[Wharil Choc] One would assume that Wharil Choc had a day job. or a hobby. or otherwise, better things to do than to knock on the doors of relative strangers. However, if the jeans and sweater underneath his trademark dark wool coat were any indication, he apparently doesn't.
There's no buzzer sound. There were hardly any steps in the hallway. The knocks on her apartment door come swift and firm. One. Two. Three. Four. The standard number for most announcements of this sort.
[K. R. Jakes] (annnnnd some pre-emptive Awareness, please?)
[K. R. Jakes] Kage isn't the sort of person who sounds harried, or hurried, or rushed when she calls for a moment of someone's time; she sounds as if she is giving notice, as a courtesy, but time will be taken. To whit: there's a brief pause, and then -- "One moment."
That one moment. Kage peeks through the door's eyehole. And then Wharil can hear the sound of a lock, turning, and then: "Hello." That moment of (courteous) distance he must be used to -- because while Kage recalls Wharil, she doesn't quite recall his features. He could be a stranger, for at least a second, probably more.
[Wharil Choc] "Hi, Ms Jakes?" He says in that publishers clearing house/serving notice way that strangers seem to have when they come up to your place of residence. For a moment it begs the question: How did he get all the way in here? Wasn't there a security door in this place? Didn't you have to have a key or get buzzed in?
"Its Wharil Choc. Can I come in for a moment?"
Oh. Its him.
[K. R. Jakes] Well look at that. Another Tradition mage. On her doorstep. Uninvited.
He isn't expected, but he isn't a surprise, either. His name is a password, and it tarnishes up Kage's gaze; gives it focus, direction. He isn't just some stranger, now. He's a stranger with a history who very nearly died. He's a Euthanatos, and a Tradition mage, and he wasn't welcome at all the last time she saw him. Kage's shoulders rise (fall, on the exhale).
This time, though. "...Yes. Now," and here, a faint (wry) smile, because she's composed today, she's damned radiant with it today, cool as cool can be (well, almost), "is actually a good time. Come in, be welcome. How are you?" It's not just a polite question.
[Wharil Choc] "Fine, thanks. Oh..." And as if he suddenly realized that the question might not be just a thrown about pleasantry, his hand lifts up to his chest. To his heart. And he smiles, but cautiously so.
"Fine. I'm actually here to check up on you. See how you are."
[K. R. Jakes] He's been in her apartment before. Then, it was scorchingly hot; the air was dense with punishing heat. He was circling a Marauder who'd once been an Orphan trying to get the awakened community of Chicago together. He hadn't been invited. The air, now, is temperate; maybe a little cool. As if she had a window open, somewhere. Once he's in, Kage shuts the door behind him, but she doesn't lock it again (open doors, open invitations). She'll usher him toward a couch, toward a seat, toward the dining room area with its table -- just in. In, in, in. No more standing on thresholds.
He's there to see how she is. And Kage raises an (oh really now) eyebrow, and then she glances toward her kitchen, raking back her hair, gathering it up at the back of her skull, holding it there. Evenly: "In all honestly, Wharil, I'm really unhappy. But I am glad that you're... Is Ashley?"
[Wharil Choc] "Is Ashley...okay? No, not really. But don't tell her I told you that." He removes the coat before sitting at the dining room table. There's no weight on either hip today. Nor is there any leather holder for there to be one. There is a leather thong around his neck. When he bends to adjust the chair and sling his coat over the back, she can see it hanging there like a necklace, even beneath the sweater and shirt he wears.
"She'll have some work to do before she's...stable again. And she'll need help. Help that we can provide as a community. Together, that is. I'm very sorry to hear that you feel that way, but given the situation and how it all went down. I want to apologize about all that as well. Dylan was important to a lot of us. Jacques, most of all. With that much emotion involved, we shouldn't have...finding him like that was a surprise to all of us."
[K. R. Jakes] "Hm." That's what the account of Ashley's wellbeing gets; the sound is contemplative (serious). Almost a question, but not quite. He's taking a seat at her table, so she's walking (backwards; she keeps him in her view) backwards into her kitchen, where Dylan's gun still lies in her cupboard, underneath a jumble of spice jars and a sourdough loaf, a loaf of carrot bread. When Wharil says the Orphan's name, Kage shakes her head, slightly -- a negation of the name. Doesn't exist.
Help. We can. Together. Want to. A lot of us. All of us. These are things he says, and Kage gives him a discerning look. "You're the PR guy, huh? Tea or juice? Carrot bread or, uhm, cookies?" And once he's made his choice, she'll bring something over -- or she'll bring something totally different over. Either way, there will be food, and there will be drink, and there will be hospitality. That's the way it works.
Then Kage sits in the dining room chair adjacent to Wharil's, her hands on the table. It's wood, and like most of the things in Kage's house, looks old, antiqued, medievalism showing through. There's a William Morris patterned runner, scootched off to the side. A laptop, open but black screened. "What was Dylan Willis to you guys? I'm curious. I know something now about who he was to the mundanes, but -- not you."
[Wharil Choc] "i'm...yeah. I guess I am the PR guy." He smiles at that. Full on and and bright. Tea, he chooses. Tea and Carrot bread.
"I only met him once really. And it wasn't much of a meeting. But even before theat there were rumors. And people who talked glowingly about him. For one thing he was the protector. Most people came to him for problem solving. Of all kinds. And...well...lets face it. Everyone knows what its like to be out in the cold. Dylan was the one bringing them into the warmth. into safety. At least he tried to. And he wanted to try again. We were all hopeful for it."
[K. R. Jakes] Winter, outside. And cold, in the apartment (at last). The tea is spiced, and hot, all clove and orange, and it smells good. The carrot bread is a gouge out your own chunk sort've affair. Kage listens. Her eyes tarnish up, again, still darker, but they don't grow sad; they grow inscrutable. (He knows, anyway. It's his specialty, after all.) Or -- no; maybe sad isn't right. Regretful. Her mind goes away, wanders to the nameless 'crow.
A pause. And then -- "Wait. He was an Orphan, wasn't he? You were all waiting for him to get you together?"
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: er, wait. Lemme add emphasis. "You were all waiting for him to get you together?"
[Wharil Choc] That gets a chuckle as a response, one that interrupts the breath he ws casting over his tea. he sets it down carefully before continuing.
"Yeah, I don't really get it myself. As far as I can figure, there's no definite authority in the city. Not now, anyhow. I'm sure there were magi in the city before, but they were always a scattered, disparate bunch. And no one stepped forward before for several reasons. Most didn't have the numbers to organize. Others didn't feel they had the authority. Ashley herself said she'd be accused of imposing Hermetic standards on the unwilling. And I...well, I just got here a year ago, and by then I was already hearing about Dylan. From all sides of every fence imaginable too. Really thought he would be the one to pull it off."
[Gregor] ...Wharil's phone chimes, sudden and invasive. If/when answered, the other end is a hiss and a whisper of wind across the receiver, followed swiftly by the cup of a hand to block out the majority of the noise and push it to the background in favour of a breathy voice.
"Hello? He-hello? I need to speak with Wah...Wha...fuck's sake..." The voice is distracted, the sound of rustling paper heard in the background, digging through pockets.
[K. R. Jakes] "Isn't that what Hermetics do? I'm surprised she balked; if that's what happened." Kage plays with her piece of carrot bread, and her expression is turned inward (contained [grace]). There was that, about Kage; even when she was dealing with unpleasant situations, she (mostly) kept her poise.
"I didn't know Dylan. And I -- I doubt very much that I ever will. I know the nameless 'crow, a little. Perhaps. Since," a pause, a stumble. "Since he got out, I know he's run into others, that others are on his trail, and it's just ... It's so foolish." A pause, again. "I still haven't been able to find another way, just one road for him; you know the one. And they keep ... They're like little dominoes. Are you going to try again to find ... what Dylan left behind?" A brief pause, and then ...
"I heard that there was a Call. The other day. That there were Nephandi about. Did you hear about that?"
And that's when Wharil's phone chimes, so decrees the order of events.
[Wharil Choc] Who was this Kage Jakes? What sky did she fall from? Wharil sips at his tea. He pinches at the carrot cake. Countless games of poker with other Euthanatois, other Albireo, have taught him how to observe without staring. Without even looking. His face twitches at the mention of a 'Nameless Crow', and not unpleasantly so. She speaks of the road. She speaks of falling dominoes. She speaks of what Dylan left behind the way he and Ashley, and Rene so far speak of 'The Marauder'. Not Dylan Willis. That's not how he'll be remembered.
And she speaks of Nephandi being about, and Wharil finds her eyes finally, lips pressed into an uncomfortable line even as he chews a morsel of offered carrot bread. Wharil's chest rises as he prepares to respond, and does so with no trouble, unlike the last time he was in this apartment.
--And then his phone rings.
He fishes it out of his coat pocket from the back of the chair, and for a few moments stares at the caller I.D. An unrecognized number. Wharil gives Kage an apologetic look before answering the call with a brief 'Hello?'
"Wharil." he says to the caller. It rolls off his tongue the way a foreign language rolls off the tongue of a native speaker. It was an odd name and therefore not surprising that the caller couldn't remember. That happened to him a lot actually. It was, quite obviously now, not English. Spanish, perhaps? Portuguese? Who-ah-reel he pronounces, in rapid succession. Whatever language sounded like half rushing wind, and half gurgling water. That's what language it was.
"Who is this?"
[K. R. Jakes] Marauder.
Nephandi.
TECHNOCRATS. PHONE. NOOO!
Kage looks a little wary when Wharil's phone rings, but she obeys someone-got-a-cellphone-call etiquette and looks (more or less) content with silence. She watches him, though. Not sidelong, but -- concerned? Well, she watches him, and stirs honey into her tea, and tension rides her shoulders.
[Gregor] "My name is Gregor and I've been following something you know about. The Hungry one gave me your number and name. The one with no reflection confirmed it." A pause, the paper rustling violently another moment before a hand comes up to cup the receiver so he is not yelling into it again.
"We need to talk. It's about the Inferno-" A pause, mumbling, something. "...it's about the...I believe she called it a 'Marauder'..." The word is untested. Untried. As if the speaker had only just discovered it. "...And how to stop him."
[Wharil Choc] "Yes." Wharil says flatly. "I was expecting your call. Can you meet me, perhaps? Uhm...the place where he broke through?" Because something about alluding to things rather than speaking about them appealed to him.
But it wasn't his place. He couldn't just invite people over. He gives a cautious look to Kage for a moment, then adds "I'll be waiting outside." to his phone conversation.
[K. R. Jakes] The cadence of her attention (undivided) changes as she listens to Wharil's half of the conversation: a call that he expected, come on and meet me at the place where he, that cautious look -- which meets a raising of Kage's eyebrows, a cool oh really sort've expression that is in conflict with what's this, what's this -- and his amendment. Her eyebrows lower, and she'd paused before taking a sip of her tea. Rests her chin on her fist.
She's not even bothering to busy herself with tea and bread, now. She's outright giving Wharil a curious look (and bemused, too. Oh yes, very bemused).
[Gregor] "Done, i'll-..." Pause. "...You're with Kage?" A beat. "At...Kage's?" Something suspicious? No, no. More curious. Not exactly but close, in his voice now.
[Wharil Choc] "Yes, that's right." He says, leaning back in his seat now and regarding Kage a bit less warily now. But still curious. "You've met?"
[Gregor] "We have. She's...." A pause. There's something of...humour? Weak but genuine. "...Good company." A pause, the wind picking up sharply all of a sudden. He's yelling again.
"I'll be there within the next ten minutes." And the phone claps back into it's holder, the line going dead.
[Wharil Choc] "I look forward to meeting you." is the last he says into the phone before hitting the 'end call' button. With the phone secured, he returns to the present. Present location, that is.
"That was a Dreamspeaker named Gregor. Says you two have met. Seems he's interested in finding the marauder. I asked him to meet me here. I hope you don't mind."
[K. R. Jakes] "Really," she says, sounding very surprised indeed. A pause, as she adjusts her mental image of Gregor from strange Puppet Man Orphan whispering into his mirrors to strange urban Dreamspeaker whispering into his mirrors. "Yes, we have met before. He also," wry, "came by, because it seems that when the nameless 'crow ... left ... uhm, his leaving drew some attention."
[Wharil Choc] "Yeah. Marauders are seldom subtle. Frequently disruptive and dangerous. Not like Nephandi, which I think you were asking me about."
Wharil takes a sip of his tea, and adjusts his shoulders uncomfortably.
"The uh...Nameless Crow. He said some things to us. Probably mentioned to you too. The general gist of it was that someone had done this to him. And from what I know of Dylan he was always...over worked, I guess you could call it? But he was careful. And he was around a long time. I saw him...barely a month before he went missing. Ashley, weeks before that. He was fine. More than fine, he was lucid and in control. Powerful wills...powerful minds like that don't just break at the first sign of stress. Not that badly at the very least."
And there it was, out there. Said but not said. It was his collection of facts so far. Or part of it at the very least. And expressed in his way, it didn't take an enormous leap of logic to find a link between what he was saying, and the events at the Chantry house.
[K. R. Jakes] "If he was the only one trying to get you people together, and then someone broke him," she says, and leaves that thought [those implications] there. For the first time in a long while, she looks away from Wharil. Down her hall, toward her study. She lifts her head, massages the side of her neck, works her fingers behind her ear, into her hair.
"But powerful minds do break." She sounds depressed. What was that she'd said to Wharil and Ashley, before leaving them to do their work? That the nameless 'crow still had a heart [a story]? "I -- oh. I," cautious, "wonder. What happened to him. Do you know anyone who could look backward, if they had something to focus on? Or ...someone who could tell if ... old blood belonged to more than one person?"
A brief pause. "You know, a discreet lab technician will do."
[Wharil Choc] He nods at her first assessment, adding a whispered "Subtle" to it. At her question, he shrugs. "I don't know. The Ecstatics might, but I don't know any in the city. I...do know a detective though. One that could get blood analyzed. You actually have something with his blood on it?"
[K. R. Jakes] "I know an Ecstatic in the city, but he's," a pause. "He's difficult to get ahold of." That is how she will leave it. Her assessment of Adam the lawyer (liar). "And ... well. It might be his blood. He said ... before you two," and the way she says 'you two,' it must be owned, it sounds synonymous with 'jackasses,' "came by ... He said something that made me think he'd already dealt with a 'They' once. The clothes I found him in were ... pretty rank, but there was blood, too."
[Gregor] It takes some time, quicker then expected, but some time nonetheless. Enough for Kage and Wharil to discuss the potential of conspiracy. As the implications begin to build and suspicions turn to something more inevitable, there comes the inevitable chime of Wharil's phone once more with a voice on the other end. The wind is less this time.
"...Alright. I'm here." A brief level of uncertainty. A flicker of apprehension. Chicago was not a trusting city for the Mage populace it would seem.
[Wharil Choc] "You still have them, I assume. Anything else of his lingering around? I can get them checked out."
[K. R. Jakes] His phone chimes, and so Kage is saved from phrasing an answer.
[Wharil Choc] ((Sorry Harv, just saw your post. Responding now))
[Wharil Choc] Wharil answers in his usual single-word greeting, then adds 'Hold on.' after he hears the voice from a few moments ago. Both hands cup the cell phone as its held away from his mouth, and he speaks softly to Kage to boot.
"Its Gregor. You care to go down with me to meet him?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Yes. I'll do that; or he can come inside and we can go down to the boiler room." Not back up to her apartment. For some reason, Kage doesn't want more than one mage who isn't herself inside her apartment at a time. Maybe she's afraid lightning can strike twice. Maybe she just doesn't trust either Wharil or Gregor, and this is her way of rationalizing. Maybe she just doesn't like people in her apartment. "It's warm in there."
[Wharil Choc] "Fair enough. Boiler room it is." he responds to Kage, then into the phone: "We're coming down." Wharil takes one last mouthful of the spiced tea before hurrying to put on his Coat and heading downstairs to do meet the voice on the phone.
He comes out of the front entrance the same way he got in: One of Kage's neighbors in the apartment happened to be on their way in. Wharil flashed the grey haired lady a smile, bright and amiable, and stuck his foot in the closing door as she walked away. There was a brick that the residents kept by the door for just these purposes. Wharil makes himself at home and kicks it in between the door and the frame before venturing out, and peering about for Gregor.
[Gregor] The man is not hard to notice:
His clothes are layered and not aesthetic. Dark blacks and browns co-mingled into a slightly disheveled, but winter prepared experience. A thick hood wraps his head up, while the grizzled sheen of stubble carves a hard expression on his face. His eyes are narrow and the lines of age, both in experience and years, creep beneath them without effort. His mouth is a grim line.
His hands are adorned in gloves, each baring the odd reflective gleam of mirrors, showcasing the world from the back of his grip, whilst the dark gray sneakers are old and ratty, but whole. He watches Wharil exit the house, standing on the sidewalk infront of the small fence. Were one to read the bags under his eyes, they might seen exhaustion. Were one to taste the tension in his shoulders they might find urgency.
"...Wharil?" It sounds slightly off in the pronunciation, the man more the likely having practiced it a few times on the way over here to ensure it sounded correct.
[Wharil Choc] "Gregor." He responds as he approaches. If there were an opposite to Gregor, as far as appearances were concerned, this young man would probably be it. His hair and eyes were dark indeed, but the wind tossed his curls in a playful sort of way, and the way he smiled, advancing with a hand held out to shake, made those dark eyes twinkle with an oddly appealing light. His clothes were sharp, and fairly well put together. The the sharp V-neck of his sweater revealed a touch of color, a powder blue, along with his own winter layers. The black wool coat had probably seen a dry cleaners recently, and the bulky looking snow boots he wore over the pant legs of his blue jeans seemed practically new.
And his voice. Strong. Bright. Honestly happy to meet the man at the gate.
"Cold as hell out here, isn't it? Kage is waiting for us inside. We can speak more freely in there anyway."
[Gregor] "No-" Quick. Abrupt.
He takes Wharil's hand and shakes, once, firmly, though his attention leaps up toward Kage's apartment with a slow sort of transformation; the features slacken and the eyes grow dim, squinting against some view not quite fathomable. Haunting, but brief, it eclipses and solidifies into something hard. Something resilient.
"....No, we're better off not talking in there. I...I don't want to, I mean."
[K. R. Jakes] Drum, drumdrum! Drum, drum! Her winter boots are on (and socks, too). She's thrown on her coat, the flamboyant one, the one with dash that is as blue as the mist that beats up from the sidewalk sometimes at the tail end of gloaming in the city if it's raining. She hasn't bothered to tie it, because she's not staying outside, now, is she? And Wharil is at the gate shaking Gregor's hand when Kage opens the door to the apartment building, kicking that damned brick well out of the way.
Well, nudging it out of the way, then taking a moment to regard it quietly before she decides to throw it somewhere further away.
[Wharil Choc] "O...Okay." He responds with an uneasy squint. "Uhm...Alright. Well...I guess I should go get Kage? Is that okay?"
[Gregor] "Yes, She-" A pause, looking over Wharil's shoulder a flicker of softening or perhaps just relaxing, appeasing the tension around his eyes. He nods at Kage on the porch, for Wharil's benefit.
"...I'm sorry if I seem tense but..." And he flicks an eye up toward the apartment level "...The excess he left behind when he went through is...to put it in a word, terrifying."
[K. R. Jakes] Kage lifts a hand to hail Gregor, but she isn't stirring from the doorway. Their conversation isn't near enough for her to hear, after all. Indeed, she looks expectant.
[Wharil Choc] "I understand completely." He says to Gregor, and appends a sympathetic smile on the end which suggested that he truly did. He turns back to see Kage on the steps, and beckons her closer with a wave of his hand. In the short time it would take for her to approach, Wharil buttoned up the front of his coat to protect himself from the biting wind. Seems they'd be conversing outside after all.
"So...how can I help you, Gregor?"
[Gregor] "....There's a way to stop him from doing this again. Anymore." It's the only sentence he utters or has time for before Kage might join them, his attention flicking toward Wharil with something akin to seriousness. Even savagely so.
"...He is producing a large amount of Warp Touch, altering things in his wake and path with almost negligent effort. I've seen sites throughout the city and have been informed of others outside the city boundaries that he's visited, seemingly at random. I don't have the sight to track the Fire as it walks but I can at least localize places he's been and what he's done." His hands rise, flicking into gestures both vague and supportive of his words.
"...He is a conduit. An Engine. Producing destructive focus that is both a threat and a terror to the other side of the Barrier. He-He-He's breaking down the wall intentionally and not and leaving behind holes through which-...To which other things can crawl through." A deep breath is taken, the animated surge of enthusiasm? Excitement? No, nothing so positive. This was desperation given toward a solution. Hail Mary hope.
"However, he is also a power source of great magnitude. He's dragging the Still Touch-...The..." Windmilling hand, eyes and head swiveling around in search of the proper words to describe something he'd had no need to describe before. "...The force...that holds everything material, together..." his hands grasp infront of him, like he had captured a bug between his palms and refused to let go "...To try and stop him but keeps moving and skipping between the Sides of the Mirror and they can't keep hold of him...not enough time..."
His eyes dart, vague blood-shot but alert, from Kage to Wharil, the desperation creeping off his frame with effortless honesty now.
"...I found the Still Touch on the other side. It told me it can Trap him. Bind him when he is there, but they need to know. Have to know where and when he will cross over so they can be prepared to do so." And he relaxes some, leaning back, his height never really noticeable before until he'd straightened to the full 6'2. A looming harbinger. A mind-touched giant.
"...But I don't know how to do that..." A beat. "...yet."
[K. R. Jakes] Gregor is afraid. He's afraid of her apartment (what happened there). When Wharil beckons, Kage pulls her coat closed, tying it with graceful (play music with those) hands, and walks down the path, across the yard, to the two mages at her gate. There's a query, unspoken, in her eyes. "Hello, Gregor," she says. After he's said doing this again. Anymore. The wind touches a finger to her hair, snags one strand and lifts it. Her gaze leaves Gregor, goes further, down the street, cautious and quiet and wondering. She is listening.
And she is looking more and more aloof, more and more withdrawn, oh, more and more careful, as she interprets the way Gregor understands things to a way that she can understand what he's talking about, and once she thinks that she's translated, she sucks in a breath.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil listen's quietly, and the longer Gregor goes on the more that amiable smile fades. His eyebrows pinch together. He worries his lips with his teeth. His left leg taps, bounces, perhaps from the cold, but the rest of him didn't tell the same tale.
"I...I think I understand what you're saying. I ran into the same problem. When he broke through, I had no way of tracking him through the telaurian. We had something of his. Dog tags. But we could only locate where he was in the physical world with that."
That leg shakes more fervently now, shaking his whole body. He doesn't seem to notice it, so lost on thought as he is.
"If you could present me with the first part of the pattern, that being where he's been, I might be able to predict where he will be. Its not exactly precise, but I've done it before. I just won't be able to tell you when.
"Plus, he'll likely put up a fight once he's trapped. And he's well equipped for it."
A hand absently falls to his chest. Even under the coat and layers he was comforted by the thought that, yes, his heart and other organs were still there. Still doing their work.
"Is there some way we can be notified when it happens? No one should have to face him alone."
[Gregor] ...As if an after-thought, his head cants slightly to one side, offering Kage a weak smile, lost of much of it's care and tender, leaving behind the minimal best of an exhausted mind. It is at once a hello and almost an apology, though he makes no words to express it.
"Yes-" It isn't clear immediately what he means. He leans in, not uncomfortably but close enough to cut off the outside world from everything but his peripheral, gaze and features narrowing on the cause at hand "-If you can track him in the Physical then that's preferable. Despite his abilities, the Still Touch can ensure he's trapped and bound, or so they say. None of their number are prone to lying either so I believe them, but-...but but but..."
A hand shakes in the air between them, head canting to one side, eyes closed as if chewing away at some internal delay.
"...We have to get him to the...the...corresponding spot on this side of the Barrier the...Telurian?" Confusion, dismissal "...And then convince him, force him, however, to cross over in that specific space, so that the Still Touch is there waiting for him to arrive. They'll take care of the rest."
Ambush.
[Wharil Choc] "He was pretty spooked the last time he saw me. That's when he cut and run. Maybe he'll do it again. Just as long as he doesn't see us coming."
He glances at Kage for a moment. No, longer than a moment. Uncomfortably long with the way he was shaking and, quite literally, dithering. He trusts her. Perhaps she could...
"Kage. I don't suppose you have any way of...calling him, do you?"
[K. R. Jakes] No one should have to face him alone --
"No one should face him alone."
Then the redhaired young woman subsides into silence, again, into a listening creature, and she is watching Gregor and Wharil without watching them, keeping her gaze glancing away from them, focused on the street itself. It's cold outside and she folds her arms under her breasts. They keep talking about tracking the nameless 'crow, and her silence is (they're both perceptive men) tangible there. Has a texture, maybe.
"Then what? He's just trapped in place on the other side of the looking glass; forever?" Her voice doesn't rise; she doesn't sound upset. But she doesn't sound happy: maybe a little empty, quiet, focused (nothing there).
Wharil looks over at her, and he trusts her. Gregor seems to trust her, too. And the nameless 'crow did, and Emily. Enid. Jarod trusted whatever she told him over the phone was true. Kage has yet to trust a single damned one of them, but she has hope instead of trust, and that's why she's talking to Wharil and Gregor at the iron gate that doesn't protect her building from anything at all. The gate is an idea. Like trust.
Kage blinks at Wharil, straightens slightly. "...to call him? What? Like a 'hey, crazy awakened guy' whistle? No; I don't have anything like that." She'd never actually gotten around to answering just how she came to have Dylan in her apartment, though, did she? And that was a little sharp. "I'm sorry. He -- I don't know; I could think about it. There may be -- I just don't know off the top of my head."
[Gregor] "...The Hungry one said the last time you all nearly got killed."
It isn't sarcastic, just a fact. A point. "...But if you managed to gather enough of you. Gave him no room to breathe or move on this side, he might just be..." His face crinkles, crushes together "...spooked into taking the only escape route left, through the barrier." A pause. "...And if he tries to cross, then we have to help him get there as easily as possible. The Screaming Wall could take him and we'd lose the chance."
A pause, considering Kage now, as if his attention once fixed on a single entity were absolute. No changing. No alter.
"...The Still Touch doesn't kill, K(C)age. It....freezes, for lack of a better word. Siphons off what it needs. If they trapped him he'd be bound, yes...not forever, but..." A frown on his features, trying to dissect her gaze and features. Wager and gauge.
"...Well if someone found out a way to make him-...he was human once, wasn't he? I mean...I've heard a few of you talk about him and that he was something before this." A pause. "...maybe if he's trapped where he can't hurt anyone, someone can eventually figure out a way to make him better again. Like a...Like-like a prison."
Guesswork. Theoretical at best. Gregor is not sure. Not certain about this or what happens after. Fear without Qualms, yes, but that was alongside Hope without certainty.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil turns back to Gregor, giving a sigh as if he were resetting gears. Getting back on track.
Almost died last time. Check.
Gather enough of them? Gregor was obviously in. Rene would likely be as well. Ashton, perhaps. The thought of those two being present in case things got ugly was a little comforting. The thought of that comfort, a little worrying. But two, barely prepared, forced him to flee last time. So there was another check.
Fixing him. Wharil's face took on that pensive, unsure look again, and his shaking leg faltered.
"Have you...ever run into anything like this before, Gregor?"
[Gregor] "No."
Flat. Straight out. Then-
"...At least. Nothing human with that sort of...of power."
[K. R. Jakes] So he'd be held in a prison while some spirit siphoned (drained) what it needed. "Look," she says. "It sounds complicated." And inhumane, she thinks, but does not say; the nameless crow is already walking in a Hell he can't leave. "And he will fight if he's scared. And no offense, but you are both kind of scary. If you try and do this, have a simple backup plan." A brief, brief pause. "Do either of you know someone named, uhm, Jarod? Or Ashton?"
[Wharil Choc] "I've seen into the mind of this marauder. The man that was once there...isn't anymore. He's just a body, a shell. And a soul, if you want to call it that, with the Atman attached. Without the mind to make sense of what's going on...there's no bringing it back. It'll just go on scarring the world around it, and scarring itself."
He pauses here, taking a moment for that to sink in, and to regard the two of them in turn. Prepare yourselves. The PR guy is probably about to lose all his support.
"The best thing to do in this case is to release that soul, before it becomes anymore twisted."
[Wharil Choc] Ashton, yes. And Jarod...the name rang a bell. But did he really know either of them? The simple answer was: More than he had time to debate that particular point at the moment.
"I'm...not scary. Am I? And, yeah. I know Ashton. What are you thinking?"
[Gregor] He stares almost helplessly now, eyes darting back and forth between Wharil and Kage. There is no lingering sense of words being held back or offered, merely a steadily rising shrug with that steady head tilting negative, until finally he claps his hanging jaws shut and leans back with a deep, shuddering breath.
"...you tried that already." He nods at Wharil, face twisting slightly.
"...And it isn't complicated, just difficult." A pause, the pair of Alt(a)ers beside him consulting a name that flits about in his memory a phantom on the fringes.
"...Winter." He's nodding, the memory returning, a frown that grows steadily darker on his features. He doesn't speak further, simply turns his attention to Kage to do what she's been doing so far: Listen.
[K. R. Jakes] They're suddenly no longer on the same page (if ever they were [a plan, we need a plan]). Kage's gaze dropped away from Wharil after she apologized for her sarcasm; it paused on Gregor, museful, then went back down the street. Wharil says, basically, that they need to kill the nameless 'crow, and Kage doesn't flinch (from the idea [not if that's the only]). No: she just stays still, and tenders a lock of hair back behind one ear, resting her fingers on the collar of her coat for a moment. She turns the collar up, a ward against the chill. Not nervous. Not anxious.
"They didn't really, Gregor," Kage says to the not-Orphan (you're one of them now). "They came looking for someone who wasn't there. What they found was something they didn't know. There was no plan."
"And I think not having the power to do a key part of your plan is a complication, not just a difficulty. There are so many ifs in that scenario, what if -- " Wharil asks her what she's thinking, and she closes her eyes for a second. Okay, lady. Find your center, be resolved. "Okay, wait. Gregor? Did you make a bargain with your Still Touch? Are you in trouble if you don't deliver the nameless -- the Marauder up to it?"
[Gregor] "No. It doesn't work that way."
Kage speaks and Gregor's own responses seem to pull back into more comfortable territory. He fails to shift his regard in this, nor does he look to voice any opposition to her claims about his plan. Waiting, it would seem.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil only fixes his lips tightly, obviously a bit miffed by Gregor's previous comment. Kage is the one who speaks his...their part of the situation. For now he stares at his feet and listens.
[K. R. Jakes] Kage gazes at Gregor for a moment, for two, until she has decided to believe him; she does decide to believe him. He may well have a reason to lie to her (she doesn't know), but she can't imagine it right now. "Well then. I understand that he's dangerous; that every hour," and oh, she hasn't forgotten about that things could crawl through comment Gregor tossed off earlier, either, "he probably gets more dangerous. I don't want him to spend any more hours walking in that place he's walking. It's wrong that he should be there; it's horrible." Passion is lovely, but it is also fierce.
"I think that you," the you is Wharil, "should call Ashton, because Ashton is a badass, and Jarod if you can find him, because I think that he might have useful skills for this kind of," doesn't give it a name. Her eyes are on Gregor, because of the two, Gregor seems the most likely to get all impatient, to cling to what he's thinking, to shake his head at her and shut his eyes and go off and do something stupid and get killed. Wharil already did that, sort of, and Kage does remember that he'd tried to step back before the nameless 'crow nearly killed him. "I would say Ashley, if she's well enough, but only if she's well enough. The -- uhm; the neph -- the bad ones. There were others involved in that, too. Maybe Ashley can tell you more. They may be able to help touch the -- to affect through the mirror, Gregor, to work in tangent with you anyway."
"To stop him, you only need to hold him still for a moment. Keep your plan, Gregor; but keep it plan B. When all goes wrong, and he tries to -- if he tries to -- then there's a trap. No escape route."
".... Whiiiiich I realize brings you back to just finding him and gathering all up at once. But if you can nudge things along, Wharil, if others can also nudge things along, if you work in tangent, maybe you don't even need to find him. He'll find you. You can pick the place."
[Gregor] His frown mixes together now into a grimace, a question obviously haunting the back of his mind, gaze threatening to wheel on Wharil, though it doesn't. He remains with Kage as she speaks of options and a plan. A plan that wasn't a last resort. All he could think of. The grimace begins to dissolve and in it's place, something comes back. A flicker of something. A better way maybe but more importantly; Not his.
Plan B: he nods, the vague sense of relief intermingling with determination creeping over his features. This may well have been something well outside of his comfort zone (even the interaction with those like Wharil and Ashley and Rene, as the last few days have attested) but then, this was no situation worth being diverse in.
The Inferno was a threat. A mass threat.
"...Agreed." Is all he offers to Kage, head canting toward Wharil finally.
"...The Still Touch is waiting for my contact on a location. Whatever you decide to do as far as you and the others go, you just need to tell me where. A street corner, an intersection, a park, whatever. You tell me and I'll tell them if..." A breath, slow and steadying. "...if it comes to that."
He pulls a sheet of paper out of his pocket, crumpled and rumpled and scrawled with a street corner. It's miles from here, well into the northern wastes, where parts of the city have been forgotten and lost to urban sprawl and history. "Old mail box on the corner. Mark it and I'll call."
And then 'round on Kage again, that grimace returning in lessened force.
"...Thank you." Simple and genuine, though no smile graces his features now, finally leaning into the weariness that swarms there. The mind was easing away from wired and finally recognizing the need for sleep, two steps away from their little triangle. A third.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil's leg slowly stopped shaking altogether as Kage spoke. He chuckled when she described Ashton as simply 'Badass'. There was a bullet scar in his back that reminded him of how true that was. Gregor mentioned the one-without-reflection. The one that made Ashton seem almost warm and cuddly. He wondered if Kage had ever met Rene.
"Good points." He mutters, still staring at his feet. "All good points. Cornering him is gonna be dangerous. And there are many mean-spirited stories about magi who thought they could predict how a marauder would behave. We've got to strengthen the first half of this plan. And...perhaps even get some backup for your half, Gregor."
A sigh. A pause, and he nods once, and with certainty. "You said you've managed to track a list of places he's been? That information will make things a lot easier."
[Gregor] He pauses. Halts and eyes Wharil, gaze growing negative for a moment as he studies the man for what seems, the first time. He'd been speaking with honesty, because he didn't have it in him to be disingenuous. No room for such things, obviously. That didn't preclude others from being such though.
"...The Neon Strip." Mag Mile. "...He's all over there. The large park to the north." Grant. "...He apparently punched his way free of the other side somewhere out in the Woods beyond the City limits. Something similar to that-" A flicker of a glance is cast up toward Kage's apartment.
"...That's it for the most part. I've got something...keeping an eye on his whereabouts but that won't last long and there's too much of a time gap between when it Reports and when the Inferno moves, but....I'll keep tabs as best I can and find you when I know more."
[Wharil Choc] "Excellent. I'll talk to my people. We'll be in touch as soon as I have something."
Wharil accepts the crumpled paper, glances at it momentarily before its folded again and disappears into his deep coat pockets.
"Kage? The blood work? And...do you have anything else of his?"
[Gregor] ...And the towering creature, a lasting flickering glance and nod cast to Kage, turns and heads off back the way he'd come. A long road ahead to bed and slumber.
[K. R. Jakes] And, exhale. Gregor is taking his leave, and Kage says, "Goodbye, Gregor." His gaze flickers to her apartment -- it keeps flickering to her apartment; she has to know that he's looking at it. On some level, it has to set her on edge (creepy). But it doesn't seem to.
Then, Wharil. Kage slides her hands into the pockets of her coat, and glances down at her feet. The scratched up, scuffed up toes of her boots. "Yes; don't you have what you used to find him before, any longer? But -- yes; I can get you the clothes tomorrow. I'd really like to know," and her voice drops, low, "if he ... well, if the blood isn't his. If ... there was another 'they' who weren't as fortunate as you and Ashley."
[Wharil Choc] "Well, I do. But Ashley has it. I'm trying to give her time to rest up and get back to center. She might insist on being involved before she's ready. And hey, look. I don't want you doing anything you don't want to do. I can be a bit nosy sometimes, so don't be afraid to tell me to go stick my nose somewhere else. But you're right for wanting to know. I want to know too. There's a hidden part of this story that might still affect us."
Us. Ashley and himself? Or did that include the two badasses as well. Was Kage an us, even though she was an orphan? Was Gregor us now? Emily? Enid? Jarod? The questionable Ecstatic? The handful that helped cart out two dead bodies from a house a few nights ago? They were, in some way, all connected to this. Were they an us as well?
It looked like Dylan Willis was bringing the mage community together after all.
"Tomorrow then. Till then, stay safe, Kage. And thanks for the hospitality."
[K. R. Jakes] "What I want, Wharil," Kage says, and she's very quiet. The wind rakes over her voice; makes it even harder to hear. "What I want is to help him. If he was put that way -- if someone did that; someone should be able to undo it. I can't; I haven't found a way, and I know that there's not forever to try and find one. What I want is for everybody to be safe. I just want," she pauses. "I just want crazy people to stop showing up on my doorstep unannounced. Do you realize I don't actually have any way to contact you? Are you going to fix that, or just continue to pop up at the apartment? Because that's not really fair."
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd, stay safe, Kage, Wharil says, and she offers him a faint [subdued] smile. "Don't do anything stupid." And that'll be her farewell.
[Wharil Choc] Of course she didn't have a way of contacting him. The fact that there even was a way to contacting him, and that Gregor could get it as easily as asking the right person, irked him just a little.
It was also a lot less fun than just popping up at the apartment. But no, that certainly wasn't fair.
"You know almost everyone who knows me." He calls back over his shoulder, slightly bemused. "Tomorrow then. I'll give you my number tomorrow."
There's no buzzer sound. There were hardly any steps in the hallway. The knocks on her apartment door come swift and firm. One. Two. Three. Four. The standard number for most announcements of this sort.
[K. R. Jakes] (annnnnd some pre-emptive Awareness, please?)
[K. R. Jakes] Kage isn't the sort of person who sounds harried, or hurried, or rushed when she calls for a moment of someone's time; she sounds as if she is giving notice, as a courtesy, but time will be taken. To whit: there's a brief pause, and then -- "One moment."
That one moment. Kage peeks through the door's eyehole. And then Wharil can hear the sound of a lock, turning, and then: "Hello." That moment of (courteous) distance he must be used to -- because while Kage recalls Wharil, she doesn't quite recall his features. He could be a stranger, for at least a second, probably more.
[Wharil Choc] "Hi, Ms Jakes?" He says in that publishers clearing house/serving notice way that strangers seem to have when they come up to your place of residence. For a moment it begs the question: How did he get all the way in here? Wasn't there a security door in this place? Didn't you have to have a key or get buzzed in?
"Its Wharil Choc. Can I come in for a moment?"
Oh. Its him.
[K. R. Jakes] Well look at that. Another Tradition mage. On her doorstep. Uninvited.
He isn't expected, but he isn't a surprise, either. His name is a password, and it tarnishes up Kage's gaze; gives it focus, direction. He isn't just some stranger, now. He's a stranger with a history who very nearly died. He's a Euthanatos, and a Tradition mage, and he wasn't welcome at all the last time she saw him. Kage's shoulders rise (fall, on the exhale).
This time, though. "...Yes. Now," and here, a faint (wry) smile, because she's composed today, she's damned radiant with it today, cool as cool can be (well, almost), "is actually a good time. Come in, be welcome. How are you?" It's not just a polite question.
[Wharil Choc] "Fine, thanks. Oh..." And as if he suddenly realized that the question might not be just a thrown about pleasantry, his hand lifts up to his chest. To his heart. And he smiles, but cautiously so.
"Fine. I'm actually here to check up on you. See how you are."
[K. R. Jakes] He's been in her apartment before. Then, it was scorchingly hot; the air was dense with punishing heat. He was circling a Marauder who'd once been an Orphan trying to get the awakened community of Chicago together. He hadn't been invited. The air, now, is temperate; maybe a little cool. As if she had a window open, somewhere. Once he's in, Kage shuts the door behind him, but she doesn't lock it again (open doors, open invitations). She'll usher him toward a couch, toward a seat, toward the dining room area with its table -- just in. In, in, in. No more standing on thresholds.
He's there to see how she is. And Kage raises an (oh really now) eyebrow, and then she glances toward her kitchen, raking back her hair, gathering it up at the back of her skull, holding it there. Evenly: "In all honestly, Wharil, I'm really unhappy. But I am glad that you're... Is Ashley?"
[Wharil Choc] "Is Ashley...okay? No, not really. But don't tell her I told you that." He removes the coat before sitting at the dining room table. There's no weight on either hip today. Nor is there any leather holder for there to be one. There is a leather thong around his neck. When he bends to adjust the chair and sling his coat over the back, she can see it hanging there like a necklace, even beneath the sweater and shirt he wears.
"She'll have some work to do before she's...stable again. And she'll need help. Help that we can provide as a community. Together, that is. I'm very sorry to hear that you feel that way, but given the situation and how it all went down. I want to apologize about all that as well. Dylan was important to a lot of us. Jacques, most of all. With that much emotion involved, we shouldn't have...finding him like that was a surprise to all of us."
[K. R. Jakes] "Hm." That's what the account of Ashley's wellbeing gets; the sound is contemplative (serious). Almost a question, but not quite. He's taking a seat at her table, so she's walking (backwards; she keeps him in her view) backwards into her kitchen, where Dylan's gun still lies in her cupboard, underneath a jumble of spice jars and a sourdough loaf, a loaf of carrot bread. When Wharil says the Orphan's name, Kage shakes her head, slightly -- a negation of the name. Doesn't exist.
Help. We can. Together. Want to. A lot of us. All of us. These are things he says, and Kage gives him a discerning look. "You're the PR guy, huh? Tea or juice? Carrot bread or, uhm, cookies?" And once he's made his choice, she'll bring something over -- or she'll bring something totally different over. Either way, there will be food, and there will be drink, and there will be hospitality. That's the way it works.
Then Kage sits in the dining room chair adjacent to Wharil's, her hands on the table. It's wood, and like most of the things in Kage's house, looks old, antiqued, medievalism showing through. There's a William Morris patterned runner, scootched off to the side. A laptop, open but black screened. "What was Dylan Willis to you guys? I'm curious. I know something now about who he was to the mundanes, but -- not you."
[Wharil Choc] "i'm...yeah. I guess I am the PR guy." He smiles at that. Full on and and bright. Tea, he chooses. Tea and Carrot bread.
"I only met him once really. And it wasn't much of a meeting. But even before theat there were rumors. And people who talked glowingly about him. For one thing he was the protector. Most people came to him for problem solving. Of all kinds. And...well...lets face it. Everyone knows what its like to be out in the cold. Dylan was the one bringing them into the warmth. into safety. At least he tried to. And he wanted to try again. We were all hopeful for it."
[K. R. Jakes] Winter, outside. And cold, in the apartment (at last). The tea is spiced, and hot, all clove and orange, and it smells good. The carrot bread is a gouge out your own chunk sort've affair. Kage listens. Her eyes tarnish up, again, still darker, but they don't grow sad; they grow inscrutable. (He knows, anyway. It's his specialty, after all.) Or -- no; maybe sad isn't right. Regretful. Her mind goes away, wanders to the nameless 'crow.
A pause. And then -- "Wait. He was an Orphan, wasn't he? You were all waiting for him to get you together?"
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: er, wait. Lemme add emphasis. "You were all waiting for him to get you together?"
[Wharil Choc] That gets a chuckle as a response, one that interrupts the breath he ws casting over his tea. he sets it down carefully before continuing.
"Yeah, I don't really get it myself. As far as I can figure, there's no definite authority in the city. Not now, anyhow. I'm sure there were magi in the city before, but they were always a scattered, disparate bunch. And no one stepped forward before for several reasons. Most didn't have the numbers to organize. Others didn't feel they had the authority. Ashley herself said she'd be accused of imposing Hermetic standards on the unwilling. And I...well, I just got here a year ago, and by then I was already hearing about Dylan. From all sides of every fence imaginable too. Really thought he would be the one to pull it off."
[Gregor] ...Wharil's phone chimes, sudden and invasive. If/when answered, the other end is a hiss and a whisper of wind across the receiver, followed swiftly by the cup of a hand to block out the majority of the noise and push it to the background in favour of a breathy voice.
"Hello? He-hello? I need to speak with Wah...Wha...fuck's sake..." The voice is distracted, the sound of rustling paper heard in the background, digging through pockets.
[K. R. Jakes] "Isn't that what Hermetics do? I'm surprised she balked; if that's what happened." Kage plays with her piece of carrot bread, and her expression is turned inward (contained [grace]). There was that, about Kage; even when she was dealing with unpleasant situations, she (mostly) kept her poise.
"I didn't know Dylan. And I -- I doubt very much that I ever will. I know the nameless 'crow, a little. Perhaps. Since," a pause, a stumble. "Since he got out, I know he's run into others, that others are on his trail, and it's just ... It's so foolish." A pause, again. "I still haven't been able to find another way, just one road for him; you know the one. And they keep ... They're like little dominoes. Are you going to try again to find ... what Dylan left behind?" A brief pause, and then ...
"I heard that there was a Call. The other day. That there were Nephandi about. Did you hear about that?"
And that's when Wharil's phone chimes, so decrees the order of events.
[Wharil Choc] Who was this Kage Jakes? What sky did she fall from? Wharil sips at his tea. He pinches at the carrot cake. Countless games of poker with other Euthanatois, other Albireo, have taught him how to observe without staring. Without even looking. His face twitches at the mention of a 'Nameless Crow', and not unpleasantly so. She speaks of the road. She speaks of falling dominoes. She speaks of what Dylan left behind the way he and Ashley, and Rene so far speak of 'The Marauder'. Not Dylan Willis. That's not how he'll be remembered.
And she speaks of Nephandi being about, and Wharil finds her eyes finally, lips pressed into an uncomfortable line even as he chews a morsel of offered carrot bread. Wharil's chest rises as he prepares to respond, and does so with no trouble, unlike the last time he was in this apartment.
--And then his phone rings.
He fishes it out of his coat pocket from the back of the chair, and for a few moments stares at the caller I.D. An unrecognized number. Wharil gives Kage an apologetic look before answering the call with a brief 'Hello?'
"Wharil." he says to the caller. It rolls off his tongue the way a foreign language rolls off the tongue of a native speaker. It was an odd name and therefore not surprising that the caller couldn't remember. That happened to him a lot actually. It was, quite obviously now, not English. Spanish, perhaps? Portuguese? Who-ah-reel he pronounces, in rapid succession. Whatever language sounded like half rushing wind, and half gurgling water. That's what language it was.
"Who is this?"
[K. R. Jakes] Marauder.
Nephandi.
TECHNOCRATS. PHONE. NOOO!
Kage looks a little wary when Wharil's phone rings, but she obeys someone-got-a-cellphone-call etiquette and looks (more or less) content with silence. She watches him, though. Not sidelong, but -- concerned? Well, she watches him, and stirs honey into her tea, and tension rides her shoulders.
[Gregor] "My name is Gregor and I've been following something you know about. The Hungry one gave me your number and name. The one with no reflection confirmed it." A pause, the paper rustling violently another moment before a hand comes up to cup the receiver so he is not yelling into it again.
"We need to talk. It's about the Inferno-" A pause, mumbling, something. "...it's about the...I believe she called it a 'Marauder'..." The word is untested. Untried. As if the speaker had only just discovered it. "...And how to stop him."
[Wharil Choc] "Yes." Wharil says flatly. "I was expecting your call. Can you meet me, perhaps? Uhm...the place where he broke through?" Because something about alluding to things rather than speaking about them appealed to him.
But it wasn't his place. He couldn't just invite people over. He gives a cautious look to Kage for a moment, then adds "I'll be waiting outside." to his phone conversation.
[K. R. Jakes] The cadence of her attention (undivided) changes as she listens to Wharil's half of the conversation: a call that he expected, come on and meet me at the place where he, that cautious look -- which meets a raising of Kage's eyebrows, a cool oh really sort've expression that is in conflict with what's this, what's this -- and his amendment. Her eyebrows lower, and she'd paused before taking a sip of her tea. Rests her chin on her fist.
She's not even bothering to busy herself with tea and bread, now. She's outright giving Wharil a curious look (and bemused, too. Oh yes, very bemused).
[Gregor] "Done, i'll-..." Pause. "...You're with Kage?" A beat. "At...Kage's?" Something suspicious? No, no. More curious. Not exactly but close, in his voice now.
[Wharil Choc] "Yes, that's right." He says, leaning back in his seat now and regarding Kage a bit less warily now. But still curious. "You've met?"
[Gregor] "We have. She's...." A pause. There's something of...humour? Weak but genuine. "...Good company." A pause, the wind picking up sharply all of a sudden. He's yelling again.
"I'll be there within the next ten minutes." And the phone claps back into it's holder, the line going dead.
[Wharil Choc] "I look forward to meeting you." is the last he says into the phone before hitting the 'end call' button. With the phone secured, he returns to the present. Present location, that is.
"That was a Dreamspeaker named Gregor. Says you two have met. Seems he's interested in finding the marauder. I asked him to meet me here. I hope you don't mind."
[K. R. Jakes] "Really," she says, sounding very surprised indeed. A pause, as she adjusts her mental image of Gregor from strange Puppet Man Orphan whispering into his mirrors to strange urban Dreamspeaker whispering into his mirrors. "Yes, we have met before. He also," wry, "came by, because it seems that when the nameless 'crow ... left ... uhm, his leaving drew some attention."
[Wharil Choc] "Yeah. Marauders are seldom subtle. Frequently disruptive and dangerous. Not like Nephandi, which I think you were asking me about."
Wharil takes a sip of his tea, and adjusts his shoulders uncomfortably.
"The uh...Nameless Crow. He said some things to us. Probably mentioned to you too. The general gist of it was that someone had done this to him. And from what I know of Dylan he was always...over worked, I guess you could call it? But he was careful. And he was around a long time. I saw him...barely a month before he went missing. Ashley, weeks before that. He was fine. More than fine, he was lucid and in control. Powerful wills...powerful minds like that don't just break at the first sign of stress. Not that badly at the very least."
And there it was, out there. Said but not said. It was his collection of facts so far. Or part of it at the very least. And expressed in his way, it didn't take an enormous leap of logic to find a link between what he was saying, and the events at the Chantry house.
[K. R. Jakes] "If he was the only one trying to get you people together, and then someone broke him," she says, and leaves that thought [those implications] there. For the first time in a long while, she looks away from Wharil. Down her hall, toward her study. She lifts her head, massages the side of her neck, works her fingers behind her ear, into her hair.
"But powerful minds do break." She sounds depressed. What was that she'd said to Wharil and Ashley, before leaving them to do their work? That the nameless 'crow still had a heart [a story]? "I -- oh. I," cautious, "wonder. What happened to him. Do you know anyone who could look backward, if they had something to focus on? Or ...someone who could tell if ... old blood belonged to more than one person?"
A brief pause. "You know, a discreet lab technician will do."
[Wharil Choc] He nods at her first assessment, adding a whispered "Subtle" to it. At her question, he shrugs. "I don't know. The Ecstatics might, but I don't know any in the city. I...do know a detective though. One that could get blood analyzed. You actually have something with his blood on it?"
[K. R. Jakes] "I know an Ecstatic in the city, but he's," a pause. "He's difficult to get ahold of." That is how she will leave it. Her assessment of Adam the lawyer (liar). "And ... well. It might be his blood. He said ... before you two," and the way she says 'you two,' it must be owned, it sounds synonymous with 'jackasses,' "came by ... He said something that made me think he'd already dealt with a 'They' once. The clothes I found him in were ... pretty rank, but there was blood, too."
[Gregor] It takes some time, quicker then expected, but some time nonetheless. Enough for Kage and Wharil to discuss the potential of conspiracy. As the implications begin to build and suspicions turn to something more inevitable, there comes the inevitable chime of Wharil's phone once more with a voice on the other end. The wind is less this time.
"...Alright. I'm here." A brief level of uncertainty. A flicker of apprehension. Chicago was not a trusting city for the Mage populace it would seem.
[Wharil Choc] "You still have them, I assume. Anything else of his lingering around? I can get them checked out."
[K. R. Jakes] His phone chimes, and so Kage is saved from phrasing an answer.
[Wharil Choc] ((Sorry Harv, just saw your post. Responding now))
[Wharil Choc] Wharil answers in his usual single-word greeting, then adds 'Hold on.' after he hears the voice from a few moments ago. Both hands cup the cell phone as its held away from his mouth, and he speaks softly to Kage to boot.
"Its Gregor. You care to go down with me to meet him?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Yes. I'll do that; or he can come inside and we can go down to the boiler room." Not back up to her apartment. For some reason, Kage doesn't want more than one mage who isn't herself inside her apartment at a time. Maybe she's afraid lightning can strike twice. Maybe she just doesn't trust either Wharil or Gregor, and this is her way of rationalizing. Maybe she just doesn't like people in her apartment. "It's warm in there."
[Wharil Choc] "Fair enough. Boiler room it is." he responds to Kage, then into the phone: "We're coming down." Wharil takes one last mouthful of the spiced tea before hurrying to put on his Coat and heading downstairs to do meet the voice on the phone.
He comes out of the front entrance the same way he got in: One of Kage's neighbors in the apartment happened to be on their way in. Wharil flashed the grey haired lady a smile, bright and amiable, and stuck his foot in the closing door as she walked away. There was a brick that the residents kept by the door for just these purposes. Wharil makes himself at home and kicks it in between the door and the frame before venturing out, and peering about for Gregor.
[Gregor] The man is not hard to notice:
His clothes are layered and not aesthetic. Dark blacks and browns co-mingled into a slightly disheveled, but winter prepared experience. A thick hood wraps his head up, while the grizzled sheen of stubble carves a hard expression on his face. His eyes are narrow and the lines of age, both in experience and years, creep beneath them without effort. His mouth is a grim line.
His hands are adorned in gloves, each baring the odd reflective gleam of mirrors, showcasing the world from the back of his grip, whilst the dark gray sneakers are old and ratty, but whole. He watches Wharil exit the house, standing on the sidewalk infront of the small fence. Were one to read the bags under his eyes, they might seen exhaustion. Were one to taste the tension in his shoulders they might find urgency.
"...Wharil?" It sounds slightly off in the pronunciation, the man more the likely having practiced it a few times on the way over here to ensure it sounded correct.
[Wharil Choc] "Gregor." He responds as he approaches. If there were an opposite to Gregor, as far as appearances were concerned, this young man would probably be it. His hair and eyes were dark indeed, but the wind tossed his curls in a playful sort of way, and the way he smiled, advancing with a hand held out to shake, made those dark eyes twinkle with an oddly appealing light. His clothes were sharp, and fairly well put together. The the sharp V-neck of his sweater revealed a touch of color, a powder blue, along with his own winter layers. The black wool coat had probably seen a dry cleaners recently, and the bulky looking snow boots he wore over the pant legs of his blue jeans seemed practically new.
And his voice. Strong. Bright. Honestly happy to meet the man at the gate.
"Cold as hell out here, isn't it? Kage is waiting for us inside. We can speak more freely in there anyway."
[Gregor] "No-" Quick. Abrupt.
He takes Wharil's hand and shakes, once, firmly, though his attention leaps up toward Kage's apartment with a slow sort of transformation; the features slacken and the eyes grow dim, squinting against some view not quite fathomable. Haunting, but brief, it eclipses and solidifies into something hard. Something resilient.
"....No, we're better off not talking in there. I...I don't want to, I mean."
[K. R. Jakes] Drum, drumdrum! Drum, drum! Her winter boots are on (and socks, too). She's thrown on her coat, the flamboyant one, the one with dash that is as blue as the mist that beats up from the sidewalk sometimes at the tail end of gloaming in the city if it's raining. She hasn't bothered to tie it, because she's not staying outside, now, is she? And Wharil is at the gate shaking Gregor's hand when Kage opens the door to the apartment building, kicking that damned brick well out of the way.
Well, nudging it out of the way, then taking a moment to regard it quietly before she decides to throw it somewhere further away.
[Wharil Choc] "O...Okay." He responds with an uneasy squint. "Uhm...Alright. Well...I guess I should go get Kage? Is that okay?"
[Gregor] "Yes, She-" A pause, looking over Wharil's shoulder a flicker of softening or perhaps just relaxing, appeasing the tension around his eyes. He nods at Kage on the porch, for Wharil's benefit.
"...I'm sorry if I seem tense but..." And he flicks an eye up toward the apartment level "...The excess he left behind when he went through is...to put it in a word, terrifying."
[K. R. Jakes] Kage lifts a hand to hail Gregor, but she isn't stirring from the doorway. Their conversation isn't near enough for her to hear, after all. Indeed, she looks expectant.
[Wharil Choc] "I understand completely." He says to Gregor, and appends a sympathetic smile on the end which suggested that he truly did. He turns back to see Kage on the steps, and beckons her closer with a wave of his hand. In the short time it would take for her to approach, Wharil buttoned up the front of his coat to protect himself from the biting wind. Seems they'd be conversing outside after all.
"So...how can I help you, Gregor?"
[Gregor] "....There's a way to stop him from doing this again. Anymore." It's the only sentence he utters or has time for before Kage might join them, his attention flicking toward Wharil with something akin to seriousness. Even savagely so.
"...He is producing a large amount of Warp Touch, altering things in his wake and path with almost negligent effort. I've seen sites throughout the city and have been informed of others outside the city boundaries that he's visited, seemingly at random. I don't have the sight to track the Fire as it walks but I can at least localize places he's been and what he's done." His hands rise, flicking into gestures both vague and supportive of his words.
"...He is a conduit. An Engine. Producing destructive focus that is both a threat and a terror to the other side of the Barrier. He-He-He's breaking down the wall intentionally and not and leaving behind holes through which-...To which other things can crawl through." A deep breath is taken, the animated surge of enthusiasm? Excitement? No, nothing so positive. This was desperation given toward a solution. Hail Mary hope.
"However, he is also a power source of great magnitude. He's dragging the Still Touch-...The..." Windmilling hand, eyes and head swiveling around in search of the proper words to describe something he'd had no need to describe before. "...The force...that holds everything material, together..." his hands grasp infront of him, like he had captured a bug between his palms and refused to let go "...To try and stop him but keeps moving and skipping between the Sides of the Mirror and they can't keep hold of him...not enough time..."
His eyes dart, vague blood-shot but alert, from Kage to Wharil, the desperation creeping off his frame with effortless honesty now.
"...I found the Still Touch on the other side. It told me it can Trap him. Bind him when he is there, but they need to know. Have to know where and when he will cross over so they can be prepared to do so." And he relaxes some, leaning back, his height never really noticeable before until he'd straightened to the full 6'2. A looming harbinger. A mind-touched giant.
"...But I don't know how to do that..." A beat. "...yet."
[K. R. Jakes] Gregor is afraid. He's afraid of her apartment (what happened there). When Wharil beckons, Kage pulls her coat closed, tying it with graceful (play music with those) hands, and walks down the path, across the yard, to the two mages at her gate. There's a query, unspoken, in her eyes. "Hello, Gregor," she says. After he's said doing this again. Anymore. The wind touches a finger to her hair, snags one strand and lifts it. Her gaze leaves Gregor, goes further, down the street, cautious and quiet and wondering. She is listening.
And she is looking more and more aloof, more and more withdrawn, oh, more and more careful, as she interprets the way Gregor understands things to a way that she can understand what he's talking about, and once she thinks that she's translated, she sucks in a breath.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil listen's quietly, and the longer Gregor goes on the more that amiable smile fades. His eyebrows pinch together. He worries his lips with his teeth. His left leg taps, bounces, perhaps from the cold, but the rest of him didn't tell the same tale.
"I...I think I understand what you're saying. I ran into the same problem. When he broke through, I had no way of tracking him through the telaurian. We had something of his. Dog tags. But we could only locate where he was in the physical world with that."
That leg shakes more fervently now, shaking his whole body. He doesn't seem to notice it, so lost on thought as he is.
"If you could present me with the first part of the pattern, that being where he's been, I might be able to predict where he will be. Its not exactly precise, but I've done it before. I just won't be able to tell you when.
"Plus, he'll likely put up a fight once he's trapped. And he's well equipped for it."
A hand absently falls to his chest. Even under the coat and layers he was comforted by the thought that, yes, his heart and other organs were still there. Still doing their work.
"Is there some way we can be notified when it happens? No one should have to face him alone."
[Gregor] ...As if an after-thought, his head cants slightly to one side, offering Kage a weak smile, lost of much of it's care and tender, leaving behind the minimal best of an exhausted mind. It is at once a hello and almost an apology, though he makes no words to express it.
"Yes-" It isn't clear immediately what he means. He leans in, not uncomfortably but close enough to cut off the outside world from everything but his peripheral, gaze and features narrowing on the cause at hand "-If you can track him in the Physical then that's preferable. Despite his abilities, the Still Touch can ensure he's trapped and bound, or so they say. None of their number are prone to lying either so I believe them, but-...but but but..."
A hand shakes in the air between them, head canting to one side, eyes closed as if chewing away at some internal delay.
"...We have to get him to the...the...corresponding spot on this side of the Barrier the...Telurian?" Confusion, dismissal "...And then convince him, force him, however, to cross over in that specific space, so that the Still Touch is there waiting for him to arrive. They'll take care of the rest."
Ambush.
[Wharil Choc] "He was pretty spooked the last time he saw me. That's when he cut and run. Maybe he'll do it again. Just as long as he doesn't see us coming."
He glances at Kage for a moment. No, longer than a moment. Uncomfortably long with the way he was shaking and, quite literally, dithering. He trusts her. Perhaps she could...
"Kage. I don't suppose you have any way of...calling him, do you?"
[K. R. Jakes] No one should have to face him alone --
"No one should face him alone."
Then the redhaired young woman subsides into silence, again, into a listening creature, and she is watching Gregor and Wharil without watching them, keeping her gaze glancing away from them, focused on the street itself. It's cold outside and she folds her arms under her breasts. They keep talking about tracking the nameless 'crow, and her silence is (they're both perceptive men) tangible there. Has a texture, maybe.
"Then what? He's just trapped in place on the other side of the looking glass; forever?" Her voice doesn't rise; she doesn't sound upset. But she doesn't sound happy: maybe a little empty, quiet, focused (nothing there).
Wharil looks over at her, and he trusts her. Gregor seems to trust her, too. And the nameless 'crow did, and Emily. Enid. Jarod trusted whatever she told him over the phone was true. Kage has yet to trust a single damned one of them, but she has hope instead of trust, and that's why she's talking to Wharil and Gregor at the iron gate that doesn't protect her building from anything at all. The gate is an idea. Like trust.
Kage blinks at Wharil, straightens slightly. "...to call him? What? Like a 'hey, crazy awakened guy' whistle? No; I don't have anything like that." She'd never actually gotten around to answering just how she came to have Dylan in her apartment, though, did she? And that was a little sharp. "I'm sorry. He -- I don't know; I could think about it. There may be -- I just don't know off the top of my head."
[Gregor] "...The Hungry one said the last time you all nearly got killed."
It isn't sarcastic, just a fact. A point. "...But if you managed to gather enough of you. Gave him no room to breathe or move on this side, he might just be..." His face crinkles, crushes together "...spooked into taking the only escape route left, through the barrier." A pause. "...And if he tries to cross, then we have to help him get there as easily as possible. The Screaming Wall could take him and we'd lose the chance."
A pause, considering Kage now, as if his attention once fixed on a single entity were absolute. No changing. No alter.
"...The Still Touch doesn't kill, K(C)age. It....freezes, for lack of a better word. Siphons off what it needs. If they trapped him he'd be bound, yes...not forever, but..." A frown on his features, trying to dissect her gaze and features. Wager and gauge.
"...Well if someone found out a way to make him-...he was human once, wasn't he? I mean...I've heard a few of you talk about him and that he was something before this." A pause. "...maybe if he's trapped where he can't hurt anyone, someone can eventually figure out a way to make him better again. Like a...Like-like a prison."
Guesswork. Theoretical at best. Gregor is not sure. Not certain about this or what happens after. Fear without Qualms, yes, but that was alongside Hope without certainty.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil turns back to Gregor, giving a sigh as if he were resetting gears. Getting back on track.
Almost died last time. Check.
Gather enough of them? Gregor was obviously in. Rene would likely be as well. Ashton, perhaps. The thought of those two being present in case things got ugly was a little comforting. The thought of that comfort, a little worrying. But two, barely prepared, forced him to flee last time. So there was another check.
Fixing him. Wharil's face took on that pensive, unsure look again, and his shaking leg faltered.
"Have you...ever run into anything like this before, Gregor?"
[Gregor] "No."
Flat. Straight out. Then-
"...At least. Nothing human with that sort of...of power."
[K. R. Jakes] So he'd be held in a prison while some spirit siphoned (drained) what it needed. "Look," she says. "It sounds complicated." And inhumane, she thinks, but does not say; the nameless crow is already walking in a Hell he can't leave. "And he will fight if he's scared. And no offense, but you are both kind of scary. If you try and do this, have a simple backup plan." A brief, brief pause. "Do either of you know someone named, uhm, Jarod? Or Ashton?"
[Wharil Choc] "I've seen into the mind of this marauder. The man that was once there...isn't anymore. He's just a body, a shell. And a soul, if you want to call it that, with the Atman attached. Without the mind to make sense of what's going on...there's no bringing it back. It'll just go on scarring the world around it, and scarring itself."
He pauses here, taking a moment for that to sink in, and to regard the two of them in turn. Prepare yourselves. The PR guy is probably about to lose all his support.
"The best thing to do in this case is to release that soul, before it becomes anymore twisted."
[Wharil Choc] Ashton, yes. And Jarod...the name rang a bell. But did he really know either of them? The simple answer was: More than he had time to debate that particular point at the moment.
"I'm...not scary. Am I? And, yeah. I know Ashton. What are you thinking?"
[Gregor] He stares almost helplessly now, eyes darting back and forth between Wharil and Kage. There is no lingering sense of words being held back or offered, merely a steadily rising shrug with that steady head tilting negative, until finally he claps his hanging jaws shut and leans back with a deep, shuddering breath.
"...you tried that already." He nods at Wharil, face twisting slightly.
"...And it isn't complicated, just difficult." A pause, the pair of Alt(a)ers beside him consulting a name that flits about in his memory a phantom on the fringes.
"...Winter." He's nodding, the memory returning, a frown that grows steadily darker on his features. He doesn't speak further, simply turns his attention to Kage to do what she's been doing so far: Listen.
[K. R. Jakes] They're suddenly no longer on the same page (if ever they were [a plan, we need a plan]). Kage's gaze dropped away from Wharil after she apologized for her sarcasm; it paused on Gregor, museful, then went back down the street. Wharil says, basically, that they need to kill the nameless 'crow, and Kage doesn't flinch (from the idea [not if that's the only]). No: she just stays still, and tenders a lock of hair back behind one ear, resting her fingers on the collar of her coat for a moment. She turns the collar up, a ward against the chill. Not nervous. Not anxious.
"They didn't really, Gregor," Kage says to the not-Orphan (you're one of them now). "They came looking for someone who wasn't there. What they found was something they didn't know. There was no plan."
"And I think not having the power to do a key part of your plan is a complication, not just a difficulty. There are so many ifs in that scenario, what if -- " Wharil asks her what she's thinking, and she closes her eyes for a second. Okay, lady. Find your center, be resolved. "Okay, wait. Gregor? Did you make a bargain with your Still Touch? Are you in trouble if you don't deliver the nameless -- the Marauder up to it?"
[Gregor] "No. It doesn't work that way."
Kage speaks and Gregor's own responses seem to pull back into more comfortable territory. He fails to shift his regard in this, nor does he look to voice any opposition to her claims about his plan. Waiting, it would seem.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil only fixes his lips tightly, obviously a bit miffed by Gregor's previous comment. Kage is the one who speaks his...their part of the situation. For now he stares at his feet and listens.
[K. R. Jakes] Kage gazes at Gregor for a moment, for two, until she has decided to believe him; she does decide to believe him. He may well have a reason to lie to her (she doesn't know), but she can't imagine it right now. "Well then. I understand that he's dangerous; that every hour," and oh, she hasn't forgotten about that things could crawl through comment Gregor tossed off earlier, either, "he probably gets more dangerous. I don't want him to spend any more hours walking in that place he's walking. It's wrong that he should be there; it's horrible." Passion is lovely, but it is also fierce.
"I think that you," the you is Wharil, "should call Ashton, because Ashton is a badass, and Jarod if you can find him, because I think that he might have useful skills for this kind of," doesn't give it a name. Her eyes are on Gregor, because of the two, Gregor seems the most likely to get all impatient, to cling to what he's thinking, to shake his head at her and shut his eyes and go off and do something stupid and get killed. Wharil already did that, sort of, and Kage does remember that he'd tried to step back before the nameless 'crow nearly killed him. "I would say Ashley, if she's well enough, but only if she's well enough. The -- uhm; the neph -- the bad ones. There were others involved in that, too. Maybe Ashley can tell you more. They may be able to help touch the -- to affect through the mirror, Gregor, to work in tangent with you anyway."
"To stop him, you only need to hold him still for a moment. Keep your plan, Gregor; but keep it plan B. When all goes wrong, and he tries to -- if he tries to -- then there's a trap. No escape route."
".... Whiiiiich I realize brings you back to just finding him and gathering all up at once. But if you can nudge things along, Wharil, if others can also nudge things along, if you work in tangent, maybe you don't even need to find him. He'll find you. You can pick the place."
[Gregor] His frown mixes together now into a grimace, a question obviously haunting the back of his mind, gaze threatening to wheel on Wharil, though it doesn't. He remains with Kage as she speaks of options and a plan. A plan that wasn't a last resort. All he could think of. The grimace begins to dissolve and in it's place, something comes back. A flicker of something. A better way maybe but more importantly; Not his.
Plan B: he nods, the vague sense of relief intermingling with determination creeping over his features. This may well have been something well outside of his comfort zone (even the interaction with those like Wharil and Ashley and Rene, as the last few days have attested) but then, this was no situation worth being diverse in.
The Inferno was a threat. A mass threat.
"...Agreed." Is all he offers to Kage, head canting toward Wharil finally.
"...The Still Touch is waiting for my contact on a location. Whatever you decide to do as far as you and the others go, you just need to tell me where. A street corner, an intersection, a park, whatever. You tell me and I'll tell them if..." A breath, slow and steadying. "...if it comes to that."
He pulls a sheet of paper out of his pocket, crumpled and rumpled and scrawled with a street corner. It's miles from here, well into the northern wastes, where parts of the city have been forgotten and lost to urban sprawl and history. "Old mail box on the corner. Mark it and I'll call."
And then 'round on Kage again, that grimace returning in lessened force.
"...Thank you." Simple and genuine, though no smile graces his features now, finally leaning into the weariness that swarms there. The mind was easing away from wired and finally recognizing the need for sleep, two steps away from their little triangle. A third.
[Wharil Choc] Wharil's leg slowly stopped shaking altogether as Kage spoke. He chuckled when she described Ashton as simply 'Badass'. There was a bullet scar in his back that reminded him of how true that was. Gregor mentioned the one-without-reflection. The one that made Ashton seem almost warm and cuddly. He wondered if Kage had ever met Rene.
"Good points." He mutters, still staring at his feet. "All good points. Cornering him is gonna be dangerous. And there are many mean-spirited stories about magi who thought they could predict how a marauder would behave. We've got to strengthen the first half of this plan. And...perhaps even get some backup for your half, Gregor."
A sigh. A pause, and he nods once, and with certainty. "You said you've managed to track a list of places he's been? That information will make things a lot easier."
[Gregor] He pauses. Halts and eyes Wharil, gaze growing negative for a moment as he studies the man for what seems, the first time. He'd been speaking with honesty, because he didn't have it in him to be disingenuous. No room for such things, obviously. That didn't preclude others from being such though.
"...The Neon Strip." Mag Mile. "...He's all over there. The large park to the north." Grant. "...He apparently punched his way free of the other side somewhere out in the Woods beyond the City limits. Something similar to that-" A flicker of a glance is cast up toward Kage's apartment.
"...That's it for the most part. I've got something...keeping an eye on his whereabouts but that won't last long and there's too much of a time gap between when it Reports and when the Inferno moves, but....I'll keep tabs as best I can and find you when I know more."
[Wharil Choc] "Excellent. I'll talk to my people. We'll be in touch as soon as I have something."
Wharil accepts the crumpled paper, glances at it momentarily before its folded again and disappears into his deep coat pockets.
"Kage? The blood work? And...do you have anything else of his?"
[Gregor] ...And the towering creature, a lasting flickering glance and nod cast to Kage, turns and heads off back the way he'd come. A long road ahead to bed and slumber.
[K. R. Jakes] And, exhale. Gregor is taking his leave, and Kage says, "Goodbye, Gregor." His gaze flickers to her apartment -- it keeps flickering to her apartment; she has to know that he's looking at it. On some level, it has to set her on edge (creepy). But it doesn't seem to.
Then, Wharil. Kage slides her hands into the pockets of her coat, and glances down at her feet. The scratched up, scuffed up toes of her boots. "Yes; don't you have what you used to find him before, any longer? But -- yes; I can get you the clothes tomorrow. I'd really like to know," and her voice drops, low, "if he ... well, if the blood isn't his. If ... there was another 'they' who weren't as fortunate as you and Ashley."
[Wharil Choc] "Well, I do. But Ashley has it. I'm trying to give her time to rest up and get back to center. She might insist on being involved before she's ready. And hey, look. I don't want you doing anything you don't want to do. I can be a bit nosy sometimes, so don't be afraid to tell me to go stick my nose somewhere else. But you're right for wanting to know. I want to know too. There's a hidden part of this story that might still affect us."
Us. Ashley and himself? Or did that include the two badasses as well. Was Kage an us, even though she was an orphan? Was Gregor us now? Emily? Enid? Jarod? The questionable Ecstatic? The handful that helped cart out two dead bodies from a house a few nights ago? They were, in some way, all connected to this. Were they an us as well?
It looked like Dylan Willis was bringing the mage community together after all.
"Tomorrow then. Till then, stay safe, Kage. And thanks for the hospitality."
[K. R. Jakes] "What I want, Wharil," Kage says, and she's very quiet. The wind rakes over her voice; makes it even harder to hear. "What I want is to help him. If he was put that way -- if someone did that; someone should be able to undo it. I can't; I haven't found a way, and I know that there's not forever to try and find one. What I want is for everybody to be safe. I just want," she pauses. "I just want crazy people to stop showing up on my doorstep unannounced. Do you realize I don't actually have any way to contact you? Are you going to fix that, or just continue to pop up at the apartment? Because that's not really fair."
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd, stay safe, Kage, Wharil says, and she offers him a faint [subdued] smile. "Don't do anything stupid." And that'll be her farewell.
[Wharil Choc] Of course she didn't have a way of contacting him. The fact that there even was a way to contacting him, and that Gregor could get it as easily as asking the right person, irked him just a little.
It was also a lot less fun than just popping up at the apartment. But no, that certainly wasn't fair.
"You know almost everyone who knows me." He calls back over his shoulder, slightly bemused. "Tomorrow then. I'll give you my number tomorrow."
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