror. "That's why I'm here for, " he answered quietly, smoothly.
He looked to Ashley when she took a moment to look over at him as well, before shifting his gaze back out the window.
Jacques was ready for an emotional shit-storm, at the very least.
[Wharil Choc] "Great!" He exclaimed after both revelations. And yet, he kept driving. He eyed the apartment, and whoever he might have seen coming in or out of it. He paid keen attention to the type of people on the sidewalk. And then, he rounded the corner, and watched in his rearview as if to see who would make the turn with him. These were the habits of a nosy man who had stumbled into a few too many ambushes.
Wharil circled the block once before finally parking. The apartment Ashley pointed out would be just around the corner. In the meantime, checked his gone with a quick, practiced once over. Working the parts he could quickly manipulate with an obsessive sort of repetition.
"Alright." He said cheerfully once he was finally ready and had placed the weapon out of sight. "Lets get going."
[Ashley McGowen] "Before we get out of the car, give me a moment," Ashley tells the two of them. It's perhaps something that should have been done prior to coming out here, but better late than never. She recalls that trapped feeling of Dylan's despite the fact that his body was whole, and that leaves a limited number of things that could be keeping him there.
So, to be on the safe side, Ash locks her forefinger and thumb around the link of iron normally hidden beneath her shirt, strengthening the barriers of her own Mind and Will and extending the protections to the other two. They have not felt this before, but it is a distinctly uncomfortable presence: the feel of having invited a predator into your house while you sleep, something that watches and lurks and has chosen for whatever reason to sit off to the side.
[Mind 2 rote. Using a focus, spending WP.]
[Ashley McGowen] This accomplished successfully, she opens the door of the car.
[Jacques-Marcel] When the car finally came to a halt, he clipped himself out of his seat-belt, and was about to get out when things became a little uncomfortable in the car. He glances to the spare seats in the back then out the window, his gut tightening into a knot.
"Wait, Ashley..." his voice trails after Ashley as she gets out of the car, disturbed, obviously, by the sudden feeling of something nasty lurking around the edges. Something that he can't see but can certainly feel.
Pushing open his own door, he gets his tall self out and closes it after him, throwing another wary glance around. "I think there's something hanging around." He knows it sounds crazy. But Magi are a world of crazy.
[Wharil Choc] "Could you be a bit more vague, Jacques?"
He gets out of the car after them, locking it up and sliding the keys into his pockets. He felt something 'hanging around' himself. But that, he assumed, was only Ashley.
Creepy little one-eyed thing that she was.
Nevertheless, he waited by the car, arms resting on the hood as he regarded each in turn. And then, he closed his eyes and tried to feel for this extra 'hanging around' himself.
[Wharil Choc] [Perc+Awareness] Perc Specialty: Hidden (Not sure if it applies)
[Ashley McGowen] "That's just me, Jacques," Ashley says, confirming Wharil's suspicions as she steps out onto the curb. "I thought it probably wouldn't hurt to put a mental barrier up for everyone. Sorry to freak you out."
The apology doesn't really carry the air of an apology at all. It's pur(noely reflexive.
Once she's outside she looks up toward the apartment, a slight frown on her face. "Well, what's the plan, gentlemen? I can Stride in there if need be but I'd advise against it."
[Wharil Choc] Re-roll!
[Jacques-Marcel] "If you'll forgive me," he says, dry and rather sharply to Wharil, "I'm no fucking voodoo priest."
Smoothing a hand down his stomach is a rare nervous gesture, covered by the fact that Jacques always presented himself in that precise, pristine attire. He feels a little more out of place today. There's no doubts as to why.
When Ashley offers her explanation he nods once, feeling not as secure as he should. Magi throwing around magics is something he never got used to, no matter how often they did it around him. At least it wasn't someone else trying to mind-fuck them. A small blessing, he supposes.
"I'll go," he offered Ashley, looking towards the building. "I have reason to be here."
[Wharil Choc] "Mm." Came Wharil's unhappy sounding reply. He opened his eyes again and studied Jacques for a minute or two, rubbing at the space between his eyes.
"Listen, other than 'he's not dead' we haven't ruled anything out here. Meaning we still don't know what risks might be involved. We'll all go. Together. When we find Dylan, you can take over. Until then..."
Finally he comes around the car and stands on the sidewalk with them. Wharil Points to himself, then to Jacques, then to Ashley, announces positions for each as he does.
"Front. Middle. Rear." He says. "And yeah. We go in through the front door. Ring the buzzer. Whatever. Just...stay sharp."
And with that, he headed for the apartment building.
[Ashley McGowen] For once, the Hermetic is happy to defer to someone else: she is not a people person, and as such, is uncertain of how to handle an investigation. Better to leave that to a journalist. Ashley nods toward Wharil and falls into step behind him.
[Jacques-Marcel] If it were other times, there might have been some more colourful remarks and sarcasm, but that none spurt out of Jacques mouth is a clear sign that he's taking this more seriously then he does most things.
A hand in his jean pocket fumbles out his cell phone and checks the coverage as he follows behind Wharil for the apartment doors.
[K. R. Jakes] And just what sort've apartment building are the magi (plus sidekick) approaching?
The apartment building is one of the older buildings in Chicago. It was a house once, perhaps, for the very affluent. There are two towers. There is a weather vane. There is no lobby, but instead, outside, some cold copper mailboxes, an old (circa 1982?) buzzer system that someone's tried to polish up at some point. The front door to the apartment building, however, is ajar: it is not locked. There is a very teensy bit of yard, frosted over, sleeping until spring. There are signs of people walking their dogs, and being not very polite at all. Bad, bad Mrs. Thomas.
Inside, there's a short hall. And a stairway, up. Up is the way that Ashley knows they should go.
[Ashley McGowen] As the magi plus consor step into the hallway, Ashley gestures toward the hallway. "He's up that way." The place seems, in a way, a bit similar to Ashley's - minus the fact that it's a house and not a small brick apartment - and she absorbs the look of it as best she can.
She guides Wharil as they go up the stairs to the front door of the apartment.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil guides them, but pauses briefly at the entrance. He's scanning the mailboxes. More accurately, he's scanning the names. He points to them briefly.
"Any of those familiar to any of you? Ashley, you know which apartment we're going to?"
[Jacques-Marcel] He, of course, does a quick glance over the names that Wharil points out. "No, none of them." He's never been here before or even driven past the place, that he's noticed. Since they're all going together, he waits on them and heads up the stairs towards whatever apartment they're heading to.
Dylan is here somewhere, behind closed doors, refusing to answer anyone's calls and perfectly healthy (apparently). Jacques is a little mad. He keeps telling himself its for Michael that he's upset for. But he's more selfish then that. Soon enough, they'll have some answers.
[K. R. Jakes] The names are: A. Hawthorne, Janet Thomas, K. Jakes, Tam McDermott, Joseph Collins, III, Valentine Sepulveda and -- two nameless little mailboxes, whose owners either just don't care, peeled off their names for privacy, or don't actually have owners at all.
to†Wharil Choc
[Ashley McGowen] "I don't know the name of the person who owns the place," Ashley says, shaking her head. "Just where it is."
She casts a glance over the listed names. "Don't recognize any of them, either."
[Ashley McGowen] ((Sorry that took so long, had to AFK briefly.))
[Wharil Choc] Wharil's eyes narrowed slightly at one of those names. But neither of the other two recognized it, and so he didn't spend too much time considering it. Onward and upward, he seemed to decide. And onward and upward they went, following Ashley's instruction.
[K. R. Jakes] And the front door of the apartment? Just what you'd expect, but without the holiday trappings a couple of the other apartments have. The owner either doesn't celebrate Christmas, the way everybody else seems to (at least commercially), or hasn't had time yet to indulge.
[Jacques-Marcel] After a glance to Wharil, Jacques reached out and knocked on the apartment door.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil gives Jacques a nod and stands behind him, clearly visible from the peephole in the door, assuming there is one. To Ashley, however, he holds up a single hand as she approaches the side of the door. A silent signal encouraging her to stay out of sight for now.
[Ashley McGowen] At Wharil's signal, Ashley steps aside out of view of the peephole. It's lucky that they did pick earlier in the day to come and investigate: to anyone passing by through the apartment, it would look suspicious at the very least to see two people lurking out of sight while a third knocks at the door.
Ash leans back against the wall, leaving the door on her right so she can at least hear and see what is going on.
[K. R. Jakes] [Manip + Subt: This Is The Best Day Ever.]
[K. R. Jakes] They have to wait for a little longer than might seem necessary. The owner of the apartment -- maybe she's in the back. Maybe she's doing horrible, horrible things to Dylan. Maybe -- well, the door opens, eventually. Before Jacques can become impatient enough to knock again, or glance at his companions to see whether or not he should knock again. The door was not unlocked before it was opened: they would've heard that.
The woman who opens the door is pale, and not just because her skin naturally inclines toward that hue. Her eyes are dark, and full of worry, brimming with it: worry, tension [coil], fear, fear, curiousity, wariness, weariness, resignation and -- hark? -- determination. Fatalist's eyes, maybe, although -- no. That's not quite right: a fatalist wouldn't have opened the door in the first place. A fatalist wouldn't look at Jacques, at the do-I-know-you-man behind Jacques, the way she does. She looks like she's having a bad day. She makes a game attempt at ... Something else. Kage is a poised woman, and confident. But she just ... can't quite manage it.
Kage clears her throat, and her palm is resting on the doorframe. She did not open the door all the way. "Hello there. Now's not a good time. You two should go. Leave a message if you'd like! There's some floor, find a pencil -- whatever you want."
Go away, go away!
[Jacques-Marcel] A woman.
Telling him to go away at that.
He smiles at her and it's a schooled expression, one that's reserved for photographs and no less pretty for it. Jacques is a handsome man, even if his disposition was not.
"Ma'am," says the educated (re: snottish) southern, "I'm here to see Dylan."
His gray-blue eyes catch hers directly, unless she's avoiding them, and hold it steadily.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, where she is positioned against the wall, glances sidelong at the door and quirks a brow, though she does not move into Kage's line of sight. The voice sounds familiar, though it's a familiarity she can't place quickly or easily: with all the people Ashley has run into in her life, it would take someone with her exceptional memory to remember it at all.
But for all she knows, really, it could just be someone she ran into at the coffee shop or knows from work or class or God knows where.
As it is, she flattens herself against the plaster, letting Jacques and Wharil do the talking. They're better at it.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil stirs slightly, seeing the face he barely recognized. The last time he'd seen her she was so bright he barely could stand to really look. The last time she'd been smooth. Cordial. Amorous. Now she seemed in a rush to get rid of them.
Jacques started the talking, just as they'd planned for him to do. Wharil, doesn't speak. And he doesn't glance at Ashley either. His eyes settle on Kage and stay there, a bit of concern on his face. Peculiarly, his lips move. Ever so slightly, but they are moving, quickly and rapidly as he focuses on his mantra. As he clears his mind. As he asserts himself.
And as he prepares to swallow up whatever louder thoughts might be out there.
[Read Surface Thoughts: Mind 2 Rote, -1 with Focus]
[Dylan Willis] [Awareness+Perception]
[K. R. Jakes] Percept + Awareness: Waaaaait somethin' going on?
[Dylan Willis] [I saaaid...]
[Dylan Willis] It's warm up here.
They wouldn't have noticed it on the lower floors, the warmth that is pervasive this high up. Heat rises, the highest floors tend to have the greatest disparity in temperature, but this is a different sort of warmth. This isn't the warmth that they felt in the stairwell, that they could feel down the hall: this is heat, as though there's a fire lurking within the apartment that the worn-thin redhead won't open up enough to let them see.
It was heat that Ashley first felt when she began her scrying ritual. It was heat that accompanied that sense of being trapped. She hadn't been able to make sense of it then, and she may very well not even notice just how warm it is up here, but she can feel it through the plaster as she ducks against the wall, can feel that terrible punishing climate as it presses back.
A name is given, a name that should mean something to the woman at the door and should mean something to the man Ashley saw on the couch but there is no sign of him yet. If he's within the apartment, he is not responding to the presence of his former lover, of the Tradition Mages he has had limited dealings with yet been given no reason to distrust. If he's not here then he's not here, but if he isn't here then the redhead has nothing to hide.
do
[K. R. Jakes] "Oh really. I'm sorry," and she means it. She does, she is even fervent with it; how sorry she is. "But that's not possible right now." Not: he's not here right now. Not: too bad, bitch. Not: get the hell out of here, you nosy bastard, you're ruining my hot (simmering, in fact) date. Just: not possible. Right now. Maybe later, then. "You two should really leave."
And Kage is going to close the door.
[K. R. Jakes] She doesn't notice (no tickle of awareness, no gleam of intuition) that Wharil is looking underneath the surface. She doesn't feel the rise of his particular brand of magick: the jittery anticipation before a storm, the moment before something hits, the -- none of that. Her thoughts are a mess, right now: she's thinking in terms of regret, and she's wondering which one of them has one eye open, which one of them is a demon; she's wondering whether the nameless man is going to come padding over to the door, see these people, and what he's going to do, if, if, if he's going to break further open, and -- she's thinking that they should go if they know what's good for them.
That maybe she should step back and let them take each other out. That maybe -- surface thoughts!
to†Dylan Willis, Wharil Choc
[Jacques-Marcel] He sticks his few hundred dollar shoe in the door to prevent it from closing as the same time his hand darts out and places a palm to the door, pushing at it. Apparently he doesn't like doors closing in his face and would rather it open.
"I said I'm here to see Dylan." The first crackle of anger begins to bubble under his usually passive expression.
[Wharil Choc] Still, he remains silent, with only that soft, concerned look to speak for him. Wharil probably wasn't aware of his affect on other people. He didn't consider how a dark man with dark eyes and a dark coat who just stood there made people somewhat...nervous. Jittery. And he can't possibly know how close to the edge this woman already was. Otherwise he wouldn't have even risked lending a hand in her ultimate mental unraveling. And he damn sure wouldn't be staring at her like that.
Even as Kage slowly disappears from vision, replaced by a closing door, Wharil just stares as if looking at a wounded puppy.
You poor, suffering thing.
"Kage, wait!" He finally says, pleading. And he's pushed his way past Jacques this time, laying a palm against the door and lending a gentle press to slow it from slamming shut.
"Listen. Let us help. We only want to help."
That wasn't the voice of someone who wished anyone ill. That was the concerned voice of a caregiver. Someone who honestly wanted to help. Whether or not he thinks he can, is another matter.
[Ashley McGowen] Kage, Kage. Where has she...?
Well, Wharil knows the woman, at least, that's clear. It could be someone with Wharil's tendency to slip to the edges of memory, someone who she met once but has forgotten. As both of the two men attempt to block the door and force it open, Ashley reaches up to close her fingers around the link of iron.
She looks sidelong at the door, at what she can see from her angle, watching and waiting.
[Dylan Willis] [Life 3: DUN DUN DUN.
Coincidental. Base Diff: 7, -1 (spec. focus), +1 (hidden subject).]
[K. R. Jakes] Wharil and Jacques surge forward almost as one. Kage's mouth quirks, amused, and she shakes her head -- but she isn't backing away from the door yet. Wharil may've read a thought, gliding on the surface of her mind, firefly reflection of leave this, let them sort it out; come back later, once the dust has settled. He may've read distrust. But that person -- that person who can just leave -- is not the person Kage is.
So her mouth quirks, amused, and she says, with emphasis, "There is no one who answers to that name here. Why don't you guys answer a riddle? Pass the riddle, and you get a prize; fail it, and oh so sad."
[Jacques-Marcel] "DYLAN! Open this FUCKING door!" Jacques isn't playing games. The redness that has began to creep up his neck is a clear indication how he's feeling about this whole situation. What he'd like to do is rip the smirk off Kage's face and do far more unspeakable things afterward.
He shoves at the door anew, leaving Wharil to try and woo his way in. Jacques isn't the sort, at least not where women are concerned.
"It's JACQUES!" Rare few with that name. He doesn't know what the hell is going on, but his voice carries, hoping it hits target and is recognized.
Fuck the neighbours.
[Ashley McGowen] [Alertness + Intelligence: Possibly saving your ass, Kage.]
[Wharil Choc] There was something there. A pit in his stomach. A pit in which fear pools like liquid and burns its way through to his spine. Wharil knows what comes next. He knows that if this goes on the way its going, he'll be forced to act out of desperation. He'll be forced to work quick. Unplanned. He'll make a mistake, the balance will tip, and he will be waiting just on the other side.
"Enough!" He says, but he doesn't slam his shoulder into the door and force his way inside. Instead, he's grabbing a hold of Jacques, folding both arms around the man and pulling him back away from the door.
"We're done here. We're done!"
[Ashley McGowen] Jacques is screaming, she can almost -hear- the smirk in the woman's voice that stirs an anger in the pit of her stomach that makes her want to Will her way inside, and Wharil is trying to pull Jacques back. Were it not for so many of the scattered oddities that have taken place during this conversation (Wharil knows her, that nagging sense of recognition), Ashley simply -would- force Kage to let them in.
But she just remains silent there by the door, waiting so that they can reconvene with a better plan and willing herself to remain calm despite everything going on around them. If Jacques continues to push, well, she'll act then.
[Dylan Willis] [Life 3, Prime 2: Yeah. You're Done.
Vulgar, no Witnesses. Base Diff: 7, -1 (spec. focus), -2 (quintessence), +1 (hidden subject), +1 (fast casting).]
[Wharil Choc] [Perc+Awareness]
HAIL KAHSEENO!
[Ashley McGowen] [Perception + Awareness]
[K. R. Jakes] OH NOES. What's happening?!?
[Dylan Willis] [DICE]
[Jacques-Marcel] [am I suppose to be rolling something? LOL.]
[Dylan Willis] [No, you're good. *LOL* Poor Consor.]
[Jacques-Marcel] [waah. *grin*]
[Dylan Willis] [Actually, wait, yes, you do have something to roll *LOL* Soak this:]
[Jacques-Marcel] [Ha! Soak that! LOL]
[Dylan Willis] [Hahahaha! Is anyone countering?]
[Ashley McGowen] From somewhere in the back of the house, she can sense the tang of magic, that heat that she could feel when she scried out Dylan. That same heat she felt when the two of them were delivering Marla's package in Grant Park. And even someone without Ashley's considerable intelligence could figure out that the effect isn't friendly.
Her response is to tighten her hand around the gold link, the other around Dylan's dog tags in her pocket, and a surge of raw Will to counter Dylan's effect. She is the center of her own reality, her Mind is the superior presence, and it's her Will that will be done here.
[Prime 1 countermagic. Using a focus, using a sympathetic link, spending WP.]
[Jacques-Marcel] "We are fucking not!" Jacques practically spits as Wharil grabs him from behind and starts hauling him back from the door. "I am NOT leaving him there. Are you fucking crazy?" He practically boggles at the idea of leaving Dylan with this smirking bitch, and the fact that the people that came to help him get Dylan are now forcefully removing him from the door. There's a great many scenarios of what will happen to Dylan if he was left here. Jacques cannot willingly walk out of this hallway in good conscience. Wharil has the right idea, if he wants Jacques out of here, he's going to have to drag his ass out.
He's blissfully unaware of anything other afoot.
[Dylan Willis] Everyone but Jacques can feel it.
Warping. Twisting. Burning. That powerful heat dwelling within the confines of K.R. Jakes' apartment amplifies, rears its head and strikes out at the man who is attempting to diffuse the situation, who is grabbing at Jacques and informing the rest of them that they're done here, they're done. The demon. That has to be who he was referring to when he told Kage that the demons were coming but she didn't believe him, she didn't believe that the people coming for him were not Good People, were not On His Side.
Jacques cannot feel anything but the intense heat; everyone else, Kage and Ashley and Wharil, especially Wharil, can feel the malcontent and the malignancy in the attack that comes from the back of the apartment. It seeks to attack the very Pattern that keeps Wharil in one piece and healthy, to rend that Pattern until he is wracked with pain and unable to do much more than cling to life.
That was the intent, anyway. Everyone can feel it, and the only one who can even think about doing anything about it is the Hermetic holding onto the Orphan's dog tags. She has to think quickly, act even more so, but she does it: she does not have the knowledge of the Spheres that older Disciple has, but she has a connection to the Tellurian that enables her to directly affect the magics that are seeking to fell Wharil.
It weakens. Considerably. What would have burst internal organs and ruptured blood vessels does little more than bruise the Euthanatos: it hits him like a fiery punch to the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him but not stunning him into inactivity, and they can all feel it when reality cocks back its hammer and fires. The Paradox does not go to Dylan. It doesn't hit any of them, but they can tell that it was aiming for one among them, and it wasn't the guilty party.
There's movement inside the apartment. Loud, rapid movement.
[Wharil Choc] "I said we're DO--"
The air left his lungs quite suddenly and he takes a step back, grimacing from the sudden and unexpected pain. He's got no time left to protest. He just glares at Kage. A trickle of blood leaks from his left nostril, dripping down to his shirt.
Wharil stands upright, turning the unhappy, angry look to Jacques.
"You stay here..." He said with a voice that suddenly sounded like he had a bad chest cold. "...And I can't guarantee your safe--" His speech is cut off by a sudden coughing. Wharil covers his face with his hand as the coughing fit runs through him. There's blood at the corner of his mouth when he takes the hand away.
"Your safety." He concludes, and he heads back down the hall, back the way they'd come.
[K. R. Jakes] "This is why," she says, fervent (passion, kept low) again. Why now is not a good time, presumably. But Kage doesn't know that Jacques, Ashley (in the hall, still a concealed weapon -- except Kage felt that unyielding fizzle, un-braiding the punishment Dylan just served), and Wharil truly have nothing to do with Dylan's state of mind. Jacques pushed against the door, and Kage isn't strong enough to slam it shut on a fullgrown man -- even if that fullgrown man is a prettyboy model. The redhead had stepped away from the door,
and she'd given Wharil and Jacques a wideeyed look, and then she'd turned -- the door was swinging open, inward -- toward the apartment, and her houseguest. The nameless crow, is what she called him. Now he has a name. (He has a name, anyway. And a family. He always did, and she knew it. She probably knew it.)
But she'd also backed against the wall, right next to the door, right inside. "What are you trying to do? Please, wait."
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: and uh, in case who that last sentence is directed to, it's totally to Dylan (grin)
[Ashley McGowen] There's that presence, that heat, and a sense of relief as Ashley recognizes the successful counter. She feels the Quintessence draining from her own pattern, sucked out of her with that same hungry force she turns on everything else. And behind it there's that sense of Something Else, something she can't place that might very well be Dylan.
Somehow, though, she doubts that.
A furious Ashley is a sight to behold. It is not simple blind anger; there is a sense of indignance, of hubris. Something is fighting her here, something is contesting her Will and she doesn't know what it is yet, but she won't stand for it.
And she might have forced her way inside, but for the fact that Wharil runs. She's left then with only Jacques, and any true student of House Tytalus knows that sometimes in order to overcome a challenge, a tactical retreat is necessary. "You're coming with me," she tells Jacques, quivering with tiny person fury, and that same force of Will that bludgeoned against Dylan's attack is now bearing down on him instead.
[Spending a WP to act against her Nature. Mind 2, Suggestion on Jacques. Using a focus.]
[Jacques-Marcel] Holy...
The hell is that?
He felt heat around Dylan before, it's always been associated with him - that and some suede gloves. But that's another story, and a very brief passing memory as he's scalded with heat and let go by Wharil.
There's no doubt that Jacques believes it came from Dylan, whatever had just happened, that had left a man bleeding and coughing and scurrying down the hall. He doesn't wait, or watch, he doesn't stand there all mute, but turns back for the door.
Clearly he's not going away.
"Your FATHER, Michael, needs you!" He raises his voice to follow Dylan's quick movements, associated with probably trying to flee. When Kage has opened the door to him, he walked in and immediately scanned around for the one he came here to see.
"I only want to talk, Dylan. You can tell me to fuck off yourself, and you know I will." That was the truth of it. He's sounding more calmer, though not by much, now that he's inside the apartment and Kage isn't trying to stop them.
But Ashley has other plans, and uses her magic against him (something he's not going to be happy about), to go against his own will to stay and sort this out now. The small, firey woman grabs his attention and somehow manages to get the determined consor to turn tail from the apartment and walk back towards the door. "I really don't think we should leave him here," but he's coming with her...
[Wharil Choc] He stops outside the building, Pausing at the bottom of the steps to catch his breath. The blood from his nose and mouth have been wiped off on the cuff of his shirt sleeve, and Wharil pulls his coat around him a lot closer. It was colder out here. Much colder than it had been upstairs.
He turns to Ashley, visibly unhappy with the outcome of that exchange. "You saw that? Did you feel it? That wasn't Kage. That's gotta be Dylan in there."
[Dylan Willis] That ominous pounding of a man who doesn't know how to walk quietly, who doesn't care about walking quietly, comes to an abrupt and terrible halt mere feet from the open front door of the apartment. The group out in the hallway cannot see who it is, but by now, between the heat and the hostility and the sheer amount of power that was behind the attack that came from within the apartment there can be little doubt in anyone's mind that Dylan is, in fact, here.
So why isn't he answering Jacques' angry hollering? Why is he attacking Wharil? Why isn't he coming to the door and talking like a... well, like a normal person?
There are not a plentiful number of reasons why Paradox will strike out at the people around a Working Mage rather than at the caster himself. There are words for the sorts of Awakened beings who will inflict that sort of danger upon the universe. The only real conclusion that could be drawn this evening is that what Kage said is true: no one goes by the name 'Dylan' in this apartment.
He comes to stand within Kage's personal space, just inside of arm's reach, and as Jacques barrels into the apartment he can see what exactly they're dealing with. Dylan is just as tall as he's ever been, just as muscular as he's ever been, but he's got a lean, hungry look to him, as though he's strapped with fever. It's in his eyes, that feverishness, that fire, and something ought to dawn on Jacques mighty quickly: Dylan isn't hearing him. He isn't acknowledging him. He isn't looking towards him or speaking louder to try and be heard over him. He speaks to Kage as though they are the only two in the room.
"Do you believe me now?" he asks, his voice low.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, sucking in deep, hungry breaths to calm herself down, meets Wharil's eyes as they reach the bottom of the steps. She hopes Jacques is behind her. She doesn't hope Jacques is behind her hard enough to turn around; if she does, she somewhat doubts her ability to restrain herself from confronting Dylan.
"Felt like Dylan," the Hermetic says, with another hasty glance back up the stairs. "He either -really- wants to be left alone or there's something different about him."
There's a moment while she stews in silence, her anger visibly dissipating as her spine relaxes. "If we want to go back in for him, I can try to figure out his True Name. It'll give us a good hold over him if we come back."
[K. R. Jakes] (can't decide - uses WP to decide for her!)
[Wharil Choc] "How long is that gonna take?"
The conversation was with Ashley now. Purely so. There was no more joking on the side with Jacques. But more noticeably, and possibly most frightening of all, there was no sign of pity left in his voice. Not for the man who'd just tried to kill him, at least.
[Jacques-Marcel] There's only one reason why Jacques is leaving that hungry looking Dylan behind, and that would be Ashley's control over his mind. He's going to be asking questions later. He's going to be very, very angry later. But for the moment he's behind Ashley when she looks back, but he's gaze had to be torn from the door. The raw hurt and worry is a very real thing, splashed across his lean face as it's decided for him, to leave Dylan -- in clearly an altered state, behind.
"Of course there's something different about him," he snaps at Ashley, "he's mentally fucked up and he needs our help. He didn't even look at us."
[Ashley McGowen] "Fuck him, Jacques," Ashley snaps, turning so she can face the Consor and look at him with her good eye. "You can't -possibly- still worry about him with as much as you've told me he jerks you around. He attacked us, that's it."
Were Dylan a Tradition member, she might be giving it a second thought. But orphans? Well, they pull this kind of shit. It's why they should be persuaded to join a Tradition.
Then, with another drawn in breath, she turns to regard Wharil. "It's generally done in ritual, since it can be dangerous to try to do and I'd prefer to take my time. If you want to do it now, though, I can attempt it. I have his dog tags here."
[K. R. Jakes] Dylan comes to stand within Kage's personal space, just inside of arm's reach, and this is not comfortable. At all. This is, in fact, almost punishment in and of itself; she can still taste, like a bloodblister on her tongue, the aftereffects of his lashing out. "I don't know," Kage says, after a second. This is Kage: big, dark eyes and pale, pale features and somehow the red of her hair just underlines this. But this is also Kage: an exercise in composure, an element of (inner) grace, an innamorata.
Her heart is racing so, so quickly. Does she think they're gone? Just like that? No, they never leave. Not just like that. They'll be back, whether 'they' really are the 'they' who warped Dylan's mind, who touched his Magick -- what remains is this: 'they' didn't help. At all. This is worse.
This is why Kage says, I'm with myself. Why she hasn't used the word 'we' with Dylan, not once, not on purpose. "Maybe. I do think that you're probably in danger now. And that you're dangerous -- why did you do that? I ... Don't think you should stay here any longer." This isn't Kage kicking Dylan to the kerb -- that would be the wise thing to do, perhaps, the non-meddling thing, the leave-it-as-is thing, which she likes to pretend she is capable of. This is Kage thinking that, really, her apartment is compromised, and she's going to have to move too, and he just can't stay here. He can't.
[Wharil Choc] "Lets get to the car." He says, right on the heals of the bickering between the two. And again he just walks away, heading away from the apartment and back to the place where they parked.
On the way though, he talks addresses Ashley quietly.
"Let me ask you this: If we go back there, can you disable him? I think I felt you at work up there. Can you make it so he can't hurt that girl? Or anyone else? Can you do it without killing him?"
[Ashley McGowen] [Intelligence + Alertness, now that she has seen Kage's face.]
[Jacques-Marcel] "Fuck him? Really? And you're still going to go through with some fucking ritual?" He draws in a breath through his nose, trying to calm himself down. This is bullshit. The lot of it.Why the hell can't he walk away? It would be nice to blame some magick, some work over his own will that had changed him in such a way, but the truth of it was far more disturbing. "You know it's not him that attacked you." Not Dylan in his right mind anyway.
The two Magi make plans, excluding him, and he casts a look back to the apartment.
He stands there as they walk off, debating whether he's going back up there himself.
[Dylan Willis] One of the first things K.R. Jakes told the nameless man on the path was that she hadn't been sent, that she wasn't with anyone, that she was with herself and that was it. No one ever sends her anywhere, she had told him. On some level this had mattered, this had made sense, this had enabled him to walk out of the cemetery with her and take up residence on her couch for over a week, to eat her food and use her bathroom and wear her clothes, because he didn't expect that she was with Them.
Them. It has to make more sense now. They aren't demons. Not really. Not in the world of you and I, not in the world of sane men and sane choices. Maybe in his world, wherever his world is, hot and punitive, but not here. They're not demons. They're not here to punish him, they're not here to keep him wherever it is that he is, but if they were here to help--and he can't possibly believe that they were, why would he attack them if he thought they were here to help?--they won't be back.
Or they will be back, but with more people. With more magic. With more bloodshed. Kage is right. He can't stay here. She probably can't stay here, either. So far as the Tradition Mages are concerned, she is an Orphan and Dylan is an Orphan and they're just as well as lumped in with each other until such a time as they come up with another name for what he is right now.
"Give me back my gun, and I'll keep going," he says, just as low as before. It's acquiescence in a manner rather demented.
[Ashley McGowen] "He attacked me, why wouldn't I?" she asks Jacques, pausing to watch him before they go back to the car. Jacques lingers behind, though, looking as though he might go back in, and Ash just frowns at him in a manner that is something more than disapproving - disappointed, perhaps? - before she follows Wharil.
"If I have his True Name, I'll be more likely to be able to disable him with the Ars Mentis, but there aren't any guarantees. I don't see why it would hurt Kage, though." There's a short pause as though she's debating whether to give up the information before she adds, "I know her. She used to run around with someone who mentored an old cabalmate of mine, so I will try to avoid harming her if possible."
[K. R. Jakes] Percept + Awareness (as Empathy) - 'sides crazy, just what's your mental state, nameless-man-actually-Dylan?
to†Dylan Willis
[K. R. Jakes] Kage looks Dylan over, carefully, quietly. But she can't read him, not without reaching out; not without touching him and trying to look inside. She does not want to do that right now, so soon on the heels of -- no.
K. R. Jakes looks Dylan over carefully, quietly, a contemplative creature. Still, heart. Be still. Although she takes a moment, although she really searches his face, she fails to read him. She could reach out, she could delve underneath; skim the foam of his thoughts and drink them down, look inside. But she doesn't want to do that right now, so soon on the heels of --
Who knows how he'd react?
"But ..." Kage trails away, swallows. "Where are you going? Why did you do that?"
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: bah! (swipes away first paragraph)
[Jacques-Marcel] He doesn't follow Wharil and Ashley in the end, but lights up a cigarette and stays outside the apartment. He doesn't know what the hell he's going to do, but needs five minutes to get himself together before he decides to do anything more rash. He contemplates calling Michael. He contemplates going back up the stairs. He even contemplates just walking away, again. All while the cigarette burns in his hand, frequently puffed upon.
[Wharil Choc] "We don't know what Dylan's capable of right now, to be honest. Lets take some time to prepare ourselves, and then we go back."
He had his keys out, and the automatic alarm on the car chirps as the doors unlock. Wharil gets in, sitting behind the steering wheel, but he doesn't start the car. Instead he unlocks the glove compartment with the keys (Legal note: Random police searches are limited to what's readily visible or accessible. Locked items require permission...or a warrant) and takes out a knife in a leather sheath. The handle looked like dear horn. The blade, as he slides it out slowly, is yellowed bone.
Knives cut. Knives stab. But the knife is only a tool. And like most tools it had several uses. A knife that cut also cut out disease. A knife that stabbed also lanced boils before they became infected. Life and death existed side by side on the same wheel of fate. A weapon like this was just as useful as a tool for healing. And this one was his tool.
Wharil breathed slowly, steadily, as he turned the knife on himself, looming over his chest, and exerted his will. His voice mumbled softly in a language most of the world considered to be dead, as he focused his mind and body to work in concert, and make himself immune to pain.
[Dylan Willis] Why did he do that.
"They're crafty," he says, "they'll say anything to get you to let them in. You're not strong enough to keep them out. Your will, maybe, but your body... you're so small. I don't know how you've made it this long without them coming in after you, maybe you're stronger than... than I thought, but that's why. They have to be. They have to be smart to be stronger than you but they'll come back. I did it to scare them off but it wasn't enough. Maybe if I leave this place they'll leave, too. Give me back my gun."
[Dylan Willis] [Hey y'all, Dre's got to go, so we're pausing! YAY PAUSES!]
[Wharil Choc] [YAY TO NO ONE DYING JUST YET! Sorry to have to drop out. Pray that I have a connection at home and maybe we can continue if everyone's up for it.]
[Wharil Choc] [Battery's at critical. GOTTA GO! Thanks again guys!]
[Jacques-Marcel] [I'm around on AIM. Grab me when we continue. Thanks for the play!]
[K. R. Jakes] (sad) I don't know your AIM! Do I? (languish)
to†Jacques-Marcel
[Ashley McGowen] She doesn't have her circle here, doesn't have her sanctum; Wharil's car is not the sort of place she would hope to be in for taking the time to discern someone's True Name. But it's what she has on hand, and fortune does not always favor the Willworker.
She climbs into the car after Wharil, taking a seat in the passenger side. She pulls Dylan's dog tags out of her pocket and lets them drop in metallic coils into her lap: this link to the man, something he wore as part of his daily attire, perhaps something he regarded with a certain weight when they were first embossed and he took up his new role as a soldier, an object that was there with him through some of the most important memories of his life. The tags are part of what make Dylan who he is.
It's these that she calls upon, trying to piece all of the fragments of Dylan's being together into a whole, trying to understand his essence and the Word that frames his True Name.
[Mind 3. Taking time, using a focus, spending one Quintessence, spending WP.]
[Ashley McGowen] [Thanks for the RP, all. Jamie, thank you for running!]
[K. R. Jakes] Give me back my gun.
It was a mistake not to leave the apartment with Dylan when he first walked over to her, fixed his burning [brand] eyes on her and said that They were coming. They were coming right now, so they (we) had to leave. It may have been a mistake not to seek out what members of the Enlightened community she knew, was familiar with, and ask for their help right after Dylan fell asleep, did not wake up for days, in her study. It was a mistake, but she's not yet certain what she's supposed to learn from them. She's not even thinking, not really, about them. She's wondering: would it be a mistake to give him back his gun. Would it even matter. She felt what he did. He didn't need a gun, then. And that man, there was blood on his mouth.
"When you scare something, it attacks," Kage says, and it's low-voiced, smoke. "I'll give you back part of your gun, but after you leave, I'm not going to stop trying to find a way to get you out -- okay? Do you believe me?"
0 comments:
Post a Comment